12 strategies for improving conversions

21
12 STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING CONVERSIONS Intro Page 2 How to Maximize Conversion Drivers Page 3 How to Minimize Conversion Barriers Page 12 Test Your Web or Mobile Site to Improve Conversions Page 14 Our Approach to Optimization Page 20 Learn More Page 21 IN THIS ISSUE:

Upload: institute-of-direct-and-digital-marketing-idm

Post on 22-Nov-2014

111 views

Category:

Marketing


3 download

DESCRIPTION

12 strategies for improving conversions by SiteSpect

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: 12 strategies for improving conversions

12 StrategieSfor improvingConverSionS

IntroPage 2

How to Maximize Conversion Drivers Page 3

How to Minimize Conversion BarriersPage 12

Test Your Web or Mobile Site to Improve Conversions Page 14

Our Approach to OptimizationPage 20

Learn MorePage 21

in thiS iSSue:

Page 2: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 2

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

If you are like most digital marketers today, you are doing everything you can to increase conversion rates and maximize the ROI of your website. This e-book explores 12 strategies for maximizing conversion drivers and minimizing conversion barriers — the elements that are either helping or hindering the effectiveness of your

website. Once you thoroughly understand these strategies, and the principles behind them, you can test and optimize the elements associated with them to improve your web and mobile conversions.

introduCtion

maximizing ConverSion driverS and minimizing ConverSion barrierS

To Maximize Conversion Drivers:

1. Define Value Proposition2. Create Relevancy3. Ensure Consistency4. Ensure Clarity5. Create Urgency6. Use Scarcity7. Leverage Reciprocation8. Promote Social Proof9. Establish Authority10. Maintain Likeability

To Minimize Conversion Barriers:

11. Reduce Friction12. Alleviate Anxiety

here are the 12 StrategieS:

This e-book explores 12 strategies for maximizing conversion drivers and minimizing conversion barriers.

Read on for a compendium of helpful advice and insight to get the most out of your website!

Page 3: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 3

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

Your company, products, and website should all have a clear value proposition; your success depends on defining exactly what it is. A value proposition is simply a promise of value and a reason for someone to take action.

It should describe and address the tangible and intangible benefits and costs of doing business with you, buying a particular product, or using your website. For example, when you purchase a particular product, you are giving up the choice to purchase an alternative product, which is an intangible opportunity cost.

In describing and addressing tangible and intangible benefits and costs, your value proposition should answer:

• What’s in it for me (the customer)?

• How does this company/product/service

- solve my stated (explicit) or understood (implicit) problem

- give me what I need - and/or fulfill

my wants?• Why should I do business

with you?• Why now?

Value propositions are communicated through copy, images, and user experiences that can be tested and optimized on your web and mobile sites.

how to maximize ConverSion driverS

1) define value propoSition

A value proposition is simply a promise of value and a reason for someone to take action.

Page 4: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 4

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

Providing a relevant experience where the information on the website matches the goal of the visitor is one of the most important things you can do to improve online conversions. In fact, it’s so important that it’s the #1 source of consumer dissatisfaction on the web, according to Webreep Annual Online Consumer Behavior Report, 2012-2013, which

analyzes website visitor data from 5000+ websites in 30 different industry categories.

Visitors arrive at your web site through a variety of online channels: pay-per-click (PPC) and organic search, e-mail campaigns, banner ads, and print ads, among others. Once there, they need to be able to do/buy/learn what they came for.

If their entry leaves them cold because they don't see anything relevant to what drove them there, they're most likely to leave, having wasted their time and your marketing dollars.

2) Create relevanCy

how to maximize ConverSion driverS

Job #1Provide a relevant experience where the information on the website matches the goal of the visitor.

- Webreep Annual Online Consumer Behavior Report, 2012-2013

Page 5: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 5

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

This is a very interesting strategy, which leverages the notions that:

• People act consistently with their values, attitudes, and beliefs, and

• People will change their behavior based on how they believe they are being perceived.

What that means is, the more you can make an online experience consistent with these values, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions (and therefore more personally relevant to them), the better luck you’ll have at influencing behavior.

