By Brian Massey

Conversion Scientist, Conversion Sciences, LLC

 

 

A good writer can create images better than a graphic designer.
Whenever we design a Web site, we inevitably ask our graphic designers to give us three comps. Then we, the completely unqualified non-graphic-designers decide which one we “like” best. We might even ask a number of our equally unqualified colleagues to tell us what they think.

Then we pay a copywriter a fraction of what the designers get, and ask them to write the copy for the site, knowing full-well that when we get it, we’ll revise it until every ounce of color, every animating metaphor, and every shred of a story is squeezed out onto the ground in a pool of red ink.

A good writer can create images and convey meaning better than a graphic artist because the writer has the richer toolset. Put down your red pen. Trust your copywriter.

 

Be bold and your visitors will see you that way.
If you’re designing a new site or refreshing an old one, it’s time to be a little daring.

Tell the designers to hold on until you’ve completed the copy. They’ll look at you like you have an arm growing out of your head.

THEN, start interviewing copywriters. Tell them that you’ll pay them to develop three different versions of your Copy Body, the document that contains the text from which you will take your copy when writing headings, text, offers, emails and any other Web-based communications.

The interviews will be short. You’re looking for a certain reaction.

When you present this proposal to the right writer, their eyes will flash. A smile may creep across their face of its own will. Be careful, though. If they say “You’ll pay me?” you’ve gotten a false positive. You want to choose the writer who feels that you’ve just opened the door to a cage of mediocrity.

If you let them out, they’ll take you with them.

Be very clear about what you’re trying to accomplish as a business and what your visitors are trying to accomplish. Give them a set of personas if you can.

 

Take no steps.
Once you have your three copy “comps,” do not allocate time to have the writing revised by a committee. Do not attempt to combine the best from each. Do not seek to insert superlatives that declare you the “leader,” to be “unique” or “innovative.” If you have to say it, it ain’t true.

If you have the right writer, one of your choices will be far out, one will be written in business speak, and one will be somewhere in between. Throw away the one written in business speak and consider the remaining two very carefully.

Select the copy body that best illustrates your value proposition, the one that captures the essence of your company without stating it. Look for metaphors that can be applied to a variety of your benefits. Seek a story that can stitch every page together into a coherent theme.

Then fix the inaccuracies, and leave everything else alone.

Does this sound scary? Wait till you see what’s next.

 

You can let the designers into the room now.
If you’ve selected an engaging copy body, it’ll be really clear to the designers what their designs should express. They can create real images from the ones your writer paints with words. They can guide your visitor through the story with navigation. They can throw away stock photos of pretty people and choose images informed by metaphor and analogy.

Give them the copy body, the corporate style guide and tell them to create a design. One design. Sure, you’ll make decisions along the way and maybe even significantly change the first comp, but try to let them do what they do well.

 

Steps you could add.
If you realize the immense advantage that powerfully written copy gives you, consider investing in some testing. Implement two of the three copy bodies on your home page and on key landing pages. Use analytics to see which makes visitors stick and which generates more leads or sales.

Which has the lower bounce rate?

Which home page generates more page views and more time on site?

Which has the higher conversion rate?

There is no better way to know if you’ve made the right decision than to test. And you may need some proof when your colleagues tell you that your copy isn’t “corporate” — and they mean that as a criticism, not a badge of honor.

Do you know a great copy writer? Do you have a success story or test results that demonstrate the power of effective writing? Let us know in your comments and I’ll feature you in a future post.

Photo courtesy andrewcs via stock.xchng.

 

About the Author

Brian Massey is the Conversion Scientist at Conversion Sciences and he has the lab coat to prove it. His rare combination of interests, experience and neuroses was developed over almost 20 years as a computer programmer, entrepreneur, corporate marketer, national speaker and writer. Conversion Sciences was founded to fill the Web with helpful, engaging and entertaining online Web sites that convert visitors into leads and sales. The company has helped dozens of businesses transform their sites through a steady diet of visitor profiling, purposeful content, analytics and testing. "There are places on the Web that make you feel like they were built just for you," he says. "Is yours one of these? It could be.

See Brian Live!

