We’re in a digital age. So much so that the digital world rules our day; from the minute we are called to life by our smartphone alarms, to the minute we close our eyes and a background app is monitoring our sleep! When you really stop and think about just how integrated technology is in our daily lives… it’s terrifying! Yet it’s also completely normal and accepted.

As business owners and marketers, the digital space gives us so much opportunity that we just didn’t have 10 years ago. It gives us access to people in a completely new way and with that comes immense amounts of valuable data.

The problem is, that businesses are so focused on the next big digital move that they often neglect more traditional methods of marketing that are still, if not more, valuable today. Direct mail marketing cuts through the digital noise and stands out in a world of screens. Yes, offline mail could well direct the customer to a website or online platform, but it does so in a more authentic way.

Physical Mail Builds Trust

Once upon a time, online shopping was a risky business. People didn’t know what or who was authentic online and which businesses they could trust. Today we know that online shopping and online communications are safe and we know what to look for as consumers. The thing is, there is so much spam online and that many advertisements, emails, and websites that it’s difficult to build trust when you’re trying to reach brand new customers. Recently there have also been huge issues with social media exploiting user data, again eroding online trust. As a result, trust is actually on the decline, unless you’re a huge brand with a huge reputation. Even creating a positive brand awareness can be a challenge. This is where direct mail could really help you out.

“76% of the consumers trust direct mail when it comes to purchasing decisions,” but why is this?

Well, the answer is quite simple, people trust direct mail because they are receiving something tangible and real. It’s usually highly targeted for local businesses and it’s often much more personal. If we need to reach a dentist in New Jersey who purchased a Ford in the last six months, we can find that list. This is not so much the case with online. Even with all that data, we still can’t target users at that level of detail.

Another thing to consider is the potential for mail to hang around a while, as a reminder. Customers might keep a flyer on their counter side, on a table top or in a pile of papers to look at later. Online, when a browser, website or email is closed, so is that advertisement… until it maybe appears again, if and when it does.

It’s Lighter on the Brain

We know what you’re thinking… how can something be lighter on the brain and how can we know that? Well, a fantastic Canadian neuromarketing firm carried out a study which showed that it takes 21% less cognitive effort to process direct mail compared to digital media! They concluded that direct mail was easier to digest and easier to remember.

Online tools such as email are very good at building rapport once you have a relationship.  However, because of the spam effect, they are not very effective when prospecting for new customers. In addition, search engine marketing works well when customers are looking for a product or service.  However, when we want to reach out to them with a new offer, especially something they might not have otherwise considered (or didn’t even know they needed), direct mail is better at getting the job done.

Of course, we’re not saying that online advertising isn’t valuable. It 100% is a crucial part of any marketing strategy in 2019. We’re just asking you to consider older forms of marketing that still carry a lot of trust for the majority of consumers.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.

When you’ve reflected on your business performance from the previous year, done the math and looked for patterns in your finances, you’re ready to focus on new opportunities for growth. These are the simplest steps to successful strategic planning and we’re going to share a very easy tool that can help you with this area.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis sounds like something you learn in business school…. And it is! However, it’s one of the simplest and earliest things you learn, so don’t be scared off by the fancy name.

SWOT stands for ‘Strengths’ ‘Weaknesses’, ‘Opportunities’ and ‘Threats’.
The SWOT analysis simply asks you to think about each of those things. You can do this to look at your business overall, or you can carry out a SWOT analysis for a specific project idea to assess the pros and cons of that potential venture.

The best way to do a SWOT analysis is in a grid form:
Below we have inserted some examples based on an independent coffee shop business.

Strengths:

In the strengths box, think about what your company does better than anyone else. What gives you a competitive advantage? Which areas are you really confident in? These are positive things that are happening internally.

E.g, A coffee shop with a fantastic reputation for customer service, with top ratings on all popular review sites.

Weaknesses:

Which areas do you need to improve on? Which internal issues are impacting your business negatively and causing a present issue?

E.g, The coffee shop does not get a lot of shop foot traffic because of the current location and relies heavily on word-of-mouth. It’s quite hidden and this can be difficult to attract new customers in the local town.

Opportunities:

What is happening around your business that could open up doors? These are external things that might be happening in the market to allow your business a new avenue.