While this is the cornerstone of personalization, which is often based on behavior or customer profile, what’s more interesting is testing and optimizing experiences based on perception.

For example, visitors who are treated like high-value customers, and who then believe they are high-value customers, tend to act like high-value customers. Don’t believe it? Test it!

3) enSure ConSiStenCy

The more you can make an online experience consistent with your visitors' attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions, the better luck you’ll have at influencing behavior.

how to maximize ConverSion driverS

Page 6: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 6

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions how to maximize ConverSion driverS

4) enSure Clarity

This one is easy: site visitors simply won’t buy or do something they don’t understand. Something confusing might get talked about (dissonance creates remarkability), but it won’t lead to the action you were hoping for. If you want your visitors to take action, you must ensure that:

• Your value proposition is stunningly obvious.

• The user experience is absolutely relevant and consistent.

• Your copy and images are crystal clear.

• The information architecture/navigation is super easy to follow.

• The design, images, and color palette support the experience you’re trying to convey.

• Your calls-to-action are where people expect them.

Site visitors simply won’t buy or do something they don’t understand.

Page 7: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 7

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

5) Create urgenCy and 6) uSe SCarCity

These strategies answer the “Why Now” part of your value proposition. Act now or miss out! The avoidance of loss is a primal driver and you can use it to your advantage. There are two types of urgency:

1. Internal, such as an emotional appeal or an incentive that makes people want to act now.

2. External, such as limited time, limited edition, or limited access.

Scarcity is all about limited supply, which enhances its perceived value — because we all want what we can’t have and the less there is, the more we want it! Online retailers often use this in communicating their inventory supply; if you know there’s one left of the item you want, and there are no guarantees it’ll be back in stock, you are more likely to buy it right now rather than wait, right?

Scarcity is all about limited supply, which enhances its perceived value.

Figure 1: An image from IKEA.com illustrating urgency and scarcity.

how to maximize ConverSion driverS

Last ChanCe!We're always making room for new products.

Get it while you can!

Page 8: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 8

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

As a society, we feel compelled to repay real or perceived debts. If you give me something, I feel as though I owe you something in return. If I give you something, you feel like you owe me something in return. This is known as reciprocity or reciprocation and can be a powerful driver in improving conversions.

So the question becomes, what can you give someone so they feel obligated to return the favor? The answer can come in many forms; in the world of business-to-business marketing, we routinely offer valuable content in return for contact information. You might consider freemiums, free trials, or free advice as a starting point

7) leverage reCiproCity

how to maximize ConverSion driverS

reCiproCationcan be a powerful driver in improving conversions.

Page 9: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 9

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

8) promote SoCial proof

Have you ever hesitated about a purchase and then felt better after reading the glowing reviews? That’s a good example of the power of social proof: we look to the behavior of others to lead the way. In other words, it must be good if other people are buying it or recommending it.

Social proof on your website can come in the form of the presence and number of positive reviews, testimonials, endorsements, and the number of shares or likes you’ve accumulated.

how to maximize ConverSion driverS

Figure 2: Amazon.com’s simple-yet-effective review system.

Page 10: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 10

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

9) eStabliSh authority

Even with a demonstration of social proof, we look to experts to show us the way. That means you! Your brand must act as the established authority for what you are selling. The good news here is that in establishing authority, you can also use many of the other conversion drivers already mentioned in this e-book

For example, perhaps you leverage reciprocity by giving lots of free tips on your website, which in turn helps establish your

brand as a thought leader. Or, your authority is demonstrated in your tagline, which supports your value proposition.

Authority can be genuine or perceived; it’s well-known that we are judged by the company we keep — if your company is not an expert in a specific field it is considering, think about partnering with a company that is. That way, you have established authority by proxy and extended your offerings in doing so.

Authority can be genuine or perceived; it’s well-known that we are judged by the company we keep.

how to maximize ConverSion driverS

Page 11: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 11

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

When’s the last time you said no to a friend? We are often inclined to treat friends better than strangers and if you want your brand to be treated like a friend, consider acting like a friend to your customers. That means creating a great online experience by being polite, listening well, explaining things clearly, responding quickly, and treating your customers like they’re special because they are special — they’re your customers!

