Editor’s note: this is a guest post by Jeremy Reeves, who is a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant who has produced millions of dollars in excess profits for his clients. To learn more about Jeremy and how he can grow your business, head over to www.JeremyReeves.com or download his FREE special report “The 3×3 Formula For Doubling Your Profits In 60 Days Or Less” at www.3×3Formula.com
The world of Internet marketing and conversions is changing as we know it. Consumers are getting more savvy. Places like Google are putting a stranglehold on how you can market your products. Competitors are popping up in every nook and cranny.
In short, conversions are plummeting and it’s getting increasingly harder to grow your business online.
Because of this, it’s more important than ever to take a stroll through your business and remove any weaknesses in your marketing funnel.
This article will show you how to do just that.
The first marketing mistake you’re making is that you aren’t displaying your core value proposition to customers both immediately and throughout your entire sales process.
Your value proposition is what makes you stand out from your competitors and what gives your customers and prospects a reason they should buy from YOU instead of your competitors.
(It can also be called a USP)
When I look at most websites, I don’t see the #1 reason WHY I should be on that website. Instead, the big mistake people make is saying things like…
…“we’re the best at X”.
We’ve been in business for 10 years.
Our product is more reliable than our competitors.
Uhhh… yea – SO WHAT?
Those things don’t matter to your customers. They’re SURFACE level benefits. They don’t make you stand out. They don’t immediately give value to the person looking at your website.
If you get it right – your customer should be able to walk away from the computer… go on vacation to the Bahamas and remember your value proposition while sitting on the beach sipping rum n coke’s.
That may sound a little far-fetched… but it’s the truth.
Here’s an example.
My value proposition can be stated like this.
“I help businesses maximize their sales funnels and increase profits by 20% – 100% or more without increasing expenses.
On the other hand – a weaker version would be something like “I help small businesses increase profits”.
That’s what MOST people say.
But it’s not specific.
HOW do I help increase their profits? I do it by maximizing their sales funnel… and I also do so without increasing their expenses.
Let me give you one of my favorite USP’s of all time.
Fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less – or it’s free.
This is what Domino’s Pizza used to jumpstart the business into what it is today. Unfortunately they can’t use it anymore because of legal issues (too many people were getting in car accidents) but the value proposition was so strong that they’re still a very successful business today… even though I personally hate their pizza.
Now here’s what I love about value propositions.
You really DON’T have to rack your brain for months trying to create the “perfect” value proposition.
What you do instead is come up with 3-5 of them and TEST them. Usually in PPC ads.
This might seem insignificant but you need to trust me on this… every single website has assumptions of what works and what doesn’t. I’ve worked with dozens and dozens and dozens of different clients over the years and every single one of them had conversion-killing assumptions on their website that they didn’t even know about.
For example… the vast majority of people these days still don’t think that long-form salesletters work.
But here’s the truth.
They DO.
Awhile back I wrote a guest post on this blog called Anatomy Of A Long Salesletter.
Because of that blog post, SOME of the readers kept an open mind and got in touch with me to create long-form letters for their websites. And lo and behold… I gave them big increases in their conversions and profits. One client right now is already looking at a 200%+ increase in leads.
Those who didn’t? They’re still losing thousands of dollars each month because they’re assuming longform letters don’t work.
Another assumption people have is with videos. Some people think they work for EVERY audience. Some people hate them. Some people think only autoplay works, while others can’t stand autoplay.
One of my clients thought that a video wasn’t going to work for his audience and that we’d create both a video and a text salesletter. The plan was to show the video to cold visitors, and the text to his warm prospects that were on his list.
We did this because in previous tests, text won over video. So we assumed text was going to work again for this particular product.
The funny thing is… the VIDEO actually won. And it won by about 30%. So if we assumed that the text would win – this client would have lost about 30% of his revenue.
The point is this.
TEST EVERYTHING. (And use Visual Website Optimizer!)
Here are a few things you can test that most people have assumptions about.
That’s enough to get you started.
Remember… your prospect is the one who is putting money in your pocket. Not you. When you do ANYTHING on your site – you have to mentally be transporting yourself into the mind of your prospect and adding what THEY want you to have.
