Everybody wants to be the llmpany that came up with the brilliantly clever video or ad or Tweet that got shared by millions. The one where, if you dare to admit you haven’t seen it, everyone else at the party will jump on you demanding, “You haven’t SEEN it?” But here’s the thing: While there are many companies that have made such ads that quickly translated into rapid sales, other companies with viral videos and other funny content never increased their sales at all, despite millions of shares. The bottom line is humor can create sales, but it has to be done right.
Unfortunately, it’s so easy to do it wrong.
Inc. published case studies on two products. One, the Orabrush, was designed to remove the tongue bacteria that cause bad breath. Inventor Dr. Robert Wagner was only pulling in about $30 a month, selling 10 Orabrushes, until he created a funny video. Within six weeks, Orabrush sold about 10,000 tongue cleaners (and gave many away free). Within two years, the company sold more than a million Orabrushes online and the video was viewed more than 15 million times. You can now buy the tongue cleaner at stores like Walmart. What was so great about the video was that, in addition to being funny, it clearly explained what causes bad breath and why the Orabrush is the best solution. It also had a call to action and a free Orabrush for responding.
In the same article, though, the reporter talked about EZ Grill which made a video in which it grilled various smart phones to see which would last longest. The video quickly got over a million views but didn’t translate into sales. There might have been a lot of reasons for this.
- The focus was more on the phones than on the grill.
- There was no explanation about why one would buy a portable grill or what made EZ Grill a better option.
- The video revealed the little aluminum grill’s occasional inferno-like action.
- There was no connection to the company’s website or any other outlet, so consumers had to figure out where to get one on their own: friction.
- There was cognitive dissonance between something high tech, like smart phones, and the music, which sounded like something from a Charlie Chaplin movie. Cognitive dissonance can be good or bad. In this case, it was difficult to tell who the audience was or what they should do.
The truth is, humor is complicated. Consider that most comedians will work a joke over and over before they bring it to audiences. Nielsen reports that, in the U.S. and Europe at least, 50 percent of people surveyed rank humorous ads as most effective. But myriad studies have failed to find a direct correlation between a funny ad and widgets flying out the door. A study on funny Superbowl ads showed that sales didn’t immediately go up on the products with the funniest ads. And yet we all know about the ones that worked. The Dollar Shave Club, which got 12,000 people to sign up for the service in the first 48 hours after they first aired their comic video, for example. So what makes the difference?
The first rule of humor probably should be:
1. Don’t Forget to Sell Your Product
A great example of this is Poo Purri, a company that makes a spray with essential oils that traps the odor of poop in the bowl. Really, hard to imagine how to sell this product without humor. But here’s a company that uses cognitive dissonance perfectly. It’s a visually attractive video of a gentile, British, girl-next-door, in elegant clothes, sitting on a toilet talking about the basest human functions.
But this video tells you exactly how Poo Pourri works, where to find it, what its Amazon rating is, has a “click here” call to action and a money back guarantee. The result was a 13,000 percent increase in visits to the site and more than double the company’s revenue.
One reason humor works is that it engages the brain in such a way that people kind of forget they’re being sold to. They might share the video over and over, watch it over and over, never realizing that they’re cheerfully and voluntarily propagandizing themselves and spreading your message. That’s because, from a scientific standpoint, humor provides all kinds of payoffs for the brain.
According to a paper published by the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute, the beginning of a joke triggers your frontal cortex—the executive part of the brain—to look for pattern recognition. The minute we sense a joke is coming, we perk up. We pay attention, look for the payoff. And if the payoff is good, we’re flooded with good feeling neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin and endorphins. These are the neurotransmitters that flood us when we’re in love or we accomplish a challenging goal. At the same time, laughter decreases stress hormones like serum cortisol or epinephrine. So just by the act of being funny, your blog, email, video and other content can reach through the screen and make customers feel good. That’s power.
A study on How Humor Breaks Resistance to Influence, conducted at a university in the Netherlands, show how humor distracts audiences from the fact they’re being sold to. Especially if the humor doesn’t tackle the sales goal head on. So it prevents the target audience from throwing up walls against being influenced.
Normally, any content that might cause us to spend money or make a decision triggers all kinds of defense mechanisms: skepticism, criticism, refusal to be moved. That’s especially true if we already have resistance to the brand. Humor has the effect of distracting us from resistance. And, the study said, even if consumers don’t consciously remember the association between the brand and the thing that made them laugh, it will positively impact brand perception and influence buying.