Also, if customers know you like them, they are more likely to like you (in keeping in

what we learned in strategy #3, consistency), creating the potential for positive reviews, which supports strategy #8, social proof.

In fact, all of these strategies driving conversion support each other, creating a contin uous loop of reinforcement of the behavior you want.

But it’s not enough to use the 10 strategies that maximize conversion drivers — you also must employ 2 more strategies that minimize conversion barriers.

We are often inclined to treat friends better than strangers and if you want your brand to be treated like a friend, consider acting like a friend to your customers.

how to maximize ConverSion driverS

10) maintain likeability

Page 12: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 12

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

11) reduCe friCtion

Friction is anything that gets in the way of what people want to do on your site or what you want them to do. It can range from clutter and poor user experience to too many choices, fields, steps, or pages to click-through. The number-one source of friction on today’s websites is shipping & handling costs, which is why nearly 50% of e-commerce sites have employed some sort of free shipping option.

The number-two source of friction is long page load times and websites that are slower than user’s expectations. There are a number of studies available from companies as well as independent research firms that show how site speed affects key business metrics. For example, Amazon found

that just every 0.1 seconds (100 milliseconds) of delay translates to 1% in lost sales. Google found that a mere 0.5 seconds (500 milliseconds) of delay resulted in a 20% loss in traffic.

You can reduce friction on your website by addressing these top two concerns as well as minimizing the number of steps you ask a visitor to go through to complete a action, whether that means fewer form fields to complete, fewer pages to click-through, or fewer choices from which to select an option. Ask yourself: what’s getting in the way? Your web analytics funnel data will also give you clues where people are dropping out.

how to minimize ConverSion barrierS

Page 13: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 13

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

Anxiety during an online experience is usually related to doubts, hesitations, and second thoughts about credibility and trust, and the easiest way to alleviate anxiety is to address these potential concerns upfront:

• Tell your customers what your privacy policy is and what you intend to do with their information. For example, when you registered for this e-book, you filled out the form which told you we don’t share your information. (See Figure 3 to the right.)

• Illustrate the security of your visitor’s information with security icons and association memberships. For example, a SiteSpect client ran a test to determine what combination of online security messaging components would be most conducive to raising sales conversion rates for site visitors. The

company simultaneously tested 4 security icons, 3 text treatments, and their placements on 5 different pages within the site to determine the winning combination. The winning variation produced significant improvements across multiple key performance indicators, including site abandonment, visitor page views per session, and overall conversion rates.

• Make sure your site is easy to use; you’ve already done this if you’ve optimized your site for clarity.

• Let your customers know next steps, in particular where their order is and when they can expect it. Make it easy to find this information on your site.

• Also address potential disappointment concerns upfront: what should your customer do if they don’t like what they ordered?

Figure 3: SiteSpect's e-book form addresses potential anxiety concerns.

how to minimize ConverSion barrierS

12) alleviate anxiety

Page 14: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 14

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions teSt your web or mobile Site to improve ConverSionS

teSt your web or mobile Site to improve ConverSionS

Based on these 12 strategies, there are any number of elements on your website that you could test and optimize to improve conversions.

The process of testing reveals not only what works and should be implemented, but also what doesn't work and should be avoided. Every website idea, whether content, functionality, or campaign-related, should be put to the test to determine if it helps or hurts the visitor experience.

While some new ideas lift conversions, others fail — sometimes significantly. But even with these failures, there is definable knowledge gained over what to avoid the next time. The ability to test a new idea and 'look before you leap' is an unmistakable advantage that breaks the constraints on marketing innovation.

Only once a solid testing capability is in place, and the

impact of any site change is able to be quantified, can marketers truly optimize their site's conversion rates.

The first thing you want to do is ensure that your site is functional and works as it should and also that it is accessible and usable across all devices. This is when you’d optimize to reduce friction and alleviate anxiety.

