A conversion path is a journey you design for a person to convert to a lead (and potentially a customer) for your organization. Conversion paths are a core element of your overall lead acquisition strategy.
A well-designed conversion path has nine key elements. Let's walk through them together!
What are you offering that's valuable enough for users to convert from a visitor to a lead? To develop a strong offer, consider the problem your target audience wants to solve and offer them the solution. Some questions to consider when developing your offer could include:
How are you presenting the offer? Where are you actually asking them to do something?
Once they click the Call to Action, direct them to a landing page where they can give you their information in exchange for the offer.
Once they give you their information, thank them and give them access to the offer.
After they submit their information, send an email with a link to the offer they downloaded that highlights the value of the offer again & thank them for downloading.
This is the, "Ok, so what next?" of conversion paths. After someone downloads a piece of content from your website, provide additional relevant content to the visitor via email. This can be a quick 2-3 email series, or it can be a longer-term drip campaign.
The nurture series aims to achieve the following goals.
As a rule of thumb, provide 2-3 points of value before you ever ask for anything.
So, after they download your original content, provide 2-3 helpful tips, guides, or value points (discounts, free resources, etc.) before you ask for additional information, a call, or a sale.
The next step is developing your distribution plan. Thinking back to the questions you asked in order to develop the offer, who is your target audience and where do they get their information?
They may get information from...
Determine which distribution channels your target audience frequents and the level of difficulty associated with publishing your offer in each space. Go for the easy, low-hanging fruit first, and build up to the more difficult to implement items next.
Next, consider your goals for this campaign. Metrics to consider while developing your goal might include:
Pro-Tip: Calculate the projected return on investment (ROI) of your content offers and track progress to goal. This can help you get more funding for advertising and content generation. Showing that you have a vision helps your team (and your budget holders!) support you in achieving it.
ROI = ((Sales Growth - Average Sales Growth - Marketing Cost)/Marketing Cost)*100
For example, let's imagine that you spend $1,000 on Google Ads, $500 on graphic design, and $1,500 in internal resource costs to produce the conversion path, and the new revenue for that month is $5,000. On average, your monthly sales growth is 10%.
ROI = (($5,000-$500-$3,000)/$3,000)*100
So, your campaign achieved 50% ROI.
Once your campaign is live and you've executed your distribution strategy, monitor its performance to determine if any adjustments need to be made.
If your performance is below goal, consider going back to your distribution strategy and making plans to implement additional distribution channels.