When you’re running a business, you’re always looking for ways to lower costs and boost marketing conversions. It is possible, however, to reach and convert new customers without having to stretch your budget to its limits. With the right strategies, you can aim for more conversions while keeping costs low.
We’ll cover nine cost-effective marketing tactics to get higher conversions, including:
- Taking advantage of UGC
- Working on referrals
- Reviewing and modifying your PPC campaign
- Telling your story to prospects
- Leveraging social proof
- Low-cost incentivizing
- Speeding up your website
- Optimizing your site for mobile
- Making opting into your email list easier
1. Take Advantage of User-Generated Content
What could be more cost-effective than letting your customers create content for you? Incorporating content from your customers or users—user-generated content or UGC—leads to organic growth and makes your brand come across as more authentic.
Of course, people who use your products or services likely won’t create posts, take photos, or sing your praises without some prompting. Accumulate more UGC and get people talking about your brand by hosting contests, offering incentives, or starting some kind of campaign that focuses on customer content creation.
Host a contest on Instagram asking people to take the silliest/most creative/best photos or videos of your products and post them, using your branded hashtags or tagging your account. Whenever you come up with a contest or campaign to generate UGC, always offer an incentive.
2. Work on Your Referrals
Many brands focus so much on going after new leads that they don’t see the enormous potential of their current customers. It costs five times more to get one new customer than it does to retain an existing one.
Strategies that help you hold onto your customers include consistent email marketing and a responsive social media presence. Today, 42% of customers that complain on social media expect a response time of 60 minutes or less. Customer loyalty programs also encourage people to keep purchasing your products. Work on keeping your current customers happy and making them feel appreciated and it will lead to more conversions, by way of referrals.
Think about it—customers who have had a positive experience with your brand are more likely to refer you to someone else. You can even introduce a referral program to help foster these recommendations.
3. Review Your PPC Campaign
You can find ways to make your pay-per-click (PPC) ads more cost-effective. A few tactics for lowering your cost-per-conversion include:
- Pause keywords that generate too few conversions
- Identify the long-tail keywords customers searched for before clicking on your ad and invest in them
- Implement negative keywords in your PPC campaign to weed out users who are unlikely to become customers
- Figure out the best time of day, days of the week, or months of the year to show your ads rather than running them 24/7
- Create landing pages for your PPC ads because homepages or irrelevant content won’t convert anyone
4. Let Prospects Learn More About You
Your potential customers are researching you and your competitors before making a choice. They want to know they can trust your brand, so establish a solid online presence that lets customers know who you are and what you stand for. You can let prospects get to know your brand in low-cost ways, simply by updating your website’s About page and adding an FAQ section.
The About page is your chance to shine. Describe your values, mission, and most importantly, your story. Write a story that people can connect with and that shows why you understand their problems better than your competitors. With an FAQ section, you can further demonstrate why you’re the best choice because you’ve anticipated customer needs and questions.
Another way to make your brand more authentic is by using real company photos rather than stock images. Your story seems less reliable when it’s complemented by photos of strangers.
5. Leverage Social Proof
Word of mouth is a powerful—and low-cost—force for marketing conversions. People prefer the opinions of their peers over ads from companies when making purchasing decisions. Your brand should take advantage of testimonials, reviews, and recommendations from existing customers to foster more leads.
Using social media listening tools, you can find mentions of your brand or products to highlight on your website. When you find negative reviews, reach out to those customers and attempt to rectify their problems as well. This relationship-building shows you care what your customers think and makes your brand more reliable.
To generate more social proof, you can also ask customers to leave reviews on Google or social media after they’ve purchased from you. Make positive reviews prominent on your website as well, as it will further lend to your credibility.
6. Use Low-Cost Incentives
Offering incentives to your customers can be a cost-effective way to get more marketing conversions. People are easily motivated by free stuff, discounts, or the fear of missing out (FOMO). Use limited-time offers to create a sense of urgency and let customers know that if they don’t purchase now, they may lose out on a good deal.
Another way to incentivize customers toward conversion is with a free trial of your product. This type of offer works best with software or apps because you can more easily limit access. Businesses selling products can also replicate the free trial incentive by giving out sample sizes for free. Let your customers experience your service or product for between one week and one month and after that time, they’ll feel comfortable enough using it that they’ll decide to purchase.
Finally, you can offer customers loyalty programs that encourage them to keep coming back to your brand rather than seek out the competition. Offer perks and exclusive deals to loyalty club members and advertise what these offers are to non-members, so they’ll feel encouraged to join.
7. Improve Your Website Speed
Making simple yet effective improvements to your website is a great way to target conversions. One area where conversion rate optimization applies is to your website’s load time. Long load times make customers leave your site—or “bounce.” The longer your page takes to load, the higher the probability of bounce. When customers leave your website before they even see it, you’re losing out on possible conversions.
If your website loads too slowly—less than two seconds is ideal—then identify ways to speed it up. Solutions could include compressing the images on your site or reducing the number of WordPress plugins you have. Google PageSpeed Insights can also offer reasons as to why your site is slow and suggestions for improvement.
8. Optimize for Mobile
Increasing page speed isn’t the only way to optimize your site for more conversions. Ninety percent of all internet users go online with their mobile devices at least some of the time, so ensuring your website is mobile-friendly is a must for gaining conversions.
Choose a website theme that is responsive to both desktop and mobile, and design the mobile version of your site to make it ultra-accessible and easy to navigate. All-around marketing guru Neil Patel has some mobile usability design tips that are worth implementing on your site:
- Swap out the nav bar for a hamburger menu which expands when you tap it
- Put the most important elements in the “hot spots,” or the areas of a smartphone screen that are easiest to reach with your thumbs
- Minimize image file sizes
- Make the phone number on your contact page a clickable link that lets users click to call
- Disable pop-ups that ruin the user experience
9. Make Opting In Easier
According to a Litmus report, email generates $42 for every $1 spent, totaling a return on investment (ROI) of 4,200%. It’s hard to ignore those kinds of numbers, and you shouldn’t ignore your email list either. Once you have a customer’s email address, you have ample opportunity for conversion—with a solid ROI to boot.
How do you get people to opt into your email list? Most people are inundated with emails every day, so they don’t easily give out their email addresses. You can win their trust by offering a lead magnet—such as a free eBook, PDF guide, or coupon—in exchange for their email address. You should also make opt-in forms as easy as possible to use.
Don’t ask users to navigate to another page to opt in; put the form in the footer or sidebar of your website, or use a pop-up form. Limit how much information you ask for as well. Most people aren’t willing to type more than their names and email addresses. If your opt-in process is easy for users and they derive value from it (from a free eBook, for example), you’ll see your conversion numbers go up.
Key Takeaways for Cost-Effective Conversion Strategies
No two brands are alike, so not every strategy may work for you. Similarly, not every set of customers is the same, so you may have to adapt your marketing tactics for each segment of potential customers.
If you’re ready to get increased conversions with a more robust digital strategy, the Redstitch Digital Marketing Platform can help. Our data-driven, artificial intelligence system allows us to continually evaluate your digital landscape so you can stay focused on what really matters—running your business.
