Shoring up buy-in and alignment around your organization’s conversion-rate optimization goals is critical. Without this level of cohesion and consistency, departments and divisions compete, marketers aim for often-conflicting goals, and stakeholders disagree on the notion of success — because, for them, success has entirely different definitions.
Internal Conflict Is Nothing New.
This isn’t exactly a new topic. This is something that goes back as far as digital content and commerce do. Healthy conflict has always surrounded the goals of digital and where it fits into an overall business structure. In the earliest e-commerce days, digital was considered an entirely different arm. The way companies were organized, the way people were compensated, and how the pieces fit together led to significant internal conflict and competition.
One major retailer I’d worked with for years saw its e-commerce and retail extensions as completely different pieces of the business — there was literally no relationship between the brick-and-mortar stores and the then-emerging e-commerce channel. In fact, stores’ regional managers were often very competitive with the e-commerce division because they felt digital was stealing their business.
As companies began embracing digital and the role it played in their overall businesses, the growing pains began. Digital extensions were onboarding more and more customers, and the entire experience grew increasingly confusing for customers:
What am I supposed to do on this channel versus that channel? Are they even the same?
There was no alignment or priority within the vast majority of organizations to make customers’ experiences good ones across all channels.
Employees Are Driven by Different Goals.
Jump ahead to 2016, and we’re tossing around words and phrases like “omnichannel” and “experience business.” Digital and in-store comprise one brand experience — and so does everything else. Things have changed massively. But, we had to go through those first and second waves of back-office/front-office back-and-forths to get ourselves to wave three — the experience business period.
But, competing goals — often very obvious ones — still exist within a single company. I still see many companies divided over the role that marketing plays nowadays. Marketing finally has a seat at the big kids’ table and has shifted from a cost center to a revenue-generating one, and everyone’s battling for prioritization. What should marketing spearhead and support? Where should time and talent be expended?
Despite the challenges this presents, it all makes sense. Think about a business — a bank, for example. I may be responsible for the airline miles-driven credit card that is developed and marketed by this bank. My goal is to drive more successful applications, and from there, increase charges on those cards. Although I care about the bank’s bigger business goals, I still have a number to meet week after week, month after month — and that’s what drives me. That’s what I’m razor-focused on now and in the future. And guess what? My counterpart who handles home mortgages is head-down on the exact same thing — except, in his case, it’s loan applications. Again, he understands the bank’s overall objective — to make money — and he likely understands my goals as the credit-card guy. But, his priority is to obtain the resources and budgets he needs to be more successful in the mortgage space.
Digital didn’t change this internal competition — but it did make it more pronounced. Today, there’s even more to arbitrate — from position on the site to marketing allocations to promotion efforts targeted at one specific area of commerce over another. How do you manage all of it when everyone’s competing for their profit and loss statements (P&Ls) and their unique key performance indicators (KPIs)? Sometimes, you can accomplish multiple goals in a single digital experience, but sometimes, you can’t — every site and digital experience is different.
The Path Forward Is Consumer-Led.
I’d argue that the best way to balance everyone’s needs and goals is to take them out of the equation, and simply (or not), let the customer decide. This puts a very heavy reliance on data and being data-driven in all of your approaches. But, companies that achieve this no longer have to argue about who gets what and when — they let consumers drive the experiences and determine what is or isn’t shown.
A couple years ago, I presented with Sai Koppaka, then DVP of customer analytics for Sears. He shared a great story that really resonates in these scenarios. He explained that, although it may be a company priority to sell certain products at certain times of the year, not everyone needs a snowblower right now. The might of a merchant should never overrun the customer experience, especially not when a customer is saying, “This is what I want!” Maybe they want sneakers or a new couch or a set of tools — but not that snowblower. It could already be spring in this anonymous customer’s hometown, and they may want patio furniture. Maybe they live in a big city and, most likely, have nothing to plow. Maybe they’re in a market that never gets snow — what would I do with a snow blower here in California, for instance? Does it make sense to let company goals lead — or to let the customer lead?
Depending on where you and your business are in the CRO conversation, this could be putting the cart before the horse a bit — but all of these important questions still must be addressed.
Don’t Let Your Goals Become Barriers.
One final consideration: Are individual KPIs and conversion goals standing in the way of your overarching objectives? So many micro-conversions happen in every successful customer experience — in most cases, consumers have to say yes in their actions and their next steps before they ultimately convert. But, sometimes, the actions we push consumers to take prevent them from taking the ultimate steps with our brand.
A good example? How often do you see, “Download our app” pop up as you’re moving through a mobile experience? It’s incredibly common — maybe even your brand employs this tactic. But, marketers should ask themselves whether this is the right thing to do. Are you getting in the way of a potential conversion by halting the process and taking that potential customer out of the path to purchase — even if it’s just for a minute or two? Or, are you pushing them to move forward in a way that’s extremely valuable to your brand in the long run? Maybe your app has an incredibly high conversion rate that trumps anything that could happen in the mobile web experience.
This massive conversation — aligning on CRO, marketing efforts, and the role of digital — certainly happened at Adobe. We had our own transformation period in an effort to understand organizational KPIs and the role digital plays in the overarching experience. Are we selling to consumers who are avid photo hobbyists, or are we leveraging digital marketing best practices to generate more robust leads for enterprise products?
The End Goal Is in Sight!
We aren’t perfect — no company is. No matter how sophisticated a business is, it’s not unusual to sit 10 executives and stakeholders down at the table and receive 10 different responses to an extremely fundamental question: “What is our website trying to achieve?” Granted, everyone in an organization typically aligns on the basic end goals — to generate revenue and maximize profitability — but the how of it all is what trips us up. How do we get there? Is it about increasing conversions? Average order values? Leads? Something else? Even if we can all dive in on revenue and profitability being the goal, understanding and agreeing on the KPIs needed to get there is often still a battle — and probably always will be, at least to some extent. However, we’ll be pushing off on the same foot, heading through a journey of well-aligned, well-articulated, and agreed-upon decisions, experiences, and KPIs. And that’s powerful — that’s how we can best feed the marketing machine and push our businesses toward CRO success.
The post Why Speaking the Same Conversion-Rate Optimization (CRO) Language Matters appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.
from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/personalization/speaking-conversion-rate-optimization-cro-language-matters/
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