Brian will be talking more about copy and its role in persuasion and conversion at the Conversion Conference 2012 on March 5^th and 6^th in San Francisco, California. Join him in his session on “Creating Killer Conversion Copy: Emails, Landing Pages, PPC Ads and More.” See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference Registration? Follow Brian on Twitter to say hello and request for a discount code!

 

 

Web Professional Minute recently interviewed Steve Krug, Author of, “Don’t Make Me Think” & “Rocket Surgery Made Easy” and posted this video, titled, “Usability Doesn’t Have to be Complicated” – Interview with Steve Krug, on their site on September 30th, 2011.

Since Steve will be Keynoting Conversion Conference East this month, we thought it would be great to repost that interview as it provides some insight as to what he will be covering at the conference.

In this eight minute interview, Steve shares his views on the benefits of Usability and offers up several how to’s for Web professionals.

“Usability doesn’t have to be complicated and almost anyone can do it says” Steve Krug, Author and Web usability consultant at Advanced Common Sense.

“Anyone who’s ever watched a usability test knows that they work remarkably well. Sitting someone down and having them use what you’re building while you watch is the best way to ensure that it will actually be usable. And yet very few organizations do usability tests. And the ones that do don’t do them very often. Why? It’s simple: most people think usability tests are expensive, time consuming, and hard to do” says Krug.

You can also check out Steve’s Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug: Usability Demo here:

About the Author

For 15 years, usability expert Steve Krug labored in pleasant obscurity, helping clients like Apple, Bloomberg.com, Lexus.com, NPR, and the International Monetary Fund develop products and Web sites that people could actually use and enjoy. But since his book Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability appeared in 2000 and sold 300,000 copies, he’s had to settle for relative obscurity.

See Steve Live!

Steve will be providing the Closing Keynote at Conversion Conference East 2011, in a session titled “You’re NOT doing usability testing? Are you…nuts?”
in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference Registration? Follow Steve on Twitter and request a discount code!

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Rob Snell, Co-owner of Gun Dog Supply and Author of “Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies” for a quick Q&A session. Not only is Rob incredibly brilliant but turns out he is very funny, I can’t wait to see him speak Conversion Conference East in New York City – October 19th-20th.

More About Rob

Rob Snell, Co-owner, Gun Dog Supply, a hunting dog supply retailer, & Managing Partner of Snell Brothers Consulting, a firm specializing in search marketing for Yahoo! Stores. Rob has extensive Yahoo! Store experience with both family-owned stores and consulting clients. The Snell Brothers have designed, developed, marketed and/or maintained hundreds of Yahoo Stores that have generated tens of millions of dollars in online sales. Rob has been online since 1990 and opened his first online store in 1997 when his brother, Steve Snell stumbled across Viaweb (now Yahoo! Store). Rob now consults with Yahoo! Store retailers on improving their e-commerce sites and maximizing their search-marketing campaigns and is a guest speaker and lecturer on search marketing and e-commerce for small business.

See Rob Live!

Rob will be presenting a session on “Relentless Innovation: How to Create a Tenfold Increase in Your Online Store Sales” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference Registration? Check out Rob’s website or Follow him on Twitter and request a discount code!

Next in our Conversion Conference speaker Q&A sessions is Joe Weller, Senior Marketing Manager, RealNetworks. RealNetworks creates products and services that make it easier for people to access and enjoy digital media on the devices and platforms they choose to use.

Whether it’s music, movies, games, live streaming video, or apps that help them keep close to the people who matter most, Real thrives on giving people the fresh and entertaining experiences they deserve—whenever, wherever they want.

By Raquel Hirsch
President, Co-founder WiderFunnel Marketing Optimization

Ordinarily, I don’t advise paying much attention to Conversion Optimization tips because “best practices” and “tips” only have limited value — and should always be tested, in each and every particular situation.These little gems of highly priced advice from consultants are often based on intuition and esthetics but very minimal actual data. And in many cases, if there is actual test data, it is only applicable to the specific test situation for that specific site. Not (necessarily) yours.

Instead, it’s always better to test the opinions of experts or, better yet, to have a strategy for creating an ‘endless fountain’ of Conversion Optimization hypotheses.

But there is one exception to this rule of not having rules: Flash

If your homepage consists solely of Flash content, you are hurting your business results.

The rule is even stricter if your Flash content is so heavy that it requires a “loading” animation.

