click-through rate

As content writers, we’re trying to persuade others to see our point of view – to agree with us. Regardless of whether it’s to click on a link or to purchase a product, we want our writing to influence others in a positive manner.

To write in an engaging and persuasive way is an art form – it’s elegant, refined and exercises discernment. And it’s worlds apart from the distasteful, strong-arm tactics employed by spam marketers.

Crafting content that influences isn’t necessarily hard, but it does take a bit of practice. So, without further ado, let’s have a look at five key elements that contribute to successful and persuasive content writing.

1: Be an Expert

Few things are more influential than the opinion of an expert. Why? Because true experts know what they’re talking about. It’s clear in their authenticity and transparency. Experts don’t use fluffy filler material in their persuasive writing, and they don’t try to distract the reader with gimmicks.

If you want to establish yourself as an influencer in your niche, you need to be the premier expert in your field. You don’t need a degree or years of related experience, but you need to demonstrate that you’re a specialist. You want to be so knowledgeable in your particular market that your content is oozing with confidence and certainty.

Note the word specialist.

Experts don’t try to cover all the bases, and they don’t pretend to know everything remotely related to their topic.

They specialize in one particular aspect or angle, and by sharing their knowledge they become an authority. And authority bestows persuasion.

La Carmina, a very successful travel blogger self-describing her approach as “spooky-cute”, embodies this idea to perfection because her success is not the result of trying to be all things to all travelers. Her advice? “Be niche. Don’t be afraid to focus on a specific topic or audience…” Read more of her suggestions for being a specialist on the Huffington Post.

La Carmina.

La Carmina Travel Blog specializes in “spooky-cute” travel.

2: List the Most Important Information First

Writing persuasive copy for web pages is similar to that of writing news articles. That is, the most important information comes first – which is quite different from writing an essay or a short story. Journalists refer to this method as writing in an inverted pyramid, and it starts with the most relevant points which are then followed by related details and background information.

In this manner, you have the opportunity right at the start of your post to motivate your readers to continue on to your benefits, features and call to action.

By highlighting the outcomes that you or your products can provide at the beginning, you’ll give them a clear understanding of the big picture. Don’t wait for the conclusion of your piece to deliver the vision they want, because they’ll be long gone.

Gregory Ciotti at Unbounce gives a great example of this idea in his post on how research can affect the way we write copy. He captures the essence of his entire topic in the second sentence, leaving no doubt in the readers’ mind about whether reading the post will be beneficial or not.


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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3: Give Your Readers Reasons Why

Written or spoken, few words are more persuasive than the word because.

In her book Mindfulness, social psychologist Ellen Langer clearly demonstrated that people are more likely to comply to a request if they’re given a reason via the word because. Even if the reason is redundant or doesn’t make sense!

Another persuasive word to work into your copy is imagine – asking your readers to imagine their desired outcome is a safe alternative to asking them to take action. It’s make-believe, so their inner gatekeeper (the voice in our head suspicious of others’ motives) won’t be inclined to object. And getting your prospects to imagine themselves in happy situations is a powerful influencer.

At Enchanting Marketing, Henneke shows us how to master this element with the words ‘because’ and ‘picture’ right in the introduction of her post (picture being a synonym of imagine). She first suggests we may be making a mistake in our web writing, then gets us to picture a client clicking where we want them to and finally shows us ‘why’ we’re making the mistake – with the word because.

You can’t help but continue reading, and for web content, that’s a big deal because, as Henneke says, you are writing for people who probably aren’t going to read what you write.  People don’t read articles all the way through online like they do in print.

Picture your customers as wild animals when you write copy suggests Henneke Enchanged Marketing

Picture your customers as wild animals when you write copy suggests Henneke Enchanged Marketing

4: Benefits First, Then Features

This point may seem a bit counterintuitive, but only because you know your products or services so well – still, you need to remember that your prospects don’t. Keep in mind that they’re looking for specific outcomes.

