How to Implement Website Surveys without Affecting Conversions – Intended Consequences

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In this episode of Intended Consequences, we discover how to implement website surveys without affecting conversions and we evaluate some great tools to measure and analyze the gathered data.

Implementing website surveys is always a great idea. Unfortunately, if wrongly implemented, they may lower conversions. Our visitors may decide to respond to the survey and forget what they added to the shopping cart. Today, we’ll analyze the importance of well crafted website exit survey questions that will shield results. We will also share with you some AI-powered tools that can help you find out how to diagnose your webpages and get visitors past the obstacles that most of us unintentionally create.

Intended Consequences: Interview with Curtis Morris of Qualaroo

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Resources and Links Discussed

How to Implement Website Surveys without Affecting Conversions Key Takeaways

  1. Thank you page survey: Find out why this should be a part of every website that processes sales, subscriptions or registrations of any kind.
  2. What almost kept you from buying today?: In this episode, learn what’s more effective than Net Promoter scores or pre-sale feedback queries.
  3. “Liking” In Action: Curtis shows us when is the best time to ask someone to take desired action.
  4. Data Tools: Find out which tools to use that allow you to be more creative, all while gathering data to be effective.

An Interview with Curtis Morris of Qualaroo

Our guest, Curtis Morris formerly with Qualaroo

Curtis Morris formerly with Qualaroo

Qualaroo let’s you discover issues — good and bad — that are affecting your prospects and customers. It provides a business with the ability to ask website visitors questions, collect answers, and process high quantities of input. The tools uses sentiment analysis and AI-driven text recognition to summarize inputs from hundreds or thousands of participants.

There is no better focus group than your prospects and customers. Qualaroo keeps you in touch with them.

How Automatic Solved Their Sales Problem with a Website Exit Survey

The people at a company called Automatic had an idea. What if we created a device that would connect your smartphone to your car’s computer. The idea was great, but then they ran into a problem.

How do you get people to buy the more profitable version of your product? How do you get people to click on the things you want them to click on? How do you get them to

When you take any car built since 1996 to a mechanic, one of the first things they will do is plug your car into a computer. The mechanics computer will essentially ask your car what’s been going on.

This makes me think of Star Wars, when Han Solo tells C-3PO that he needs him to talk to the Millennium Falcon.

It turns out that there’s a lot that your car can tell the mechanic, most of it uninteresting to the mechanic.

When one of the many sensors around your car detects a problem — your oil is low, or your engine temperature is getting high — your car shows you a “check engine” light, as if you couldn’t handle the details.

But your car knows more. Much more.

You car knows how fast you’re accelerating. It nows how fast you’re slowing down. It knows if your airbags have been deployed. It knows the levels of all of the fluids, the pressure in the tires, even the quality of the emissions coming out the tailpipe.

For your mechanic, all of this information becomes available through a special port in your car, called the OBD-II port. They get an engine code from your car’s computer and can lookup the problem, probably online.

The people at a company called Automatic had a idea. What if we created a device that would plug into the port on your car, and connect your smartphone to your car’s computer. Then your pocket C-3PO could talk to your four wheeled Millennium Falcon, translating engine codes and much more.

It turns out that Automatic was on to something. Their device connected your car’s computer to your phone, and then their app tracked your trips, monitored your acceleration and deceleration — to help you save gas — and even connected to a variety of apps so you could expense travel miles and turn on your Nest thermostat when you pulled into the driveway.

How Implementing Website Exit Surveys Increased Conversions

In 2016 the company released a more advanced version of the product. Automatic Pro had its own always-on 3G connection. This meant that it didn’t need your smartphone to communicate with the internet. This opened up new opportunities.

Automatic Pro could alert someone if your airbags deployed, even if your phone was broken in an accident. If your car was stolen, you would know exactly where it is. The site touted “event-based apps” and “streaming apps” and “parking tracking.”

The old device was recast as Automatic Lite and sold online for $80 beside the Automatic Pro at $130.

And most people bought the Lite version.

This was a bit of a problem as the Lite version was a lower margin product. Why weren’t people buying the clearly superior Pro version of the product? Should Automatic just accept that car owners are cheap and adjust their expectations?

Fortunately, Conversion Sciences was working with them, and tackled this problem for them. Using our sophisticated scientific minds, we devised a strategy for finding out why buyers weren’t jumping on the Pro product. We asked them.

Whenever someone bought an Automatic Lite, we served up one question in a popup box: “Why didn’t you choose the Automatic Pro?”

Within two weeks, we had over 150 responses. And these responses were from people who had already been all the way through the purchase process. The popup had no negative effect on conversion, because it appeared AFTER THE SALE.

And it told us what was wrong.

After analyzing the responses, one comment really summed things up.

“I don’t think I need crash alert. I have apps that track where I park just fine, nor have I ever needed it. I don’t know what Live vehicle tracking means. I don’t know what event-based apps means. I don’t know what streaming apps mean, either.”

In short, the site wasn’t doing a good job of helping them choose the right solution for them. So they defaulted to the cheapest option. This is the classic problem of the Pricing Page. The job of the pricing page is not to show off all of the features. It’s to help the buyer choose the right plan, the right level or the right feature set.

By modifying the way the features were presented on Automatic’s pricing page, we were able to significantly increase the number of units sold overall, and increase sales of the profitable Automatic Pro as a percentage. This was proven with an AB split test.

Things were going well enough that Automatic was acquired by SiriusXM, the satellite radio people, for 100 million dollars.

This is the power of qualitative data. Qualitative data is that delicious, juicy input that comes directly from buyers, prospects and pretenders. It’s typically gathered in surveys, focus groups and polls. These can deliver quantitative data, but qualitative data is prized for its messiness. It helps us understand how people think about products, how they talk about their problems, and what really is important to them.

The downside of this kind of data is that it is harder to process. We had 150 responses to analyze for Automatic. Imagine if you got thousands a day. Every day.

These are the problems that Curtis Hill thinks about. He is CEO of Qualaroo, and believes, as I do, that quantitative data means nothing if it’s not supplemented with qualitative data. So, listen to the Podcast for all the juicy details on how to implement website surveys without affecting conversions.

Intended Consequences: Interview with Curtis Morris of Qualaroo

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Intended Consequences Podcast Season 1, Episode 1: Mouseflow

Don’t miss the first episode of the first Podcast season, where we chat with Mouseflow, a user-behavior analytics tool and cover recordings, heatmaps, funnels. Plus, how to manage helicopter executives.

Collecting Qualitative Data on Your Visitors

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Resources and Links Discussed

Intended Consequences Podcast Season 1 Episode 1: Key Takeaways

  1. Exit Intent: Not sure what this means? You’ll learn about that and why it matters.
  2. What Happens When a Site Bug Goes Unchecked: You’ll hear stories on the impact a site bug can have on your website – and we’re talking a $1.2 million impact.
  3. Tips on Conversation with Executives: Gain knowledge and tips from Evan on how to have conversations with your marketing executives.

