At the Micro-conversion stage, your potential buyers have moved down to the middle of the sales funnel and are already considering making a purchase.
At the start of any purchasing process, users might be sceptical about your product or services. You need to get them to familiarize themselves with your brand, build trust and highlight how your product/services can fulfill their needs and desires.
These small moments are often ignored by online marketers; however, these moments are the stepping stones that will nurture users and help them move from one stage to another in their buyer journey to a place of macro conversion.
Think of Micro-conversion as a factor that motivates, blocks, and persuades potential buyers on their way to your online store.
Think about giving them the best experience possible on this unique journey. It is only when the experience is unique for potential buyers that they eventually convert into buyers.
While Micro-conversion may not be as satisfying as an immediate sale, they play a critical role in the overall buyer journey and deserve your attention.
Types of micro-conversions
#1. Process Milestones: These are conversions that represent linear movement toward a primary macro conversion. Monitoring these will help you define the steps where User experience (UX) improvements are most needed.
#2. Secondary Actions: These are not the primary goals of the site, but they are desirable actions that are indicators of potential future macro conversions.
Examples of Micro-conversion
#1. Beginning to Fill Out a Form
Most users today are warier than ever about who handles their personal information.
In a cyber-world full of hackers and spammers, who can blame them? If you aren’t seeing many sign-ups, your form is probably raising a red flag for users and there is a need for you to step in in time to correct that.
So how about users who look past the fear of leaving that sensitive information on your site and decide to fill out a form? They wouldn’t be doing that if the reason behind it is not clear to them.
Once a visitor decides to fill out a form, it is clear in body language that they have an interest to convert.
#2. Watching a Video
Consuming video content is another micro-conversion that conveys interest and shows that shoppers are looking to learn more about your brand.
Including a video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%. 79% of consumers say a brand’s video convinced them to buy an app or piece of software.
#3. Live Chats
Whether you decide to automate the process or take a larger role, live chat is a great way to increase micro conversions that lead to macro conversions.
It gives your visitors a way to connect with you directly and get their questions answered. And once a customer decides to engage a brand in live chat, it is clear body language that they have an interest in converting.
#4. Commenting on a Blog Post
People are incredibly selective about the companies they interact with, so having a community of blog readers who consistently comment on your blog posts indicates trust, brand loyalty, and a willingness to eventually buy and this is always a good sign that they could easily convert or be converted into taking the desired action( Macro-conversion).
#5. Mentioning Your Brand on Social Media
Anyone who does as much as mention your brand on social media has started the buyer`s journey already and you should reach out to them and try to nurture them into buyers.
Aside from that, getting a brand mention on social media, especially from an influencer is as good as gold as that would attract a lot of attention from their followers to your brand.
How to Track Micro-Conversions
By tracking and analyzing micro conversions in your brand`s customer`s journey, you’ll have a better understanding of how your ads are performing, how users are engaging with your site, and which keywords do (or do not) attract engagement.
Steps to track micro conversion metrics using goals include:
#1. Go Google Analytics
#2. When you’re signed in to your Google Analytics account, go to Admin
#3. Go to the view column and click on goals
#4. Then click the red “+ new goal” button to add a goal, choose ‘custom’, and then click on ‘continue’.
#5. Name your goal (decide a descriptive name for the goal) then choose how you’ll track the micro conversion.
You can track whether someone visits a page, how long they spend on a page if they visited a certain minimum requirement of pages, or if they clicked a button or played a video. When you’re ready, click Continue.
#6. Once you’ve successfully created and named your goal, you’ll see it in your “Goals” menu.
#7. Then click on save. You are done.
It’s crucial to note, that if you’ve used HubSpot to build your website or track your analytics generally, you can also use HubSpot to track your micro-conversions.
Importance of Tracking Micro-Conversions
Tracking micro-conversions helps marketers identify weak links in their sales funnel, those pages where people drop off and fail to convert.
It gives you a fuller picture of your site performance and tells you more about how people use your site. It identifies areas to focus on for conversion rate optimization. It helps you to track across channels.
Tracking micro-conversions can be especially helpful for low-traffic or low-conversion sites.
For example, if 18 out of 20 visitors leave your site when they reach the sub-category page, you’ll want to study that page and find why they leave and ways to make it more appealing to get them to stay till the end.
Fixing the weakest links in your sales funnel usually means an increase in conversions since you’ve made User experience improvements by addressing the barrier that was blocking your visitors from reaching the finish line.
