4. CONVERSION

Next up is the actual conversion mechanisms to take your prospects into your marketing funnel

Conversion is about taking a person from one stage of involvement with your product to a higher stage of involvement.

As a direct response marketer, I must approach marketing from the point of view that before you can see customers as numbers and data, you must first see them as humans: people with feelings.

Those feelings are in essence:

1. Seeking pleasures, and
2. Avoiding pains.

The marketing numbers must evolve naturally out of dealing with those pleasures and pains. Marketing targets must be true to the dynamics inherent in the marketing funnel.

By conducting Marketing Research you have a very good idea of your prospect. And now we are at the point of communicating with our target audience about the value of our offer.

Beliefs, Frustrations and Desires

Your prospects beliefs, frustration and desires must be considered when creating your marketing funnel.

• Don't try to sell something until you know how to emotionally involve the prospect.
• Don't have copy written until you have identified the objective of this piece of copy in moving the prospect one step closer to being involved with your product by exchanging their time and money for the benefits of what your product offers.
• Don't make the mistake of trying to entertain your prospects with fancy graphic work, cute slogans, or humurous adverts.

Key Question to ask: What are the inherent emotions involved between what your product does, and what your prospect is experiencing in their life that makes them a suitable candidate for your product?

Then make the first step easy for the prospect.

If you are marketing online, your costs are cheaper, and you can create a multi-step sales process that has a higher overall conversion rate, than trying a 1-step sales process that makes your offer immediately, and loses the prospect if they don't immediately buy.

Acquisition and Retention Model

Here is a simplified model of online traffic generation and conversion for acquisition and retention.

This model does not say…

1. Advertise your product to anyone that will listen.
2. Squeeze your marketing team to meet your targets.
3. Drain your database as fast as possible by blatant sales pitches without bonding with and educating your prospects.

No, the model diagrammed above says:

1. Create value for your target audience by offering openly available content.
2. Involve them by a special offer for even more valuable and prized information that will help them with their wants and needs, in exchange for their contact information.
3. Offer them more valuable information including segmented sales offers until they buy.

We can achieve this in various ways by evolving our Front-End Acquisition and Back-End Retention plans by answering…

…Your Prospects 3 Questions

There are 3 far-reaching questions your prospect must have answered before they will buy.

1. Is it desireable?
2. Is it credibile?
3. Is it worth the risk?

Copywriting - The Heart of Marketing

Visit the Copywriting page for the full process of exactly what you need to cover to answer those 3 crucial questions in any and every marketing campaign you run.

Dig Further Into The Marketing Matrix

Check out pages for Lead Generation Opt-in Pages and Email Marketing.

Or continue onwards to the Traffic Generation section of the Marketing Matrix.