This means that your language has to be congruent with them… your pricing has to be congruent with them… your bonuses… and your product. The funny thing is, most people develop products that THEY want to have out in the marketplace.
But if you really want to not only boost your conversions but really gain traction in your marketplace, the products you create should come out of a want and NEED… not what you “think” they “might” want.
So the question you’re probably asking yourself is… how do I figure out what my audience wants?
Let me tell you a personal story which describes this personally.
When I first started my career… I was only a copywriter. These days I do a lot more than just copywriting because I realized everything in marketing is linked together, but back then I only wrote copy.
In probably my third month, I had a client who asked me if I knew how to create html. I said no. He was upset because now he had to find someone else who could take the copy I wrote in a word document and transfer it online.
The next client came to me… and the SAME thing happened.
At that point, the lightbulb went off in my head. So what did I do?
First – I learned html and basic CSS so that I could create salesletters for my clients and hand it back to them in “ready to test” shape.
Second – I started LISTENING to my clients more. These days I actually create new services based on what my clients NEED… not what I want to have out there.
For example I have a service where I create automated webinars for my clients and they have to do nothing but read the script I give them. Normally creating automated webinars takes weeks or even MONTHS of their time… but now I can save them probably close to a hundred hours of time because I do it all for them.
Now… that’s how I do it in my own business. But if you’re selling products and not services, here are a few more options you can use.
First is surveys.
This is a GREAT way to do it. There are dozens of survey companies you can choose so just pick which one you think is best for you.
When you’re setting up your survey you have to make sure to give them some kind of gift for filling out the survey. It doesn’t have to be much. Maybe a $10 gift certificate for your website… or a free report… whatever.
Another thing you can do is simply CALL your customers personally.
First of all it’s going to make a huge impression on them because nobody ever just calls clients or customers anymore and simply asks how they’re doing, how you can help, etc.
But more importantly… people LOVE to talk. They’re going to spill the beans – especially if they know you’re genuinely trying to help them.
And a third way to do this is to have a contest on your blog.
First what you do is put a contest on your blog (as well as send them emails)… and ask them what they need. Whoever gives the best response and comes up with a product you come out with… gets it free.
Now I just want to stop for a second and make sure you realize JUST how important and valuable this is. This is what separates “good” companies from companies who blow past their competition year after year and dominate the market place.
When you understand your customer better you can start getting to know their wants and desires on a DEEP level. And when that happens, you can start to fill in your marketing back-end – if you haven’t already. And if you already have then of course you can make it even bigger and more profitable.
But the real value from having a well thought out back-end is that you can then start optimizing sales funnels, instead of just pages.
Let’s first get a clear look at what I’m talking about when I say “sales funnel” instead of a single page.
There are various different sales funnels you can have, but one typical one we would see online is something like this.
Landing Page > Salesletter > Upsell > Downsell > Thank You Page
Now let’s add in some numbers to each of these pages. Again, I want to make it crystal clear that YOUR numbers are going to be very much different than the numbers I’m about to show.
I just want to show you how powerful this can be.
Let’s start with conversions numbers.
For this example, I’m going to leave out your landing page for simplicity… since for many people reading this, you may not have a step before your salespage.
So in terms of your “conversions”… we’ll assume your salesletter is converting at 2%. Your upsell is converting at 20%. And your downsell is converting at 20%.
Now let’s look at traffic.
We’ll say that you’re getting 5,000 visitors per month to your salesletter. That’s a little under 200 people per day, which is definitely possible.
Ok, next, let’s look at prices.
Let’s assume your front-end offer is priced at $97… your upsell is at $197… and your downsell is at $67.
Now that we have all the “base” numbers – let’s add that up to get your “before-testing” number. Then we’ll give just a 30% increase to each of these numbers and see what it turns out to be.
Salesletter – 5,000 visitors X 2% = 100 sales x $97 = $9,700
Upsell – 100 visitors X 20% = 20 sales x $197 = $3,940
Downsell – 20 visitors x 20% = 4 sales x $67 = $268
Ok… so now we have our base numbers. That means right now you’re making $13,908 per month.