For example, how much time do you think I will spend in my busy day to stare at this:

Turns out, it’s less time than it takes to finish loading!

So, the next time your Web Design Agency recommends designing your home page with Flash, please ask them to show you an A/B test to prove that it will deliver results. If they’re smart, they’ll reconsider.

About the Author

Raquel Hirsch, a senior marketer, has an impressive online and traditional marketing background. In addition to Conversion Optimization, her domain expertise includes the development and strategic use of CRM, database marketing, e-commerce, web analytics, and direct mail. Before co-founding WiderFunnel Marketing Inc., Raquel held senior executive positions at a number of corporations in diverse industries where she developed and executed lead-generation, customer acquisition and customer retention strategies.

Armed with an MBA, Raquel is a sought after speaker. Her teaching experience includes various universities, plus numerous professional conferences and seminars across North America and Europe. Most recently, Raquel presented the keynote address at ‘Conversion Camp’, Europe’s first-ever conversion optimization conference (Frankfurt, September 2010). In her high-energy, interactive presentations, Raquel leverages multiple client case studies and shares insights gained after completing hundreds of successful conversion optimization experiments for clients such as eBay, Epson, SAP, Electronic Arts, Alfresco, BabyAge.com and so many others.

See Raquel Live!

Raquel will be speaking with Glenn Edelmann, from Wine Enthusiast and Joe Weller, from RealNetworks, in a session titled, “Optimizing the Purchase Process: Emails, Landing Pages, Product & Category Pages, and Order Paths” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference Registration? Check out Raquel’s website and follow her on Twitter and contact him to request a discount code!

By Joe Rawlinson
Senior e-Commerce Product Manager & Strategist, National Instruments

How to Use Defaults to Drive Results

We take recommendations all the time in our daily lives. You take the concierge’s recommendation when you go to the restaurant he mentions. You take your server’s recommendation at the restaurant when you order her suggested meal.

Likewise we take a website’s recommendation when we accept the default choice that has been presented to us.

A great example of this comes from Kiva.org. Kiva is a non-profit where you can provide a micro-loan to the working poor around the world. For example, you can loan money to Blanca in El Salvador so she can buy goods for her corner store. She sells those goods, repays the loan, and then you can loan the money to another entrepreneur.

Kiva really wants you to complete the loan to Blanca and other entrepreneurs like her. They don’t want distractions or roadblocks to get in the way of you completing that loan.

To help get you to complete the task at hand, Kiva uses the power of defaults.

Once you’ve decided to whom you will loan your money, Kiva shows you a defaulted amount that you can loan. In this case, it is $25.

This immediately answers the question: “how much should I loan to Blanca?”

The default sounds good so you move on to the next step.

Kiva also wants you to donate to their non-profit so they default an amount for that purpose as well.

All of these defaults are in place to propel you to finish and fund the loan.

By using defaults, the site eliminates the micro-decisions that you would otherwise have to think about.

Defaults not only push customers to complete a task, they can influence the direction you want them to take.

Caution: defaults are extremely powerful. People will take the default.

Carefully consider what you default when you present choices to customers. Are there any downstream consequences? Will you need to make more of the widget you default for purchase? Will there be more customer support issues for that particular product?

Map out the downstream consequences so that you can give customers a default that is good for both the company and the customer.

Try some defaults on your website, you’ll be amazed at the results.
Unfortunately, your defaults won’t work if your prospective customers never see them in the first place. To that end, you need to remove roadblocks on their way to conversion.

Remove Distractions to Increase Conversion

Removing distractions from your customer’s path is key to closing the sale.

Let’s look at an example from Dell.com. They segment their customers into several types. As the visitor to the website navigates down one of those paths, the website organizes the products and eliminates irrelevant options.

For example, the home customer isn’t distracted by the latest rack-mounted servers and the enterprise customer isn’t distracted by the home entertainment system.

To effectively get your customers to the point of sale, you need to clear the road of any obstacles.

These obstacles are choices and items that are distractions to the customer.

If your customer has made selections based on their navigation through your site, you should not show them products that no longer match those needs.

As you eliminate options which are not relevant to the customer, they can more quickly find what they are looking for and proceed to the point of sale.

Too often we try and show the customer all of our products and services all the time. We hope that will keep them around because every possibility is readily at hand.

