Everyone has heard the phrase ‘Money Makes the World Go Round’. These days, it could even feel more appropriate to say ‘Data Makes the World Go Round’. But what about when the two combine?
Brian Massey is The Conversion Scientist and makes a living by using data to produce websites and processes that optimise for conversions of all manners, including maximising the bottom line. In 2014, he spoke at Business of Software Conference USA on the subject of optimising web pages and email, outlining a check list of top things anyone can do to ensure their landing pages deliver time and time again. You can watch that video here.
As part of the release of Brian’s talk free to the public, we caught up with him to see what has changed in the world of conversion science since last year. Watch the video below for the full AMA hangout, or for a summary, see below the video.
What’s new in conversion optimisation?
The industry is constantly being shaped by a bevy of new tools that come in and change how things are done – ultimately, this means the options for testing exactly what you want to are constantly increasing.
Recent trends include an Increase in split testing, probability testing, click tracking, visual tracking, feedback and survey software. Brian blogs on latest trends and learnings frequently and also has a fountain of recommended tools at myconversionlab.com to help you keep up.
“I don’t have much traffic, how do I get started converting?”
Brian gives two pieces of advice. First – get more traffic. Second (and less tongue in cheek) –The most important thing you can do is get insights from your analytics. Get these basic statistics and start to understand what is going on with your site. With the raft of tools available to analyse data, you have an amazing ability to diagnose your own business quickly and cheaply.
An example of these tools is in Google Analytics. In the dashboard they have a ‘bloody waterfall’ (actually called ‘Behaviour Flow’ under the behaviour menu) where a neat visualisation is given of where people fall off the website. From here, you have to be able to ask the right questions. Why are people dropping people off? It could be your competitors who have done something crazy. All this detective work can be done in analytics.
“The age old dilemma – I have a limited amount of time – is it worth developing bespoke landing pages for everyone?“
Brian says it is worth developing a landing page for every different offer you have. If you were doing an offer on shoe for example, the user clicking an ad would want that shoe, that discount, not all shoes you are selling.
In essence, the better you are at aligning your pages with your ads, the better your results will be.
Brian also points to tools such as Unbounce – which allow for easier landing page creation meaning it does not have to be a labourious task. Brian says this area in particular is a rich rich environment for tools to help.
“What is your Magic bullet – the one thing you would do to optimise a landing page above all else?”
Brian addressed this largely in his Business of Software 2014 talk – giving a checklist of 5 points to hit on your landing pages to be on the road to conversion nirvana.
The five points are:
– What is the page’s value proposition? I.e. what are you trying to get potential customers to do?
– Does the landing page match the ad which sent people there? If it doesn’t – change it.
– Build trust and legitimacy. Show you are a real company and what you are offering is a real thing.
– Use images to display your point. They make your page more interesting and supplement text well.
– Have a call to action – make a form, an email sign up, a buy button – place it prominently so customers know what you want them to do, and how they are going to achieve it.
“Video Marketing is something of a marketing trend at the moment, what have you seen in relation to video converting to customers?”
Video – if good, has the potential to really help, if bad, it has the potential to really hurt. Customers are compelled to pay attention to moving images, and they can be a great opportunity to display a brand’s personality.
Videos that tend to convert well are short, and address the need of the customers in the first few seconds. Examples of videos that convert well are explainer videos, demonstrations, and Brian is currently testing the whiteboard style of video which can be seen here.
The summary piece of advice offered by Brian is to make sure everything matches throughout your website and your ads. Do your ads match your landing pages? Your website your brand personality? Your videos to your product. By producing products in companies you are making a promise to a customer you will deliver them something – make sure you deliver it and you will see conversion gains.
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