Now let’s look at what happens when you increase EACH of those funnels by just 30%… which is absolutely possible and really not that hard at all.
Salesletter – 5,000 visitors X 2.66% = 133 sales x $97 = $12,901
Upsell – 100 visitors X 26.66% = 26.6 sales x $197 = $5,252
Downsell – 20 visitors x 26.66% = 5.3 sales x $67 = $355
That gives you a total of $18,508 in monthly gross profit… which is an increase of $4,600 per month.
That $4,600 increase per month could EASILY buy you a new employee who can get you more traffic… become your affiliate manager to dramatically increase your affiliate base… or any number of things.
And remember, this is for a SINGLE product. Plus it’s not including customer lifetime value. And I’m not including what happens when you increase the TRAFFIC you get to these pages when you start split-testing landing pages, emails, banners, PPC ads and everything that actually funnels traffic to the money pages. That’s when it REALLY gets exciting and the numbers start compounding.
Now… we’ve been talking a lot about numbers. Your number may be bigger or smaller than what I just went through, but either way it’s exciting.
Knowing your numbers is CRUCIAL to any online or offline business. The reason is because if you don’t know your key metrics, you have no idea how healthy your business is. You might think it’s doing well – just to find out something unexpected happens and all of a sudden the floor falls out beneath your business.
Now, I don’t know your business so I’m not really sure what numbers you need to know. However there are a few very common numbers which EVERY business – online or offline – needs to know.
So let me give you them and give you a brief description of each of them. Then I’ll tell you how to USE this information to grow your business.
My question is… do you even KNOW what your numbers are?
Value Per Visitor – This is pretty basic. You want to know how much each VISITOR is worth to your website. The cool part about this is it’s incredibly easy to figure out. Just divide the number of visitors you had over the past month/year/ or week… by the amount of money you made.
For example if your site had 20,000 visitors last month and you made $20,000… that’s an average of $1 per visitor.
Figuring out that metric is important, but even more valuable is when you break it down into segments such as traffic source, page, and possibly even further like gender, age, and other variables if you can figure that out for your business.
Lifetime Customer Value – This is one of THE most important metrics you can ever figure out. By understanding this metric, you can then determine how much money you can spend on advertising… employees… inventory… and everything else that makes a business tick.
But here’s the little caveat to this metric. Actually, there are 2.
First, you want to know how long it takes for the average person to complete his or her buying cycle. For example if you have a continuity program and are tracking the lifetime value of a person entering that program – you have to determine the average length that person stays in the continuity program… and if they buy other products while they’re in there.
So if your membership program is $50 per month and your average customer stays for 4 months… you have a customer lifetime value of $200 over a 4 month period. Then, of course, add in any extra back-end products they bought during that time.
And remember… you’re going for the AVERAGE of all your customers. So don’t calculate this for one customer… do it for about 100 or so. Or even more if you can. The more customers you average into this, the more accurate the number will be.
Now, the second caveat is that you want to determine a COMFORTABLE timeline in which to calculate this number. For example – some businesses have customers who stay with them for many years… or even decades.
However the reason you’re determining this number is to figure out how much you can spend to acquire a new customer, so you might not want to spend $500 to get a new customer if you won’t make that money back for 5 years.
Or maybe you will… it all depends on your business model and how short or long-term you are in your thinking.
Cost Per Conversion (or Cost Per New Customer Acquisition) – This one ties heavily into the 1st metric which was value per visitor. The reason is because if your value per visitor is $1 and your cost per conversion is $1.50 – you’ve just discovered that you’re losing money.
Here’s an example.
Let’s say you’re doing SEO, PPC and affiliate marketing. For examples sake, let’s say each is bringing in $10,000 per month. That means you’re making $30,000 per month GROSS profit.
And let’s say that OVERALL, you’re spending $20,000 per month which means you have a net profit of $10,000 at the end of each month.
Now – what if you broke that down?
When you break it down, you might realize that you’re spending $2,000 on SEO per month and making $5,000 per month gross. That’s $3,000 net profit.
