My family and I spent part of the last week in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and Epcot. As we made our way through each ride at the theme parks I began to realize a pattern:
1) Lines are setup to build up anticipation for the ride itself
2) The rides themselves are awesome, but only last mere moments, in most cases a fraction of what is spent waiting in line.
3) After every ride you are let off into a shop with themed items based around what you just experienced. The kids then go ape shit over stuffed dolls going for $50 a pop.
I began to see a pattern that can be utilized easily on the web
Conversion = Marketing + Branding + Quality Content
Use this as a layover for the web:
1) Create a great piece of content that appeals to the direct demographic of your products consumer. As an example this infographic by Billshrink.com is a great way for the company to draw interest from gadget types and phone consumers in general, then notice the ad on the right hand side.
2) Market this content in a way the builds your brand presence as well as traffic to your site. A holistic marketing campaign mashing search and social media. Zappos has done an amazing job of this, as well as Amazon.
3) Match products and offerings to people enjoying your content. Tripadvisor does an amazing job of this. People use the platform to scope out travel need sand reviews, and Tripadvisor then gives them the option to book. The content is the crux of the conversion experience.
Think about your website now, and your conversion rate. What are you missing from this equation? We work with a lot of site owners who have great products and we can build them traffic, but they are not willing to shape their site for the consumer experience. A simple change like adding reviews to your sites products can have a tremendous impact. Beyond that, brand building can turn customer acquisition into customer retention, and this is where real growth begins to compound.