E.g An opportunity to expand offering and sell a wider variety of coffee because the coffee market is currently continuing to grow and diversify.

Threats:

Here you need to think about things that could happen in the future that might cause a problem. These are things that haven’t yet occurred but might be an issue. Again these are external issues.

E.g, Dairy and coffee costs could increase in the future eating into margins.

At surface value, the SWOT analysis doesn’t help you prioritize these things, but we shouldn’t stop here. It’s crucial to prioritize the top 3-4 items within each quadrant. Rank your strengths and weaknesses in terms of importance. You will need to give this some thought, but by ranking them the SWOT gives you a clearer picture of what’s going on.

Keep in mind that there are limitations of the SWOT analysis. It can’t be used for in-depth issues and it doesn’t help you prioritize things. It’s great for identifying problems but it doesn’t offer any solutions. The model doesn’t assist you with thinking about ways to overcome weaknesses or protect your business against threats. It’s purely just a starting place and although it seems simple, it forces you to focus on each area and then look at the bigger picture taking in to account each quarter.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.

When you’ve got all of your financial information in front of you, it can feel overwhelming. Especially when it comes to business finances. If you followed our last guide ‘Doing the Math’ you should now have a much clearer overview of your financial performance in the previous year and roughly why it performed this way. The next stage is to look for patterns within the numbers that can serve as clues for planning.

Start with the Customer

A good place to start is by sorting all of the orders by the customer. If you sell fast-moving items such as food or fashion, it will be better to approach this slightly differently. For fast-moving items look at the largest order values or total repeat orders for the top percentile, middle percentile, and bottom percentile. If you have customers who use your business as an ongoing service, or something that fits this category closely, sort customers from largest to smallest.
It doesn’t really matter how you do this, the end goal is the same. You want to figure out who your biggest customers are; whether that’s another company for a B2B or the biggest category of individuals customers for a B2C organization.

When you carry out this task, be mindful that things might not always be as they seem. Large customers might have been in a position to negotiate additional discounts. Small customers might actually contribute more to the bottom line. This is why it’s so important to carry out a financial assessment rather than make assumptions.

The Pareto Principle

You might find the ‘pareto principle’ to be true in your own stats. This is when roughly 80% of your sales are generated by just 20% of your customers. The higher that percentage (80%) the riskier it becomes for your business. You know the phrase ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’; this couldn’t be truer when it comes to customers/clients. Of course, there are some industries where this can’t be avoided due to a small number of prospective customers. However, in cases where this is not true, try and nurture smaller customers and find new ones to reduce your overall reliance on the ‘whales’.

Answer these questions:

• Are specific customers or industries (B2B) more responsive to your business compared to others?
• Does this offer you any clues on where to find future customers?

We can now drill down further and turn our attention to look at specific orders. So rather than focusing on the customers now, it’s time to look at the products or services that were ordered the most and the least.

Answer these questions:

• What is the average order size?
• Which is the most popular and least popular item/service to be ordered?
• Is there anything you can do to increase the average order size? Can you increase your upselling efforts?
• Why are certain products selling better than others?
• Can you make any changes to improve the appeal of the least popular items?

If you’ve successfully carried out part one, part two and now the third part explained in this article, you should have a solid foundation for a plan to move forward. In the next installment, we will show you how to look for new opportunities for growth.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.

If you read our first installment of strategic planning for business owners, by now you have hopefully carried out the first step; reviewing and asking ‘why’ things happened the way they did. Now it’s time to focus on really understanding the operations of the company. This is the next logical step after we’ve taken the time to reflect on the root cause behind wins and losses.

One powerful way to this is to look at the numbers. When it comes to handling and analyzing the business finances most of us run in the opposite direction! Looking at the numbers means focusing on the math, and even for business people, math can feel unfamiliar or even intimidating. The good news is, the math required for this is very simple. So don’t panic! We’re not suggesting any crazy algebra here. The best approach is to use simple formulas on a spreadsheet, like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. We promise you, taking the time to do this step will make all the difference.