It might help to think of the benefits as the outcome they desire, while the features are part of the solution to their problem. For example, “You can look like a supermodel in two weeks with our Magic Pills – no need for diets or exercise!” The benefit is looking like a supermodel in two weeks. The features are no dieting or exercising.

By succinctly outlining the benefits first, then the features, you’ll generate greater interest in your clients’ minds.

Brian Clark shows us how to successfully highlight benefits, and to differentiate between benefits and features, with the ‘forehead slap test’ in this great post on Copyblogger.

5: Write for Scanners

It’s important to remember that most online consumers are scanners first and readers second. To persuade your prospects actually to read your content, use some of these eye candy elements to draw them into your article:

  • Headings and subheads, relevant and on topic
  • Bullet lists to highlight benefits and features
  • Font variations, bold, italics, and colored links
  • Short sentences and short paragraphs, each with one idea only
  • Images and infographics
  • Memorable captions

Case Study

Alex Turnbull at Bufferapp expertly includes all five of these elements in his post on research-backed content.  You’ll notice that:

  1. He establishes himself as an expert on writing persuasive content with solid research, and results, to establish his status.
  2. The most important information is listed first. The graph shows us that a headline that includes research received a +40% increase in click throughs.
  3. He gives us the reason ‘why’ in a big way – right there in the first sub-header: “why you should write research-backed content”.
  4. The benefit is shown in a graph demonstrating the increase in click through rates.
  5. The post is easily scanable. Lots of relevant subheads, graphs, images, bold and colored fonts. And the sentences and paragraphs are short and concise, with a memorable caption: “ROI is about the MECHANIC using the tool.”

With a bit of practice in applying these key elements, you’ll be successful at writing persuasive content that your readers will understand and appreciate – and that’s a winning situation for everyone.

Welcome email tests that will help begin the onboarding process that turns tryers into buyers and buyers into long-term subscribers.

Email is still the most effective strategy for onboarding visitors. By “onboarding” we mean:

  • Getting tryers to use the product so they can become buyers
  • Getting buyers to use the product so they become long-term subscribers
  • Getting repeat buyers to share their appreciation of the product

Yes, email is important to your business. It can’t be done through Facebook or Twitter. It can’t be done through SMS. Maybe it can be done through direct mail. Maybe.

The first step in these processes is the ubiquitous Welcome Email. It gives customers a first impression of your business. Guides them through your product. And demonstrates the value that you can bring them. It’s what takes them from trial to paying user to a repeat user to a evangelist.

In fact marketers who utilize welcome emails find that they have a substantial effect on their conversions with some even experiencing up to a 50% conversion rate when implementing them into their onboarding marketing strategy. Impressive, huh?

Welcome emails aren’t as straightforward as you would think, however. They need to be tested. From timing to subject line, rigorously A/B testing the different aspects of your emails is a sure fire way to build the most effectual onboarding strategy for your business.

Today, we are going to focus on one aspect of welcome email A/B testing – Content.

Content is what entices your user to click-through and act. You need to get it right.

Welcome Email Tests to Engage Customers

Here are five A/B tests you should be doing on your content to optimize your onboarding emails and get users converting from trial to lifetime customers.

1. Test Simple vs. Hyper-Stylized Design

Let’s begin with design.

No matter how well-written your emails are, if it the look isn’t right the effectiveness will be hampered. Emails can be as simple or flamboyant as you wish. Generally they are divided into three types:

  1. The first type is E-zine style. It’s flashy, hyper-stylized with images and bold font taking centre stage.
  2. Next is SaaS style. It’s cleaner and simpler yet still professional.
  3. And finally Personal. This has no branding, no design. Just a straightforward email.

It’s up to you to test what works best for your business.

welcome email tests - stylized versus simple email design

Will your visitors prefer a stylized email or a simple “personal” email?

An interesting design case study comes from SitePoint, a specialist in content for web developers. After sending out over 40 newsletters, their campaign started to look a little lackluster.

