Think back to when you visited a website for the first time. Were you immediately ready to make a purchase? It’s likely that you were not. In fact, 99% of first time website visitors are not ready to buy. Yet, we as marketers often only focus on the 1% who are ready to buy.

To nurture that 99% of people into a sale, you need to create conversions before the checkout (or pre-transactional conversion opportunities). Here are a couple of examples of conversions before the checkout:

1) Newsletter

Providing your visitors with the opportunity to sign up for your email newsletter means that they receive valuable and relevant content and in return, you receive their email address. With that newly acquired email address you can further nurture your visitors into a sale.

2) Buying Guides

A buying guide is a great opportunity for companies with larger or more complex products to help visitors make an informed purchase. Producing great content also makes you a thought leader in your area. Today 58% of ecommerce marketers use educational content, like guides, for pre-transactional conversions, far exceeding offers like coupons and aspirational content.

For even more ideas on opportunities for conversions before the checkout (and examples of ecommerce companies using them today) check out this SlideShare. You’ll come away with: 

• A roadmap on how to create and execute a pre-transactional opportunity
• Ways to personalize content and nurture visitors into a sale