However, this is not the case. Too many choices will confuse customers.

As we start to learn what the customer is looking for, help them laser focus down to the right product match for their needs.

Think about how you can organize your product offering and eliminate distractions based on what you know about your customer. This knowledge can come from past purchase history or even the last click they made on your website.

About the Author

Joe Rawlinson is a Senior e-Commerce Product Manager and Strategist at National Instruments, a technology company that equips engineers and scientists with tools that accelerate productivity, innovation and discovery. He defines the strategy of several key e-commerce applications critical to both company and customer success and specializes in improving online sales, leads, and efficiency through the e-commerce channel.

See Joe Live!

Joe will be leading a session titled, “B2B Success: How to Generate More Leads & Close Sales Directly on Your Site” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference Registration? Follow Joe at his blog ReturnCustomer.com and on Twitter and contact him to request a discount code!

By Jennifer Veesenmeyer
Chief Operating Officer, Stratigent

Stratigent was recently engaged by a global company to analyze lead generation forms across more than two dozen company websites and microsites. Although many of our findings were specific to that client, several key learnings would be valuable to any marketer looking to optimize their lead generation forms. In particular, we found that analyzing Form Completion Rate was a good source of actionable insight.

Our Approach

Our analysis went down three paths: (1) Establishing benchmarks that could be applied across the company’s business units; (2) Identifying best practices for lead generation forms; and (3) Identifying high impact opportunities for improving a few of the key lead generation forms.

Establishing Benchmarks

Our client had established form-level benchmarks by comparing to the previous period, but wanted benchmarks that could be applied across lines of business. In the process of establishing the portfolio wide benchmarks, we made two important discoveries:

• Although Conversion Rate was valuable when analyzing an individual form, it wasn’t a good benchmark because the definition of Conversion Rate varied widely across business units. In order to facilitate apples-to-apples comparisons, we limited the scope to Form Completion Rate which proved to be a more insightful benchmarking metric.

• Even though all the forms we analyzed were specific to lead generation, our analysis showed what everyone suspected – that determining a one-size-fits-all, portfolio average benchmark wasn’t very useful.  Instead, we established a benchmark for each type of form. Listed in order of highest form completion rate, they were: (1) Request a Coupon or Sample; (2) Request Information; (3) Subscribe to our Newsletter; and (4) Join our Community.

Identifying Best Practices

Having data and making recommendations is not the same as making recommendations based on your analysis of the data. There are many sources of information about how to build good forms based on usability best practices, but our objective was to go beyond generic recommendations and compile best practices for creating lead generation forms that were supported by our client’s data.

We began by documenting all the lead generation forms sorted by type of form (see above). From there we listed form attributes that are commonly associated with form conversion rate, such as the number of form fields, the number of pages, page load time, and the extent of imagery incorporated into the form.

We were surprised to find that there was very little correlation with those attributes and form completion rate. The best predictor of form completion rate was the type of form. For example, although it is generally recommended to keep forms short to improve completion rates, shorter forms didn’t automatically result in higher completion rates. For our client, Request a Coupon or Sample forms consistently had the highest form completion rates even though the form lengths varied between 1 and 28 fields. Prior to this finding, our client assumed that shorter was better, so to increase form completion rate, they would test shorter versions of the forms. Now they have begun testing some longer versions of the forms as well.

Identifying High Impact Optimization Opportunities

In our deep dive analysis of some of the key forms, we looked at all the typical segmentations, such as Referring Channel, Campaign, New vs Returning Visitors, Search Objective and more. There were two areas where we gained actionable insight.

• When analyzing Form Completion Rate by Referring Channel, we compared Most Recent to Original. We found that an average of 20-30% of Conversions from Direct traffic were originally referred to the site by Paid Search. Since most web analytics tools default to attributing conversions to the Most Recent referrer, the client had been underestimating the impact of Paid Search.

• Testing a hypothesis that mobile visitors to the www site were having difficulty with a particular form, we compared the OS of visitors who viewed the first page of the form with the OS of visitors who viewed the confirmation page. We discovered that Android users were having difficulty with the form because they accounted for approximately 30% of the mobile visits to the first page of the form, but 0% viewed the confirmation page. Armed with this knowledge, the development team was able to identify and fix the issue.

