You haven’t thought of this strategically enough if you aren’t converting your leads.

We have to ask “why” no matter how effective our marketing strategies are.

Our assumptions about what people want are just that: assumptions. Until we activate our ads or publish content, no one truly knows how people will respond or engage.

Depending on where you are in your business and marketing cycles, you may have to start from the very beginning for a clear idea of why you aren’t converting the leads you deserve.

But Really, Does Anyone Want What You’re Selling?

The first question any new business should ask itself is why. Before waiting until your leads fail to interact or generate traffic, ask why you’re in a business in the first place. The web is full of human beings who are, ultimately, in search of answers. Not all answers are created equally.

Some leads are curious about what will entertain them for the moment. They are asking where.

Others want to know why the ache in their neck is only getting worst. These are asking for help.

The best products and sources of content are those that intentionally provide answers but to the questions real people are asking. Be it to themselves or directly into a search engine, the more people asking a question related to your product or service, the more people who want it.

If you’re unsure about who wants what you offer, then no marketing or conversion writing will trun things around. First, make sure that you have something people are seeking.

The first thing I do with a new client is assess what they offer. What they offer should pitch itself if I found it on a shelf. Only then, I work with that client to set the right conversion goals.

Why businesses have to solve real problems

The first recipe to a successful marketing campaign is a product or service that people not only want but are searching out. Reconsider your business and its value to its public. If that business doesn’t solve real issues, adjust your approach until you find answers to the human plight.

Are You Even Reaching Your Core Audience?

Since we’re taking this from a drawing-board approach, let’s go back to the basics of “who.”

Who are you targeting, who’s arriving instead and what do they do when there?

When your content doesn’t convert, ask these questions. Be honest with the disparity or how far you actually are from the leads who matter the most to your bottom line.

When military scientists find weapons built by their enemies, they often spend years trying to reverse engineer these innovations in an effort to understand how they work.

You have to do the same.

Take your product or service; reverse engineer its fundamentals, which are the problem it solves and the people it solves it for. You see, selling a car-washing deal to drivers with clean cars isn’t truly effective marketing. It seems to be on track, but it’s a bit behind the strategic trajectory.

In this example, you have to sell to drivers who’re heading out into the world in filthy cars that are covered in mud. You’ll convert more of the latter if you realize how the benefits you offer only apply to a specific group of people—even if they’re within a subset of likely leads.

In today’s competitive climate, you have to be extremely strategic to hit your conversions.

Ways you’ve thought it was for everyone

Your product and service might have a wide market appeal, but it only serves a specific persona, consisting of people who don’t even fit the same consumer profile each day. Not everything is for everybody, and you should never approach your leads as if everyone qualifies.

The more you invest into “everyone,” the more resources you waste into people who don’t convert. Your lack of conversions might be a result of not knowing the specific persona that makes up your market of potential buyers. Beware. You are entering a difficult artform here.

When you can’t seem to assess who the right people are, consider this audit of your marketing.

Are You Tracking Your Progress the Right Way?

Digital marketers can only make the right adjustments if they know the impact their content actually has. It’s not enough to know that you aren’t getting sales or traffic to a website. You have to follow each detail, starting from the entry into your sales funnel unto to its exit.

By tracking progress, you’ll know that leads are finding one area of your funnel over others.

You’ll notice that traffic comes from one source more than others. You’ll even see that as leads arrive, they ultimately leave—as if they climbed a mountain but thought twice about finally reaching the top of it. The latter is an example of two likely things done wrong:

One: The leads who arrived weren’t ideal to begin with. The never wanted to reach the top.

Two: The promise you made didn’t pan out, so they left disappointed with the view they got.

Regardless of how much consumer data you track, you have to make the most of your work by setting the right goals. Read here if you don’t know about setting targets or conversion goals.

When you don’t have the right goals in place

The goals that professional marketers set when publishing in digital media are for conversions.

You’ll, essentially, only achieve certain benchmarks if you actually have the goal of hitting those benchmarks, which are goals or conversions, and a common conversion goal are signups.

For example:

If everything goes right but no one signs up, then we know we only need to focus on the sign-up page. Ask questions about how the offer is presented or how your leads are likely to feel at the moment the offer is given. These detailed facets make you strategic and effective.

Ultimately, there’s only one way to set the right conversion goals.

Conversions That Tell You the Real Truth

Don’t waste time searching the web for more answers. Many get trapped in a never-ending pursuit of “why” when asking the reason for poor results in their conversions. What you need, ultimately, is a professional assessment of your content and the strategy you have behind it.

Something you are or aren’t doing is giving you the stunted results you didn’t expect. We can turn those results around and offer a better trajectory toward the conversions that matter.