Excerpts from our Conversation with Mouseflow

Avoid the Bias

This stuff really fascinates me just because it’s a psychological. It’s diving into the minds of of your visitors. And one thing that I always encourage people to do when they’re using Mouseflow on their website is PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT go in with any bias. You have to be willing to test and identify ways that you can improve your form or specific parts of your Web site.

The Add-to-Cart Bug

This is going to have to remain anonymous, so I can’t share the company. But there is e-commerce store in America that uses Mouseflow and they were recording 100 percent of all visitors. So lots of data coming in. We’re talking millions and millions of sessions per month. And there was a pretty serious bug / error that was deployed live onto the Web site after they had finished a redesign. And Mouseflow picked it up. They had notifications set to send to one of their product marketers e-mails whenever a JavaScript error occurred.

All of the sudden at 2:00a.m. on Monday night their e-mail just starts getting absolutely blown up. It turned out that there was an Add to Cart button that was not working on about 40% of their product pages.

It was a huge huge error.

Mouseflow estimated it ended up being like $400K revenue loss. So, it ended up being a serious deal . And if that had gone further unnoticed, obviously this would have stretched into the millions of dollars.

Get ready, Marketers

“So I would I think that’s one of the most exciting things for a marketer who finally grabs this tool installs it, because they’re about to get the data they need to have a really really interesting meetings.”

Conversion Sciences Podcast with Mouseflow, a user-behavior analytics tool.

Conversion Sciences Podcast with Mouseflow, a user-behavior analytics tool.

Helicopter Executives

That executive who doesn’t feel comfortable with the work that a marketer has done, because that marketer doesn’t have any data, will come in and change things based on their experience with a customer their experience or their own preference.

In other words executives are coming in with all their biases and making changes to a campaign, and that’s really frustrating to a marketer marketing team who’s worked hard on a redesign, to have a sample size of one person come nin and upend those assumptions.

Celebrating Design

“But there’s something to be said for installing this tool before you launch a redesign, and then going in and celebrating, with heatmap and session recordings, where the redesign has really improved things. That’s going to get the design team and the UX team more interested in working with you.”

“It’s going to make your boss look good because he or she shepherded this fantastic redesign. And then you can go and say here’s the next things we can be improving on.”

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46 Conversion Rate Optimization Hacks

If your website has a glorious design and drives huge traffic but you’re still not getting enough leads, you need to get serious about conversion rate optimization and these 46 conversion rate optimization hacks will help you get there.
Conversion rate optimization is a systematic process of increasing the percentage of your website’s visitors that take the desired action on a certain page. This includes optimizing the landing pages and the website overall, using real-time analytics, tested design, and psychological elements, in order to turn your website visitors into customers.
Don’t make a rookie mistake! Not every one of these “hacks” will work for your website.

How to  Apply Conversion Rate Optimization Hacks

There is a very defined process for applying conversion optimization hacks. It goes something like this.

List Relevant Conversion Rate Optimization Hacks

List all of the hacks below that apply to your website. I recommend downloading the Conversion Sciences Hypothesis List Spreadsheet.
Toss out the ones that you’ve already tried or tested (delete them from your spreadsheet).

Do Your First Ranking of Conversion Optimization Hypotheses

Rate each of the remaining ones by level of effort (LOE), expected impact, and traffic affected. Our spreadsheet will calculate a weight for each idea.
Those that lie at the top of your list are ready to be researched.

Fix the Conversion Optimization Hacks that are Broken

Is it clear that some of these conversion rate optimization hacks needs immediate attention?
For example Hack 1: Increase Your Page Speed may be near the top of the list. It can have a high impact (based on other studies), and it affects all traffic.
To collect more data, you could look at your bounce rate. A high bounce rate may indicate a slow website, especially on mobile. You could also visit WebPageTest.org and get a grade on your page speed.
If the data says your site is slow, this would be a hack worth fixing. It will have a high value for “proof” in the spreadsheet.
If the data says your site is loading quickly, then you have low evidence and this idea may drop to the bottom of the ranking. Move on.
Other candidates for “just fix it” include

  • Technical problems on any page
  • Bad layouts due to responsive web design
  • #8 Remove CAPTCHA from forms. Don’t has your customers to manage your spam problem.
  • #16 Let Customers Checkout as Guests
  • #21 and #24 Reduce Form Fields

Research Your Top Conversion Rate Optimization Hacks

Find ways to research each of the hacks that are at the top of your list.
For example, if hack #16: Let Customers Checkout as Guests is high on your list, you could look at analytics to see if the “Login or Create an Account” page is a big source of abandonment. If it is, it gets more proof points.  If not, maybe it isn’t a problem.
You would also implement an exit-intent popup for this “Login or Create an Account” that asked, “What kept you from buying today?” If lots of visitors admit that they didn’t want to create an account, this idea would get more proof points.

AB Test the Most Promising Ones

The most promising ideas that don’t fall into the “fix it” category get an AB test. This will tell you which conversion rate optimization hacks will improve the site and by how much. It is the best data you can collect.
Have a look at Website Builder’s  “46 Conversion Rate Optimization Hacks” infographic below and for a list of effective hacks for increasing your conversion rates.

46 Conversion Rate Optimization Hacks

About the Author

Josh Wardini - 46 Conversion Rate Optimization Hacks

Josh Wardini, Editorial Contributor and Community Manager at websitebuilder.org. With a preliminary background in communication and expertise in community development, Josh works day-to-day to reshape the human resource management of digitally based companies.

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It’s The Little Things That Count With CRO

Big, bold, radical, redesign tests always move the needle the most. That is if you know your market, really really well.   But through the years, I’ve found that it’s the little things that count with CRO.  Even today I’m excited every time I find an interesting case study that highlights something that you wouldn’t have likely thought about or put together.

When dealing with optimizing a website, for more sales, businesses need to constantly remember that they’re dealing with real people .  People with obscure interests and desires that fluctuate and are ruled by the world in which they live.

And most of the time, businesses aren’t going to be able to predict what is driving their visitors or what they’re behavior will be.  A lot of times, they really don’t know their customers at all.

They put up a website and just hope it works.  Forgetting about the people who browse the site.

But often, it’s these little nuances in your visitor’s motives and behaviors that can drive substantial wins.

You Can Learn A lot Just By Watching

A few weeks ago, I was analyzing visitor sessions for a client who was selling a gluten-free, healthy chocolate chip cookie, these things were huge, about the size of your hand.

Now, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.  But I can tell you that after about an hour of watching these sessions, all I wanted was a chocolate chip cookie!