2. Distract Your Audience From the Hard Sell
One company that uses humor to distract is Yesware, which sends out the email below to customers who haven’t responded to sales pitches. The humor in it, of course, softens the fact that the email is essentially saying “What gives?” Typically, Yesware reports, replies to follow up emails are around 21 percent. But not this one:
This humorous email had a 46 percent response rate
But to make people laugh, you have to know your audience.
3. Be Relevant to Your Audience
Ikea wanted to boost its sales in Singapore and Malaysia. The trouble is, Singapore and Malaysia are crazy about technology and Ikea is a very low-tech company with furniture you build yourself. Its primary marketing tool is a paper catalog, which is about as low tech as they come. So, just before the release of the iPhone 6, Ikea posted a video that spoofed its own catalog.
Its commercial video used an Apple-like asthetic to show the simple navigation of its paper catalog, touting catalog’s “eternal battery life” and “tactile touch technology you can actually feel.”
With The Ikea “bookbook”, the ad said “each crystal clear image loads instantaneously….”
It was the only commercial video that made it to Time Magazine’s top 10 viral videos of 2014, with 12 million views as of the end of 2014. The video—which was created BBH Asia Pacific marketing company—increased sales .8 percent in Singapore and 13 percent in Malaysia. A case study by London branding and marketing firm, Cream Global, showed the video also garnered articles in Time, WSJ, Buzzfeed, The Daily Mail, Mashable and more. It got nearly 500,000 share on Facebook. More than 6,000 people uploaded photos of themselves with their bookbooks on Instagram. Ikea’s revenues have climbed every year but global sales in 2014 were up nearly six percent from the previous year.
By contrast Ranker has a votable list of brands that try too hard to connect with the millennial generation, including Welch’s “Pour ‘em a glass of LOLs” and a myriad of brands who ultimately killed the expression “bae.”
Ikea’s ad did something else that is crucial to humor in content, it was self-deprecating. Making fun of others in ads just communicates that you’re mean-spirited. Take political ads, for example. But making fun of yourself engenders affection.
4. Be Self-Deprecating
Dissolve makes stock footage. Just showing how pretty their stock footage was would only serve to keep them in competition with every other stock footage company. But Dissolve decided to spoof itself on the fact that stock footage is designed to create mental associations that may or may not have anything to do with the actual product. The blatant honesty was surprising and funny. During the Generic Brand Video launch week, visits to the site increased by 9x and signups and sales revenue both increased by 6X.
Dissolve’s self-deprecating humor about stock photos being generic worked well.
Sam Elliott, in his gravelly, dead-pan voice nails the intention of the pictures of happy, beautiful people and scenery to influence viewers’ perception about the product being sold: “Lest you think we’re a faceless entity, look at all these attractive people. Here’s some of them talking and laughing and closeups of hands passing canned goods to each other….” As the saying goes: “It’s funny because it’s true.” It also communicates a sense of transparency and humility on Dissolve’s part.
The video generated articles in Fast Company, Ad Age, Adweek, Mashable, Gizmodo, Mediaite and TIME, according to the Shorty Awards where it won Best of B2B.
One of the brilliant things about the Dissolve video was that, while it was making fun of itself, it was also making the case that its beautiful footage sells powerfully. And it included a link to the company’s website.
Humor is difficult. Just listen to a lineup of comedians and it’s clear that some people know how to do it and others don’t. Poo Pourri founder Suzi Batiz said in several interviews that some of the writing for that first viral ad made her cringe. But it worked. So find someone who knows how to do it right, and don’t forget that the whole point is to get people to buy your product or service.
About the Author
Susan Lahey is a journalist, copywriter, author and all around multipotentialite wordsmith who loves to write about brave people doing cool things.
Feature image by S.Hart Photography, licensed through Creative Commons and adapted for this post.
How to Use Humor in Video to Increase Online Sales
Conversion Marketing StrategyEverybody wants to be the llmpany that came up with the brilliantly clever video or ad or Tweet that got shared by millions. The one where, if you dare to admit you haven’t seen it, everyone else at the party will jump on you demanding, “You haven’t SEEN it?” But here’s the thing: While there are many companies that have made such ads that quickly translated into rapid sales, other companies with viral videos and other funny content never increased their sales at all, despite millions of shares. The bottom line is humor can create sales, but it has to be done right.
Unfortunately, it’s so easy to do it wrong.
