Visits vs. Sales - what is a good conversion rate

[SCArt]

I run an online art gallery and am trying (like everyone else, I guess) to increase my sales.

I have previously seen on this forum that a good target for conversion rates from web visits to sales is 2-3 sales per 100 visits.

Various business contacts I have spoken to think this is a really high conversion rate, particularly for an art gellery.

We get approx. 1 sale per 300 - 400 visits.

We have just revamped our website and our bounce rate is (I am told) quite low for our type of site (<30%).

I'd appreciate some honest and realistic feedback on what is a reasonable conversion rate and any tips on increasing it. Price decreases seem to have little effect and most of our sales are from the higher priced artworks.

Thanks for your time..............
SCArt
http://www.stylecube.co.uk
Unique, Contemporary Art from British Artists

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

You can get any sales conversion rate you want. 2-3 sales per 100 visitors would be easy if every single one of those visitors were people who wanted to buy the type of art you have on offer. Getting a marketing campaign so refined is a very difficult thing to do but it depends largely on where you get your visitors from and the sales message on your webpages.

You can definitely improve your sales conversion rate just by re-writing the webcopy alone as I don't think it's up to par. It doesn't grab attention, it doesn't sell the benefits to the readers and it really isn't showing the reader just how good your art is and just how good it would be if they bought some from you. The readability could also do with a huge improvement.

Once that's sorted you then have to look at your visitors and where they're coming from.

 

[Pemdebtcollection]

do you sell the art? or do people browse and then decide to buy?, if you are getting a 100 people through the door then you have a 100 potential sales. Maybe you cant use salespeople in a gallery I do not know a lot about your industry, but 97 out of 100 walking out without buying sugests you are missing out on a lot of business to me.
Mind me if you are owed money
cheers
Pem

 

[SCArt]

Scott,

We've worked on improving the wording on the home page - thought it was OK. Can you be more specific about:

it not being up to par,
not grabbing attention,
not selling the benefits,
not showing how good the art is
not showing how good it would be if a viewer bought some.

Without specific feedback it's hard to know how improvements can be made.

Also - to quote "The readability could also do with a huge improvement" - but how???

Thanks
SCArt
http://www.stylecube.co.uk
Unique, Contemporary Art from British Artists

 

[PromoAde]

Conversions from visits is quite hard to judge, and depends heavily on how targeted your traffic is. My website get a sale from approx 15 visits. However, we do use Adwords a lot so people are already looking to buy.
From looking at your website, I would let the art do the talking. Put more pieces on the front page and if people want to see what you're about they will try to find out on another page.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Scott,

We've worked on improving the wording on the home page - thought it was OK. Can you be more specific about:

it not being up to par,
not grabbing attention,
not selling the benefits,
not showing how good the art is
not showing how good it would be if a viewer bought some.

Without specific feedback it's hard to know how improvements can be made.

Also - to quote "The readability could also do with a huge improvement" - but how???

Thanks
SCArt
http://www.stylecube.co.uk
Unique, Contemporary Art from British Artists

It's ok but it doesn't emotionally influence the reader. You do this via benefit driven selling in your sales copy, so you focus on the art itself but you also focus on the benefits the reader will receive by buying your product. You must manifest an emotional urge for the product which is very powerful.

As for readability, you only have 6 seconds to grab the readers attention once they visit your site or they will go elsewhere. You must have an attention-grabbing headline which stands out and the text must be suitably spaced apart and easy to read so when the person visits the page, they don't instantly identify the large amount of text as a chore to read.

At the same time though, long copy always wins over short copy and if the reader is suitably interested then they will take the time to read the text. However if you haven't grabbed that initial interest they simply won't bother.

 

[Mark Pocock]

Trust our expertise to take the hard work and uncertainty out of buying art as every piece in our collection is not only beautiful but of the highest quality.

Why should I trust you?

First time I've seen your site. Your taste may be different to mine.

If you're getting that number of hits you should be building a list and
contacting them regularly.