But then an interesting thing happened.  The next morning I started watching sessions at about 7am.  Yuck. I couldn’t even conceive of eating anything, let alone a chocolate chip cookie, at such an early hour.

And even more interesting…the visitor sessions that I was watching seemed to fly by.  While the previous afternoon visitors seemed to scroll and browse in what seemed to be a normal pattern – things were much different in the early morning hours.

Visitors were in and out at the speed of light.  The sessions lasted seconds, not minutes like the day before.  And I didn’t happen to see any purchases while doing that morning round of behavior analysis.

Now, these findings aren’t set in stone as a scientific finding.  There weren’t enough hours watched on my end to make that type of conclusion.  I only watched a full 24 hour days worth.

But if you are selling food products, I would encourage you to watch how people react to your product at different times of day.

Appetites do tend to have surges.  And the afternoon is a prime time where cravings really kick in.

If you do see such a pattern, perhaps you can display different messages at different times of day to visitors as a single test.

For example, in the hours where cravings might not be kicking in – or appetites are actually at their lowest, perhaps focus more on selling the health and nutrient aspect if it’s a health food product.  Or find some other aspect that doesn’t solely work on it being appetizing. Because it the appetite isn’t there at the moment – it will be harder to sell it.

However, when appetites do spike, there are ways you can capitalize on that.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “Never shop on an empty stomach”.  That’s because if you do, you might end up buying everything in sight.

That said, it might be wise to spend more of your PPC dollars during the hours in which most people’s appetites surge if you sell a food product.

It’s these forgotten aspects, like appetite patterns, that we might not have thought about that could make a big difference.

Knowing Your Prospect Is The Key

I was working with another colleague on a weight loss website not too long ago.  They had done a complete redesign for the client. It was gorgeous. Great graphics.  Great information. Great everything really.

But it failed in a split test against the original version.  Not so great.

She threw her hands up in the air.  She was frustrated and had lost confidence.

I looked over the page and something so small – that could be so big – stuck out to me.

The form to sign up for a free consultation was preceded by text that said something to the effect of “Sign up now for life changing results”.

But from our agency research about people looking to lose weight, we knew that this audience was often terrified of change. If change was what they were looking for, they would have done it years ago and they wouldn’t be in this predicament now.

People are creatures of habit.  It’s often what motivates them. Eating habits are strong habits to break.  Turning off the TV and running a mile with an extra 100 pounds to carry with you is not an inviting habit this group is longing to do.

In fact “life-changing” might terrify the hell out of these people.

From the client’s perspective, a life change would be incredible and empowering.  But, they’re not the ones that have to make the changes. The Prospects are.

It’s all about them.  Not us.

The Context Of The Obvious, Or Not So Obvious

After a long discussion about conversion rate optimization (CRO), a colleague told me about an instance where his client was offering visitors a coupon with a significant discount.  Only they weren’t seeing it increasing conversions.

He urged his client to run a survey and after a lot of push-back the client finally caved in.

After asking visitors why they weren’t using the coupon…he got a surprising response.  The coupon was a printable coupon and the majority of visitors didn’t have a printer.

Wow.  Such a simple resolution by just asking a simple question.

Here’s another example of a business not having any idea that their visitors don’t have a device to print off their coupons…until they actually asked.

If you don’t think your audience is driven by their own unique circumstances and their own individual desires, take a look at this case study.

Adonis Clothing offers men’s clothing online.  Interestingly enough though, most of the actual shoppers are women purchasing apparel for their husbands or boyfriends.  In fact, 80% of the clothing retailer’s repeat customers are women.

With this in mind, their CEO decided to run a rather interesting split test.  He had thought about all of the times that his fiancée had encouraged him to grow out his beard a little bit rather than shave.

He wondered if other women found a little bit of stubble or a beard more attractive than a clean-shaven face.  And if they did – would they purchase more?

So he took this original page of a clean-shaven male model….

Would you buy from this guy?

Would you buy from this guy?

And tested it against this page presenting a model with facial hair… .

Most would buy from this hipster

Most would buy from this hipster

The test version that modeled men with facial hair increased the number of clicks on the “Add to Shopping Bag” button by 49.73% resulting in a 33% increase in orders.

It can be these obscure little things that can actually make a pretty substantial difference.

I once saw another split test where simply adding an active blinking cursor within a form field increased sign up conversions by 17%.

Another interesting split test that I heard about had to actually be done in an unorthodox manner.

The client had currently been using a subdomain where the URL that showed up in the address bar in the browser started out with ww2.

The client thought this could be making visitors skeptical.  But there was no real way to test such a nuance to see if it, in fact, was doing so.

So they created a second sub-domain to be tested.  In this domain, they used the letter “v” twice to look like a “w”.  This way, the URL appeared as “wwvv” in which it looked like the standard 3 w’s.

In conducting this test, the client did, in fact, see that the number 2 in the address bar had made visitors leery and he saw an increase in conversions with the subdomain that read “wwvv”.  

Digging For The Gold

I hope these stories got you as excited as when I first heard them.  Maybe it’s just me, but I love to discover a really obscure split test that nobody has thought of before.

That said, don’t be afraid to test your ideas.  In conversion optimization, it’s all about the big picture and the big ideas mixed with the small details that businesses often miss.

Your audience is unique and they have a unique set of motivators, desires, and fears.

Try to put yourself in their shoes and try to think how your visitors might be thinking.  Try to uncover motives. Ask yourself what might make them leery. What are their specific fears?

In asking these questions, you may find a handful of small nuances that could end up with huge results.

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Converting Customers in the Fashion Niche

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Straight facts from an Online Fashion Brand

As internet marketers, our goal is to convert as many customers as possible with the lowest spend on advertising. Converting Customers in the fashion niche is one thing but understanding how to properly convert your customers varies from niche to niche. Knowing how to analyze data and find the best solutions is something that applies to every market and it is a skill on its own to be able to find the ways of increasing your overall conversions.

Look at it like this: If you were able to change your conversion rate from 1% to 2%, you could halve your advertising budget or double your results. Increasing your rate of conversion by the smallest of amounts can make a huge impact on your online business.

The ideas in this article are strategies that we use on a day-to-day basis at Top Tier Style to analyze how our customers interact on our website. The goal should always be about trying to figure out how to build the best customer experience, the sales will roll in from there…

Visitor Heatmaps

Heatmaps are a great way of easily understanding on a behavioral level how your customers interact with your page. Heatmaps will generally track where your customers click on on a page-by-page basis, and it will show you the average distance that a customer will scroll to when visiting your pages.
Converting Customers in the Fashion Niche_Heatmap
This data can be useful because you can pick up and see areas in which you can improve your website. Maybe 60% of your customers are clicking on an image that doesn’t actually link to anything, you could update this and take them to a relevant place.

