What is a conversion rate?  It’s the percentage of attendees or prospects involved in an event that choose to buy as a result of the event.  It should be the focus of every event; sadly, most are leaving thousands, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars behind as they engage in demand generation activities.   One of the best next steps is the assessment – however the assessment must be approached with conversion in mind.

I was talking with a recent attendee of my online Making Money with Security workshop, this morning.  As we walked through some of his assessments from past engagements (mostly paid), we were able to identify some of the elements that lead to conversion.  In one case, a well written assessment led to zero project work.  This was a fee-based assessment, and issues were uncovered, however, still no follow-on business.  In the second assessment, also a fee-based assessment, remediation work was sold.  But it didn’t stop there. This client’s business has continued for over ten years! What was the difference?  The first two pages.  The first assessment contained no relevant executive level information.  It was not asset focused.  The second had a large box on page 1, following the cover page, that read, “Urgent Issues Found!”  No wonder the managers of that firm continued on with the remediation phase.  Urgency is a major factor in increasing conversion rates.
© 2011, David Stelzl