The Bottom Line

Form Completion Rate isn’t the most important metric for optimizing conversions, but it is a good source of actionable insights. If you’re not analyzing Form Completion Rate periodically, you’re leaving money on the table.

About the Author

Jennifer is VP, of Analytics at Stratigent, where she specializes in assisting enterprise-level organizations overcome the communication challenges of web analytics, such as gaining executive buy-in, building consensus and facilitating cultural change. She is highly regarded as an industry thought leader and is frequently asked to conduct educational presentations on the topic of meaningful reports. Not to mention one of the top rated speakers in seven years of eMetrics Summits.

See Jennifer Live!

Jennifer will be speaking with Joe Megibow, from Expedia about Analytics in a session titled, “What Gets Measured Gets Done – Using Analytics to Drive Conversions” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference Registration? Follow Jennifer on Twitter and contact her to request a discount code!

We have been having a lot of fun with our Speaker Q&A sessions but thought we would change it up a bit.

This time the questions will be coming from you, the Conversion Conference East Attendees. So if you’ve got a burning question that can’t wait until October to get answered, send an email to conversionconference@sitetuners.com, send us a tweet @ConversionConf post on our wall at Conversion Conference Facebook page or just post a question in the comment section below. Don’t forget to leave your first name and last initial so we can give you credit for your question if we wind up using it. We will be reviewing the questions and will answer them over the next few weeks leading up to the conference.

See all the speakers here

Keynote Speakers

Steve Krug Author, Don’t Make Me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems	Tim Ash CEO, SiteTuners Chair, Conversion Conference Author, Landing Page Optimization	Amy Africa CEO, Eight by Eight Web Usability Expert

By Neil patel
Co-founder of Crazy Egg & KISSmetrics.

Have you ever wondered why all your split testing is only bringing you small, incremental improvements in your conversion rate? Most website owners blindly slog along, testing tiny but noticeable changes like headlines, button color and so forth. You’ll get some results in your conversion rate, but you’ll feel as if you’re hitting a glass ceiling – that there’s really nothing else to tweak to bring about much of a difference.

If that sounds like you, you’re experiencing what blogger Andrew Chen calls the local maximum. It’s the point at which your design is as effective as it’s ever going to be, and split testing different items doesn’t bring the kind of measurable results that they used to.

It’s an unfortunate side effect of split testing – where designers get too bogged down in analytics and making changes that look good on a graph but do little to lift the conversion rate.

What Types of Tests Can I Run?

When tasked with increasing the conversion rate, you’ll be faced with a choice: whether to run an A/B test or a multivariate test. It’s important to understand the differences between these tests as they can give you numbers that are all over the map – and to the untrained eye, all that data can seem overwhelming. Both are important in raising your conversion rate – but one is not better than the other.

A/B Testing

A/B testing involves testing one change against another, for example, two different headlines or two different button colors. The “winner” of this test becomes the new control or the default, and you then prepare to test that winner against another change. It’s kind of like a video game, where you’re trying to always one-up yourself and beat your high score.

Multivariate Testing

Multivariate testing involves testing many factors on the same page. At its simplest, multivariate testing is simply a bunch of A/B tests running concurrently. Instead of testing just one button color or one headline, you could theoretically test different headlines AND button colors AND product shots AND calls to action.

And, while you might be inclined to think that multivariate testing will save you a ton of time by lumping together all kinds of on-page factors and speeding up your results, you’ll likely find that multivariate testing doesn’t show a clear on-page “winner”, but gives you a broad idea of what improvements worked. You can then narrow down these tests into different A/B tests to get a clearer picture of what, exactly, made the customer take action.

Choose the Strongest-Converting Pages First

You don’t want to test on pages that aren’t getting much traffic or conversions since it will take longer to get results. Ideally, you’ll want to choose your strongest, highest-converting pages to test – right from the start. This is also not the time to make small, barely-noticeable changes. Otherwise you may get skewed results from your analytics program – with no clear winner.

