The web is a great place to learn because you can quickly access a lot of information from a variety of sources. The reason it’s easier to learn about something even as difficult as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity online is that you can have it explained in so many different ways that you’ll eventually find bits and pieces that you can understand; bits and pieces you can cobble together into a comprehensive explanation.

What if you want higher conversion rates? Again, the web delivers truckloads of information, advice, examples, case studies, AB test results, – you get the idea – that guide you towards …

It doesn’t matter now. Whether or not you’re ready for Black Friday and the 2015 holiday sales season, it’s upon us.

If you’ve been working all year to get ready for this year’s blitz, the overall retail sales predictions are mostly favorable. And even the negative stuff isn’t too bad.

Inc.com quoted a Deloitte-authored sales forecast that calls for total retail sales of $965 billion this year, up about 4% from 2014. But the more pessimistic analysts will take that as somewhat negative news because it falls short of last year’ 5.2% increase in sales. Taking data from forecasts done …

Imagine that you could personally greet every potential customer; get a deep understanding of what she’s looking for, and why, and present her with the perfect solution – at the right price. Imagine the great referrals you’d get. Imagine how simple and easy it would be to grow your business. Imagine the awesome sales charts!

OK, let’s get back to reality.

While having the perfect solution to every client’s need may be a dream, digital marketing lets you get closer to it than any other marketing media. Landing pages are your opportunity to tailor your offer to increasingly thinner, more …

We’ve railed on at length in this blog about paltry online conversion rates. It seems like they are stuck in quicksand. Try as we might, we just can’t pull them out of the single-digit mud.

Perhaps even more frustrating is the lack of reasoning about why the rates are so poor. A Google search for “why are online conversion rates so low” produces only three results that actually talk about low rates, and two of those are really a “reverse psychology” approach to telling you how to improve rates.

The one remaining result, from econsultancy.com, echoes what we have maintained here on …

As we have gone through each post so far in this blog series, including Part 1 – Creating Awareness, Part 2 – Building Interest, Part 3 – Coaxing Desire, it’s clear that every step in optimizing your conversion funnel, and thereby optimizing conversion rates, is critical. Remove any one step and those that come before it are futile, and those that follow can’t happen.

But getting your prospects to take action is where all your funnel optimization pays off. And that’s perhaps what makes it the most important – and frustrating – step in the funnel. All that potential built …

It may not be as exciting as “Orange is the New Black”, but we’ve enjoyed a good ride so far through this blog series. In “Part 1- Creating Awareness” and “Part 2 – Building Interest” we learned:

It is inevitable that your conversion rates will improve if you optimize your conversion funnel. We use an AIDA-based (awareness, interest, desire, action) funnel as an example throughout the blog series. Creating awareness of your business and/or products isn’t the numbers game so many make it out to be. Instead, you need to find your target markets and share your unique value. Your …

Hopefully you’ve arrived here after reading Optimize Your Conversion Funnel – Part 1. In addition to being a fascinating read, Part 1 outlined the following points, among others:

We generally focus online conversion optimization on the point of sale, but conversion-killing elements higher up in the conversion funnel are often the culprits. It helps to “brand” your conversion funnel to create a seamless path for the customer by focusing on her needs at every step, and communicating with a consistent voice throughout. It’s a mistake to hinge the success of the “Awareness” stage of the funnel exclusively on numbers like …

Talk to anyone about conversion rate optimization and there’s a damn fine chance that the “call-to-action” button will pop up in the conversation. Or the sign-up form. Or that you should be testing both. Many of our conversion optimization programs have a myopic focus on the point of sale.

But, as we learn more about the customer journey, omnichannel marketing and the overall convergence of marketing and commerce, it’s clear that customer experiences long before the call-to-action button, higher up in the ‘conversion funnel’, hold as much sway over the customer’s ultimate decision to convert as anything.

Yes, You Have a …