Or maybe only 20% of your customers are scrolling down a certain amount of your blog post page. From this, you can gather that the content, or part of the content, is low quality and needs to be updated in order to engage your customers at a higher level.

Heatmaps can be tracked on your website using services such as HotJar, Lucky Orange or CrazyEgg.

Visitor Recordings

This one is kinda creepy, but absolutely gold if you are willing to spend a good deal of time looking into how your customers are interacting with your website. Recordings on most services can be tracked for all visitors or visitors that are visiting certain pages. It may be less time consuming and more valuable to spend time recording visitors on pages that are getting a low conversion rate with a high amount of traffic.
Converting Customers in the Fashion Niche
So, visitor recordings work much as it says in the name, you’ll get access to a screen recording of exactly what your customer does when they are visiting and browsing your website. You’ll get to see where they scroll, where their mouse moves, where they click and even what pages they visit.

This data is amazing because you get to put yourself, as a marketer, in your customer’s shoes and understand what it is that the customer is thinking while they are browsing your site. From this, you can understand a wide range of improvements and you can see exactly what influenced your customer to complete a certain action, or what caused them to drop off and leave your website.

A Data-Driven Approach

Once you have spent time analyzing all of this data and building a website that converts at a much higher level, you can look into implementing tracking with a service like Google Tag manager to analyze the percentage that a user completes a certain action on average within a certain time frame.

For example, you may be running a commerce store and you may want to track the percentage of people that add that product to their cart and what percentage add it to their Wishlist.

If you notice on a particular product that people are adding it to their Wishlist a lot instead of checking out straight away, then you could look into ideas such as running a promotion on that product or allowing a discount if they add it to their cart and check out today.

Summing Up – KNOW YOUR FUNNELS!

Every business has a funnel. Even if you are a local digital marketing agency, you have a funnel. Some funnels are more complex than others, here’s an example of a funnel for an average Plumbing website as compared to lets say an E-Commerce store.

A 2 Stage Funnel for a Local Plumber

Visitor Lands on Landing Page -> Visitor Gets in Touch

A 4 Stage Funnel for an E-Commerce Brand

Visitor lands on Product Page or Category Page -> Visitor Adds Product to Cart -> Visitor gets to Checkout Page -> Visitor Completes their Purchase

Either way, knowing your funnel is important because you can look at the areas in which customers begin to fall off. In the example of the plumber, it’s very simple because the plumber only has their landing page to optimize properly before they get their result, which is for someone to get in touch.

However, in the example of an E-Commerce brand – a visitor needs to follow a number of steps before completing the goal which is to purchase a product. If you are properly tracking the drop-off of your funnels, you may notice that 90% of people fall off at your cart page. By knowing this data, you can narrow in and know exactly what areas to look at the heatmaps or visitor recordings for so that you can begin to repair that section of the funnel and increase the overall conversion rate of your online business.

About the Author

Gary WilsonGary Wilson works as part of the marketing team for Top Tier Style, a fashion brand specializing in clothing and accessories. He works closely to market the website to new customers and analyzes customer data to increase conversions and customer experience through the website.

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Make Testimonials More Persuasive

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Don’t kid yourself into thinking that your viewers believe your testimonials are real and genuine. Any website that hosts its own testimonials has the opportunity to molest and curate its own testimonials and every viewer knows it. There are three rules to make testimonials more persuasive that you can start using today.

If everybody knows you can alter and curate your testimonials, is there any point in having them in the first place? Probably not, but if you are dead set on having testimonials on your website, then you need to make testimonials more persuasive.

Before you hire a bunch of writers to create a set of positive testimonials for your website, take a look at these three unusual tactics for making testimonials more persuasive.

Use A Long-Form Testimonial That Goes Into Intimate Detail

Long testimonials make testimonials persuasive

Long testimonials make testimonials persuasive

The very idea that a long testimonial is more persuasive than a shorter one seems silly because most people would assume that a longer testimonial is more likely to have been written by the company’s marketing department rather than a genuine customer. However, there is a form of cognitive dissonance that occurs when people read larger testimonials.

Despite the fact that the user probably believes the longer testimonial was written by a member of the website’s own staff, the fact is that the user is still more likely to read the longer review than any of the shorter reviews. This is especially true if the testimonial has headings, and things such as lists, alternative purchases, and pros & cons sections.

Look at Amazon book reviews. The longest reviews are almost always the ones with the most “This was helpful” votes. Even if the review looks like it was written by the author’s friends, it is still more readable and attractive than the hundreds of smaller reviews/testimonials on Amazon.

It is better to have a semi-convincing review that is long and read by the user, rather than a series of smaller very-convincing reviews that are not read by the user.

Name All The Bad Stuff And Convert Them Into Selling Points

Convert bad stuff into selling points make testimonials persuasive

Convert bad stuff into selling points make testimonials persuasive

When most people shop online, they do not read the hundreds of positive reviews. They search out the negative reviews. People do this because most people are aware that reviews and testimonials can be bought.

We have all seen the list of positive reviews on Amazon that were written by a marketing department, and then the several recent ones that are negative because they are real. You can use the fact that people search out negative reviews by using negative reviews/testimonials to sell your product or service.

There are two ways you can do this, you may do it by giving negative points and making them illogical, or you may answer negative reviews with selling points. Let’s start with a few examples of negative testimonials that you have added to your website that are actually illogical.

This book on “Sixteen Ways To Cook Beef” was full of tasty ideas, but I was very disappointed that they didn’t offer vegetarian alternatives.

The plumber turned up on time and had the problem fixed in ten minutes, which means there was very little wrong. I should have taken a look at it myself before calling.

Do not use this taxi service. Why is this taxi firm charging per mile? They should charge for the time it takes to get places. I am paying for a taxi’s time and not for how far it takes me.

Alternatively, you can allow negative reviews and then offer replies that create selling points. If done correctly, this can be a very powerful way to sell your product.

Do not make the mistake of asking the reviewer to contact your company via the replies because that is what all of the worst companies say.

Here are a few examples of negative testimonials and their replies that turn negatives into positives.

Testimonial – I received the second-hand DVD and it is scratched. It only works on my PC and not on my DVD player.

Reply – Thank you for letting us know, we will issue a refund right away. Also, we have invested in DVD cleaning machines. Every second-hand DVD we sell will now be cleared of scratches prior to being sent out.

Testimonial – Your writing service doesn’t cover formatting and setting styles. I hate having to set out my essays and I always get it wrong. You should at least offer a paid service so that people like me don’t have to suffer.

Reply – Quite right! We have instituted a new policy. All student customers will now have their essays set out and formatted free of charge whenever an essay is bought or an essay is proofread. Please return your essay and we will format it for free within 24 hours.

