When improving website conversion rates through testing and optimization, understanding the why is critical. The why is at the top level of insight that we as designers and marketers need to continuously strive to get to. True insight from any testing and optimization comes from an understanding of what specific variable in your test made the difference. What was it that caused the lift in conversion rate, or the dip? Was it the headline, the button, the product image? What was it that you can point to and bring to your boss and say – Here. This did that and the impact was this in real money to the bottom line.

Knowing the why in any conversion rate optimization test for both positive gains and decreases means we can then begin to get closer to predictability. We can make changes in the future to generate consistent results. This is the holy grail of conversion rate optimization, but it is not always what we should be striving for. Often times when it comes to testing and improving conversion rates, businesses do not have the luxury of time.

Sometimes a business needs results and they need them fast. In such a situation it may be less important to know exactly which particular test variable contributed to the impact of improvement and it may be more important to just simply increase results. This is not the dogma of the scientific method but from a business perspective it makes sense.

Sometimes the business need outweighs the needs of science. We’re not living in a lab with white coats and precise measurement tools. We’re building e-commerce sites and living in the trenches of online conversion rates. To get closer to understanding the why we need to conduct systematic tests, changing only one element at a time or conduct very strict multivariate tests, which require a considerable amount of traffic in order to be statistically valid and a disciplined thought process.

For such a situation, where traffic in terms of visits is not all that high to conduct anything other than an A/B test. The business pain is high and results are required fast. Or upper management buy-in to the idea of conversion rate optimization or testing is low and you need a quick win. It’s OK to enter the world of testing and improvement without solving for the why. In such a situation you’re strictly solving for improvement. Your conversion rate optimization philosophy needs to shift in order to focus on the biggest gains possible. The best chance of reaching those big double, and triple digit improvements is to approach your testing in a radically different way. Changing one element at a time will beyond a shadow of a doubt tell you if that particular element improved your goal or not but you’ll most likely experience minor gains at best, in the range of a few percentage points. Taking a different approach however can lift your conversion rates in the triple digit range and beyond. To get the 100+% improvements your test page needs to be drastically different from your control page. Think of your test variable in this case as your entire page rather than simply 2 versions of the headline. There is a time and place in your testing plan to get more granular and bring it back to understanding the why but in the situation described previously your best chance for wind improvements is going to be found in wildly different test pages.

If you’d like to further discuss conversion optimization testing philosophy please contact me, (bobby @ creativethirst dot com) I’d be more than happy to chat.

Why should someone buy from you? That is one of the top three vital questions every website needs to answer within the first five seconds of a visitors arrival on your site.

According to Ellen Langer Harvard social psychologist it is a well-known principle of human behavior that when people ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we give them a reason rather than just simply ask. In fact Langer conducted a study in which the conversion rate was a whopping 94% in favor of providing reasons. 94% of people in the study complied with the favor asked compared to 60% when no reason why was given for the same favor.

The persuasion principle of providing reasons why applies to improving your online conversion rates as well. From the perspective of a product that is being sold online. It is not enough to simply list the benefits and features of the product and hope your visitor clicks the buy button. You have to give reasons why your prospect should buy.

So how do you do this online?

The answer that just about every single marketing book out there gives in answer to that question is that you have to develop a strong USP.

USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition, which means you should promote a benefit of your product that identifies you as being different from all your competitors. USP is what makes your product different.

But just being different is not enough anymore in a world of so many products to persuade visitors to buy. Consumers have infinite choices and options to choose from online and even more websites that sell that same product.

We all want to be different, but the problem with simply developing a strong USP is that it’s not in-line with the buyer. A USP is focused on you, your product or your website. USPs are seller driven. As the name implies, they boast the selling of your product. They push the sales message and shove the reasons why your product is different down the wallets of your prospects. Providing reasons why is a common persuasion tactic, and as the study reveals it does have a positive impact on conversion rates which is why so many marketing gurus raise the USP flag and tout the importance of developing one. But there is something even stronger and more powerful than a USP. The VP sometimes referred to as the UVP or the Unique Value Proposition.

The reason why the UVP is more powerful than a USP is that a value proposition shifts the focus from the seller to the buyer. The value proposition is not about what makes the product unique, it’s not about pushing the message. It’s about pulling the buyer into the process. The process of buying vs. selling.

Your prospect has one main concern, them. Not you. Not your product. Them and only them not what makes your product unique. A Value proposition puts the focus on them. What value will your product provide to help them solve their problem?

Here’s an example
A USP might be – Contains Dual Acting Stain Remover, To Get Tough Stains Out.

That sounds great but it does not add value for the buyer. It speaks about the product alone with a feature that makes it unique, it contains dual acting stain remover. The USP tries to add a benefit statement that qualifies the feature with – To get tough stains out. But this USP still, like all USPs focuses too much on the selling side and not the buyers side.

You need to sell the value not the benefits or features. Lets take a look at how we can save this and make it a more powerful value proposition.

A UVP might be – Remove Tough Stains With Only 1 Wash

Do you see how that shifts the focus to the value the customer will get with the product rather than what makes it different than the other products?