Start With Sales

At this point, we’re still looking back on historical data and assessing the performance of the previous year. We need that sound foundation of understanding in order to build a stronger strategy for the year ahead. Start by looking at the sales from the previous year. How did you do? How did it compare to the years before that? If you do this exercise consistently every year, you start to build up a picture of how your strategy and implementation had a direct impact on sales. Or where the strategy fell down, where you faced obstacles. Just answer these questions:

• Are the number up, down or about the same?
• Can you see any high-level trends developing over time?
• Is there a clear upward growth, or do you need to intervene somewhere and correct the path?

Correction is different from improvement. If things are going well, improvement is necessary just to take things up another level. Correction is needed if the figures are down or you noticed a negative trend occurs.

Break It Down

Break this down further and start to look at the sales on a monthly or even weekly basis. Only move on to this stage after you’ve looked at the yearly figures. There’s little point overwhelming yourself with lots of data straight-away. If you don’t understand something, really try to figure it out before moving on. Answer these questions:

Are there specific times in the year when you receive more orders?
If yes, is this due to overall industry trends or is it associated with specific promotional campaigns you ran?

If you notice drops in sales over certain times of the year and these are due to the industry you’re in, this will have implications for cash flow. Answer these questions:

• Do you need to plan for slower times and set aside money to manage cash flow?
• Are there special promotions you can run to boost demand during those slack periods?
• Can you replicate successful campaigns from last year?

At the very least, just understanding the seasonal flow of our business, can help us be better prepared. In the next series of strategic planning tips, we will look at the patterns within the numbers and how to complete the financial assessment before moving on.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.

The start of a new year is an ideal time to reflect on the previous year’s performance and devise a plan for achieving success over the next 365 days. Without a healthy measure of planning and strategic thinking, the only way to achieve success is through sheer luck! Let’s be honest, as business owners, who is really okay with leaving their future to luck?

Day-to-day tasks can seem never-ending and it’s all too easy to get sucked in and spend days on end doing nothing to grow the business, only dealing with the current tasks. As the owner of a business, it’s great to get involved and steer the ship, but it’s crucial to take the time and focus on growth. Delegate as many of the day-to-day tasks as you can, so that you can focus on strategic development and growth. The survival of your business depends on this.

Step One: Reviewing the Previous Year

Over the next few weeks, our blog posts are going to focus on strategic management and this is your first installment. Step one is to carry out a fair assessment of the previous year. Ask yourself which areas were successful, which projects yielded the best results? Start by focusing on the successes, it’s important to celebrate these with your wider team. If you don’t already, consider holding an end-of-year awards event with your team to share the good moments and highlight those employees who went the extra mile. You can’t do this alone and your employees are your biggest asset.

The next step is to look at what you could have done better. It’s time to get brutally honest with yourself about what went wrong last year. Where did you miss the boat and which areas could have been improved on? Thomas Edison was the inventor of the incandescent lightbulb and founded Edison Electric which later became General Electric Corporation. The lightbulb was created based on 1,000’s of trial and error experiments in the lab. When asked later how it felt to “fail” so many times, Thomas Edison replied “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. The point is, it’s often in the failures that we learn the most. If we win every time we don’t learn how to problem solve and we, therefore, don’t learn resilience.

Rather than doing this exercise in your head, write down everything as you go. Use mind-maps, brainstorm ideas on a white-board or type up notes as you think. The process of writing things down re-confirms things in your mind. It spurs new ideas and it serves as a reminder each time you come back to your strategic planning. There is something more impactful about the process of formally capturing and evaluating each item.

Ask Why?

For every item, you list, whether a success or a failure you need to ask yourself why? Why was Project X so successful? Why did you lose that big deal? Why was employee retention lower last year? etc. For each ‘why’ you need to break it down further. Don’t simply write the obvious, but start to form a bigger picture of what caused the outcome. Usually, it’s a collection of several smaller actions/events that lead to a larger outcome.

This is a process that will take a little time. Now, time is something you probably don’t have a lot of. As a business owner that’s understandable and very normal! Simply try to commit a couple of hours to this task, to begin with, and break the process down. Follow this series of articles as they are published and use them a guide. Keep an eye out for new articles via our social media channels on Twitter, Linkedin & Facebook.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.

What does 2019 have in store for us and how can we align our marketing strategies in preparation? When we hit the new year it’s almost like a reset button has been pressed and we’re ready to embrace change, dive into new projects or re-focus on areas of the business we’ve previously neglected. We hope this list gets those ideas flowing and helps combine your marketing efforts into something successful.

