Conversion.

I love that word. It’s like music to my ears! And every time it happens, my day get just a bit brighter. But before we get too deep into it, let’s take a second to define conversion. According to MarketingSherpa, the word means:

“The point at which a recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action.”

And it really is as simple as that!

People like to place a lot of pressure on themselves when it comes to conversions, but it really can happen in the most simple of things. Here are a few examples:

• When I post this blog to social media, you click it and start reading – conversion.
• When you see my awesome eBook in the sidebar and download it – conversion.
• When I email you about my services and you purchase them – conversion.

They’re all important, from the least to the greatest. Why? Because they’re all engaging with you and helping me build credibility, authority and – most of all – a relationship.

So, don’t get overwhelmed by the idea of a conversion funnel. It’s simply the process you setup to make conversions happen. In today’s article, I’m going to help you set up a strong one that helps you gain traffic, increase your ranking and land clients.

Step 1: Attract the Right People

Some people will argue that you want to fill up your funnel as fast as possible, with little regard to who is actually entering the system. But I disagree. True success – with anything that you do in business – is quality over quantity.

Instead of looking for the most leads, you want to look for the best leads

In my experience, this happens through some highly targeted content. If you’re creating content for your ideal customer, they’ll be enticed to read it, engage and convert.

Action Step: Take 10 minutes to write a detailed overview of your perfect client. Who are they? What do they do? When do they need services like yours? Where do they spend their time online? Why would they convert?

Step 2: Craft Strong Content

Once you have a detailed client profile, it’s time to create content for them. When we think about the phrase content is king, our minds tend to go to blogging. However, there are plenty of ways to engage your audience. The basics types of content are:

• Written
• Videos
• Audio
• Graphics
• Images

As platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat continue to grow in size, it’s important to think beyond more common things like blogging. High quality engagement comes in many shapes and forms. So, if you feel like writing isn’t your strong suit, try something else.

In 2016, there’s no excuse for not publishing great content!

Action Step: Sit down and write 12 titles about topics you could talk about with authority. Once you have the titles, decide which media type you’ll use to create it. Don’t feel pigeonholed to stick to one thing. Feel free to branch out into many areas depending on your strengths.

Step 3: Draw Them to Action

It’s not enough to just have an understanding of your audience or to produce content on a regular basis. To start converting, you first need engagement. And that comes when you draw them to action.

One of the most common ways to entice? Strong headlines.

Whether you’re promoting a blog post, eBook or new product, getting users to click all comes down to your copywriting. Write a great headline, gain clicks, fill your funnel.

Action Step: Study popular formulas for blog post headlines, as well as basic copywriting fundamentals. The stronger your writing becomes, the more power you’ll have to convert casual viewers into real customers.

Step 4: Go Behind-the-Scenes

To recap, you know your audience, have created great content and enticed them to click on your headline. At this point, they’re on your landing page – whether that’s your most recent blog post or a page you specifically created for driving leads.

If you’ve communicated in an engaging way, you’ll start converting leads to your email list. And that’s where the real fun begins!

Once they’ve made that initial conversion to your email list, it’s time for the next part. You’ll develop a conversion process that happens behind-the-scenes – that is, not in the public arenas of your brand. To execute this properly, you’ll need:

• Strategic series of emails.
• Exclusive content for subscribers.
• Regular and consistent interaction.

Your emails could be as simple as a newsletter or as elaborate as an autoresponder course. Each email should include exclusive content, but you can also provide exclusive content through things like webinars promoted solely to your list.

Doing this on a regular basis is a sure-fire way to start converting subscribers into customers.

Action Step: Sketch out a basic series of emails that you can send to new list subscribers for the first 6-8 weeks. Remember to make it strategic, exclusive and consistent for best results.

Conclusion

And there you have it, my friends!

Each of these 4 steps will work together to help you increase traffic, rankings and clients. It’s not enough to haphazardly publish content just to say you did it. You’ve got to plan it out and entice people into funnel.

Make it a well-oiled machine and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results!