If you're using the Free Draw to list build make
it more obvious. People ain't going to puzzle things out.

It's not just benefit driven copy you need.

Listen up.

Every product should offer your prospect 2 seperate
and distinct reasons for buying it.

1. Fulfillment of a physical want or need. This is the satisfaction
your product gives him.

2. A particular method of fulfilling that need that defines
him to the outside world as a particular kind of human being.
The role your product offers to your prospect.

Apart from this a good headline might be beneficial.

cheers

mark

 

[steve prescott]

Hey Scart

Some good advice here, and I think
your site is well-designed and attractive.
I'm a bit of an art fan, and used to work
with a lot of illustrators when I worked
in publishing.

As for the copy you use, I would generally
stick with short copy for most of the site.
I'm a big fan of long copy, but it tends
to work best when selling a single product
or service. Your website sells a range of
prints, and so it's probably better to have
short copy for each print.

But... you could have a long-ish piece of
copy on the index page (probably no more
than 2-pages), and I would also add
some video of you (or someone you hire)
telling the prospect about your company
and what you sell.

You know the visitors to your site better
than anyone on here, but at a guess I
would say most people have already
decided they want to buy art. They just
want to choose where to buy from.

So what makes your company different?
Or what could you say to show you're
professional and trustworthy? Highlighting
your guarantee is one way. Talking about
the quality of the prints is another.
Showing that the artwork is exclusive
to you (if that's true).

And Mark is absolutely right. You should
be making much more of building your list.
Immediately put them into an autoresponder
sequence which gives testimonials,
goes into more depth about your service
, maybe highlights work by particular artists
(by directing the prospect to a standalone
page with long-ish copy and video).

You could also have a sequence highlighting
how to choose artwork, how to choose
artwork for a gift, how to choose artwork
for a particular room, or how to obtain
a particular look and feel.

Man, that's enough ideas to keep you
busy for a year... and I just brainstormed
as I bashed this out in five minutes...

And once you have their email address
you can pitch them other offers such
as discounted packages, limited offers,
even branch out into other art-related
merchandise. Think creatively.

There's no end to what you can do if
you really want to grow your business.

All the best

Steve

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Steve I'm just wondering; do you lay out your copy with a short width like that because it's been shown in tests that it improves conversion rates in sales copy?

 

[steve prescott]

Steve I'm just wondering; do you lay out your copy with a short width like that because it's been shown in tests that it improves conversion rates in sales copy?

Hi Scott

Tests indicate that it does improve
conversion, but only because it's
quicker and easier to read. When
the lines are short the eye can
scoot down the page and take in
the information quickly. Above a
certain number of characters per
line the eye tends to wander, and
readability is affected. That's why
newspapers traditionally have narrow
columns.

You also have to look at space
between the lines (leading as it used
to be called) because this affects
readability too.

But you probably know a lot of
this anyhow, since you're a
designer/marketer yourself.

When it comes to text layout, I'm with
David Ogilvy. He hated arty-type
"art directors" who used funny fonts and
odd layouts, and said they should be
"boiled in oil".

Cheers

Steve

 

[Spock]

Could be true but it's a PITA on a forum when you have to scroll down more

 

[steve prescott]

Could be true but it's a PITA on a forum when you have to scroll down more

Definitely true... and you still
read faster and take in more info...

That's why the best autoresponder
writers do it that way. The ones that
make serious money for their clients.
The reader has to scroll down, but
he's more likely to buy, and that means
more money in the bank, PITA or no...

Though of course line length has to be kept within proper bounds or otherwise the text width would go the other way and become
far too narrow and you'd probably get real eye-strain from
having to read just a few words per line. There is
an optimum number of characters per line,
though I don't have access to my
library at the moment and
so can't quote the
figure. Essentially
you just use
common
sense.


Cheers

Steve

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Hi Scott

Tests indicate that it does improve
conversion, but only because it's
quicker and easier to read. When
the lines are short the eye can
scoot down the page and take in
the information quickly. Above a
certain number of characters per
line the eye tends to wander, and
readability is affected. That's why
newspapers traditionally have narrow
columns.