Their initial emails were uncluttered and pared back in design. And they wanted to continue with this look but update it and get more clicks.

So they ran an A/B test.

The first thing they tested was the template, and the results were positive with an initial 16% rise in click through rates.

Next they tested images – should they include them or keep it plain text? SitePoint already had a hunch that their customers didn’t care for them and wanted a text only email.  This assumption proved to be inconclusive as the results were 118 vs. 114 clicks in favor of no images.

This inconclusive test demonstrated that readers didn't prefer nor mind images in their welcome email.

This inconclusive test demonstrated that readers didn’t prefer nor mind images in their welcome email.

These welcome email tests were just the first round of experimenting for SitePoint. They went back to the drawing board and tested everything again. They experimented with images and templates until they found what worked best.

The winning email template after ab testing of welcome emails. Simple, but a little design can go a long way.

The winning email was simple, but a little design can go a long way.

The winning email retained the simple look of their original email. It was just updated, more attractive to readers and most importantly, increased their click-through rate.

Contrasted to this is Wishpond. After extensive testing of their own emails, they discovered images were just what their audience wanted. Using images produced a 60% higher click-through rate versus just using text alone.

These two contrasting examples are just to illustrate the fact that there is no single best design for all businesses.

There is no one template fits all.

You need to test to discover what your customers like and what drives results.

2. Test A Single Call to Action

When you send out your welcome emails we are betting you have one goal in mind – getting customers to use your product.

All too often we see businesses sending emails with multiple links and requesting customers do numerous actions. It’s confusing and will distract your user from your goal.

So here’s a challenge – try restricting your welcome emails to have only one call-to-action,

That’s exactly what Optimizely did.

In 2014 they began rigorously testing all aspects of their emails. One of the tests had a goal of increasing click-throughs on the call to action.

To do this they sent out two emails. The first having only one CTA, while the second had multiple.

Welcome email: test a single call to action. Optimizely tested emails with a single call to action against their one with several.

Optimizely tested emails with a single call to action against their one with several.

There was one clear winner. The email with only one CTA produced substantially more click-throughs with a 13.3% increase.

Narrowing down your email to one call to action can be a tough task. You have a limited amount of onboarding emails to send. Yet you have so much to say.

Try removing any unnecessary call to actions you have in your emails and just focus on what you believe is most important.

Ask yourself what is the most important thing you want your customer to do after receiving this email and make this your call to action.

Then test.

3. Test Urgency Inducing Copy

When sending welcome emails to onboard your users there are some tactics you can use to convert those trial users into paying customers.

One method is urgency. Using a sense of immediacy in your email to get your customer to act now.

MarketingExperiments tested the effects of urgency in their email campaigns.

They planned a Web Clinic Invite and sent out two emails. One was just the simple invite. The other however, had three extra urgency inducing words – Limit 1000 Attendees.

Five welcome email tests to turn tryers into buyers - test urgency inducing copy.

Urgency may induce more of your email recipients to act.

The email containing the urgency had a 15.4% increase in click-throughs. Pretty impressive figures considering the only difference was 3 words!

When sending welcome emails, urgency can be incredibly valuable.

Here is another example of urgency from Sprout Social.

To get trials to convert to paying customers they use copy to imply urgency and encourage users to act now.

Urgency can be communicated in may ways.

Urgency can be communicated in may ways.

They use phrases such as “Only 2 days left” and “Time Flies – your trial period is over in just 2 days”. It shouts “act now or you’ll miss out!”

It’s a clever way to optimize your emails and get more customers converting.

4. Testing Email Length (How Long Should a Welcome Email Be?)

When a customer signs up you want to tell them everything about your business.

Explaining every feature and what you offer in a long winded email is going to show them the value of your business, right? Well probably not.

Conversely, saying too little can be problematic also. Customers might feel under informed and might not act at all.

Research has shown that the average open time for an email is only 15-20 seconds.