Instead, make bold, direct changes that people will notice. While there’s no landing page design that’s absolutely set in stone, there are some great examples out there of the kinds of pages that get people’s attention and get them involved. Plus, thanks to lots of testing, we’ve been able to discover that nearly every high converting landing page has these points in common:

• A strong, convincing and believable headline that promotes the main offer. You can optionally include a sub-headline or bullet points that reinforce these benefits. As much as people complained, the now-infamous “Acai Berry” sites converted like wildfire because of their direct headline, tempting offer and apparent celebrity endorsements. Statements like these lent credibility to the offer and created a false sense of security and safety in the frame of a “risk free trial offer”.









• Remove the Navigation and Other Distractions – Remember, people are looking for any excuse they can NOT to take action. Including your site’s navigation or ads for other products simply gives your visitor the perfect chance to divert their attention away from YOUR offer and onto something else. Notice how the Acai site has no navigation whatsoever, and even guides the visitor’s eye using the bright green arrow. Everything on this site, from the colors to the sense of urgency, has been done with a plan and a purpose.




• Include a (Clickable!) Hero Shot of the product – It’s a well-known fact. People click graphics. If possible try to get a shot or even a video of your product in use. This is the one time you don’t want to use a stock photo. As an example, below is a site encouraging people to sign up for free samples. The hero shot of the products show common, everyday items that people are likely to use or have in their home right now. This kind of familiarity (and the fact that FREE is in capital letters) melts away a great deal of resistance and hesitation right from the start.









• Including Trust Seals– Guarantees and trustworthy seals from well-known companies help add a sense of security to the site.

In addition, you’ll also notice that these landing pages include very little copy. People don’t read entire web pages – they scan or skim over them and only pause on areas that grab their attention. According to a study by MarketingSherpa, people who come to landing pages will read only three main things:

1. The headline
2. Scan the bullet points (or benefits)
3. Read the bio or P.S. at the bottom

The more you can compact your landing page into one “screen length” (in other words, without forcing the user to scroll in order to take action), the more likely you are to increase conversions. Along these same lines is the amount of information you collect. In the case of the Acai Berry landing page, they need a user’s shipping address to send the product. But in the case of the free samples site, all that’s asked of the user to start with is to enter their zip code.

Car insurance company Geico also does this with their landing pages:

Asking for a Zip Code as a first (and apparently ONLY) step immediately breaks down any apprehension or barriers in the prospect’s minds. They’ll consider that their zip code doesn’t reveal anything personally identifying about them (except the general area they live in).

As they go through the process of finding out how much they can save on their car insurance (or seeing what kind of samples they can get), they’ll release even smaller “bites” of personal information until the last step, where they finally get the free information they’ve been wanting. As you can also see on the Geico page, having the submit button reaffirm the offer (“Get a Free Quote”) rather than simply “Submit” also helps boost your conversion rate.

Try a Radical Departure from “The Norm”

While the incremental improvements you can get from A/B testing are still valuable, there will come a time where you’ve reached that local maximum. When that happens, try a radically creative change. You may find that not only does a complete overhaul of your site design dramatically increase conversions, it may substantially shift the way you seek out your target audience, and the type of customers you attract. An interesting example of this radical departure comes from 37Signals’ Basecamp homepage redesign.

The previous page was cluttered, with no clear path on what action to take. Sure, there’s a large green button, but it’s almost lost against the text, logos, and even somewhat muted against the pale green background. Along with the photos and screenshots right on the main page, there’s every invitation for the user to go somewhere else and NOT take action.

 

With this in mind, 37Signals decided to try something different – something downright radical from their previous design. They started with a rough layout and ended up with something much more intuitive and user friendly:

 

There’s still room for improvement – for example, the icons should at least have an explanation near them (or over them if you’re trying to conserve screen space). They’ve also added another call-to-action link along with pricing details.

The surprising results? A 14% increase in sending more people to the sign up page. Actual sign ups weren’t available at the time the redesign info was published, but as you’ll see when visiting the page today, they’re continuing to tweak and refine it.

Don’t Get Too Hung Up on the Small Stuff

Testing small changes can give you a minuscule boost in your conversion rate, but there will be a point at which it pretty much evens out, and your customers don’t get excited anymore. Jolt them out of their comfort zone by testing a new layout, a message directed at a different segment of your audience or another brazen change and see what happens. Above all, realize that testing for higher conversion rates shouldn’t stifle your creativity, but rather should be another tool in your optimization toolbox; used to help you measure and take action accordingly.

