MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

This time of year, many marketers are beginning to execute on their new marketing plans. However, sometimes you have to deviate from the plan and just need a sale or lead generation lift… RIGHT NOW!

When your boss or client challenges you to gain a quick conversion increase on your landing pages, what tools do you turn to in your marketing toolbox?

In Wednesday’s Web clinic – Rapidly Maximizing Conversion: How one company quickly achieved a 53.9% lift with a radical redesign – MECLABS Managing Director Flint McGlaughlin will share our top discoveries around how to quickly improve your conversion rate.

But before we share what we learned, we wanted to hear from you. Here are a few of our favorite “quick hit” tips from your peers …

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Headline optimization

I have found that headline and subhead optimization works well for the B2B SaaS clients I typically work with. Even after I think I have tested my way to the perfect headline, I run more tests and get more lift. I regularly get 10% lifts from this tactic. If I have more time to gather data, I will multivariate test headline, CTA button and benefit/bulleted text.

Finally, if you haven’t already, make sure there is just one key CTA button which is huge and obvious. I’m always surprised at how many sites don’t do this.

– Chris Neumann, General Manager, TextMarks

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5 Quick Tips

A few quick things come to mind:

1) Drop prices and provide free shipping: This one is pretty obvious, but nothing converts like low prices and free shipping.

2) Add security/trust logos and other “credibility” links (security policy, etc.) to checkout process: These types of additions have proven to immediately bump the conversion rate by providing a visual feel of safety and security, even if the users never do anything besides see the presence of the icons or links.

3) Simplify checkout process, including NOT requiring users to create an account in order to checkout: A simple checkout process reduces the likelihood users will drop-off.

4) Increase frequency of targeted email campaigns: There is so much email going around these days, from so many different sources, for so many different purposes. Research and testing has shown that sending a single email campaign up to 9 times can continue to provide incremental benefit in sales, with very little subsequent downside in customer satisfaction. The truth is, most people don’t see a very high percentage of their email.

5) Implement abandoned cart targeted emails: Enticing users to complete the checkout process can be very effective because you are targeting shoppers that you know are already interested in some of your products.

The above items are all proven to increase conversion – some are more quickly implemented than others.

– Todd Stalter, Senior Visualization Analyst, OneSpring

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Contests and chatting

For quick results I would implement the following:

1. An online contest where all the visitor needs to do is provide a name and email address, Facebook “like,” and/or Twitter follow, depending on what kind of lead capture you want. Online contests with enticing prizes can go viral and get you many followers quickly.

2. Implement a live chat feature on the site to make it easier to interact with visitors. However, I have found that live chat software with the standard popup window do not convert as well as the newer live chat programs such as Zopim and Olark that have a more social feel to them. Another option is to implement a video live chat program so customers can see the site representative on video, which helps even more with building trust in your company.

– Shai Atanelov, CEO & Founder, BigtimeWireless.com

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Related Resources:

Rapidly Maximizing Conversion: How one company quickly achieved a 53.9% lift with a radical redesign – Web clinic

Most-Tweeted Posts of 2011: Social media marketing, copywriting, email testing and more …

Landing Page Optimization: How to plan a radical redesign so you get a lift AND a learning

Marketing Campaign: Landing page optimization can help improve the return on your media spend

There are so many difficult decisions to make in marketing

- Which headline will perform the best?
- Which value proposition resonates most with my potential customers?
- Which call-to-action will be most effective?

This is why evidence-based marketing resonates so strongly with some marketers. As opposed to taking a random guess to answer one of these questions, why not make the decision based on prevailing evidence?

And yet, this raises another challenge. To make good evidence-based decisions, you need accurate evidence.

To help you make business decisions on a solid footing, in today’s Web clinic at 4 p.m. EDT (educational funding provided by HubSpot) – Bad Data: The 3 validity threats that make your tests look conclusive (when they are deeply flawed) – we’ll show you a few of the ways we ensure our marketing tests, and the data they produce, are valid.

But first, we asked your peers for their top marketing data quality tips. They covered a wide spectrum of marketing data approaches and use cases… Read more…

In college, I had a journalism professor who said, “Make your headline twice as powerful as the event.” This is sage advice if you’re covering the Kardashian beat for a weekly tabloid, but it doesn’t seem to directly apply to today’s marketers.

(Apologies to any members of the Kardashian marketing team who may have been offended by the previous comment. You’ve done a terrific job promoting whatever it is that made them famous.)

But maybe it is applicable, after all. Despite a marketer’s goal of thoroughly conveying value on a landing page through well-crafted body text and use of images, there often remains a need for a powerful “hook” to further motivate a potential customer.