With such a small window of time, you need to test how long your emails should be to have the maximum impact.

iMedia Connection decided to carry out tests, with two versions of an email promoting an upcoming conference.

One email was verbose, containing all of the information about the conference within it as well as links to the website.

The other was half the length, with only a short description and a link to a website containing the information.

Testing email length: A bigger open rate doesn't mean a higher click-through rate.

A bigger open rate doesn’t mean a higher click-through rate.

The shorter email proved to be more appealing. iMedia Connection reported that not only was the open rate on the shorter higher at 30% vs. 20% but the click-through rate was also higher at 11% vs. 5%.

Short, brief content was the winner here but that might not always be the case. Getting your emails length right must be tested.

Good ab testing will help you find the perfect balance between being informative while also being concise.

5. Welcome Email Tests: Test Personalization

Personalization is one of the most effective techniques to increase conversions from emails. Using a customer’s data to appeal to their interests has been proven to work time and time again. And it isn’t as complicated as you may think.

DoggyLoot, an online store experienced astonishing success when they began personalizing their email’s content.

They recognized that Rottweiler owners wouldn’t want the same emails as Chihuahua owners. So they began to segment in the simplest way possible.

They began collection “doggie data” by asking owners one simple question – is their dog small, medium or large?

Based on this data, they created three email segments based on dog size. Each segment received an email that had products that were suited to their dogs.

Welcome email tests: test personalization. DoggyLoot sent different emails to owners with different sized dogs.

DoggyLoot sent different emails to owners with different sized dogs.

The results were impressive to say the least. The personalized emails that were targeted at large dog owners had a click through rate that was 410% higher than the average.

Personalization doesn’t have to be complicated. Just find whatever works for your business.

Doggyloot just asked the right questions on signup, enabling them to segment their audience with relative ease.

Whether you just add a user’s name or build comprehensive buyer personas, testing personalization can be a real asset to your welcome emails.

5 Welcome Email Tests To Turn Tryers into Buyers: Summary

These 5 A/B tests and case studies are guidelines. Some may work for your business while others might make no impact at all.

It is important to focus on how customers are reacting to your email content. Measuring click-throughs and conversions is essential. See what makes statistical significance, gets users converting and becoming lifelong customers. For more advanced A/B tests read our Ebook “Welcome Your First Million Users: The Ultimate Guide to A/B Testing Your Welcome Emails”.

It’s job is to give you some ideas about where to invest to increase conversion rates and revenue per visit for your site.
Once you have been inspired, your next question should be, “What evidence do we have that would support any one of these strategies?”
Ask your team or give us a call.

Video

For complex sells or emotional purchases, video can deliver a great deal of information in a short period of time. Register for our report Business Video Through the Eyes of Your Prospects to learn more.

Ratings and Reviews

Found more and more on ecommerce sites, ratings and reviews offer proof to and build trust with visitors. Star ratings offer comfort at a glance almost anywhere on a site. Don’t rule this option out for B2B products and services as well.

Live Chat

In almost any marketplace, there is a segment of the audience who just needs a specific question answered, or prefers to interact with another human being before they can take action. Live chat offers a quick and easy solution for these prospects.

Recommendation Engines

The psychology of presenting alternative products to visitors is complex. In some cases, it can help them discover more options. In others it can give them comfort at a glance that they’ve found the best combination of value and features. The best recommendation engines learn about your visitors over time, and this is a powerful capability.

Abandonment Remarketing

Technologies allow us to gather an email address even before someone has clicked “submit” on their transaction or registration. This gives us the opportunity to reach out to visitors who were close to buying by email. There is a chance to collect an additional 5% to 30% of revenue for those almost-buyers and near-subscribers who got distracted before completing their process.

Retargeted Ads

One of the first qualifiers of a prospect is that they visited your website. Remarketing is the process of targeting ads across the internet at those who’ve been to your site. Click through rates and conversions rates are more favorable that demographically targeted display ads.

