Do you want more conversions for your marketing efforts? The first step is understanding that your audience’s buying temperature is the driving force behind increasing conversion rates.

From Lead to Client

Let’s start by talking about those conversion rates. You drive traffic to a website to get people to do something—call your office, sign up for your newsletter, download a report, make a purchase, and so on. When someone does what you ask them to do, you have a conversion. Take a look at the relationship between your “asks” and those desired customer actions: are you converting traffic into paid customers at a high rate? While hitting that sweet spot is a laudable goal, chances are that you aren’t...yet.

Your conversion rate is measured by metrics such as the number of eyes that saw that last email blast you just sent. That number is compared against the number of new clients that became paying customers due to that marketing effort, or another marketing format included in your measurements. Those tend to be low numbers, typically falling below 3% on average. There are, however, ways to get those stats up, and they all start with a few small changes.

Familiarity Is Key

Did you know that a portion of your target audience is really hot? No, we won’t say who. Some of your audience is really cold, too - borderline frigid, in fact. But we aren’t talking about looks and personality here: we’re talking familiarity.

Have you ever played the hot and cold game while looking for a present? The closer you get to the desired object, the “hotter” you are and the further you stray from it, the more “cold” you become. Borrowing that analogy for a moment, your firm is the object, and your client is the blindfolded victim who got suckered into the game unknowingly. Many of your potential clients don’t even know they are playing the “hot and cold game” or what the rules are supposed to be. They aren’t engaged in the exciting pursuit for the gift, they’ve blindly stumbled into the game itself, and thus aren’t likely to be very good at it.

Similarly, the clients who have never heard of you before are likely to be fairly disengaged at your first attempts to market to them. Ask yourself if you’re treating these potential customers the same, or if you’re differentiating between familiarity levels when blasting out your content marketing for their consumption. If you’re treating them equally, don’t be surprised if your conversion rates reflect a rather “chilly” outcome.

Conversion Rate and Audience Temperature

Not all traffic is created equal. To increase your conversions, it is important to know where your customers fall within this “temperature” scale in order to market to them effectively. When you understand the difference between different types of traffic, it should help you transform your cold traffic into hot conversions.

One of the biggest marketing mistakes that drains time, money, and energy out of a campaign is attempting to sell to “cold” traffic: customers that have no knowledge of your brand, and aren’t usually actively looking for a solution. Trying to close cold traffic is a mistake because at this stage, visitors know nothing about your business and what you offer: there’s no compelling reason for them to take action. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to close cold traffic because the element of “trust” is missing - you haven’t learned anything about your customer, either. The best approach to this scenario is to direct cold traffic to a landing page or lead capture page (also called a squeeze page) where users are added to an email marketing list. From there, you can begin lead-nurturing, building trust and rapport, and creating customers that are more likely to buy the next time you give them the chance to.

Incoming “warm” traffic arrives with a basic level of knowledge about your business and a less substantial hurdle to clear en route to conversion. It’s important to educate your prospects at this stage by providing information about your business, products, and / or services. This is the time to establish value and highlight what makes you different and better in the marketplace. Address their pain points and explain how what you’re providing is the solution to all of them.

“Hot” traffic offers smart companies the greatest potential for conversion. At this point, prospects know your brand, recognize the value of your offer, and are the closest of the three temperature classes to the buying stage. They just need a little nudge in the right direction, like an easy-to-navigate sales page.