Inc. published case studies on two products. One, the Orabrush, was designed to remove the tongue bacteria that cause bad breath. Inventor Dr. Robert Wagner was only pulling in about $30 a month, selling 10 Orabrushes, until he created a funny video. Within six weeks, Orabrush sold about 10,000 tongue cleaners (and gave many away free). Within two years, the company sold more than a million Orabrushes online and the video was viewed more than 15 million times. You can now buy the tongue cleaner at stores like Walmart. What was so great about the video was that, in addition to being funny, it clearly explained what causes bad breath and why the Orabrush is the best solution. It also had a call to action and a free Orabrush for responding.
In the same article, though, the reporter talked about EZ Grill which made a video in which it grilled various smart phones to see which would last longest. The video quickly got over a million views but didn’t translate into sales. There might have been a lot of reasons for this.
The truth is, humor is complicated. Consider that most comedians will work a joke over and over before they bring it to audiences. Nielsen reports that, in the U.S. and Europe at least, 50 percent of people surveyed rank humorous ads as most effective. But myriad studies have failed to find a direct correlation between a funny ad and widgets flying out the door. A study on funny Superbowl ads showed that sales didn’t immediately go up on the products with the funniest ads. And yet we all know about the ones that worked. The Dollar Shave Club, which got 12,000 people to sign up for the service in the first 48 hours after they first aired their comic video, for example. So what makes the difference?
The first rule of humor probably should be:
1. Don’t Forget to Sell Your Product
A great example of this is Poo Purri, a company that makes a spray with essential oils that traps the odor of poop in the bowl. Really, hard to imagine how to sell this product without humor. But here’s a company that uses cognitive dissonance perfectly. It’s a visually attractive video of a gentile, British, girl-next-door, in elegant clothes, sitting on a toilet talking about the basest human functions.
But this video tells you exactly how Poo Pourri works, where to find it, what its Amazon rating is, has a “click here” call to action and a money back guarantee. The result was a 13,000 percent increase in visits to the site and more than double the company’s revenue.
One reason humor works is that it engages the brain in such a way that people kind of forget they’re being sold to. They might share the video over and over, watch it over and over, never realizing that they’re cheerfully and voluntarily propagandizing themselves and spreading your message. That’s because, from a scientific standpoint, humor provides all kinds of payoffs for the brain.
According to a paper published by the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute, the beginning of a joke triggers your frontal cortex—the executive part of the brain—to look for pattern recognition. The minute we sense a joke is coming, we perk up. We pay attention, look for the payoff. And if the payoff is good, we’re flooded with good feeling neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin and endorphins. These are the neurotransmitters that flood us when we’re in love or we accomplish a challenging goal. At the same time, laughter decreases stress hormones like serum cortisol or epinephrine. So just by the act of being funny, your blog, email, video and other content can reach through the screen and make customers feel good. That’s power.
A study on How Humor Breaks Resistance to Influence, conducted at a university in the Netherlands, show how humor distracts audiences from the fact they’re being sold to. Especially if the humor doesn’t tackle the sales goal head on. So it prevents the target audience from throwing up walls against being influenced.
Normally, any content that might cause us to spend money or make a decision triggers all kinds of defense mechanisms: skepticism, criticism, refusal to be moved. That’s especially true if we already have resistance to the brand. Humor has the effect of distracting us from resistance. And, the study said, even if consumers don’t consciously remember the association between the brand and the thing that made them laugh, it will positively impact brand perception and influence buying.
2. Distract Your Audience From the Hard Sell
One company that uses humor to distract is Yesware, which sends out the email below to customers who haven’t responded to sales pitches. The humor in it, of course, softens the fact that the email is essentially saying “What gives?” Typically, Yesware reports, replies to follow up emails are around 21 percent. But not this one:
This humorous email had a 46 percent response rate
But to make people laugh, you have to know your audience.
3. Be Relevant to Your Audience
Ikea wanted to boost its sales in Singapore and Malaysia. The trouble is, Singapore and Malaysia are crazy about technology and Ikea is a very low-tech company with furniture you build yourself. Its primary marketing tool is a paper catalog, which is about as low tech as they come. So, just before the release of the iPhone 6, Ikea posted a video that spoofed its own catalog.
Its commercial video used an Apple-like asthetic to show the simple navigation of its paper catalog, touting catalog’s “eternal battery life” and “tactile touch technology you can actually feel.”
