Conversion rate optimization moves beyond opinion and tests what works and what doesn’t in real time to boost your sales.
Sadly, most marketers don’t ever test and don’t know how much untapped money they are leaving on the table.
But, natural health and supplement eCommerce businesses know that A/B testing is one of the most powerful levers they can use to grow revenue and average order value, but very few optimization practitioners actually test the two factors that people use to make a purchase decision for a health product. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bottle of supplements, a digital health ebook or a piece of equipment, when it comes to health people buy health differently than they buy other products.
When a customer buys a dress shirt the purchase decision centers around, style, size and price.
But for a health product there are two other factors that are vital to the sale. And they are trust and belief.
Using trust online to build to the sale requires combining accelerated trust + gradual trust.
Accelerated trust is built quickly and is only just enough trust to move a visitor to the next step and ultimately towards purchase, and can be broken down into this framework:
Accelerated Trust = ((Logic + Believability) x Credibility) – The Other Party’s Self Interest
Logic – Any message or element has to first pass through our logic filter and is expedited by the next element, believability.
Belief – Is this something that is believable based on the individuals desire and self- story?
Credibility – How dependable or honest is the source? Credibility amplifies this first level of trust.
The Other Party’s Self Interest – How much interest does the party that is trying to influence you have in the marketing message? This is the only element that is negatively weighted. If the interest is too heavy handed in the sales pitch this could shift all of the elements on the left side of the equation, logic, believability and credibility down and trust can be easily lost.
The other side of trust, is gradual trust.
Gradual trust can only be build after accelerated trust has begun. Gradual trust is long-term and built slowly over time after purchase, this it the trust that creates repeat customers. That framework looks like this:
Gradual Trust = (Reliability + Delight) x Consistency
Reliability – Is your product accurate, does it do what you said it would?
Delight – The level of happiness with your product or service. This can be extended to a level of surprise that is above and beyond what is expected but the initial level of happiness with your product matters much more. If the customer is not happy with the initial product it does not matter how much more you give them, even if it is a surprise, that initial trust has been started on a sour note.
Consistency – Has the experience and communication with buying from you, both during and after, been the same? This includes up-selling as well as shipment and receiving of the actual product. This sets the stage for the coming relationship. Is the messaging and expectation at each of these steps consistent with what your initial engagement has been?
The other thing that makes buying and selling anything in the health space different is belief. Specifically the prospects belief system about themselves, their self-story.
Decisions are made according to the assumptions we believe and our beliefs shape our actions. But we must decide before we can act and that decision comes out of belief.
The framework for using belief in conversion optimization for health products looks like this:
Belief = (Desire x Self Story) + Trust / Challenges
Desire – A song feeling or wish for something. This is almost always the end state of what the individual wishes to achieve, do, become, feel or have possession of.
Self Story – The narrative we tell ourselves about ourself and or our situation. This is a multiplier to desire. Ones self story can either amplify desire or diminish it.
Trust – This is built through the formula (Accelerated Trust + Gradual Trust)
Challenges – The obstacles that we face in the way of our desires. These can be real or perceived threats.
It’s the combination of trust and belief that makes buying and selling in the health niche different than any other niche or product in the world.
Are Trust And Belief REALLY Holding Back Your Health Product Sales?
At the core decision of every health product purchase is the thought or belief that this is going to help or change me for the better. If this product is going to make the customer feel better and psychologically they believes this, then you have a customer for life.
But, the exponential growth of available options for health products add friction in the mind of the prospect when it comes to buying, making it more confusing for consumers to choose and trust.
And for health supplements specifically, consumer trust is declining.
The “whole” food industry is starting to replace supplements with a growing confidence in foods (organic and non-GMO food rank highest with regard to trust according to a recent research report.)
Of course to get through the barrier of distrust that the media and news feeds us for anything relate to health, you have to gain enough trust to start the relationship, overcome assumptions and tap into the beliefs that shape actions that ultimately lead to a sale.
This is really just the price of entry to sell a health product. Trust and belief are simply a fundamental part of the purchase decision process.
A/B Testing Trust And Belief Comes Down To This
Because both trust and belief are such critical components of the buying decision when it comes to a health product, these are the two biggest levers that can make the most impact.
And to get the right mix of trust and belief and ensure that you’ve hit them both square in the sweet spot with your customer avatars, you have to A/B test your assumptions and learn from the insights.
There are just simply too many variables at play when it comes to the psychology of the sale to not continue to tweak and split-test different treatments to move the needle.
When It Comes Down To Actually A/B Testing Trust & Belief
Remember the purchase decision happens in the mind of the visitor not on the webpage. The webpage is just an expression of the marketing argument as to why you should buy. Yes, trust and belief have to be expressed on the page and ignorer to do that, research into your customer and the marketplace is vital.
Clearly tapping into the sophistication level of the marketplace and traffic source are important to putting context around your health solution and marketing message.
In addition to understanding the FUDs, fears, uncertainties, and doubts through open-ended buyer and non-buyer surveys in addition to one-on-one phone interviews are how you get to a place of understanding. A/B testing is how you validate if that understanding is correct.
You not only want to build your test hypothesis around trust and belief but you also want to structure different test for different degrees of traffic. (cold, warm, hot)
Our structure for framing a hypothesis is simply:
If _____ then _____ as measured by ______ .
Or you can use:
If _____ [visitors will do this] _____ then _____ [this] _____ will happen and this ____ is why.
In addition to a simple hypothesis checklist:
___ What impact will this recommendation have on the business? (if the answer is you can’t tell then it’s probably not a good idea to test)
___ How many things will change if we tested this idea? (if the answer is a lot then you have a lot of hypothesis to work through)
___ Is there enough traffic to test? (you can test low traffic pages but the approach is different)
___ How will we measure the results? (if the answer is I don’t know, do some more research)
___ Is there evidence to support this idea? (If not choose another thing to test)
It’s Not About Tactics Or Even About Technology
Executing meaningful conversion rate optimization for a health product is fundamentally different than any other product.
Because, people don’t buy every product the same way. Selling more supplement and natural health products online is not simply a matter of increasing clarity and reducing friction. Nor is it simply a matter of improving the user experience.
Without specifically building a hypothesis around trust and belief, and A/B testing, it’s very difficult to get massive gains.
Every conversion optimization firm out there attacks the optimization problem the same way. But, because people don’t buy health products the same way they buy other products, standard conversion rate optimization (CRO) practices won’t work to amplify a supplement and health product business.
You’ve got to deal with trust issues and belief issues and if you don’t, none of the CRO stuff is going to help.
It’s less about tactics or technology, and more about enabling supplement and health product businesses to connect with their audience and grow their online health businesses.
Split testing tactics are just the way to do this, but the reason why we do what we do is because we have to attack these fundamental issues underneath.
Trust and belief make selling health supplements online uniquely different than any other product and therefore how these products are sold is also different.
Every marketing optimization firm out there sees conversion optimization for every product the same way, we see it from a different perspective that accounts for both trust and belief.
There Are Three Funnels Every Health Supplement Business Needs To Build A Multi-Million Dollar Empire…
The problem is most dietary supplement companies only have one funnel. Through our work in the online health space, we’ve had the opportunity to observe hundreds of health businesses. What we’ve uncovered are the three critical funnels that each work together that make the difference between the average supplement company just selling on Amazon and a multi-million dollar health empire and compiled our findings in the book below. Click here to get the ebook delivered right to your email for FREE.