Direct Mail Will Build Trust

Building and maintaining trust with a customer is crucial. Without trust and belief in your business, a sale will not happen. Direct mail is a valued method of communication because typically, customers view it as more authentic than other forms of communication.

In fact, many businesses that turned their back on ‘old school’ methods of marketing are finding it’s crucial to return to more traditional methods in a very digital world.

To increase credibility when sending mail, consider adding information about your team; a friendly face of the CEO or team photo where possible. This is particularly important if you are introducing your services/products to a customer for the first time. Genuine testimonials can also help to add credibility.

Video Marketing

Video just cannot be ignored. It is one of the most powerful forms of online marketing. It boosts interaction, maintains engagement for longer and in most cases, increases conversions. By 2020 it’s predicted that video will be 85% of all consumer traffic within the US. So, how can you utilize video effectively?

Explainer Videos: Use these on-site to explain your service or product in a short video clip. An explainer video works well for more complex offerings.

Customer Testimonial Videos: If you’ve got the time and the resources, creating a case study video, or just compiling lots of testimonials into a video is one way to add credibility.

Micro-Video: Short clips that are usually around 15 seconds long. Instagram story videos are the perfect example of this. You can use these micro-videos to grab attention very quickly and pull social media users into your offer. You can also use micro-videos effectively within paid social media advertising to do the same thing.

If you have some powerful video content to share with customers, you can use other forms of marketing just as direct mail to drive traffic to that video. Utilise an omnichannel direct response strategy, making the most of different traffic driving methods such as email, direct mail and social media.

The Rise of Smart Speakers

We’re talking smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa home speaker or Apple Homepod. These voice-assisted devices are set to completely change the future of marketing as consumers say they will never go back! We predict large companies like Amazon will start selling ad space connected to their smart speaker devices. We should also start to see a shift whereby more audio content is published online, in a bid to be accessed by smart home devices.

Integrated Marketing

We’ve mentioned that direct mail is a great source of trust, but we’ve also explained just how valuable video marketing is and other forms of online marketing. So what’s the best approach overall? The truth is you need to take an integrated marketing approach in 2019 and utilize both online and offline methods to get the most out of your campaigns.

The other thing to point out is that direct mail gets attention. Prospective customers may get 100’s of email messages a day so SPAM is a persistent problem. People hit delete without even reading the message. You have a lot less competition for attention in a mailbox. It requires a physical action to get the mail and it’s much easier to break through the clutter.

You have a lot less competition for the customer’s attention in the mailbox. It requires a physical action to get the mail. It is much easier to break through the clutter.

Align your campaigns so that they support each other. Include social media icons or hashtag references on offline material where relevant. Collect online data from customers who entered your funnel at an offline point. The more you can integrate all areas of your marketing, the more you will get out of it. Finally, don’t forget to maintain the same branding throughout to ensure smoother integration.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.

How should you handle professional gifts and communications during the holidays? Many businesses are worried about pitching too hard around the holidays when most people are distracted by festivities, Christmas events or vacation time away. It’s true that December tends to be a jam-packed month for most of your customers. So what’s the right way to approach this and build rapport?

Gifts & Cards

Everyone loves to receive a gift or a card at Christmas. Even if you’re B2B it can be a nice touch to send a gift to large clients, or customers you’ve worked very closely with throughout the year. If the company is large, it’s acceptable to send gifts or cards just to the department you’ve been working with. If you work with many different businesses, a gift isn’t always feasible and a holiday postcard might be a more cost-effective solution. You can still add a personal touch and distribute them quickly and efficiently.

Think Outside the Box

Interaction is often the solution for becoming memorable, building lasting brand awareness and improving customer service. How can you improve interaction through holiday communications? One way is through the power of game! Who doesn’t love a game with family and friends over Christmas? Could you send a card or postcard that doubles up as a mini board game, or provides inspiration for a Christmas family game around the table? Even something as simple as ‘spot the difference’ or a crossword on the back of a postcard could stop that communication from hitting the trash. You could even incorporate your services/products and branding into the game!