Email Marketing

There is power in the list. We call an email list a marketing battery because it stores the potential generated by your advertising, potential that can be released through email. The right email strategy can fundamentally change the effectiveness of almost any website in any industry.

Content Marketing

Great content is proving to simultaneously education, entertain and build trust with prospects. It shortens sales cycles and creates tribes of people with similar interests across social media. It causes your message to spread for less than the price of purchasing media. Successful marketing departments are going to look more and more like publishers today.

Landing Pages

Every ad is a promise, and when you send ad clicks to generic pages, you break a promise. Landing pages are promise keepers. That is why they work so well. They are single-minded pages that keep your promises and ask a visitor to take action. They are easy to test and can be used for any kind of offer in any industry.

Let’s Talk About Accelerators

Conversion Sciences sees your online marketing effort as a reaction between your visitors and your value proposition. Accelerators are catalysts that make these reactions progress faster, burn hotter and deliver more energy.
Let’s have a discussion about how the online portion of your business could benefit, and how we can help you choose the right strategies based on data.
You’ll find us in the lab.
Email us there at: [hide_email TheLab@ConversionSciences.com]
Or call +1 888-961-6604

New technology renders emails invisible. Customer Chaos Labs suspected.

Everyone who seeks to do good in the world will inevitably be challenged by an arch-nemesis; someone who’s view of the world is diametrically opposed to yours.

At Conversion Sciences we have Customer Chaos Labs, whose motto is:

If we’re not working for you, we’re working against you.

They are an organization who seeks to lift their clients’ online Web success by simply bringing everyone else down. We see them as basically evil.

This week, one of our clients became the victim of a new Customer Chaos technology: an email invisibility ray.

The results are devastating.

Don't fall victim to invisible emails.

Don’t fall victim to invisible emails.

Proof of the Invisibility Ray’s Existence

The folks at J’Tote Bags crafted a beautiful email, with professional photography, strong reasons to buy, and clear calls to action.

Then, J’Tote sent the email to eager prospects and customers. Somewhere in transit, many of these emails entered the range of the invisibility ray.

The invisibility technology rendered the email almost completely invisible to the human eye. Clearly, an invisible email is going to be read less, depressing open rates and clicks.

Conversion Sciences Defense Technology

Conversion Sciences has worked with the major email clients to develop a “de-cloaking” technology. For example, recipients can restore the email by clicking “Display Images below” in Gmail, or “Click here to download pictures” in Outlook.

Most email clients have implemented something similar.

The problem is that many recipients of your emails may not find a good reason to click on the de-cloaking links if they can’t see the email.

Clearly, this is not an ideal solution.

Defending Yourself Against the Invisibility Ray

A detailed analysis by Conversion Sciences has exposed some weaknesses in the invisibility ray.

It only works on images

Apparently, the invisibility ray doesn’t affect text, but only images. Thus a proper defense against this kind of attack is to use images more sparingly in your email and place text strategically around the email.

This will allow readers to understand the point of the email if the images have been inviso-rayed.

Image “Alt” Text is Sometimes Impervious

If you look closely at Exhibit B, you will see some text appearing in places where the images would have appeared. This is the images’ “alt” text and is created using the “alt” parameters in the HTML <img> tag.

Here’s an example:

<img src=”picture.jpg” alt=”Text that describes the image” />

Use the “alt” text to tell the reader what they will see if they click “Display images below” and invoke the de-cloaking technology.

This does not work in all email clients. Microsoft Outlook won’t show these cues, for example.

However, some email clients will actually allow you to format your “alt” text, making it different sizes and colors.

Conversion Alert: Don’t Fall Victim to Invisible Emails

Email remains one of the most effective online marketing tools available. No wonder the foes of good marketing have targeted it for disruption.

