Conversion Rate Optimization Fail

Most people believe it’s a bad thing to fail. These are the folks who say “Failure is not an option.” Those are the same people that make lousy leaders by the way, but that’s a separate discussion. If you’d like to continue that discussion leave a comment in this blog post or contact me offline. Any successful leader or conversion rate optimization marketer worth his or her salt or anyone really that has been very successful will tell you that failure is part of success. In fact the official definition of success according to dictionary.com states:

Success – the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.

The termination of attempts implies that not all attempts will be successful. Thus you keep trying, that is keep failing until you succeed. You’re bound to have a few successes along the way.

This brings us to our subject of conversion rate marketing. Not all of your tests will be winners. Some testing failures are to be expected in order to maximize your returns, and through failure you will find success. In fact if you’re not failing fast and often that just means you’re not taking big enough risks. A sure sign of this is if you’re just testing a button color or a headline. These are wimpy tests that won’t have MAJOR impact on the needle. In order to gain BIG you have to test BIG and to me that means testing several elements at the same time. Making BIG changes to see BIG GAINS.

Here are some ideas to test all at once that may fail, but through failing you will succeed.

Test your value proposition – the unique reason why anyone should buy from you above all other competitors and the option to not buy at all.
Test a bigger bolder Product Hero image
Re-write your Product Copy from the point of view of your buyer answering the question why should I buy from you right now?
Change your page layout
Make your Call to Action Button copy support the reason a prospect should buy
Add Trustmarks

Test all of these elements at once in a big sweeping change against your control page. If the test doesn’t feel uncomfortable you’re not testing far enough out to the edges. You can get caught up in testing little minute things and get stuck in the mire of mini gains or you can move the needle today because today is the only day that matters. Remember the only way to make big improvements is to make big changes.