With The Ikea “bookbook”, the ad said “each crystal clear image loads instantaneously….”
It was the only commercial video that made it to Time Magazine’s top 10 viral videos of 2014, with 12 million views as of the end of 2014. The video—which was created BBH Asia Pacific marketing company—increased sales .8 percent in Singapore and 13 percent in Malaysia. A case study by London branding and marketing firm, Cream Global, showed the video also garnered articles in Time, WSJ, Buzzfeed, The Daily Mail, Mashable and more. It got nearly 500,000 share on Facebook. More than 6,000 people uploaded photos of themselves with their bookbooks on Instagram. Ikea’s revenues have climbed every year but global sales in 2014 were up nearly six percent from the previous year.
By contrast Ranker has a votable list of brands that try too hard to connect with the millennial generation, including Welch’s “Pour ‘em a glass of LOLs” and a myriad of brands who ultimately killed the expression “bae.”
Ikea’s ad did something else that is crucial to humor in content, it was self-deprecating. Making fun of others in ads just communicates that you’re mean-spirited. Take political ads, for example. But making fun of yourself engenders affection.
4. Be Self-Deprecating
Dissolve makes stock footage. Just showing how pretty their stock footage was would only serve to keep them in competition with every other stock footage company. But Dissolve decided to spoof itself on the fact that stock footage is designed to create mental associations that may or may not have anything to do with the actual product. The blatant honesty was surprising and funny. During the Generic Brand Video launch week, visits to the site increased by 9x and signups and sales revenue both increased by 6X.
Dissolve’s self-deprecating humor about stock photos being generic worked well.
Sam Elliott, in his gravelly, dead-pan voice nails the intention of the pictures of happy, beautiful people and scenery to influence viewers’ perception about the product being sold: “Lest you think we’re a faceless entity, look at all these attractive people. Here’s some of them talking and laughing and closeups of hands passing canned goods to each other….” As the saying goes: “It’s funny because it’s true.” It also communicates a sense of transparency and humility on Dissolve’s part.
The video generated articles in Fast Company, Ad Age, Adweek, Mashable, Gizmodo, Mediaite and TIME, according to the Shorty Awards where it won Best of B2B.
One of the brilliant things about the Dissolve video was that, while it was making fun of itself, it was also making the case that its beautiful footage sells powerfully. And it included a link to the company’s website.
Humor is difficult. Just listen to a lineup of comedians and it’s clear that some people know how to do it and others don’t. Poo Pourri founder Suzi Batiz said in several interviews that some of the writing for that first viral ad made her cringe. But it worked. So find someone who knows how to do it right, and don’t forget that the whole point is to get people to buy your product or service.
About the Author
Feature image by S.Hart Photography, licensed through Creative Commons and adapted for this post.
Copyright Infringement-Things to Avoid on the Web [INFOGRAPH]
Conversion Marketing StrategyFrom a conversion optimization standpoint, there’s only one thing worse than business porn, and that’s stolen business porn.
Google: This is not where you go to find images. This is where you go to infringe someone.Do you know how copyright works? Are you sure you understand “fair use” of content? Are you vulnerable to having your trademarks stolen from you?
These are some of the questions Ruth Carter addressed in her Ungagged conference presentation Social Media Horror Stories. It may help you avoid copyright infringement, unline Perez Hilton and having your trademark taken by companies like Adecco.
My favorite line from her presentation is
She is quick to point out that this does not constitute legal advice. This will not qualify you to make legal decisions. And, as Crystal Cox found out the hard way, always hire a lawyer if you suspect you have an issue.
Copyright Infringement, Trademarks and More
This infographic is taken from my instagraph notes from her presentation.
Social Media Nightmares
Ruth opens her presentation with the cautionary tale of Justine Sacco’s journey to South Africa. She jumped on an 11-hour flight after launching an ill-advised tweet to her 170 followers. By the time she had landed, she had been vilified on Twitter. The hash tag #hasjustinelandedyet trended to the top. She had been fired.
Other nightmares can be found in the infographic. Infringer beware.
Metrics for Great SEO Content
Web AnalyticsWhat are the characteristics of a high-performing organic web page? How would you measure it? What are the things that get it shared?
In his Ungagged Conference presentation “Increasing Your Content IQ” Jordan Koene gives us three strategies for SEO Content that pulls backlinks and organic visitors to the page, the relevant engaged kind of visitors.
Key Strategies for Effective SEO Content
His advice is well-placed based on the data he presented from his company Search Metrics.