And your affiliate system is bringing you in $15,000 per month gross – and you’re giving away 50% commissions so your net profit is $7,500. now you’re up to $10,500 NET profit.
But whoops – wait – didn’t I say you were only making $10,000 net profit between all 3 channels? Yep… I did.
Because what you didn’t realize is that you’re making $10,000 gross profit per month on PPC, however you’re SPENDING $10,500 – which means you’re actually losing $500 per month on your PPC campaign.
Now that you have that information – you know EXACTLY where to focus your efforts. In this case you’d probably want to optimize your PPC campaign to get it profitable. Or, ditch it and focus on what’s making you the most money… which is your affiliate program.
This, of course, is a very simplified example. You’ll have to run your own numbers to figure out where you stand.
I hope you’ll take this information and apply it in your business. If you’ve read this far, you obviously care about your business. And that’s great! I suggest going back through this article and creating a “to-do” list based on what you think will have the biggest impact on your bottom-line.
Get ‘er done!
The case study we are publishing today answers a dilemma that many software companies encounter at one time or another. Should they offer a “free trial” option? Will it decrease the paid signups? One previous case study answered which button increased clickthroughs by 47%: ‘Try demo’ or ‘Buy now’. This case study answers whether having both at the same time has any effect on sales and conversions.
GetResponse is one of the leading email marketing platforms in the world with more than 210,000 customers across 183 countries. They prominently place a “Buy Now” call to action button on their homepage. They also have a “Free Trial” plan but it was not available on the homepage and could only be found on certain pages. Here’s how their homepage looks like (notice the prominent “Buy Now” button”):
Original homepage
GetResponse wanted to test if adding a “Free Trial” button on the home page will influence the number of purchases of paid accounts and number of registrations of free accounts. There was a perception that providing a “Free Trial” button will decrease the number of signups so it was quite a critical test. They used Visual Website Optimizer to quickly setup an A/B test in which variation had an extra “Free Trial” button next to the “Buy Now” button. Here’s how the variation looked like (notice two prominent buttons):
Variation: 158% increase in trial signups
The results they found after running the test were astonishing. GetResponse noticed that by adding free trial buttons on homepage, the number of free accounts increased by 158.60%, while there was no negative influence on the number of paid accounts created via homepage. That is a very strong proof in favor of providing a “Free Trial” button on the homepage itself.
On asking what lessons can be derived from this test, this is what Agnieszka Dabrowska, GetResponse Brand Manager had to say:
It’s worth testing different variations of Call to Action (CTA) on the homepage. We expected that by adding a free trial button on the homepage the number of paid accounts would decrease. We were positively surprised by the results. Not only did we manage to keep the sale at the same level, but we also noticed a huge increase in the number of free trial accounts, which will also result in a bigger number of upgrades in the future.
She further added, “Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) is a great tool that lets us test different variations of the homepage on a small sample of visitors. Thanks to VWO, we managed to find out the perfect combination of CTAs on GetResponse homepage and increase the overall conversion”.
GetResponse plan to constantly run different tests with Visual Website Optimizer. They will test effectiveness of different tag lines, order form versions, pricing variations, etc. We hope they always keep increasing their sales and conversions.
We have published quite a few case studies in past regarding the positive influence of call to action buttons. The testing could be in the form of adding a call to action button when original design didn’t have one, testing a different one or even in the form of different text for each call to action buttons.
Consolidated Label, one of our customers, A/B tested a new design with a prominent call to action button on their test page. Their original web design did not have any call to action buttons so they tried making an A/B test with one. They did expect an increase in conversions but they didn’t expect it to produce 62% increase in conversions over the original design. The testing helped them gauge the difference a single button can make. Consolidated Label manufactures custom printed labels for retail products in a variety of markets including Food, Beverage, Health & Beauty, and Health markets.
Here are the screenshots of both the Control (original design) and the variation (new design).
