Resource Roundup for CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) in 2021

What is CRO?: Conversion Rate Optimization. We broke that down back in April of this year. It holds up, though we look back and see ourselves as innocent little babies thinking 2020 was off to a rocky start but would get better.

So we’re here, with that good ole exhaustion and darkness now in our hearts, to add onto that article with what CRO looks like for brand marketing strategy in 2021, given what 2020 turned out to be.

Click here for the April refresher before reading on if you need to.

CRO (conversion rate optimization) is one thing in terms of optimizing your marketing ROI and getting the most out of your marketing and branding efforts. In 2020, we learned it’s also the backbone of changes you may need to make in case, you know, something major happens (like a pandemic, civil unrest, or climate crisis changing the way people use their buying power). Not all in the same year though, haha, that would be crazy.

Here’s a breakdown of efforts to make if you want to ensure less people fall off your sales cycle.

1 – Your prioritization of staying mobile-optimized should not change. Everyone is still using their smartphone to discover, research, compare, and/or purchase and that will only go up with everyone stuck at home. Screentime reports in adults shot through the roof during quarantine and are likely to stay that way as long as work remains remote. For kids too.

2 – With that said, product descriptions, reviews, and search functions must be more detailed, more accessible, and in abundance, as people lose the ability to compare and contrast products in person. Brands that were never brick and mortar are not exempt from this either, as this effort will also benefit SEO, making you more discoverable when cold audiences search around your direct and indirect competitors.

3 – Social media and multimedia content must be authentic, engaging, interactive, and primed for the “anywhere conversion.” No more half-a$$ing Tweets just so you have a feed, or spending every dime on Facebook without cross-optimizing for Instagram, or putting off truly launching that influencer campaign.

Your social presence should not only be growing (and remember, authenticity is key), but also reinforcing brand strategy and able to convert no matter where a user comes from. That means whether they fell in love with a product description on a Google search results page (branding in copy), the colors and copy of a site landing page (branding in website design and copy), or an Instagram story (branding of voice and vibe), make sure they can follow through on that purchase decision easily.

3.5 – We’ve written extensively about authenticity already; this is untangleable from value-based advertising. People care about values (more here and here) and you’re most well-off advertising to people with those same values, so you should be transparent about them. People will see through anything less.

4 – People listen to what Alexa and Siri tell them. In fact, consumers are quite likely to look more into the answer their little robot friends told them. Are you optimized to come up in voice-search queries?

5 – AI, AR, and XR. That is, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and extended reality. You don’t have to be a tech startup to know how incorporating this technology can help you. It’s more than just Facebook Messenger chatbots and data prediction.

We’re pretty easily overwhelmed these days (good news for the mental health brands in 2020), so we’re going to stop telling you things you need to be doing for your brand to succeed. Especially in a year where so many well-off and promising businesses shut their doors.

But luckily, humans have an incredible resilience. Startup ideas aren’t stopping anytime soon and established brands should be ready to keep competing. That means you, whatever brand you might be and whatever stage you’re at, are facing both difficult challenges and wild opportunities. Don’t let them pass you by. And if you need help, hit us up. It’s like this is exactly what we do as a top integrated marketing firm in Austin, TX, and the world.