About the Author

Neil Patel is the co-founder of two Internet companies: Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. Through his entrepreneurial career Neil has helped large corporations such as Amazon, AOL, GM, HP and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal.

See Neil Live!

Neil will be presenting a session with Eric J. Hansen, from SiteSpect, on “Getting Started with Landing Page Testing: From Baseline Data Through A/B & Multivariate Testing ” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save $700 on Conversion Conference? Contact Neil to request a discount code!

By Boris Grinkot
Associate Director of Product Development, Marketing Sherpa

Having worked both in the Landing Page Optimization (a.k.a., Conversion Optimization) and Social Media sides of marketing, I am amazed how quickly the latter stole our hearts and minds, while the former continues to be a mystery for most marketers.

When I set out to write the LPO Benchmark Survey for MarketingSherpa this January (publication date: May 4), I naturally—and erroneously—assumed that just like all the past research partners I worked with at MarketingExperiments, and our workshop attendees, and our webinar audiences, the marketers that hear about our survey would be at least accustomed to LPO as a category.

The survey is out now (Editor’s note: the survey closed on Mar 1), but what has surprised me is the response rate, compared to the response rate to the Social Media Marketing benchmark survey, which was fielded only a month earlier.

One simple metric

I will not go too deep into the data we are gathering on survey response and completion patterns, but one simple metric (and I know, nothing in analytics is ever “simple,” but let’s pretend) is the bounce rate. On the LPO survey, it’s a steady 20% higher than it was on the Social Media one among MarketingSherpa’s subscribers.

Drop-off at the first substantive question (once the respondent gets past the initial “demographic” questions) is also higher. All this indicates that at least as a category, LPO is still not as hip and cool as Social, even though—unlike Social—it has some spectacular successes to boast, backed with concrete ROI figures.

Triple-digit conversion rate improvements

Since the initial printing of the Landing Page Optimization (LPO) Handbook by Marketing Sherpa in 2002, LPO has steadily gained momentum as an opportunity for marketers to improve the performance not only of their Web pages, but also of related marketing activities that drive traffic: from search and email to social media.

Growing sophistication and decreased cost of measurement (Web analytics and CRM) tools, availability of primary research from LPO thought leaders, and emerging testing expertise, have increasingly allowed marketers to justify their investment into LPO.

Triple-digit conversion rate improvements are still not infrequent in LPO, even a decade after optimization practices have started being applied systematically. As in other areas of marketing, demonstrating ROI has been the overriding concern, which LPO-savvy marketers have consistently met, numbers in hand.

Beyond the hype

Yet social media leads in one key area – the hype. This in no means is intended to suggest that the hype is not warranted: the nature of social media marketing is that is builds its own momentum. Perhaps if there were LPO platforms that created the world’s youngest billionaire out of a college dropout, we would see fawning coverage of bottom-line metrics on the cover of Time magazine.

In lieu of that, how can you combine the potential of social media with the proven ability of LPO to generate measurable profits for your organization? Here’s what I have observed in my past research (and look forward to learning more in my current research):

• Social media as channel: If you ultimately want customers to do something on your website, look at social media as a traffic driver, not as an island in your marketing strategy
• Measurement matters: Track visitors from different social media platforms, and from each social media link separately, just as you would for email/PPC/and other traditional channels of traffic
• Go with what works: Apply LPO principles of relevance, continuity, friction, and value proposition to social media landing pages

Of course, we’re learning more every day…

About the Author

Boris is part social scientist, part techie, and part philosopher. With an academic background in social science research and a technology resume, he combined his passion for discovering human motives and the digital medium in conversion optimization. Boris’ work with Fortune 500 and international research partners included experimental design, business intelligence, competitive strategy, and lead generation. He has led optimization projects each generating tens of millions of dollars. Shifting his focus to writing in 2011, he has completed MarketingSherpa’s LPO Benchmark Report and continues to contribute to various blogs and webinars, as well as to teach LPO workshops across the country. Boris holds an MBA from the University of Florida and a! B.A. in Religious Studies with a cert. in International Relations from Cornell.

See Boris Live!

Boris will be presenting a session on “What Your Peers are Doing: Best-Practices, Strategy & Tactics in LPO” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save $700 on Conversion Conference? Contact Boris to request a discount code!