Powerful Micro-Conversion Strategies
#1. Keep Your Forms Simple and Intuitive
Forms on a website need to be easy and intuitive to use. Customers hate filling out forms that are too long or too complicated.
Keep your forms simple and short to fill out using these tips:
#1. Only ask for information you need to qualify a customer: If you only need to know an email address and first name to start a conversation, keep your form that simple.
Don’t go asking your prospect to provide location and others details that are not relevant to you. Too long forms and you risk deterring prospective customers from converting.
#2. If possible, have the form directly on the landing page: Don’t leave it for extra clicks! Web forms on landing pages are often subject to “Goldilocks syndrome.” And they are attended to more than ones placed behind extra clicks.
#3. Use placeholder text for cuing the customer as to the format of the information: Placeholder text should be used to tell the customer the format of the information to enter.
For example, if you’re asking for a phone number, you might want to indicate [111-222-3333] as the placeholder text. That way, the user knows if or not the area code is important.
Some users, especially rural users, might not be used to having to include their area code anywhere, so indicating how it should be done helps them a lot.
#4. Include field labels: Labels describe the purpose and function of form elements. For example, the label “date” next to a drop-down menu listing the dates of the month, or the label “surname” next to a text input field.
Labels are critical because they tell the user what information to provide in the form element.
#2. Your Email Opt-ins should be Super Compelling
Any way you slice it. You have to give prospects a reason to opt-in in the first place. You have to show that you are capable of providing value if they walk into your inbox.
Establish your expertise through helpful videos, infographics, and articles. Let your visitors see that you have the answers to their pain points.
How to write an opt-in an email
#1. Be clear about what your customers are opting in to: Don’t allow your customers to sign up for an email list only to receive something entirely different from the impression you gave them before they signed up. Customers don’t celebrate that trick.
Using unnecessary baits & switch tactics will only earn you unsatisfied customers and opt-outs.
#2. Make your offers compelling: your offer should be appealing to the emotions of your prospects. Show your customers that they will get something for opting into your list.
#3. Keep forms short, clean and simple: Simple and clean forms with large fonts and few fields tend to work best.
#4. Be consistent: Always place your opt-ins in the same spot on the landing page, and don’t switch up the wording between promotions. You want to make it straightforward for your customers.
#3. Make it easy for shoppers to add to the cart
The option to add to the cart is usually mentioned right below each product. When an online store has shopping cart buttons below its products and makes it easy for customers to add to their charts, it adds to the charm of the customer’s online shopping experience.
For a shopper to purchase a product, they’ve to first add it to their cart. That first step is what creates a connection, and ultimately leads to a sale. The easier it is, the more likely it’ll convert.
Keeping your customers happy and enhancing their buying experience is the key to success for all businesses.
#4. The Search Bar Should Always Be Easily Discoverable- Especially On Mobile Device
It is most of the time placed at the top of the landing page. The best mobile search bar is the one that can adapt automatically for each type of device, e.g., desktops, smartphones, or tablets
What Makes a Good Search Bar
#1. Place it in an expected location, preferably at the top of the landing page.
#.2 Include the search icon.
#3. Consider having essential information in the product title, it can save the users’ time.
#4. Autocomplete – when the user starts to type, it predicts what they’re looking for, this way, the user`s time is saved.
#5. Design for mobile to make your website mobile-friendly, and optimize all your content for mobile.
#5. Offer Live Chat – But Don’t Be Intrusive
Whether you decide to automate the process or take a larger role, live chat is a great way to increase micro conversions that lead to macro conversions.
It gives your visitors a way to connect with you directly and get their questions answered.
It is a great option to maximize leads and optimize business return on investment (RoI). It helps in acquiring more leads and of course, generates more sales.
Online chat tools improve the response time of website visitors and improve the chances of sales. It is a wonderful feature to embed if you want visitors to act towards a bigger conversion.
However, be sure to keep the live chat feature non-invasive. You want it to be available for your customers in case they need help and not in their way at any point.
Conclusion
It’s important to remember that only a fraction of site visitors result in a sale right away. Many encounter different roadblocks that make them abandon the path leading to the bottom of the sales funnel.
Being aware of micro conversions and how they factor into the buyer journey should help you better come up with the best strategies to remove these roadblocks and distractions in the way of your potential customers.
In this article, we have provided 5 strategies that would remove the bumps that distract site visitors from making it to the bottom of the sales funnel.
