Conversion: from linear path to tangled ball of yarn

Conversion: a word that, in all its possible meanings and in the different fields where it appears, from chemistry to logic, from economics to religion, indicates an important change of state, reversible or not. In (web) marketing too, the heart of the meaning does not change.

What is a conversion

In (web) marketing, conversion indicates that specific and above all measurable action a person takes after being exposed to a message or stimulus: a change in attitude, to the point of generating an action.

Conversion therefore depends on the objective of your marketing strategy. Conversions can be, for example, signing up for a newsletter, downloading an app, or purchasing a product or subscription service. In general terms, we could say that what is called conversion marketing is more simply marketing: one of the levers needed to move a product from the shelf to the cart, if you will forgive the expression.

Types of conversions

If it is true that different actions can be defined as conversions, it is worth distinguishing two degrees of conversion, based on how important the action to be taken is.

If, for example, we need to convince a potential customer to subscribe to a paid thematic newsletter, we might ask for their personal data and give them a week or a month of subscription in return. Activating this free trial is a micro-conversion. The subsequent purchase of the subscription, by contrast, represents a macro-conversion, the final goal that follows the intermediate one.

Conversions and the funnel

Conversion should represent the end of the funnel, the culmination of the path that ideally takes a potential customer from awareness (awareness, interaction, and desire) to becoming an actual customer (action). Brutally simplified: we click on an ad, browse the site we land on, get to know the brand, and buy the product. This model, which might represent every marketer's dream, in reality fails to describe what happens in most cases. A more realistic description of how people decide whether and how to buy a product comes from Google itself: messy middle.

Google explains: "The way people make decisions is chaotic [...]. We know that what happens between the first trigger, the first stimulus that starts the funnel, and the actual purchase decision is not linear, and that it is a complicated network of touchpoints that changes from person to person. What we know less about is how buyers process all the information and options they encounter along the way."

The ideal funnel of the AIDA model, therefore, becomes a journey that can look confusing: we are exposed to many advertising stimuli, we are about to buy a product but then change our minds, we leave it in the cart indefinitely, we forget about it for a while. Then maybe we buy it, maybe on Amazon rather than on the brand's e-commerce site.

If the path we take when we search for information and then buy something is so winding, how can we try to control it and steer a prospect toward purchase?

Creating content that converts

Creating content that converts means learning to know your audience, conducting the right market research and analysis, putting yourself in their shoes, but with the right distance, balancing intuition and personal opinions, and building a strategy that engages them especially over the long term.

Take an example: the owner of an online bookstore specializing in film essays (a relatively niche area) might act like this:

• analyze their target's searches, presumably students, teachers, film professionals, or cinephiles, perhaps focusing on long-tail keywords;
• offer content that attracts and binds the audience to their brand and site, beyond a simple catalog: a blog or social ecosystem where new releases are covered, classics are reviewed, readers' opinions are featured, or author interviews are hosted;
• be aware of the messy middle and remember that branding is an ongoing process, underground, like water carving rock: it does not happen "before" the performance phase because it never ends.

Some of our projects

Oper

The work we did for Oper, the Order of Psychologists of Emilia-Romagna, consisted of bringing the figure of the psychologist closer to the general public, especially in a delicate period such as the outbreak of the pandemic.

Too often this professional figure is viewed unproductively, because of the stigma we associate with distress or psychological disorders.

Many of us, in fact, consider it a defeat to ask a psychologist for help, when in reality it is the opposite: we have reached the maturity and awareness to turn to a professional.

What we delivered can be summarized as follows:

• a social editorial plan that told, to debunk them, the most common myths about psychologists;
• a geolocalized AdWords campaign in Emilia-Romagna;
• a landing page that clearly and concisely explained the role of the psychologist and the concrete value of a consultation and treatment;
• an aggressive social ADV campaign that generated a large number of "qualified" clicks and subsequent interactions on the landing page: everyone could find a psychologist near them.

Bellini

The story of Bellini, the Ferrara furniture store, seems unbelievable when you tell it. Doing (web) marketing well, however, shows that it is possible to reach the goals you set. Goals that may seem unattainable but are in fact realistic. It takes commitment, expertise, and a high-quality product at the base, but they can be reached.

In brief: the store, which sold (and still sells) high-quality made in Italy furniture at non-prohibitive prices, did not have a large following. With an anonymous brand identity, neglected communication, and a peripheral location that was not easy to reach, the public struggled to notice Bellini.

After thorough rebranding work, a site rebuild, and a fun, effective social editorial plan, Mobili Bellini became the best-known furniture store in the area, even reaching Serie A as a sponsor of SPAL.

The store's journey, however, is not over: work has begun to expand the customer base from Bologna to all of Italy.