Here are my instagraph notes from the presentation.
Click to Enlarge
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
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Turn a 10 Second Ecommerce Transaction into 10 Minutes
Ecommerce CROIf you’ve ever read the book The Design of Everyday Things you may recall one of the stories. It tells of a typist asked to evaluate the design of a new keyboard. She reported back to the keyboard designer that she liked the new design and didn’t find any faults with it. The designer asked if they could watch her use it. What they observed was that she kept making a particular typing error over and over again.
The new design had moved some keys around, so the typist kept hitting the wrong key. She was used to the old layout. When they asked her about it, she blamed herself and not the design because the key was clearly labeled.
I Blame Myself
A couple of weeks ago, my favorite artist released a new album. It’s always a long time in coming, so album release day felt like Christmas morning to me. I even woke up early, ready to download it and spend my whole morning listening to it.
After about a decade of not spending money on music, I decided 2015 is the year I wanted to start doing it again. This year I also bought Taylor Swift’s newest album and the soundtrack for a deeply cool movie, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. I bought both on Google Play, and as we mentioned in a different post, spending money on Google Play is distressingly easy.
When I went to work buying Joanna Newsom’s latest, I expected a similarly unremarkable experience. I thought two taps to purchase and one tap to play would get the job done. But her album wasn’t for sale on Google Play, so I decided to buy it directly from her record label, Drag City.
Joanna Newsom’s artist page was my first touchpoint with Drag City
I couldn’t actually remember the name of her record label, so I got there by a search, and I bypassed the homepage entirely. My first impression of the page was positive but ultimately irrelevant since I knew that I would definitely be spending my money on this website regardless of my experience because I really wanted this album, and it wasn’t readily available everywhere.
Strategic Use of Invisibility
After a moment I saw that there isn’t a buy button anywhere on this page, nor are there any prices. Apparently, I needed to find a product page to get to that information. Like most people comfortable with technology, I scan and click links quickly and with little thought.
I ended up in a loop where I clicked “Joanna Newsom” two or three times before my brain caught up with my finger. I was just taking myself back to the same page over and over again.
I needed to find my way to the product page, but I kept ending up back on the artist page.
The page I wanted was strategically hidden behind the album image and the name of the album. Despite the page’s every attempt, I made my way to the product page. This wasn’t to be the last time I felt sheepish.
Which download do I want?
This Product Page is FLACed Up
I already disclosed that I don’t buy music often (I’m more of a book and movie person), so maybe it’s unsurprising that I was caught off-guard by one of my purchase options: the FLAC Download. Is that a normal thing now? It better be because 1) I had to do a Google search to figure out whether I needed to adopt FLAC instead of MP3 and 2) I was irritated that I had to leave the website to find answers instead of Drag City just telling me on this screen.
Not everyone is going to find their way back like I did.
My search told me that I don’t care enough to know more about FLAC downloads to spend an extra dollar, so I selected MP3 and moved on to the next step.
The Payment Method Shell Game
Technical errors are always a problem. In this case, the inconsistency happened in the all-important cart. Sometimes when I visited my cart, I was given the option to purchase with Paypal. Sometimes it wasn’t.
Option 1: No PayPal
Option 2: Checkout with PayPal
I saw both of these screens in the process of writing this article. If I didn’t feel like I absolutely needed this album right this instant, I would have just bailed without a PayPal option. For some people it’s the borrowed trust that the PayPal logo provides that would cause them to stay. If I have to get off my couch and find my credit card to buy something, I can probably live without it.
Since I was borderline desperate, I journeyed onward regardless, perhaps even going so far as to walk across the room to fetch my purse.
How to Treat Your Repeat Buyers Like Dirt
I had high hopes that I was almost done using this website when I got to this page.
The first time I went through this process my purchase was a cinch. Replicating it for this post didn’t go the same way, however. The first time around I created a new account and moved on. I assumed it would be even more straightforward after I had my own account.
When I logged in with my new account, however, I wasn’t taken to the next step in the purchase process. I was taken to Drag City’s homepage.
So here is how they treat return buyers: Find music. Add music to cart. Click checkout. Login. Get sent back to the beginning.
I thought it was because I typed my password incorrectly. It felt like I had done something wrong. I felt bad. Being a returning customer is not nearly as easy as being a new one, apparently. I persevered.
Here’s Your Order. Not.