To create value propositions you must start with a few questions.

1. What problem is your prospect trying to solve?
2. Does your value proposition speak directly to the problem?
3. What is the impact to your customer?
4. Does your value proposition show evidence and support in the form of quantitative information?

Photo Credit: by Sir Millard Mulch. Used under Creative Commons License.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spine/ / CC BY 2.0

In the previous post I touched on matching your prospects motivation for both your marketing channel, like an AdWords search advertisement, and the web page in which your prospect lands after clicking that ad. With this post we’re going to examine how to tap into the motivation of your prospects to increase and optimize your online conversion rates.

First let’s define motivation. From the perspective of conversion rate optimization, motivation is the glue between the click through rate of a marketing channel and the conversion rate of a landing page.

What specifically motivates your prospect is going to be unique to their needs and the problem your product or service solves for them. Always remember it’s all about them.

To get to the core of motivation you first need to start with the question. “What problem does your product solve?” Once you answer that fundamental question you can begin exploring what possible motivations your prospect might have. It is important to point out that there is a direct correlation here that begins and ends with your customers, not you or your product. This fundamental shift in thinking affects every element of your online marketing when designing for conversion.

Let’s Peal Back Another Layer of Motivation

Each individual marketing channel can give you an indication of your prospects motivation if you know how to look at them from the right perspective. For example, a visitor from a targeted keyword ad has a different motivation and is in a different mindset than a visitor from a banner ad. The banner ad visitor is arriving serendipitously and is less motivated than a visitor who has arrived at your site via a specific search term. The search visitor is focused and more likely his motivation is more specifically related to a particular task.

So How Can Your Website Focus on Motivation to Maximize Conversion?

One of the most powerful influences the web has on marketing is that it makes it very easy for marketers to target specific motivations and needs of prospects. I’m sure you’re already familiar with the secret to targeting these motivations but you probably don’t think of it as a motivation target. The secret I’m referring to is search engine advertising (SEA). By focusing on specific keywords or groups of two or three keywords through SEA marketers have a huge advantage. Based on the specific keywords or set of keywords marketers can infer what the motivation of the prospect may be.

For example if your prospects search was for the keyword “Laptops” This could infer they are in a browsing mode. They are not deep enough into the funnel to buy yet. Therefore your landing page for this generic search term needs to play more of an advisor role to convert this type of visitor. They may not know exactly what they are looking for and may need some help choosing. This type of visitor is going to think differently than a visitor who searches for “Sony Vaio Laptops”

The visitor who is in the “browser” mode (based on his inferred motivation and search term of “Laptops”) may be more persuaded based on price initially to winnow down his choice of laptops or perhaps by function, in how he plans to use it. Is this a laptop for casual use or for more serious business use?

The prospect who searches was “Sony Vaio Laptops” however, is more qualified and the more specific search term of two or more words suggests his motivation is different than the previous visitor. Not only would he expect to see a page of Sony laptops and no other models but the search term infers his motivation is different than that of a visitor who is in a “browser” mode. Your landing page must be designed to tap into different motivations in order to maximize conversions.

To tie your conversion rate optimization strategy to the motivation of the visitor, the visitor’s motivation must be matched to the specific landing page they enter. Simply put, the continuity between the search term and the landing page needs to be inline with each other in order to maximize conversions. This is why designing for conversion that starts with your prospects motivation is so important.

However, motivation as expressed on a web page is only one part of an overall method for conversion rate marketing. To fully understand the connection between the click through rate of a marketing channel and conversion rate we also have to look beyond motivation and understand how a prospect seeks information, which will be the topic of the next post. So stay tuned.

Is your marketing budget shrinking or limited? Traditionally a downturn in the economy means your marketing budget is going to be one of the first things to get cut. Maybe yours has already been slashed. In the wake of the global financial crisis this is a common occurrence among marketing executives. A MarketingProfs survey of over 600 marketing professionals and managers said weather the market continues to fluctuate or falls into a recession, 75% of marketers surveyed expect the impact of the crisis will extend through 2009 and into 2010.

The problem with choking budgets is that as a marketer, you’re still expected to produce results or even exceed expectations for the year. Virtually do more with less resources.

In these shaky economic times it’s not just your budget that’s on the line, it’s your job as well. The fight between CFO vs. CMO is a constant one in any economy, but particularly in today’s times it’s vitally important to your job and your companies lively hood to maximize every dollar left in your budget.

The best use of any online marketing budget is to optimize your conversion rate so each and every dollar works twice as hard. Incremental continuous improvement in your online conversion funnel is key to getting the most out of every dollar left. Marketers today cannot afford to chase dollars, they need to convert more clicks into customers to get more results with smaller budgets that show real return. A website conversion optimization strategy will outlive your marketing campaigns by converting traffic at a higher rate, month after month regardless of your budget.

Improving the effectiveness of your website through scientific testing will make your dwindling budget workable again. Whether your company intends to decrease spending or not, small improvements in your online sales funnel add up to large gains that will keep you in business.