Allow Anybody To Leave A Testimonial And A Reply And Have It Post Immediately

A big part of making a testimonial believable is less about what is written and more about how the testimonial came to life. If you can prove to people that what regular people are writing is what is coming up on your testimonial page, then you may be able to convince people that your testimonials are real.

That is why it is important for you to make the testimonial process very easy. Any visitor should be able to leave a testimonial without having to sign in and without having to buy something. It should be clearly obvious to the user that he or she may start writing a testimonial right away, and that the user doesn’t need to have an account.

What is just as important is what happens after the user clicks to submit the review. If the system says that the testimonial is awaiting moderation, then the user will give up on the website and probably continue to believe that the testimonials on the website are curated. However, if the testimonial appears right away on the web page, then the user will have a hard time denying that genuine testimonials must exist on your website.

Many webmasters will not allow people to post directly to their web pages for a number of reasons. The most common reason is that it allows spammers to add content right away, but you can use spam catching software to stop that.

The second most common reason is that it allows users to add troll messages or negative messages into an area where potential customers may see them, but this doesn’t matter.

If your product or your service is a good one, then the troll messages or the negative messages will be dwarfed by the many positive messages. Plus, every Monday there is nothing stopping you from going through your testimonials and deleting a few of the most damning ones. After all, it is not as if your users are going to return every week to see if their testimonial is still there.

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How to Instantly Establish Credibility Online

People are willing to pay more websites they trust. Establish credibility online to boost your online conversion rate.

When selling anything online people almost always prefer to buy from people and companies that they trust.  In fact, many times people are willing to pay more to buy from websites they trust. It’s one of those key components that can boost your online conversion rate in multiples if done right so you need to instantly establish credibility online.

I’ve been working in the field of conversion optimization for 9 years.  About 6 years ago, I made the decision to focus my agency primarily on optimizing websites that were specifically in the health field/vertical, mostly dietary supplements.

We niched down to optimizing for the health industry because we started seeing patterns among multiple dietary supplement clients.  Those patterns lead us down a path of researching how people buy health supplements differently than they buy any other type of product.

The health field, especially natural health supplements, can be a pretty tough field to sell products directly online. There are a lot of FDA compliant and legal issues to watch out for if you don’t want to be shut down. Although there are certainly more than the fair share of claims out there on the internet that cross the line.  That combined with so much misinformation and it’s no wonder that so many people tend to feel a little bit leery about trusting holistic health and supplement products.

The sad thing is, a lot of these products are actually really, really good for you and really beneficial.  They’re often derived from natural products that have incredible benefits with minimal side effects.

But how do you get that across?  Especially when you can’t afford to do a double-blind scientific test?.

I’ve developed some strong strategies for developing trust and establish credibility online between my clients and their website visitors.

Here are a few ways that you might be able to accomplish the same goals in your specific industry…

To Establish Credibility Online: Be Completely Transparent With Your Audience

One way I do that is by making sure that the website is as transparent as possible.  Putting it all out there may show some vulnerability, but it also conveys honesty.

Reveal the ingredients that are in your products by showing the full supplement facts label. Don’t hide behind a “proprietary blend”.

To Establish Credibility Online Be Completely Transparent With Your Audience,

Transparency is key

Also, let them know where those ingredients are sourced from.

  • What’s the potency, purity, and integrity of the ingredients?
  • Where are your ingredients sourced from? Where is your dietary supplement manufactured and bottled? Was it made in a GMP facility?
  • What is your return policy? And provided them with a top-notch FAQ section.

Make Reasonable Claims and Back Them Up With Proof

Some holistic herbs and supplements claim that they can solve every problem under the sun in one little pill –  from helping you to lose weight to providing a cure for cancer. (Even though the word “cure” is not allowed by the FDA.)

We all know it’s probably not likely that one pill can solve all these problems. Even if it’s true, trust breakdown with multiple claims or condition solutions. It’s better to focus on the power of one.  One story, one problem, one solution. So don’t make broad outrageous claims. And when you do make claims, be sure that you are backing them up with proof.

If you really concentrate your focus on the things your product can do and go into great detail with facts that support that – then it’s more likely that you’ll be believed.

I’m sure you’ve probably heard a million weight loss remedies that will help you lose weight quickly.  But when you’re bombarded with so many messages, how do you even begin to know which ones might actually work?

There’s not enough time in the day to try them all out.  And who wants to spend the money on each one?

But if you do your research and look closely, some of the suggestions are backed up by actual science.

For example, did you know that grapefruit stimulates the production of a hormone called adiponectin, which is involved in the breakdown of body fat?

Ok, now that’s something to go on, right? Actual science. I’m in.

This is the same kind of confirmation that your visitors need and want. They don’t want to have blind faith and just believe what you say or try a million products to see which really works. Most people don’t have that kind of money or time to spend.

So give them proof. Establish credibility online. It may already be there and you just don’t know it.

Another Example that Fails to Establish Credibility Online

For example, we were recently analyzing a landing page for a healthy chocolate chip cookie.

The cookie claimed to be healthy – but the nutrition label that they displayed on their website really wasn’t all that impressive.

It listed some protein and some calcium – but other than that it was hard to justify spending the money.

They went on to list the healthy ingredients – flaxseed and chia seeds which are rich in antioxidants and omega 3’s.  And coconut oil that boosts the immune system and helps you lose weight.

But they didn’t bridge the gap so that it made sense.  They didn’t tell their visitors why these ingredients were so healthy.  In fact, they’re so healthy that they’re often referenced as “superfoods”.

If prospects weren’t aware of these benefits, listing the ingredients meant absolutely nothing.  So don’t assume. Don’t assume that they know why something is good for them. Just because you know, doesn’t mean that they do.

To Instantly Establish Credibility Online, Be Vulnerable

This is why you need to make sure that you tell them everything.

And if there’s something that your product or service can’t do.  Don’t be afraid or too proud to admit it. By being honest about what you can offer, it really comes off more as trustworthy than incompetent actually. By honestly admitting that you can’t do a particular thing – your visitors will now believe you when you say that you can do other things really well.

Don’t Unintentionally Plant Seeds Of Doubt

This is something that I see often.

Websites try to establish trust by making statements such as “No gimmicks” or “Those other products are scams.  We can be trusted.”

While you may actually be very trustworthy, you’ve just reminded your visitors that some of these products are a complete hoax.  Possibly even a sugar placebo.

So now that you’ve mentioned “gimmick”… now they’re not so sure about you .

Here’s what happens.  Your visitors are going about their business gathering information so they can make an informed decision about your product or service.

When they see words like “gimmick” or “scam” red flags may start to go up.  Those thoughts might not have been in their minds in the first place. But since you’ve now put them out their boldly in print… now they are.