When I finally made it to the through to a screen thanking me for my purchase, I didn’t know what do from there. Where was my download? How was I going to be able to listen to my album? Had I just sent my ten bucks into cyberspace never to be seen again?
I searched through Drag City’s FAQs and even tried to find a customer forum where I could find the answer to those questions, but I came up with nothing. My emailed receipt also got me nowhere. I returned to the browser where I ended my purchase to see if I’d missed a message telling me what to do next, but that also left me empty-handed.
Me dumb. That is the message.
I ended up emailing their customer service to ask what was up, but I felt incredibly stupid about it. I felt self-conscious, like I’m sure my dad feels when he calls me for the seventh time to ask how to use his TV remote, but it seemed like the only option. And dang, after all it took to get there, I couldn’t just give up.
My story ends rather anticlimactically because about an hour later, I got an email back letting me know that I would receive my download via email, and I should please let them know if I didn’t receive it. I had indeed received it – but about ten minutes before customer service got back to me. It was weird.
It was great customer service with a quick response, but I prefer not to feel like an idiot, even if it results in a kind email from a stranger.
You may think it’s not fair to compare a small business website to an e-tail juggernaut like Amazon, but it is. If I had decided I didn’t want to support Drag City, using Amazon would have been so much easier. Amazon loves taking people’s money, and Drag City makes it feel like a burden.
My Amazon search result for the same album
Just my search result on Amazon gave me more information than Drag City’s entire Joanna Newsom page. And notice the “Available for download now” message. The last time I spent money on a digital download from Amazon was probably about five years ago when I purchased an episode of Vampire Diaries, and even that long ago, the whole process went very smoothly. I definitely didn’t have to wait an hour for an email.
Who is to blame for negative shopping experiences?
Re-living my buying experience in excruciating detail began to make me think “I don’t know why this bothered me at the time. It seems pretty obvious in hindsight.”
Some websites have very poor design, and users will openly criticize it, but others have design flaws that are subtle. After spending a few minutes using the navigation and thinking about the purpose of the page, a visitor will figure it out, but they may blame their own alleged stupidity for being slow on the uptake.
It’s one reason that self-reporting is so notoriously inaccurate: the reasons we think we behave a certain way aren’t always clear. It’s also why tools like heat maps are so eye-opening. It’s also why I was mad that I got up early on Nerdy-Christmas Morning only to have this experience be the thing that woke me up.
Feature image by greg westfall. via Compfight cc and adapted for this post.
7 Ways to Get More Software Trials from Your Landing Page [Critique]
Landing Page OptimizationWhat does a landing page have to do to generate more software trials from visitors?
One of the sites I reviewed during my webinar The Science of the Landing Page with Avangate was Mac Mail to Outloook Converter. The primary call to action on this page is to download and try the converter.
Watch the Critique (4:24)
http://conversionsciences.wistia.com/medias/r3fxndpadd?embedType=seo&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=501
You can get a critique of your landing page. Find out how.
The Headline Should Match the Ad
I didn’t have information about what brought the traffic to this page during my critique. If the promise was “Mac Mail to Outlook Converter”, then the headline is perfect. For best results your headline should match the language used in the ad or link that brought the visitor to the page.
The headline should match the promise made in the ad or link that brought the user to this landing page.
Bullets help people scan the copy before they decide to read. However, one of the bullets here contains a bit of jargon. Terms like “native encoding” can leave non-technical buyers scratching their heads.
Bullets are easy to scan. Be careful about using jargon.
Handling Objections in Copy
The purpose of copy is to anticipate and handle objections to taking action. This page uses quite a bit of space describing the features and benefits of the product.Be sure to tell the visitor what they will get if they take action.
Don’t forget to answer the question, “What do I get?” This is the key question and applies to products, content offers, free consultations, etc.
How to Use Screenshots Intelligently
If you put screen shots on your landing pages without explanation, it just looks like… work.
Screenshots can be a powerful way to communicate through images but can rarely stand on their own.
If you use screenshots, explain the point of the image. Why did you choose to show this image to the visitor?
There are three ways to accomplish this.
Testimonials Add Proof and Trust
Testimonials are a great way to prove to the reader that your product works.
Testimonials can provide proof and build trust.
Testimonials span the gap between proof and trust. Success stories provide proof. I trust this page more because others have had success with the product.
Always Repeat the Offer at the Bottom
Someone who has read to the bottom of the page is probably well-qualified. Repeat the offer there so they can take action.
We call the offer at the bottom of a page the “dripping pan.”
