… or: Simple Math to make you want to market

Hopefully, I didn’t lose you at the word “math!” But, if we’re to prove that it’s worth spending a bit of time optimizing your online presence, then surely a little bit of math won’t hurt us.

Again and again, I hear from people: “Marketing is only for big companies with huge customer lists. There is no benefit for me to follow these guidelines.”

That couldn’t be farther from the truth. There is always a benefit in making things better --- and this couldn’t be more important for a small business like a blues festival or folk music organization or indie rock band where every dollar really counts.

So, after hearing this time after time, I thought it would be helpful to show it in action.

Firstly, I built an online marketing calculator that is an exact duplicate of the kinds of calculators that I build and use daily in my “day job” as the marketing director for a large online retailer.

Check it out to estimate your traffic and return on investment during and after reading this blog to see for yourself how it works.

The Marketing Funnel

My approach to marketing is to break the customer journey into steps and focus on improving your web site and outreach so as to increase the number of people moving to each step. In most marketing circles this is referred to as The Marketing Funnel.

It’s common sense that the more you fill the funnel, the more will come out at the end. (Fill it with potential customers, and more money comes out.) That’s pretty clear, yes? But, the trick to it is moving people along the funnel (widening the bottom, as it were). And that is all about understanding what levers you have at your disposal to influence people’s behavior.

Simple Marketing Math

Marketing is a numbers game. So, let’s break it down to its simplest form:

The number of people who come to your site
Orders from your online store

(Substitute “orders” with “email signups” or another value, if that’s your goal.)

So, let’s say there were 1,000 visits to your site in a single month and you got 100 orders that month.

Simple math says:

100 orders divided by 1,000 visits = 10% of your site visitors make a purchase

We call that percentage conversion rate. With a conversion rate of 10% you have “converted” 100 visits out of 1,000 into completed orders.

Let’s assume you want to make more money (who doesn’t?), so what are our options?

Increase the # of visits to your site

If we keep our equation the same and if you drove 2,000 visits in a month at 10% conversion rate, then you will have 200 orders that month

Increase your conversion rate

If you were able to convert visits at double the rate to 20%, then you would also have 200 orders a month.

And, if you were a superstar and could do both, you’d have 400 orders that month.

2,000 visits at 20% conversion rate = 400 orders

Conversion rate isn’t just for orders

If you’re not selling anything - or at least not in this scenario - these same concepts can be applied to more than just product orders:

Email Sign-ups
Facebook Likes
Song downloads
Donations
Volunteer sign-ups

So, now, you should have a basic understanding of how you can use the marketing calculator to determine where you should focus your marketing efforts.

Next: 2 Quick Tips to increase online revenue.

Check out the next steps in using the marketing funnel to help you grow your business. In this blog I’ll walk you through the next two parts of the funnel: Before your site visit … and making more money per order.

by Scott Atkinson, March 27, 2020