Next, you’d want to make sure your site is intuitive and easy to use, which is when you’d test elements of your site related to relevance, consistency, and clarity.

Lastly, to make sure your site is as persuasive as it can be, test your value proposition, messaging related to urgency and scarcity, social proof elements, likeability factors, as well as authority and reciprocity ideas discussed in this e-book. See which ones work best on your site.

Figure 4: Start at the bottom of your site's conversion hierarchy when optimizing your site.

Persuasive

Accessible

Intuitive

Usable

Functional

Test Value Prop, Urgency, Scarcity, Social Proof, Likeability, Authority,Reciprocation

Test Relevance, Consistency, Clarity

Test Friction, Anxiety

optimizing the ConverSion hierarChy

Page 15: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 15

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions teSt your web or mobile Site to improve ConverSionS

Before you start formulating a test hypothesis, or begin running tests, the first and most important step is to ensure that there are defined objectives for the website. You'll want to examine your marketing goals in order to determine the appropriate success factors that all of your organization's stakeholders can agree upon. Here are some typical measurable website goals:

1. Make money: sell product, generate leads, and advertising or promotional click-throughs.

2. Save money: enable users to adopt self-service features and/or answer product and service questions on their own (such as through online FAQs and documentation).

3. Create brand awareness and industry visibility.

It's important for all stakeholders to agree on the goal(s) of the website, because when a

decision is made to adjust or optimize something on the site, everyone's needs should be addressed. Make sure you are testing the things that truly matter for your organization and balancing performance across all stakeholders.

Once goals are determined, the next step is sifting through potential key performance indicators (KPIs) to decide upon those that will accurately measure progress towards specific marketing goals and benchmarks. For example:

• If the goal is to make money, track those pages and areas of the site that users click on in the conversion funnel, such as the "Buy Now" button and resulting "Thank You" pages.

• If the goal is to save money, track the interactions with both the self-service areas (like FAQs and help content) as well as non-

self-service areas (such as contact and help ticket generation) of the site.

• Brand awareness goals can be more difficult to track, but certain KPIs can be proxies for customer loyalty, such as recency and frequency of

visits and time spent on site, and the percentage of return visitors. Other behaviors to track could include "send to a friend" or "print page" features that indicate a visitor's interest in sharing your site with others.

Beware of scenarios where an increase in one desirable KPI can cause a decrease in another (perhaps more valuable) KPI. This cannibalization can sometimes

be a Catch-22, so the best practice is simply to track both KPIs to provide increased visibility of user behavior.

Once you've agreed upon your website goals and KPIs, now is the time to determine the goals of your multivariate testing strategy. These are often related to your website goals but can be much more granular.

So, if you’re in the e-commerce business, then Revenue and Average Order Value are quite likely your KPIs. Obviously you'll want to track those pages and areas of your site where users click on within the conversion funnel — e.g., the "Buy Now" button and resulting "Thank You" pages. You’ll also want to test micro-conversion events, such as viewing the product detail pages and the elements on them — descriptions, images, or videos, for example:

Once you decide which factors are most important to your KPIs, then you’ll decide what experimental design is best (A/B or multivariate testing).

It's important for all stakeholders to agree on the goal(s) of the website, because when a decision is made to adjust or optimize something on the site, everyone's needs should be addressed.

what to meaSure

Page 16: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 16

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions teSt your web or mobile Site to improve ConverSionS

If you are not sure where to start when selecting testable factors, SiteSpect recommends a 3-step optimization process to zero in on the elements that matter most:

1. Test Wide — Test multiple factors with fewer variations to see which factor is most influential in moving the needle.

2. Test Deep — Take a few of the top performing factors and test multiple variations

of them to understand which combination works best.

3. Bakeoff — Take the winning combination and test it against the control, and your results will tell you how much you will be able to improve your KPIs.

But don’t stop there! Optimizing for conversion is a continuous process, not a “set it and forget it” activity. In an ideal world, you’ll use test results as a

source for future testing ideas in addition to your analytics data, key stakeholders, and user research, among other things. You’ll create a process for vetting possible testing ideas against your online goals and using accepted ideas in creating new hypotheses and test campaigns.

an approaCh to getting Started

Optimizing for conversion is a continuous process, not a “set it and forget it” activity.