Focus on Software Trials or Purchases. Not both.
The split button approach taken on this page may work against them. When there is more than one offer, it is important to help the visitor choose.
Be careful about using non-standard elements on your landing pages. They can add friction.
The page features the trial, so Download is the primary call to action. A treatment de-emphasizing the purchase offer may be better:
A mockup of the how this page could “help the visitor choose.”
Choose the Right Button Color
The key when choosing the right button color is to pick a color that is not found elsewhere on the page.
Call to action buttons should stand out on the page. Use color to create contrast with the rest of the page.
Notice how green and blue buttons appear more significant on the page than the orange ones.
Here is how a blue “dripping pan” would appear on this page.
See all of the Critiques
With a few changes, this landing page could be generating a higher number of software trials for the Mac Mail to Outlook Converter.
If you’d like to see all of my critiques please watch the webinar on demand.
7 Value Proposition Changes that Delivered a 500% Increase in Leads
Lead GenerationHow would you find a 508% increase in leads from your most important landing page? Here’s how Comnio did it.
What Makes Up Your Value Proposition
I’m often asked questions like, “What would you test first on a landing page?” and, “What do you test on landing pages that most often increases conversions?” At Conversion Sciences, we ask ourselves these questions almost every time we start designing a test. When we “place a bet” on a landing page test, we are most likely to start with the value proposition.
Your “value proposition” is communicated by the offer, copy, images and proof. It’s complex. So, when we say “start with the value proposition,” we’re talking about several potential tests.The catch is this.
Case Study: Comnio
I first came to know Comnio shortly after they had made a change to the over-arching component of their value proposition: the brand promise.
They had originally considered ShtLst.com.
The original concept did a great job of communicating the value proposition, but in a NSFW way.
The value proposition starts with, “Keep your company off of peoples’ Sh*t List.” I loved this approach mainly because I got the value prop in a very humorous way. The company uses customer complaints to market their services to companies that need help managing complaints. It’s hard to market a product to corporations that requires (Not Safe For Work) NSFW warnings, however. Here’s the original video (NSFW).
They decided to go with a safer corporate approach, branding the product as Comnio. The more customer complaints they are trusted with, the more businesses they can approach to sell their service.
So, the home page is an important landing page.
When I spoke with Ross Clurman the site offered a straight-forward value proposition to the consumer.
The Comnio home page served as a landing page for people needing customer support.
Visually, the most important parts of this value proposition are:
The Second Evolution
This value proposition didn’t work well, and this lead Ross to reach out to me for a free consultation.
My recommendations for Ross would certainly have been to focus on the company less and on what will happen more and to use a hero image that is more relevant. By September 2015, the home page was taking a different approach, focusing on the service value and defining the steps that make it work.
In September of 2015, this page had a conversion rate of 3.6%.
In this case the “proof” comes in the form of the logos of companies that Comnio has worked with. This can be a very effective way to increase conversions.
In September, the new landing page enjoyed a 3.6% conversion rate with 822 visits over 30 days.
Evolution Number Three
Updated Home Page Design
Again, included full-size version so you can scale down as needed…
The revised page that ran in October 2015 had a conversion rate of 18.3%.
In October of 2015, Ross’s team launched a new version of the page with a different approach to the value proposition. With just over 1000 visits, this page delivered a mind-blowing 18.3% conversion rate. That’s a 508% increase over September’s version.
What They Changed
The Comnio team changed several things to make their value proposition more effective. In their own words, here’s what they changed.
Which Elements Made the Difference?
Since all changes were made at once, it’s hard to know which contributed most. One of the changes may have even reduced the ultimate conversion rate. I think that, in this case, all elements work together to make one compelling value proposition. The sum is greater than the parts.
By translating the page into prose, we can see clues as to why.
Speak Your Value Proposition
If we were to write the value proposition of each page as a paragraph, you can see why the latter made more sense to visitors.
September Page
The italicized text is taken from the background image.
I think that this value proposition sounds like it focuses on the businesses, not end-users.
October Page
The addition of “No waiting. No repeating yourself” really drives the point home that this page is for the consumer, and does it in a way that helps the visitor imagine what they are in store for if they do this themselves.
Overall, the new value proposition is more powerful and logical – about five times more powerful.
Our tests are showing that the contents of testimonials are very important. I believe that the message told by JASON is superior the the tweet by @Kane007, especially since JASON sounds like a person.