(Just recently, MarketingExperiments held a Web clinic that covered this very subject.)

When it comes to landing pages, one would think that it would be much easier to get users to convert, as they have already expressed a certain amount of interest via search or email clickthrough. But these users still need to be quickly reminded of why their clicks landed them there in the first place.

In the following test, you’ll see that a continuation of the value proposition was deftly handled with the addition of a few short, powerful words, alongside a much-needed change in the way our partner asked for information. Read more…

While we endure a winter that harkens back to our parents’ most impassioned tales of school commutes (“It actually snowed for six minutes in Jacksonville.” – D. Burstein, 2011) you’d think that a website offering discounted Florida vacations wouldn’t struggle with conversion rates. When you factor in that the website in question is based in the not-quite-sun-soaked United Kingdom, you’d probably think a text-only, free blog page would be more than enough to sell sunny getaways.

Of course, I’m exaggerating (though, as a MECLABS employee, I’m also intrigued by these testing possibilities). Still, as the following experiment shows, even a highly targeted Web page, offering deals exclusive to local residents, can benefit from seemingly minor alterations. Read more…

Editor’s Note: Research Manager Adam Lapp is reviewing the battle between common Internet marketing practices to help you determine which optimization strategies are most effective and give you ideas for new tests. On Monday, we published Part 1 in this series. Here is Part 2…

Flash Banner vs. Headline

The Breakdown: That was interesting, wasn’t it? Flash Banner entered the ring pumped up and ready to go and then, all of a sudden, his corner guy came flying into the ring bringing the bout to an abrupt halt. A very disappointed showing for all of the fans. Colors and images got tangled with each other, the message slipped to the canvas, and the product offering went flying between the ropes. And just like that, the fight was over and the fans never got a chance to understand what was going on.

Even though it looked good in concept, if the visitors don’t have a chance to understand who you are, what your best move is, and why you’re a better fighter, then what’s the point? Flash Banner didn’t even get a chance to show his patented left hook. He didn’t get a chance to show the audience all of the hard work he put into training. On to the next fight before bets could even be taken.

But there was a clever marketing pitch, some rhyming, a slogan. Flash Banner should have had a better showing. What happened? His objective eluded him. There should have been a click, a purchase, something. But can such a big decision really be made in a flash?

The results say no.

Does the Flash Banner on Adobe.com really convince me to buy Creative Suite 5? Does it even compel me to click forward? Well it was above “The Fold,” and we all know how that fight turned out.

Standing there in the middle of the ring and clearly the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world is Headline. As the flow was interrupted by Flash Banner, the headline spoke clearly to the audience telling them in just three to five short seconds why he was their best choice. He told them he has won 14 fights in a row, that he has trained non-stop for six months, and that he could match any fighter in the world’s offer.

Immediately the crowd stood and cheered for Headline to be given the next fight. The visitors decided that what Headline said that evening was worth the effort to continue on and not exit the arena.

Headline is the first text a visitor will see, so it has much potential for a large impact. The post-modern consumer sees through the Don Kings of the world. They are inundated with email, TV commercials, and even in-your-face displays at the grocery store. They have limited time and are deeply skeptical of salespeople whom they can’t even speak to. Read more…

The Landing Page optimization advice in our next free brief is too good to save till Monday’s email, so I’m going to give you a couple of thousand dollars worth today. Jimmy Ellis’s, Aaron Rosenthal’s, and Flint McGlaughlin’s analysis of the Landing Pages that our subscribers sent in for evaluation at the Feb. 6 Clinic resulted in recommendations anyone can use to get an immediate bump in conversion rates and total revenue.

Here’s just a taste:

• Write a headline that quantifies key metrics. The goal of a headline is not to sell a product. The goal of the headline is get a visitor to read the first sentence of the next paragraph, getting them into the body copy.

• Don’t offer a multitude of products on one Landing Page. Drive visitors to a place where there is not so much unsupervised thinking. Don’t ask them to make choices between many options when they are still not sure they want you at all.

• Take all of the specific elements that help a customer figure out if this is the right product for them and move them closer to the image: price; free shipping; warranty; guarantees. If there is a product specific testimonial, put it right there.

• Customer ratings for products can have a huge impact on conversion. You absolutely need a product rating close to the image so visitors can see what other people are saying.

If readers of MarketingExperiments want to meet Flint, Jimmy, and Aaron (and me) in person, then the place to be is in Miami from Feb. 24-26. So pack your spring break togs and come on down to the MarketingSherpa Email Summit. The MarketingExperiments Optimization Team will be doing live Landing Page analysis for attendees, among other duties. I hope to see you there!