We’re a society built around convenience. The less steps we need to get to the finish line the better. So why do so many marketers still make their audience jump through so many hoops to become customers?
It’s one of the biggest conundrums in modern business. Too often, we consider marketing and sales processes from our own perspective, rather than that of our audience. Optimizing internal processes does not always help potential customers. That’s when Barriers to Conversion (BTC) tend to pop up.
In the wrong spots, these barriers can kill your marketing efforts. Even the best messaging and visuals matter little if prospects get to your site, and cannot convert to customers or at least leads. They browse for a little bit, jump off, and you never hear from them again.
Put simply: when spending time online, our patience is running out. Audiences don’t want to seek out the next step; they need it right in front of them. That’s why a philosophy I like to call the 2 Button Go! concept is currently revolutionizing digital marketing.
The Increasing Lack of Online Patience
The stats are abundant: we just don’t have time to wait around when we browse online. Our average attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish. Six-second ads are beginning to replace their traditional 30-second alternatives. We use up to three devices for a single task. And when a website takes longer than three seconds to load, we jump off.
Stated differently, we don’t want to take the time to browse through endless pages and content just to find what we’re looking for. We can’t click through countless screens just to buy a meal or rent a car. We need everything quickly, and we need it to be as convenient as possible while we pay attention to multiple other stimulants.
There is no indication that trend will slow down or even reverse itself anytime soon. Yes, compelling content can still be long. But it better stay interesting, straightforward, and visual. And even then, it might not be enough for conversion.
Simplicity: The Key to Modern Marketing
Modern marketers strive toward conversions. They want to capture new leads, and gain new customers. And yet, these steps bump up directly against society’s need for quick satisfaction and convenience. Only one concept can bridge the gap: simplicity.
That simplicity can arise in multiple ways. You may look to reduce the steps that your audience takes to actually purchase your product or service. You may want to reduce the number of potential paths on a given page, optimizing your attention ratio instead. By simplifying the process, you actually reduce barriers to conversion.
Those barriers are the true killer in most marketing strategies. Even the most interested customer will jump off if they keep reading about privacy policies, verify their information, or simply don’t know where to click. What was once a hot prospect quickly turns into a lost lead.
Leveraging Audience Perspective to a Simpler Acquisition Journey
How do you overcome these barriers to conversions? Simplicity sounds easy but is actually incredibly complex. A concept you might look to as the solution actually complicates things. External regulations, such as GDPR, throw up barriers that you cannot even influence. Still, you have the potential to optimize the process.
The key to success: turn around your focus. Instead of building your marketing strategy inside-out, start with your audience and their perspective on the customer journey. Understand your full customer acquisition workflow, and the steps each of your clients have to take just to contribute to your revenue. Where possible, physically map out that process.
Understand your full customer acquisition workflow, and the steps each of your clients has to take just to contribute to your revenue.
It’s the only way to make sure you actually understand your audience. Now, you can add data to consider your individual tactics, pages, and conversion points. Where do your prospects and leads tend to stick? Where have you thrown up roadblocks that you could solve? And how simple could you truly make it?
That last question brings me to a concept we are seeing more and more from modern brands. It’s the 2 Button Go! philosophy. Some of the largest organizations in the world have discovered that every single barrier you remove results in more customers, and ultimately more revenue, look at Amazon’s one button buy. At its most extreme, that has resulted in customer acquisition processes consisting of nothing more than a single click.
How Amazon and Uber are Leveraging the 2 Button Go! Concept
Today, Amazon’s one-click ordering option is almost a natural part of the online shopping experience. It almost undersells just how revolutionary the process truly was when it was first introduced. With a single click, anyone signed into the service can skip the shopping cart and check out instantly. Dangerous, if you like to browse Amazon late at night or with a longing for a product, my staff will attest to my impulsive purchases… it’s just too easy. But undoubtedly an effective way to shorten the acquisition journey.
Other brands have leveraged similar concepts. Uber, for instance, requires its users to use only two clicks in the app to call a car. Meanwhile, online restaurant and delivery websites allow for a simple re-order of favorite meals without entering the address, payment information, or even having to choose the food.
These brands get it. They have recognized that at their core, today’s online audiences are looking for simplicity. As a result, they’ve optimized their entire acquisition journey to reach for that simplicity, ever improving to take yet another step out of the process to benefit the customer.
Overcoming Barriers to Conversion in Optimizing Your Digital Marketing
Yes, some barriers to conversion are easy to find. For a simple sign up form, you might not need dual authentication. Saving your address in any service connected to your physical area should be a given. Others, though, are more hidden. They require careful research, an eye on the customer experience, and the data to show just where potential customers stick.
That takes time and effort. But, when executed right, it’s resources well-spent to maximize your online marketing success. Contact us to learn more about the 2 Button Go! concept, and how implementation along the same lines can bring your brand closer to the ultimate goal of conversion optimization.