Page 17: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 17

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions teSt your web or mobile Site to improve ConverSionS

typiCal teSt Campaign planning proCeSSidentify optimization opportunitieS

• Stakeholders• Web Analytics• User Research• Suggestion Box• Analytics

• Intuition• Focus Groups• Best Practices• Test Data• Voice of Customer

Data

Create hypotheSeS• Hypotheses are predictions based on previous

observations that quantifies potential impact.• They are related to site goals (reach, acquisition

conversation, retention) and tied to specific KPIs to define and measure success.

deSign experimentS• A/B vs. Multivariate• Number of Factors / Variations• Full vs. Fractional Factorial

• Assignment Criteria• Traffic Allocation• Experiment vs. Targeting Set• Overlay• Eligibility Sequence and Assignment Frequency

• Sample Size and Duration

exeCute and monitor CampaignS• Construct campaigns.• Perform soft launch, post-launch monitoring,

and ongoing QA.• Update stakeholders regularly.• Ramp Traffic up/down.• Remove underperforming Variations.

analyze and take aCtion• How much data and level of significance

are enough?• Align results with hypotheses.• Communicate results.• Generate follow-up ideas and recommendations.

• Form a great testing team• Get stakeholders on board• Create a testing process

Start here

Page 18: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 18

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

Common errorS to avoid

There are five types of mistakes that are easy to make when running multivariate tests:

1. Improper factoring caused by poor or no isolation of individual test changes; for example, changing a headline's text, font color, and font size, all at the same time as an A/B test instead of a multivariate test. Why is this problematic? Because it's difficult or impossible to isolate the impact of each individual change — i.e., was it the font color and/or the text that caused the visitor to behave differently?

2. Running a test too short/long. Stopping a test early because you think you have a winner increases the risk for statistically invalid data, and may increase time bias from events and/or conversion cycles. Running

a test too long increases the risk of wasting time waiting for marginal results and consumes test samples that could be applied towards another test.

3. Tracking or analyzing wrong Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). For example, measuring a KPI that is too far upstream (in a conversion funnel) from the ultimate goal, or measuring only one KPI when there are multiple indicators and/or goals that matter. There's also the risk that a measured KPI improves, but at the expense of another (untracked) KPI, or that the measured KPI is actually a bad predictor of the ultimate goal.

4. Not targeting or segmenting visitors. This means optimizing your site or campaign for anyone and

everyone by not targeting tests to include good visitors (and exclude bad visitors) and not segmenting the results. Why is this problematic? Because not all visitors are the same — they're at different stages of the buying/customer cycle, and some may be mistakenly on the wrong site altogether.

5. Not taking action on results! This could range from not making the winning changes to your site or not taking what you've learned and running another test (the iterative test-learn repeat). The risk here is that there is no momentum gained, no ongoing strategy applied, no realization of test results, and worst of all — underwhelming ROI.

Stopping a test early because you think you have a winner increases the risk for statistically invalid data, and may increase time bias from events and/or conversion cycles.

teSt your web or mobile Site to improve ConverSionS

Page 19: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 19

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

Unlike the alternatives, SiteSpect’s unique, non-intrusive approach delivers seven distinct advantages:

Test any content. Your business goals should not be constrained by your testing vendor. As your site shifts towards more types of content that need to be tested, optimization becomes even more important. SiteSpect provides the only solution that lets you break free of these limitations and test any of your content right from the start.

Run tests where others cannot. With SiteSpect’s unique technology, we not only enable you to test any type of content on your site, but also bring your testing to the next level by being able to enhance the entire customer experience. For example, if you are an online retailer or ecommerce vendor and want to test the “free shipping” threshold for a targeted group of users, we can help test this experience front to back without any significant code deployment or customizations.

Eliminate flicker effects caused by tagging applications. Your testing program should be completely invisible to users, and SiteSpect’s technology helps you achieve exactly that. With lightning-fast load times and no flicker effect, your users will never know they’re getting a personalized experience that may be comprised of tested and/or targeted site elements.