Planting these types of thoughts in your visitor’s heads could be very risky. Your very attempt to gain trust in this way may backfire big time.

That said, this type of copy should be tested with your audience to see if it yields positive or negative results.

Other Standard Ways To Establish Trust

So those are some of the areas in the health vertical where trust needs to be established in a very specific way. Hopefully, these techniques might help you in your vertical as well.

But be sure that you are also implementing these other critical trust indicators as well.

Social Proof Establishes Credibility Online

Consumers are still looking for the social proof of a third party to help convince them that your products and services are the right choices.

Add testimonials and reviews.

Another way to add social proof is by adding social media count boxes.  The boxes that display the number of people that have liked you. Those can’t be faked.

LinkedIn testimonials also can’t be faked.  Members are the ones who write the actual recommendation and they are then displayed on your profile.

And if you can get an expert endorsement.  You’re golden.

In fact, tout yourself as an expert too.  Make the effort to write blog articles that will highlight you as someone who knows what they’re talking about.

If your product or service has an average success rate – boldly highlight that.  It’s amazing how often I see businesses forget to include this information.

I once worked with an insurance agency that required prospects to apply for approval to receive a special discount. People are often worried when they’re credit is going to be checked. It adds an additional layer of anxiety that they just don’t want to deal with.  So they don’t.

But this agency had a 97% approval rate.  But they failed to mention that.

Adding such information makes the reader feel a little bit more secure that they just might be approved. So they take the risk.

Share Details About Yourself

Make sure you are providing an About Us page where you can highlight your team and their credentials.

There are always going to be a percentage of your audience that wants to know more about the people behind your business before they move forward with a transaction.

When I’m analyzing heat maps, it always amazes me just how many people are clicking on About Us links to find out more.

And don’t forget to include real-world data such as a physical address and contact information when you can.  Hiding this information can not only be frustrating, but it can also make your visitors question whether or not you are a legitimate business.

How to Instantly Establish Credibility Online: Security

I’m sure you know by now how important it is to create a secure environment if you’re selling online.

To ensure that your website is secure – your website address will start with “https” rather than just “http”.  The “s” at the end means “secure”.

Nowadays, it’s also highlighted in the address bar with green text and the actual word “Secure”.  So make sure your website’s address looks like this in the address bar.

Security starts at the address bar

Security starts at the address bar

Because sometimes you’d be surprised to see what’s displayed here.  I was surprised to see this in the address bar for cnn.com.

Unsecured websites hurt credibility

Unsecured websites hurt credibility

Perhaps they are not selling anything online.  But it’s always a good measure to make this read as secured.

Also, make sure that you are are displaying trust seals that verify that you are a legitimate business and also verify that your site is secure.

Visual indicators such as padlocks also help to create a sense of security.  Both of these can be really important at the point of checkout where visitors feel most vulnerable.

We Only Buy A Second Time From Those We Trust

Now you see why gaining trust and establishing credibility is an all-encompassing task.  A task that’s going to pay off in the end.

So make sure you’re providing all the information you can to help your visitors make an informed decision.  Don’t make outrageous claims. And when you do make claims, try to back them up with proof.

Don’t scare visitors away by unintentionally planting seeds of doubt.  And don’t forget to include standard trust indicators such as real-world data and security seals and security indicators.

21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks to Skyrocket Conversions

21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks

Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.

  • 43 Pages with Examples
  • Assumptive Phrasing
  • "We" vs. "You"
  • Pattern Interrupts
  • The Power of Three

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Conversion Optimization Examples: Homepage Carousel vs None

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Here are 3 conversion optimization examples of how to kill the “slider”.

This is not a post about how carousels kill conversions.  They can, but it’s not about that.

This post is about doing what’s best for the people who want to buy from you on your site.

Every CRO and savvy eCommerce manager I have ever met hates carousels.  In fact, we’ve never actually blogged about it because EVERYONE ELSE already did.  Bringing up carousel flaws would be akin to bringing up the Hindenburg’s.

What we at Inflow will do, however, is document the death of the carousel. But before we do, let’s talk about its birth.

Blame Yahoo! if you want

It seems like the carousel has been around forever, at least in Internet terms. Broad adoption started in the summer of 2009 after Yahoo introduced it on its homepage.

Blame Yahoo if you want

If your site still has a rotating carousel, perhaps you still have a Nokia phone?  You can check your email on it, you know!

From that point on, every website felt free to:

  • Whisk away copy while it was still being read
  • Randomly change calls to actions
  • Remove control from the user actions
  • Create “banner-blindness”
  • Periodically attract attention no matter how irrelevant to the viewer.
  • Slow page load time with multiple big images

So, for some, it might not be a surprise that there is a better way to structure an eCommerce homepage.

The death of the (unnecessary) carousel

In our 2018 Best in Class Comparative Matrix for eCommerce, we saw only 6 out of 10 sites still used the homepage hero carousel.  That number is less than half of what it was 2 years earlier.

The reason why is simple: it was never the best option for most of the sites that did it, and that statement is still pretty much true.

Optimization Away from Carousels

So, how does a site transform its homepage from having a carousel? Here are three conversion optimization examples for removing carousels.

Zappos.com

Before

A year ago, Zappos was sporting a left category nav, hero carousel and a couple of static promo areas to the right.  That made it jam-packed with options.

Zappos

After

Zappos simplified things by ditching the carousel, the left nav on the homepage and instead focusing the homepage on the things customers want most.  They are still testing this bad boy with over 5 major variants identified, so check back in February to see the winning combination. ;)

So apparently, Zappos.com never needed a slider. Note that they kept the slides, but moved 2 of them to the bottom of the site in favor of stuff users most want (a lot of which was not even on the homepage of this eCommerce behemoth just a year ago).

There’s a big lesson here for those willing to learn it and kill their carousel.

Zappos

UnderArmour.com

Before

Under Armour had a carousel last year, alternating between two and three slides.

Under Armour

After

Over the past year, they have MADE ONLY ONE CHANGE on their homepage.  That was to ditch the carousel.


Underarmour

Williams Sonoma

Before

Williams Sonoma made some minor navigation changes over the past year and added lazy-load to the homepage, which widened it a bit.

Williams Sonoma

After

For the most part, the only significant change to the homepage was REMOVING THE CAROUSEL.

Williams Sonoma

Take-Away

If you were to take the lead from these 3 best in class sites, you would blindly get rid of your eCommerce site’s carousel.  But wait!!!

You can see below that there are still 6 out of 20 Best-in-Class eCommerce sites that are standing by their carousel. You bet they have tested their homepage over the past year.

eCommerce sites carousel use

eCommerce sites carousel use

So Why?

The answer is that the carousel, as they have it, is right for them and their audience.  For now, at least, until something tests better.