Don’t Neglect Key Information

There are some things that really need to be communicated well, like open hours and closure dates over the festive period. Customers need easy access to your holiday hours and they need to know them early! Don’t panic if you’ve not already shared this information, instead try to let customers know directly. Add your holiday hours on to the bottom of email communications. If you’re sending a holiday postcard this year (there is still time), edit in your opening hours and availability.

Avoid Price Hikes

Got some big promotions planned for January? Get your mailing communications underway right now and avoid postage rate increases in the new year. It’s an ideal time to get your January/February promotions in front for your customers, particularly if you’re offering a new year event or new year sale. Despite the fact that your customers are distracted during the Christmas period, everyone is looking for a great deal to save money and many people turn to the January sales to do just that.

When it comes to marketing over the holidays, Zairmail has some fast and inexpensive offers like holiday postcards. It’s not too late to send out and we can handle all of the mailings for you. Holiday postcards could save you a considerable amount of money when compared with traditional holiday cards. Choose a template design now, or upload your own. We can have them on the way in no time.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.

Your business survives and thrives on customer acquisition and retention. You know the saying… “if you’re not growing you’re shrinking”. Even if you feel like things are ‘maintaining’ well, your business is getting smaller. Whether you see it now or whether you start to notice this in a few months, or years. Growth is crucial. Customer acquisition is also vital to demonstrate traction to future investors and partners you might want to work with.

What’s Your Customer’s Value?

When you start taking things up a notch you really need to be aware of two main figures. The cost of acquiring a new customer and their lifetime value. Without these figures, it’s very difficult to scale acquisition techniques. Step one is to work this out.

A Good Customer Experience

From the moment a customer is introduced to your business until the very moment they make their last ever purchase or exchange, they are on a journey. That journey can either be a terrible experience, or one worth coming back for and recommending to friends. The ‘experience’ starts before a customer has even become a customer. This is absolutely key! Give them a taste of the experience they can expect from you. If you’re giving away a freebie of any kind, treat them like paying customers. If you’re telling a story to encourage engagement, make your branding and values the centre of it.

It’s All About the Interactions

A lot of business strategies don’t involve direct customer strategies until later down the funnel. This makes sense from a cost point of view, but could it actually mean you’re losing out in the customer acquisition game? This really follows on from the point above about customer experience. If you give those customers a direct interaction, (over the phone for example) you’re putting them at the centre and giving them immediate attention. Commonly, after a sale has been made companies try to optimize for fewer interactions. Again, this can be a mistake because follow-up issues often get neglected.

Awareness, Consideration, Decision

Buyers move through a funnel that starts with awareness. This is the point at which they’re introduced to your brand. This doesn’t have to be a time or place in which they are immediately ready to purchase. You can build awareness by using your social media platform, running local ads or of course with direct mail. You don’t need to make awareness campaigns time sensitive. You’re trying to build that connection for the future.

Consideration is the next part in this funnel when someone looking to purchase what you sell starts to consider their options. Due to the awareness you created in the first stage of the funnel, your business is a part of this consideration and might be compared against other competitors. When someone is considering your business they will typically visit your website, or call your business to ask questions. It’s at this stage you should gather their information, so you can re-market to them and help further.

Finally, a decision will be made and a sale will close. This decision might come off the back of a final advert in your funnel, a follow-up call or completely out of the blue.

As long as you’re taking active steps to support people at every stage of the A.C.D funnel you will acquire more customers.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.

The holiday season is one of the best times to connect and build rapport with your customers. Many are in festive spirits, ready to purchase, interested in offers and exciting deals. Christmas really is the perfect opportunity to let your customers know that you care and appreciate their business. Let them know they are a part of your brand family. Everyone loves to receive mail during the Holidays and this gives you chance to build relationships with your customers and be part of the good feelings that come with this season.

What is the Best Type of Mail to Send During the Holidays?

Greetings Cards

Mailing out greetings cards to your customers/clients can become very costly indeed. We all know how expensive just a single card can be and then you have postage on top of that. Many businesses will have their company cards custom printed with their own logo and personal messaging inside. Personalization is a great idea to build real connections, but this method can really hike up the price! Don’t forget the added time and effort of addressing and posting out each individual card! If you have the resources and the budget then this can work well, but if you’re looking to save money consider other options.

eCards

eCards are certainly better received than a simple email or newsletter. If you’re on a very tight budget and really can’t stretch to sending out a physical greetings message, then an eCard is the next best solution. The same principles apply here; personalize the message, keep your branding and choose an exciting and memorable design that customers will be glad they opened. eCards are widely accessible, there are multiple different websites offering hundreds of customizable designs or there is the option to create your own design.