Despite the misconception that the web is the greatest sales tool, websites don’t sell; they help people buy. This simple but fundamental shift in thinking puts your buyer at the center of design.

Putting the buyer at the center sounds easy but in actuality not all buyers are at the same point in the buying cycle and not all personality types buy in the same way. This is a complex system and that’s why a human sales person is better at selling than a website. But don’t worry most websites don’t make it easy to buy and this is where you can leave your competition in the dust.

It’s not simple enough to have a product detail page and a buy button with a good shopping cart. That’s just the minimum to get into the game. If you want to double your online sales and blow the doors off of your competitors your web design needs to go beyond the surface and dive deep into the psychology of your buyer and the buying cycle.

At any one point in time your website has four different types of buyers, browsers, evaluators, purchasers, and customers. Each type has a combination of different personality types in their subconscious that drives their decisions partly based on where they are in their buying cycle, not your selling cycle. This is why it is so important for the two cycles to match and support each other.
Or in other words, help people buy.

Different buyer types have different needs

• Browsers need help finding what they need.
• Evaluators know enough to be dangerous and need more detailed information to help them decide if your product or service is right for their needs.
• Purchasers have made the decision to buy but still need to feel safe while going through your buying process.
• Customers have already completed the purchase but you need to make them feel satisfied so they will purchase again.

The different buying types closely mirrors the steps of the buying decision process.

• Identify the problem
• Search for a solution
• Evaluate alterative solutions
• Decide to purchase
• Purchase
• Reevaluate the purchase

Reprinted from a recent MarketingSherpa post:
Less than 4 out of 10 (38%) B2B marketers say they tailor their content to specific stages of the buying cycle, according to MarketingSherpa’s 2008-2009 Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide.

That means that you can gain a big advantage over 62% of your competitors when you create high-value content that addresses the different needs and questions the buying committee asks at different stages of the buying cycle.

In summary, your site needs to design paths and provide supportive copy, images and taxonomy for each buyer type and each step of the buying process. Design is so much more than simply look and feel when you put your buyer in the center of the design process, after all shouldn’t a website be more about them than about you if it’s going to accomplish your business goals?

There is a lot going on in your prospects mind when he or she is surfing your site. A lot of what goes on in their head keeps you from getting a sale and most of it is the fault of your website.

Often times a website is designed with too narrow of a view of what design is. There are several people to blame for this, web designers, programmers, copywriters, marketers; the list can go on and on. Each making changes and decisions based on color or something personal. Everyone is usually focusing on a subjective aspect of the look of a site or page. The subjective look and feel is what most people call design, but very rarely is anyone thinking from the perspective of your potential customer.

Web sites need to be designed around the thought process of your prospect, not just around your brands color and logo. This is why using personas to design is so important. Design needs to start in the mind of your prospect and be built around their goals, fears and desires if you want your website to do the hard work of closing a sale.

Lets take a simple example of an e-commerce site’s shopping cart page. Your prospect has added an item or two to the cart, notice the visitor is still a prospect not a customer yet since they haven’t entered their credit card info, shipping address, etc and clicked the complete purchase button yet. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that design has stopped at this point, this is when design needs to do some serious work. If you don’t believe me just ask a few million abandoned shopping carts scattered around the web. - Forrester Research reports shopping cart abandonment rates at 25 percent. eMarketer’s research shows the abandonment rate at 32 percent. NetEffect and Greenfeld Online report shopping cart abandonment as high as 67 percent. Shop.org research goes as high as 75 percent.

There is a lot going on in the mind of your prospects at this point and the design of the process on your site is directly weighing on their mind even though they don’t fully realize it. Don’t worry your web designer and marketing team didn’t realize it either. Yet your web page has to carry the weight of this success or failure to your company’s revenue.

External factors and internal factors, both of which are the responsibility of your web design to correct, are at the forefront of your prospect mind adding anxiety to their purchase decision and keeping you from a sale. Your prospect is wondering about quality, reliability, price, and security.

One way to reduce the anxiety your prospect faces at this moment is to use trustmarks to reduce some anxiety in the mind of your prospect and support their decision to buy from you. Trustmarks can include credit card security seals (Is this  a safe place to give my credit card information?) Credibility images like a better business bearer seal, Trust-e, Hackersafe, (Is this a legitimate website? Will there be a problem before I even get my product or after?) testimonials, guarantees, etc. These types of trustmarks all help to lower the anxiety level of your prospect but it’s not enough to just have them on your web page. They need to be designed into the thought process that is going on in the mind of your prospect at the right time, when they are concerned about it and in the right place. It doesn’t help to have them stuffed in the footer of your site on every page or in an area where your prospect needs to scroll to see them at the exact point in their buying process when they need them. These trustmarks need to be in close proximity to the area in which the anxiety rises. They need to be designed not just into the site but into the buying process. A single trustmark image at the right time and place can dramatically increase your sales and decrease your shopping card abandonment rates along with other cognitive psychological factors that should be at the core of all design.