This is why we test.

keith-hagan About the author: Keith Hagan is an award-winning conversion optimization expert and Director of Conversion Services at Inflow. Keith’s insights have been featured in well-known publications, such as Moz, HuffPo, Forbes and more.

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8 Elements of a High Converting Squeeze Page

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Lead generation is the lifeblood of online business and most lead generation is done via email collection.

If you grow a list of prospects who’re interested in your promotions, your business grows too. However, before you make money from your list you’ve got to get people on it. Whether you want people to download your lead magnet, sign up for your latest webinar or volunteer to test your product, you first need to persuade them to part with their highly guarded personal details – that’s no small feat.

No wonder the average opt-in rate across industries is hovering around a mere 2%. After investing a fortune in Facebook advertising, PPC ads, outsourced content, content management software, site design, and more, you only net two leads per 100 visitors. Two leads… NOT customers mind you.

Surely, your business deserves better.

Today, we’re going to cover the eight elements of a high converting opt-in page so you can boost your opt-in conversion rates and get a better return on your content marketing investment.

Ready to dive in?

Element #1: A short pre-headline to draw them in

When your prospect arrives on your opt-in page she wants to know if she’s in the right place. If she feels lost, she’ll click away. Use the apex of your page to make her stick around.

And, depending on who you ask, you have five seconds or less to do that. But how do you do it? Here’s three ways to instantly attract your reader when she lands on your page so she stays on.

#1. Name the target audience
For example, Attention dog owners, Attention Content Marketers etc.

When you name your audience you get a nod from the prospect, “Yep that’s me.” Handled correctly, this small first yes will ultimately lead to the big yes of a signup later on.

#2. Name the type of lead magnet
For example, Free Special Report, Free Training Webinar etc.

The specificity of your offer increases desire and the likelihood of the prospect staying on so as to get it.

#3. Name the referral site
Naming the referral site on your page makes your prospect feel like a diva and warm up to you and your offer.

Amy Harrison rolls out a red carpet for her Copyblogger readers. She makes them feel the love by welcoming them: specifically, heartily, personally.

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                                 Source

Your pre-headline has four main purposes:

#1. To help your prospects understand your offer…fast.

#2. To alienate those who are not a good fit for your offer.

#3. To attract those who are perfectly suited to your offer.

#4. To build rapport with your audience in an instant.

A great pre-head will keep readers on your signup page.

Element #2: A benefit-rich headline to make them want to read more

Once your prospect hangs around, use your headline to show her how your offer will benefit her and improve her life. Promptly address her concerns so she lingers on the page or you’ll lose her by the door. Quickly address her pain, paint the desired future for her, or pique her curiosity so she can’t help herself but read on.

In short, tell your prospect what’s in it for her.

Jacob McMillen’s headline is ultra-specific and has a solution that’s tailor-made for cash-strapped businesses – that’s a big benefit that’ll keep his target audience glued to the page.

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                           Source
Not only that. Your headline must also tie in nicely to the traffic source. That way the prospect’s conversion journey becomes smoother thus generating better results for your business. Jacob McMillen does this superbly as the source page to the above landing page shows:

image2-1

Notice how his CTA, the last words in his bio, are the first words on the landing page? This way the byline is perfectly coupled to the landing page thus increasing conversions. When a reader clicks his bio and lands on the landing page she smoothly continues her conversion journey – because of harmony between the two pages, conversions are likely to be higher.

On the flip side, a copy mismatch between the source page and the signup page tanks conversions.

Element #3: A few lines of crisp copy to pull them further down the page

You’ve done well if your prospect is still on your page thus far.

Your next few lines should give specific points about your offer. Show her how your offer will scratch her itch or push her towards her dream. Do that and she’s more likely to give you her details.

Use bullet points or short paragraphs. Your bullets should be:

  • Clear- use simple direct language so the prospect easily grasps your offer.
  • Crisp- keep your points brief and to the point to keep the prospect engaged.
  • Catchy- use attention-getting words to give details about your offer.

Smartblogger nails their bullet copy on this sign-up page for an upcoming webinar.

image11-4

Source

The three bullets tell you exactly what you’ll get on the webinar in a simple engaging way without laboring the point. If you’re going for the minimalist approach even a single line will do. The amount of copy on the body of your opt-in page depends on three key factors.

#1. How aware is your prospect about you and your offer? The more aware she is about you and what you do the less copy you need and vice versa.

#2. What works best for your niche? Study the most successful signup pages in your niche and do likewise.

#3. How complex is the problem you’re trying to solve for the prospect? The more complex the problem, the more copy required to convince prospects to sign up.

Element #4: A pro-looking image to help them visualize what they’ll get

Our brains process images up to 60,000 times faster than text.

To woo your prospect so she says yes to your proposal (offer), show her what she’ll get. Use a picture of the product or of people expressing the feeling you’re targeting. Pictures of animals work well too if your context allows it.

John Nemo’s book shot dominates his opt-in page on purpose. You can almost smell the LinkedIn cash splashed on the cover.

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                              Source

A word of warning about pics: don’t just include a picture because you like it…that won’t help your cause. Only include a picture if it’s relevant to your offer.

Element #5: A signup field(s) to capture their personal details

You’re almost there now… your prospects cursor is hovering over the signup field. Now comes the big question…how much info do you want from her?

Numerous tests show that, in most cases, the fewer the signup fields, the higher the conversion rates. That’s why most sites simply ask for an email address and/or name only as shown in the Marketing Sherpa lead generation graphic below.

image8-2

   Source

Of course, you can ask for more than that if you want a more targeted list. Although your conversions may dip, the quality of your list will improve. Ask for what you need and no more. This makes filling the fields more desirable. You can always ask for more details later.

But, as with everything digital, conduct split tests to see what works for you and your audience instead of blindingly jumping on the bandwagon. In many cases, tests have shown that increasing the number of fields actually raised conversions.

Element #6: A bit of social proof to earn their trust

It’s natural. No one wants to go first. People do what they see other people do. That’s why social proof is a vital ingredient to the success of your page. Here are some three quick-and-easy ways of incorporating social proof into your signup page:

#1. Display your list numbers if they’re substantial

To nudge people over the sign-up line, you can use big numbers associated with your following. However, be careful as numbers can be a double-edged sword. If your numbers are small, social proof will still work, but against you! No-one wants to be a part of something small and insignificant.

Social Media Examiner uses their massive list to good effect to inspire people to join their list.

image4-4

Source

Surely, on seeing the 620 000+ social media marketing peers on Social Media Examiner’s list, a prospect will be enticed to sign up.