Create, deploy, manage, and analyze tests without changing any code. Unlike the alternatives, SiteSpect does not require any changes to the HTML or programming code that drives your website. This approach eliminates the need for ongoing IT involvement before, during, and after running tests — allowing marketers to focus on achieving website optimization and greater business goals, as opposed to spending time overcoming technical hurdles.

Accelerate site speed. When it comes to the overall effectiveness of a website, there are many variables, but one agreed-upon constant: visitors strongly dislike slow sites. SiteSpect AMPS accelerates the delivery and rendering of both web and mobile content.

All user actions can be tracked. Gaining behavioral intelligence about what users are doing on your site can be one of the keys to your next big optimization win. With SiteSpect’s optimization technology, you can get a complete set of behavioral data from the ability to track user actions related to your KPIs.

The ability to deploy testing from behind the firewall. SiteSpect is the only digital optimization solution that gives you a choice of deployment model. Choose between our fully hosted cloud-based solution, SiteSpect Cloud, or host the solution yourself, behind your firewall, with SiteSpect Enterprise.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Seven advantageS of optimizing your web and mobile SiteS with SiteSpeCt

teSt your web or mobile Site to improve ConverSionS

Page 20: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 20

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

The SiteSpect approach to site optimization is unique in that no changes are made to the actual web or mobile site that is being tested. Unlike the alternatives, SiteSpect does not require any changes to the HTML, insertion of JavaScript code, or other programming which drives a site. This approach eliminates the need for ongoing IT involvement before, during, and after running tests — allowing you to focus on achieving your optimization goals while saving time and resources. Unlike other testing and targeting tool providers, SiteSpect does not introduce tag-based page rendering latency or a flicker effect.

With SiteSpect’s cloud or on-premise deployment options, you can choose the one that’s right for you. SiteSpect Cloud is ideal for site operators who want to optimize without the need to install any additional hardware or software. SiteSpect Enterprise is an on-premises appliance solution for site operators with specific security and privacy requirements who prefer a single-tenant environment. Both offer the same core functionality and are fully managed and supported by SiteSpect and our Professional Services team.

everything you need to optimize your web or mobile Site

SiteSpect’s flexible deployment options enable digital marketers to easily optimize their sites in order to turn more visitors into satisfied customers.

our approaCh to optimization

Page 21: 12 strategies for improving conversions

page 21

12 Strategies for Improving Conversions

Only SiteSpect provides an optimization platform that can help you with:

• A/B testing• Multivariate testing• Targeting and personalization• Mobile web optimization• Landing page optimization• Site speed performance optimization (SiteSpect AMPS)• Backend feature and functionality testing

(SiteSpect Origin Experiments)

So find out more about how you can join the world’s most successful online businesses who have benefited from SiteSpect's testing and targeting capabilities. Request a demo and we’ll be happy to show you how SiteSpect works, and how you can securely optimize your customer’s online experiences.

about SiteSpeCt, inC.SiteSpect provides the world’s only non-intrusive digital optimization platform, enabling site operators to rapidly test, target, and optimize content across their web and mobile sites — with no need for page tags or code changes that slow implementation and site speed. The flexible platform also intelligently optimizes web and mobile web functionality, and accelerates site speed. The result is a broad-spectrum optimization solution that’s the choice of leading online marketers worldwide to improve the user experience, increase conversions, and drive revenues.

SiteSpect's patent-pending technology and professional services have been used by many of the world's leading online businesses, such as Staples.com, Walmart.com, Mozilla, Wayfair.com, Overstock.com, and other leading companies.

For more information, visit www.SiteSpect.com or call 617-859-1900.

Join other CompanieS turning browSerS into buyerS with SiteSpeCt

© Copyright 2013, SiteSpect, Inc. All rights reserved.SiteSpect is a registered trademark of SiteSpect, Inc. All other products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

learn more

learn moreWant to know more about how SiteSpect can improve your conversion rates? Sign up today for a demo.