Turning Lookers Into Buyers

[expat]

I was going to ask this in my earlier post - Driving Traffic to Your Web Store - but that is a big enough question in itself.

Separate from that I ask: Once you get people to your website/store, how do you get them to buy? What do you suggest for best practices in turning website visitors into website buyers? I read scary statistics that 1 in 10 or even 1 in 100 visitors actually buy something. If the 1 to 100 ratio is true then I'd need a zillion visitors to turn a profit.

So what do you recommend?
Special landing pages?
Special offers?
Coffee club?
Free shipping?
Hard to find specialty coffee?
Etc., etc., etc.

 

[badmaash]

I was going to ask this in my earlier post - Driving Traffic to Your Web Store - but that is a big enough question in itself.

Separate from that I ask: Once you get people to your website/store, how do you get them to buy? What do you suggest for best practices in turning website visitors into website buyers? I read scary statistics that 1 in 10 or even 1 in 100 visitors actually buy something. If the 1 to 100 ratio is true then I'd need a zillion visitors to turn a profit.

So what do you recommend?
Special landing pages?
Special offers?
Coffee club?
Free shipping?
Hard to find specialty coffee?
Etc., etc., etc.

Have high quality pictures of your products to try and make your customers buy on impulse

For example if you see a picture of a hot girl then you get excited, in the same people must get excited about your products too!

 

[eldub]

We're just getting up and running, so I might not be the best authority on the subject. However....

If I'm shopping for a product and there are two potential sites to make a purchase, I tend to go with the cleanest looking, easiest to navigate alternative. I don't like a busy front page chock full of printed info. I also don't like a front page that does nothing but make me click to another page, which leads to a page with the product in question.

I do like large, clean graphics on a front page with pertinent information directing me to what I'm seeking and not a lot of small print or busy, flashing, blinking ads. I also like to make transactions on sites which make the transaction easy to accomplish in as few clicks as possible. The first page should capture a person's attention and give a good first impression. The second page should give relevant product information including pricing. The next click should be to add a product to a cart and check out, if so desired. Shipping charges should be easy to ascertain, as well as payment options. Also, I don't want to have to register at a site to buy something.

An old saying in the print ad industry is, "white space sells."

lw

 

[TheMorningCoffeeCup]

Don't spread yourself so thin that your message gets diluted. If you get traffic looking for dark roast, you better have dark roast on the landing page. Not latte, not coffee makers, dark roast.

 

[CoffeeMate]

Don't spread yourself so thin that your message gets diluted. If you get traffic looking for dark roast, you better have dark roast on the landing page. Not latte, not coffee makers, dark roast.

This post hit the nail on the head IMO.

First be sure you know how your visitor got to your site. If they got there because you had a great article on Football, you can't really expect them to buy coffee.

If they are being pulled in through blogging/article writing then sell them what is being blogged about and nothing else.

If you are trying to sell a particular coffee maker/brewer then blog about that unit with a neutral opinion. Do not say "You can purchase one here" but rather link to it on the word.

It just so happen that my love for coffee is complimented with my extreme love for bread as I think they are the ideal couple like peanut butter is to jelly.

I have a section or article on my site about breads and coffee and if I should talk about baking bread on a "Round Baking Stone" then I might just attach a link so that they can see what I am talking about and the link will give them an opportunity to purchase.

Now check this out, I did not push a sale on them and they were already interested in baking stones so the link may actually turn out to be a great service for them and a great sale for you.

In other words "Sell them what THEY want to buy, NOT what YOU want to sell them!"

I hope this help

 

[CoffeeMate]

For the record my site usually start out with a 10 -12% conversion rate during the first two weeks of the month which is a fantastic rate. However, at month end it will have dropped to between 4 - 6.5% conversion rate which is still a very good rate because the click throughs are high. So again and without beating a dead battery, identify what your visitors are looking for then make it available to them (you go out and get it and bring it back to your site.)