#2. Splash customer testimonials generously on the page

Testimonials multiply your clout score thus making it easy for people to take up your offer. Henneke Duistermaat, of Enchanting Marketing, does a neat job.

image10-3

Source

Not only does she head the page with a rich list of big sites she’s been featured on, she sandwiches her offer between two testimonials from heavyweights in her niche. Prospects are more likely to trust her word and gobble up her course.

#3. Point to influencer endorsements and press mentions

To get prospects to sign-up for a free trial, Get Response leads with an imposing figure of their current users and then they underline their authority in their space by quoting two influencers.

image9-4

Source

This is likely to cause more people to take their software for a spin.

Element #7: A privacy statement to assure them their info is safe

Because cyber-crime is rampant, your prospect is uneasy. Hardly a day goes by without someone being scammed or spammed online. Allay her fears…wrap your arm around her and let her know you’re not one of the bad guys. Tell her you won’t peddle her email address nor send the alien stuff she didn’t ask for.

A brief statement such as ‘We respect your privacy and will never share your info’ is enough as Neil Patel does.

image6-4

      Source

Feel free to get creative with the phrasing. Or, if you’re not feeling inspired, simply write ‘privacy policy’ and link to your full-blown privacy policy. And, oh, a privacy statement also serves a more personal and practical purpose: failure to include one might land you in trouble with the law.

Basically, your privacy statement should assure your visitors that their info is safe. Only when they feel you’re trustworthy will they be swayed to give you their personal information.

Element #8: A strong call to action (CTA) to compel them to click

Your call to action marks the finishing line of the sign-up race. Give it some thought.

Your button copy should be specific, simple and reader-focused. Tell the prospect exactly what she’ll get if she signs up. Don’t try to be cute, clever, or cryptic, or you’ll lose out.  And please, don’t make the rookie mistake made by many content marketers – using the dismal default CTA copy e.g. signup, subscribe, or download.

Don’t leave your visitors wondering what they are clicking the button for.

Sign up. For what?

Subscribe. To what?

Download. What?

A simple formula, coined by Joanna Wiebe, will help you ace your button copy. Just fill in the blank: I want my reader to __________________.

Your answer becomes your CTA. For example:
I want my reader to:

  • Book a free call…becomes…Book my free call.
  • Get a free quote…becomes…Get my free quote.
  • Reserve a spot on webinar…becomes…Reserve my webinar spot.

Here’s a great example of powerful button copy pulled from this very site’s homepage:

Book a Consultaion Now is a proper Call to Action, or CTA

Book a Consultaion Now is a proper Call to Action, or CTA

The CTA is clear, simple, direct, benefit-focused, and urgent – all the hallmarks of a powerful call to action that converts.

Make the desired action simple and easy smoothly guiding the prospect towards your goal without much work or resistance. Use energetic verbs and the first or second person to make the CTA personal and bump up your conversions. Once your reader clicks on your button, you’ve won and now have a precious lead in your funnel.

Opt-in pages are crucial to the overall success of your business that you should seriously consider outsourcing the task if you don’t have the time or the expertise to craft them yourself.

Conclusion

Getting signups is an essential bridge in your inbound digital marketing efforts. It’s the magic link that turns browsers into subscribers, subscribers into buyers, and buyers into brand evangelists. In short, it’s the gateway into your funnel. As a serious growth-focused business owner, take time to work all these elements into your page so you increase the likelihood of success. Then you’ll hear the sound of clicks not crickets for a change.

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Use Your Customer’s Voice to Create Powerful Content that Converts

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With the use of social media and web access at all-time highs, it’s more important than ever to create powerful content that converts and makes sure that you engage with your customers. With the 2018 marketing trends in mind, leads and potential customers are looking for a personal touch. They want an account of how your product or service works, what people are happy with and what challenges they face in using it. They do not want a marketing funnel.

This is where using your customer’s voice comes in. When used right, your current customers’ voices can be used to create powerful content that actually converts leads!

For the purpose of this post, you can all but forget fancy terms and processes. Conversion funnels, influencer marketing, engagement – these all have a place in business, but it’s not necessarily here. Instead, this post is all about why interacting with current customers is so important and how you can use this interaction to create authentic content. This is the kind of content customers are looking for – and it just so happens to be the kind of content that converts.

The Importance of Leveraging Honest & Authentic Reviews

At the base of using your customer’s voice to create powerful content is a preliminary step; encouraging and gathering honest and authentic user reviews. Without customer reviews, you won’t have much to go off of when it comes to incorporating customers’ perspectives into your content planning!

Thankfully, there is no shortage of review sites available to B2B and software companies. Do your research. Take the time find one or two that fit your business and your customer profile. Then take the time to invite (and maybe even incentivize?) your customers to submit reviews about your software, your service, your product. This will have more than a few benefits for your company, including:

  1. It gives credibility: Content plan or not, opening up your service or product to authentic reviews is just a good idea – full stop. Instead of having to convincing leads with marketing language, you can rely on informative and positive feedback from current customers to help potential customers make their decision.
  2. More leads: More customer reviews means more exposure and a better ranking, which means more leads. It’s as simple as that.
  3. A pool of content: Of course, this is the focus of the post. Encouraging reviews gives you a pool of customer feedback to incorporate into your marketing content! Positive reviews can be translated into featured website content, blog posts, social media content, and more.

Using Your Customer’s Voice to Create Content That Converts

Of course, it’s not enough to simply open up your company to authentic customer reviews and leave it at that. You can take the time to translate your customer’s voice into marketing content! There are a few ways to go about this.

#1: Manage Your Potential Customer’s Expectations

You can use reviews to help potential customers understand what your service, product or software looks like in practice. Instead of imagining everything they could do with the features, customer reviews give leads the chance to explore how your product will truly work for them.

For example, sharing customer reviews that highlight specific features of your service or product will speak more specifically to a smaller target audience.

#2: Customer Experience Speaks Louder Than Marketing Language

This is absolutely the main benefit of customer reviews; you can use all of the positive quotes you want in developing a content strategy! You can incorporate reviews (especially specific and helpful reviews) into blog posts, landing pages, social media content, and even demos!

For example, try replacing the headline copy on one of your landing pages with a quote from an authentic user review. Run an A/B test and see how that page compares to others.

#3: Listen to What’s Important

If your current customers are focusing on technical support and price in their reviews, then you shouldn’t really be spending that much time on something else. Look at what features customers focus on in their feedback, and spend time developing content around those features.

For example, if most reviews focus on the quality for the price, you can use that in your marketing language for paids. Similarly, if customers are highlighting your customer service, home in on that for attracting new customers.

This should get you started on using your customer’s voice to create content that converts going into 2018!

About the Author

Brooklin_Nash-167x250 Brooklin Nash writes about the latest tools and small business trends for TrustRadius. When he’s not writing, you can find him reading YA dystopian fiction (with guilty pleasure) and cooking.

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