You’ve got a problem: too few of your website visitors are turning into leads.
This can be super frustrating. You’ve got a great social media presence promoting your side hustle. Your website is regularly updated with content. You’ve used Google Analytics and can see your ads and organic content are bringing in traffic.
Why is your sales and marketing funnel letting you down then? One likely reason is that the last mile in your customers’ journey is failing you.
What is the ‘last mile’ in the customer journey, and what can you do to improve it?
What is the last mile in the customer journey?
The ‘last mile’ is a sales and marketing term borrowed from the telecommunications industry. Broadband and telephone providers talk about the last mile when referring to the final copper wiring that connects the consumer’s home to the broader telecommunications network. Even if they have the best infrastructure in place, telecom firms still need to make sure this last connection is working – otherwise the whole enterprise is a waste of time.
In sales and marketing, the last mile refers to the final stages of the sales and marketing funnel. Just like the telecoms infrastructure, you can have all the sales and marketing funnel in place – a great SEO strategy, business listings on Google Maps, a website packed full of content, active social media and all the brochures and sales content to send clients. But, without the last mile in place, all that infrastructure is a waste of time.
The last mile in eCommerce is typically the shopping basket and checkout. In service companies and the B2B sector, the last mile is very often little more than the ‘contact us’ form. So, when we talk about improving the ‘last mile’ in sales and marketing, we’re talking about improving the customer’s experience when they have reached that decision to buy.
Why does the last mile go wrong?
If you’re frustrated about customers dropping off at the last mile, you’re not alone! Research suggests that a huge 70% of eCommerce customers abandon their shopping baskets during the last mile. That’s a huge amount of potential business lost!
There’s plenty of reasons that customers drop off at the last mile. As data from Statista shows, many customers drop off simply because they were only browsing and never expected to buy – they were probably never going to convert. Nonetheless, 21% of customers drop off because the process takes too long, and 25% say they leave without paying when website navigation is too complicated.
These are things you can change – often relatively easily. Imagine you could reduce last mile drop off by just 5% – the impact would be huge.
4 steps to improve the last mile on your site
If you’re running a side hustle or an online business, you might not have the time to build an elaborate website which closes that last mile gap. So, what can you do instead?
The good news is that there’s tons of tools, tweaks and cheats which make it a lot easier to close that last mile. Let’s look at some tactics and tools you can incorporate into your website to close the customer journey.
- Include Calls to Action (CTA)
It seems like a simple change to make but including multiple CTAs around your website can have a huge impact on customer conversion. A CTA is a simple piece of website copy – usually a button – telling or asking the reader to do something. Use simple, direct CTAs with expressions like:
- Book a free consultation today
- Order now
- Contact me today
The benefit: people aren’t left confused – CTAs mean visitors know what to do next and are therefore more likely to do as the CTA says.
- Make your calendar visible
Do you provide any kind of service? Share your calendar live on your website. A simple live calendar showing when you are available means visitors know what times you’re free and can book your time.
The benefit: save yourself and your customers the tedium of sending emails back and forth. Instead, let them see when you’re free and book your time without the hassle.
- Cut the steps required to book you and your services
No one wants to ‘sign up’ for an account when ordering something online – the pain of remembering passwords, sharing data with another company, being put on one more email list. Once people have decided you’re the company for them, don’t turn them off with a complex process – make things as easy and seamless as possible with simple scheduling tools.
The benefit: Anything you can do to reduce the number of steps needed to book your services makes it more likely for customers to finish that last mile.
- Facilitate payment
As above, complex payment methods turn customers off in an instant. No one wants to jump through hoops to pay for a product or service – it should be as seamless as possible. Use common online payment services like Stripe and PayPal to make it easy as possible for people to pay.
The benefit: receive payment easily and securely, while making it super simple for customers to pay you.
Shorten the last mile with Book Like a Boss
If your website visitors don’t seem to be turning into leads, your last mile might be letting you down. The problem for so many small businesses, side hustlers and solopreneurs is that improving that last mile of the customer journey typically involves using a lot of complex tech and website optimization.
If you don’t have the time to tweak your website for hours on end adding plugins and APIs, tools like Book Like a Boss do the heavy lifting for you.
Using Book Like a Boss gives you a ready to use web page which includes a calendar where visitors can view your availability and book and pay for your services. You get access to an easy to use dashboard and can take your first bookings in minutes. To find out more, visit Book Like a Boss today.