Postcards

Why not send your customer a Holiday postcard? You could even mail them a postcard in an envelope for that Holiday card feel. Choosing to send a custom postcard with Zairmail has a number of benefits during the busy Christmas period:

• Fully custom design, either submitted by your team of designers or utilizing our in-house designers. Alternatively, you can use one of the ready-to-go templates and customize this.
• You can personalize the postcard with your own messaging, logo and signatures if you wish.
• Each greeting postcard is printed on heavyweight card stock and UV coated for a high-end professional look.
• Each postcard can be enveloped, addressed with a handwriting font, stamped with a holiday indicia and mailed to your list. This saves you a great deal of time and hassle! After all, it’s the Holidays and potentially (depending on the nature of your business), one of the busiest times for your organization.
• Super cheap and fast. Zairmail pricing starts at less than $0.50 per card!
• Same day mailing is available if you’re cutting it fine.
• The option to insert gift cards or coupons by special arrangement. Please call us on 1.888.898.0066 or 503.624.6099 for further details.

Holiday cards are not just for Christmas! This concept works anytime throughout the year. St. Patricks Day, Easter or Valentines Day for example. Stay connected with your customers all year long.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.

When you run a marketing campaign of any kind, be that online or offline, you’re looking to generate a response. That response could be in many forms, depending on the nature of your business and the lead itself.

Sending people to your website is one very common approach. Even if your aim is to get responses over the phone, you’ve probably included a website address on your marketing material. Most online campaigns direct traffic to a website from various sources; social media, search engine adverts, email campaigns or other forms of advertising. Direct mail campaigns also give people the opportunity to visit a website landing page.

After a marketing campaign has done its job; generating interest and enabling people to take action. It’s time for your website to deliver as well. There is a reason that some websites perform much better than others and it’s all to do with conversion optimization. Conversion optimization is the ability to optimize your website in the best way to achieve optimal action (conversions). To put that more simply, a conversion could be a sale. It’s about turning a visitor into a sale by taking various steps to make that process more efficient and simpler to the customer. Everything impacts conversion optimization; the color scheme of your website, the layout, images, and wording.

Correct Call-to-Actions

CTA’s (call-to-action) are crucial because they guide the customer from their initial arrival to the completion of a lead or sale. You need to tell your customer what to do at every stage of the process. Bold ‘Click Here’ or ‘ Buy Here’ buttons where necessary. Strategically placed call-to-actions create a purpose for the visitor. Perhaps they need to learn more about your service or process before a considered purchase. This is especially true for larger purchases. CTA’s need to reflect this and guide the visitor through those stages before taking them to a purchase page. CTA’s do not need to be buttons, in fact, linking anchor text can convert better than buttons in some cases. The trick with conversion optimisation is to test everything. Split test subtle changes on your website for accurate results and make changes incrementally.

Page Load Speed

The speed that your website loads at has always been crucial, whether you’ve realized it up until now or not! Site load speed is also a contributor to SEO, so slow loading sites are certainly not rewarded in the rankings by Google or other search engines. More importantly though, is the impact page load speed has on conversions. Even just an improvement in page speed by as little as 1 second can make a massive difference. According to fastcompany.com ‘Amazon’s calculated that a page load slowdown of just one second could cost $1.6 billion in sales each year’. Increases in page speed of just 1 second have an even larger impact on mobile websites.

Navigation Ease

The navigation of your website is arguably the most important element of conversion optimization, although ultimately it’s many factors working together. If it’s even slightly difficult to find information on your website or browse products then this is guaranteed to be impacting sales. Everything should be clear from the home page. Can visitors find the contact information in one click? Can they search for a specific product if they wish? Are your product categories clear and easy to access? On the other side of this, simplistic navigation wins out over too many options. So it’s about finding that balance between ease of navigation and simplicity.

In the end, it all comes down to testing. Some things are black and white; improving page load speed will make a difference. However, with other elements, you should never assume something is going to improve conversions, don’t make permanent changes based on an assumption. Test your theory and then compare the before and after results.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.