Control
Variation (with call to action button) 62% increase in conversions
On asking what lessons they learnt from testing, this is what Tracy Gamlin of Consolidated Label had to say:
Make your desired conversion goal obvious, but harmonious to the rest of the design. Also, giving people a few places on a page to get to the conversion accommodates different types of users. For example, the people who just want to get a quote get their button at the top of the page, whereas people who need more substantiation get the opportunity to quote further down the page after they’ve read more copy/seen more images.
Tracy further added, “We’ve found VWO to be immensely valuable for all of our testing needs. Ultimately, it confirms our feelings with actual data – and many times it even surprises us!”.
If you still haven’t started A/B testing, now is a good time to give Visual Website Optimizer a try with unlimited simultaneous tests.
We have published numerous case studies regarding user behavior while shopping online. Sometimes, it’s the color of the checkout button that makes the big difference and sometimes it’s A/B testing checkout process that helps our clients make more money. Today, we are publishing a case study that explores effect of having a live chat widget on signups.
One of our customers, Ez Texting, found that putting a live chat widget helped increase their signups by 31% over the original design (which did not have a live chat widget). Ez Texting provides web-based text messaging services to over 50,000 clients ranging from small organizations to Fortune 500 firms. Here’s how their original signup form looked like:
Control (original design)
Variation (with live chat widget): 31% increase in signups
Ez Texting put an Olark chat widget on the variation and created an A/B test using Visual Website Optimizer. And, as you know, they managed to increase signups by 31%. The chat widget was strategically placed so that if a user has any doubts before making successful signup, he could ask it on the live chat widget.
Josh Malin from Ez Texting is a deep believer in power of A/B tests and hence had following to say:
“I know that testing can contradict deeply held beliefs but it is helpful every now and then to go through a test that confirms this. It makes it that much easier in the future to test other long-held beliefs. And of course it’s always great to have solid data to explain the inclusion of some counterintuitive element on our front end sales site to everyone else at the company”
On asking Josh how much Visual Website Optimizer was valuable for their A/B testing, this is what he had to say:
“Absolutely essential. We have used all sorts of manual and automated A/B testing methods, but VWO is the most pleasant to use.”
Hope you liked this case study. To read other success stories, head over to our A/B testing case study library.
Happy Halloween! We have been working hard on improving Visual Website Optimizer by continuously adding features and enhancements. Before I tell which new features we have added lately (and in case you haven’t noticed yet), here’s a peek at the Google-style Halloween themed doodle we drew for our logo.
For us, ensuring security of customers’ data and website is of utmost importance. We know that some of our customers may be (rightly) fanatic about activity in their Visual Website Optimizer account (as it can potentially impact their websites). For the record, these are some of the existing features of our security architecture:
To this list of security features, we have added two new options:
1. Account activity alerts
If you enable this feature, your account administrators or you will start getting email alerts about any activity happening in your account (that can potentially affect your live website or account settings). So, if someone from your team is making changes to a currently running test or someone creates a new test and makes it live, you will get notifications about that. These alerts will help account administrator detect any unauthorized activity and take preventive measures towards it.
2. Only allow logins from specific IPs
Anyone with your username and password can potentially login to your account and make changes to your website. To prevent such unauthorized access, you can now specify if you would like to limit logins to your account only from specific IPs (or range of IPs). This will ensure that your account can only be accessed from those specific IPs. But do make sure that you don’t inadvertently block yourself out of your Visual Website Optimizer account.
This is a neat little feature that has been requested by many users. By default, Visual Website Optimizer splits traffic among variations in equal proportions. So, if you are doing A/B/C test, that split will be 33%, 33% and 33%. But in few cases, users may want unequal split and this new feature will allow them to specify any ratio they want traffic to be distributed into.
Earlier, we limited the number of tests you can run simultaneously according to plan you had subscribed to. For our basic plan, it was limited to 3 simultaneous tests and for the next higher plan, it was limited to 10 simultaneous tests. We have now decided to lift that restriction and allow all users to run as many tests they want (of course, the number of visitors they can test is still limited according to their plan). Even our 30 day free trial has unlimited simultaneous tests!
Hope you like these new announcements. We will be adding a lot of new features and enhancements, so if you have any specific request or need clarification, please feel free to email us at info@wingify.com