You also have to look at space
between the lines (leading as it used
to be called) because this affects
readability too.

But you probably know a lot of
this anyhow, since you're a
designer/marketer yourself.

When it comes to text layout, I'm with
David Ogilvy. He hated arty-type
"art directors" who used funny fonts and
odd layouts, and said they should be
"boiled in oil".

Cheers

Steve

Yep that's why I noticed it. I just never realised that people used the same concept in forum posts too, people always seem to read them so readability doesn't become much of an issue.

I just thought you might be typing like that so you get used to doing it everywhere

 

[steve prescott]

I just thought you might be typing like that so you get used to doing it everywhere

Or could be that I got used
to typing like that and now
I do it everywhere...

Cheers

Steve

 

[bgrehs]

To add my comments to the pot, I actually think your homepage copy is pretty good and has clearly been written to reflect the needs of a specific audience. As long as this is your exact target audience then you should be seeing a steady conversion rate. I did notice some other areas, more on the visual side, that I felt could benefit from a few not-too-major adjustments:
1. The banner area doesn't really evoke an art website. I appreciate you will be limited as to how much you can a change as you have a logo already, but maybe the banner could be improved with some use of colour (but obviously not so as to clash with the vibrancy of the prints on display).
2. Could the three boxes above the prints be made a bit sharper? I think it would help with the impression of quality.
3. Could you add more prints to the gallery? With just the one page, it seems to be a rather small collection, but I imagine you have lots more that you could show.
By the way I think your Kids section is a really good idea. Could you maybe add more designs?
I hope this helps.
Barbara

 

[SCArt]

Thanks to everyone for the advice so far - really useful and plenty to get started on. But please keep it coming..........

I'm finding that the art doesn't just sell itself so all the stuff about benefit-driven selling, emotional influence, fulfilling needs etc. could make a difference.

Also like the idea of video - could help build our trustworthy image if we are seen with artists/paintings.

Our Limited Editions are exclusive to us (we have exclusive, worldwide, perpetual license agreements with all the artists) but that maybe isn't coming across. The word exclusive is mis-used so often, it's perhaps
not surprising.

Anyway thanks again to all
SCArt
http://www.stylecube.co.uk
Unique, Contemporary Art from British Artists

 

[buy]

Do you really sell "arts"?

I don't think arts can be valued by money,like several hundred pounds

Or do you sell Limited Editions?thounsands or milllions of copies?

Any offence,please forgive me.

Steven

 

[myles-at-icomplete]

This guy has taken the benefits concept further, into AFTERS.

Great back story his mother was blind. (can create images in your mind that lead to action.)

Andy Bounds - afters, jelly efect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLNKqJCvcJM&feature=related

NLP - You need short text for some folks, long text (by extra shutter / slide out links) for other folks. Visual video for others.

You should video each artist speaking about their work / direction. (Trust level goes up.)


+
I would not stick MasterCard, Visa etc. on your homepage, it just looks like the money is all important to you. Not the art.

(leave that to the puchasing path.)


Myles. (my first job was in a gallery, and I traded art in spare time. I was good with numbers so became their spreadsheet accountant '84 in my teens.)

 

[whoisvisiting.com]

There's a couple of great articles online if you google 'Best conversion rates' (unfortunately I'm not able to paste these on this post!).

Typical conversion rates range from 2.35% to 11.45% ranges across industries such as Ecommerce, Legal, B2B and Financial.

They break down various demographics across sectors, geographies and their respective median conversion rates. There's also tools such as our own (whoisvisiting.com) which may further help you CRO for your websites.

I hope the article helps.

 

[Green Onion]

Just went to have a look at the site however it seems to be sending me to an seo company. Not sure if you're aware.

 

[garyk]

Just went to have a look at the site however it seems to be sending me to an seo company. Not sure if you're aware.

This thread is 5 years old thats why!