Let a Conversion Scientist review your email strategy. This will ensure that

  1. You are using best practices to maximize deliverability, open rates, clicks and conversions.
  2. You are sending content that is relevant and interesting. This gives you permission to continue sending email to desirable prospects.
  3. You are sending with the right frequency. Sending too often or too rarely can render an email strategy impotent.
  4. You are defended against the invisibility ray and other weapons of chaos. Enough said on this one.

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

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.


This is a guest post by Brian Combs of ionadas local.

A Local SEO Horror Story

About eighteen months ago, the SEO agency of which I was then a member was hired by a company in the travel industry. Their websites were seeing a 20% drop in traffic from Google. Even more worrisome was the nearly 25% drop in sales from Google.

Meanwhile, their keyword monitoring tools were saying everything was fine. Their tools watched several thousand keywords on a monthly basis, and the rankings had not substantively changed. If a keyword was third last month, it was third again this month.

We were tasked with determining the cause of the drop and prescribing a remedy.

The culprit was the new Google Maps business listing. These are the seven (at that point ten) listings that come up with the Google Map on queries with locational intent.

Austin plumber - Conversion and Google Maps optimization.

Austin plumber Sample Google Maps business listing.

Note: The example image is from a different industry than the client in order to protect the client’s identity.

These Google Maps had begun popping up for a large number of the client’s search terms. A keyword that was third in the organic listings was likely to be pushed below the fold. As a result, the traffic from Google was dropping precipitously.

And conversion was dropping at an even higher rate. Clearly, it was the best traffic that was being lost.

I would posit that this represents the biggest change to Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) since they began including paid listings above the natural listings.

Does Local SEO Matter for You?

If your business needs to generate website visitors, phone calls, or foot traffic from people in particular geographies, then local SEO is likely appropriate for you.

Do your keywords include a city (or neighborhood in them)? When you search on them, is the so-called 7-pack (or any Google Map) returned?

Google is constantly enlarging the universe of keywords that generate map results. So if the map is not returned today, it may begin doing so in the future.

Google is even assuming local intent when none is expressly stated.

For instance, if you search on [coffee shop], Google will determine your location from your IP address, and return you a list of coffee shops your area.

Impact on Conversion Rate

The impact of this change by Google can hardly by overstated. Even if you’ve worked your website to the top of the organic listings, the addition of the Google Map listings will have a substantial impact on Click Through Rate (CTR) and post-click conversion rate.

Which begs the question, what impact does placement within the 7-pack have on CTR?

While no studies have been published on this topic as yet, the assumption is that the curve of traffic decline within the seven maps listings is not as steep as it is for the ten organic listings.

Also, the company name within the Google Maps listing can have an effect. Known, branded companies certainly have an advantage. And those that are nothing but a list of keywords are likely at a conversion disadvantage.

Reviews and Their Impact on Conversion Rate

The Google Maps business listings very prominently list the reviews a company has received. These reviews may have been placed directly with Google, or may have been pulled into Google from third-party systems such as CitySearch.

Both the number and the quality of reviews within Google have an impact.

The number of reviews greatly impacts the ranking of the business listings. If all else is equal (which it never is, of course), the ranking with the greater number of reviews will be higher. A large number of reviews can overcome many other deficiencies in Google Maps optimization.

I have not seen any studies on the impact of the number of reviews on conversion, but I expect they are positively correlated. If there are two listings, one with twenty-five reviews and one with no reviews, people will tend to look at the business with reviews first.

And while the quality of reviews has little to no impact on rankings, it can certainly have a significant impact on conversions.

This is not to say that an occasional bad review is going to drive you out of business. We’ve all read reviews from clearly unreasonable people, and most people will give a company the benefit of the doubt.

But if the preponderance of reviews are negative, and the reviews seem reasonably written, you had better work to improve your product/service quality, and encourage happy customers to write reviews for you.

Brian Combs is the founder of ionadas local, a provider of Google Maps optimization in Austin, Texas.  ionadas local 13359 N Hwy 183, #406-245, Austin, TX 78750, (512) 501-1875

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