What is Conversion Rate?

Conversion rate measures how effectively you turn interest into enrolment. It can be calculated at various stages of your customer journey: website visitor to enquiry, enquiry to trial session, trial session to first booking, and first booking to ongoing customer. Each stage has its own conversion rate, and understanding where you lose the most potential customers helps you focus your improvement efforts.

A typical conversion funnel for a children's activity business might look like: 1,000 website visitors per month lead to 50 enquiries (5% website conversion), of which 30 book a trial (60% enquiry-to-trial), of which 20 attend (67% show rate), of which 14 enrol (70% trial-to-enrol). Your overall conversion rate from website visit to enrolment in this example is 1.4%. Benchmarking your rates against these typical ranges helps you identify weak points in your funnel.

Strategies for improving conversion rates depend on where the drop-off occurs. Low website-to-enquiry rates suggest your website is not compelling enough or lacks clear calls to action. Low enquiry-to-trial conversion may indicate slow response times (responding within one hour dramatically outperforms responding the next day). Low trial-to-enrol rates may point to issues with the trial experience itself, follow-up processes, or pricing presentation.