Where does "conversion" come from?

Marcia,

It's been around a long time.

I can recall hearing different interviews & recordings from offline marketers like Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, Jay Abraham, Ted Nicholas, etc. from the 1980s where they discussed conversion rates.

I used to track my marketing's conversion rates in the 1990's with my previous brick and mortar business.

Salespeople have probably been doing it even longer... they just call it their closing rate.

Hope that helps,

Mike

I think it was a long time before eight years ago.

My current reading list is all pre-1960 and coincidentally I remember reading something about "conversion" along with a reference to it's religious overtones in one of the books on my list. Unfortunately, I can't remember which one.

I'll post it when I find it.

OK. I still haven't found the one I read the other day but here's one instance from Claude Hopkins My Life In Advertising, Harper & brothers, 1917, page 148 -

It's surprising that there's no entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. They have "conversion" entries for watchmaking, shipbuilding and all kinds of other things but none that are related to marketing.

It's most likely an adaptation of the religious meaning...

It's interesting that there are several words related to influence and persuasion that happen to be based on religious concepts or institutions. I wrote about one recently Propaganda - Word Play

Some background, but not on conversion, might be in order. We are increasingly casting fairly ordinary things with religious overtones these days.

Perhaps the word isn't the problem, it's pop culture putting you off your ease.

"Drinking the koolaid" and "cult brands" are more recent, so if conversion puts you off, don't look too close at other terms in vogue right now.

If more marketers thought of conversion as good for the buyer's soul, I'd wager products would be designed a lot better. The care and workmanship given a cathedral comes to mind.

What we get is a Christmas day trip to the emergency room courtesy of plastic blister packaging and unfathomable instructions.

What is more likely is a fairly agnostic, nonreligious, and frankly unintelligent ladling on of buzzwords as the norm. As in, "....oh and make it viral" or "We'd like two cult brands, heavy on the lifetime customer value," like they're ordering from the drive through at a fast food joint.

Come to think of it, that's the religion marketers proselytize these days. From McJobs to McKnockoffs of Apple.

On the web, last year it was the 99McJob site and this year the five millionth McFiverr site was sold to some poor sap. Frankly, I am impressed a fiverr is five bucks and not a nickle.

It's more like herd mentality than formal religion. More mindless impulse buy than the solid conviction of the converted.

I've always thought of it more along the lines of sports analogy.

"Converting on third downs." "Converting your free throws." Etc.

About success vs. failure. Simple statistical reality. It's probably best as a copywriter to think of it in your pseudo-religious terms. For the business at large, the sports thing is probably more apt.

Just another angle to consider. Not really an attempt at etymology.

Hi Marcia, in sales training, it's been around a very long time, longer than I have been in business...

1. A contact converts to a lead (someone who may SOMEDAY need your products or services.)

2. A lead converts to a suspect (someone you SUSPECT needs your product or services now.)

3. A suspect converts to a qualified prospect (someone you KNOW needs your products or services--the question is whether you'll make the sale.)

4. A qualified prospect converts to a customer or client.


Offline, it's the classic sales funnel. Online, the dynamic changes a bit, but the principle is the same.

- Rick Duris


PS: A lot of marketers deliberately tend to create ambiguity around this aspect of marketing. But--focusing on conversions is extremely relevant.

For instance, let's say we're talking about email marketing.

A marketer will say something like "My email got a 25% response." The implication being 25% of the people on the email list bought.

BS. WTF does that mean? In that context, "response" doesn't mean ANYTHING.

Here's what does:

1. Of 1000 people I sent emails to, 100 people opened my email. (i.e. 10% conversion/response.)

2. Of the 100 people that opened the email. 20 people clicked through to the squeeze page. (i.e. 20% conversion/response.)

3. Of the 20 people who clicked through, 2 people opted in on my squeeze page. (i.e. 10% conversion/response.)

4. Of the 2 people who opted in, 1 person bought. (50% conversion/response.)

So, when you send out a 1000 emails and 1 person buys, is that good? It's relative to the conversion point.

PPS: The only thing I hate about my example above is that we can't measure deliverability to the inbox. But it would be hugely relevant to say of 1000 people I sent my email to, 500 people received the email in their inbox.

Yeah I have to say it's closer to converting like in the relgious sense.

Ummm...it means money in my bank account...that's all that matters right?