 

[KonaCoffeeBuzz]

With my websites I always make sure the copy is easy to read, where the big headline effortlessly flows in to the main text. Then I have a very clear 'buy now' type of button. Having some kind of limited time offer (i.e. buy before january 31st to get free shipping!). Basically give your audience a very clear path to purchasing.

 

[CoffeeJunky]

yeah good tip.... I am going to start my own ecommerce for my local customers. Offer few specials and drive them to buy out of their ordinary....

 

[CoffeeMate]

That is indeed a very good tip KonaCoffeeBuzz and one I will keep in mind also - thanks-

However, I believe the original poster was asking how to get the lookers who are actually on the page and looking at that nice big "Buy Now" button to click on it. That is why I prefer to use the blog style where I can spin copy so enticing that they are asking themselves "I wonder how much that cost?" At that point, I am hoping and trusting that they will click on the keyword that will take them to the purchase page. There is now a 50% chance that they will indeed purchase. (Not Iron Clad - Just what seems to be working for me )

 

[JRMobile]

Some really good conversation going on right here and I think it is really easy to get to cut up in a whole 1 out of 10 people are buying what I have and 1/100 people are buying what I have. Obviously, you want to consider your conversion rates and look at ways to optimize your pages to get more people clicking through. But the fact that the matter’s that you just can’t make people buy what you have like there’s nothing you can do to make them decide to do something.

All decisions are emotionally based and so people are going to act as they feel. Sometimes when they come to your page they might be interested in what you have, but they might not feel like buying it at a time regardless of what logic you might say otherwise in any given situation. So there are a lot of things you can do but one of most important thing is that if you can’t get them to buy, then at very least you get them sign up to some sort of mailing list.

Obviously, everyone says no one buys in the list but that’s not really what is about. What is important is that even if they don’t buy during the first time of visit, you can have some way to connect with them consistently to get them to come back so when they do feel they are ready to purchase, who they think of is you. That is just some broad ideas to think about.

If you want to look at specific page and actually focus on increasing the conversion rate, the thing you can do is just split test different pages and figure out that maybe there are some slight change in some aspect of your page that could result in better conversions. But there’s no like one specific thing you can do so you have to try different things out. Test and see what happens.

In terms of getting more traffic overall, personally I think your best bet is if you don’t have an ongoing sort of helpful contents on your websites like some sort of blog, I think it is important to connect with people and enrich their lives because that’s what people are looking for and that will overtime bring the most people in. So depending on what you are selling and why you are selling it. Think about what is going on people’s heads that would make them feel like they want to come to you and then offer them similar answers. You can teach people about how your coffee’s made or if you do some kind of fair trade, you can teach them about it and that brings people who are interested in that sort of thing .

But if you are not doing any kind of ongoing sort of contents and updates similar to that, then you can be the mercy of advertising and other bloggers. Someone else said you really need to understand why people are coming to you in order to give them the best route to take to buy. So those are just some overall facts.

- transcribed and posted for Joseph @ JR Mobile by Mark

 

[CoffeeMate]

I agree 100% with your post JRMobile. My posts were condensed for the sake of time and typing. You are correct that there are no set rule or guarantee that any ONE thing will make people buy. and you do have to try different things and method.

Now, I am big on numbers and do believe they will tell a story. (here we go ) I read the reviews on Amazon before I purchase a product and out of about 100 products that I have purchased over the years, I have only been burned twice where the reviews were 4.5 or higher. Then I later discovered that I was burned on the products that had just a few reviews like less then 10 while the rest were well over ten.

On my blog (which shall remain nameless because I am on CoffeeForums BlackList) I just talk about coffee, coffee related products and other stuff to break up the monotony. I will link certain words that has the potential to make a sale as I determine them to be, and if anyone clicks on it, usually mean that the interest is still there as I did not say click here to buy or any such thing. The potential buyer is now poised to buy and there really is a 50/50 chance that they will as oppose to no chance because they have no way to get there.

Nonetheless, your post was WELL RECEIVED and I truly thank you for posting!