Finally, the company logos have been moved from the meat of the value proposition to a supporting role. This removed confusion about who this page is for, companies or consumers.
Social Signup Success
The impact of the social sign-up options in the October page is two fold. First it’s easier to do on a mobile device. Second it puts well-known brands on the page. This is a way of “borrowing” trust from Twitter and Facebook. There may be few social sign-ups, yet more form completions with this approach due to the increased trust on the page. In this case, Ross reports that about 49% of leads used the social sign-up buttons.
The magic question here is, did people who were going to sign-up use the social buttons for convenience, or did the social buttons drive visitors to sign-up who wouldn’t have otherwise done so.
Missing Ingredients
There are some specific elements we like to see in every landing page. The thing missing from this value proposition is proof. At some point they are going to be able to say something like, “15,324 issues resolved successfully.” The number doesn’t have to be that large, in my opinion.
For a potentially disruptive service like this, media mentions would be another nice addition to the page. This delivers more trust building and more proof.
To learn more about what makes landing pages convert at higher and higher rates, watch our free webinar The Science of the Landing Page.
Write Out Your Value Proposition
Whether you’re selling an application, a report or a free consultation, your value proposition should unfold in the visitors’ minds through the words, images and emphasis you place on the page. If your page is compelling written as a paragraph, you can enjoy high conversion rates like Comnio.
If not, test your way through to a value proposition that works.
Feature image by stan via Compfight cc and adapted for this post.
How to Drive eCommerce Sales Without Discounting [INFOGRAPHIC]
Ecommerce CRODuring the holiday shopping season, everyone seems to turn into Santa Claus. An infographic from Slant states that “nearly 2/3 of the top 1,000 e-retailers offered discounts” last year.
Frankly, I’m more than a little surprised that it was only two thirds. Offering discounts during the holidays kind of seems like a given. Everyone does it from the largest brick-and-mortar chains to the smallest Etsy shop. These sales are so pervasive that I imagine there’s a good deal of social pressure to give deep discounts, and as a consumer, I’d probably be a little curious about why a business isn’t taking that route.
How did the discounting trend get started in the first place?
FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, is a very real phenomenon.
The fear of missing out is an emotional trigger that undeniably leads to people clicking the purchase button in higher numbers. And when I think about companies moving away from discounts, I’m reminded of the epic fail that was JC Penney’s rebranding and decision to stop using coupons in favor of lowering prices across the board. When the coupons went away, so did millions of dollars.
But what if discount culture isn’t helping you reap the benefits you think it is? Slant’s infographic makes the case that maybe you should reconsider discounts. If the thought of losing out on the upcoming money-spending frenzy that is the holiday shopping season is frightening, this infographic isn’t just dropping bad news on you and fleeing the scene. It also gives actionable solutions that are proven to drive sales.
Why Discounting Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be
Ultimately, the benefits of discounting are short-sighted. (And there was quite a bit more going on with JC Penney than getting rid of coupons. This is a prime example of a blunder that could have been avoided with split-testing.)
The short-term benefits of discounting aren’t even all that beneficial.
Cornflakes experienced a 500% increase in sales! That’s insane! I can clearly picture that email subject line turning up in the inboxes of the whole Cornflakes marketing crew. Too bad there’s a “but” in that sentence.
Groupon ran into this problem. Consumers love it, but it can be bad for businesses. One massage therapist complained that “everyone who came in for his promotion got a massage and then walked out. Most of them didn’t spend anything beyond getting the freebie. He lost money on the promotion itself and there was no way to recoup that loss.” That article about Groupon has both pros and cons, but the cons are big.
Discounts can hurt not only your business, but your brand. Slant’s infographic states that “81% of hoteliers [are] discounting more now than they were five years ago, with 75% saying this has done damage to their brand.” That’s an awfully big sacrifice for a boost in sales that isn’t even sustainable for more than a day.
All these sales mean you must be offing crappy merchandise.
The lower prices give your best item the intrinsic value of an outlet mall. To me, that means it’s kind of what I’m looking for, but I anticipate the Banana Republic outlet mall sweater I just bought is going to unravel much sooner than if had I bought it at a retail Banana Republic.
Is Discounting Just Treating the Symptoms?
Why are you offering discounts in the first place? To boost sales.
Which means people aren’t buying.
You may believe that you can’t keep up with competitors because they’re offering discounts. Are you certain that they would buy if your competitors didn’t discount? If so, then you are essentially resorting to bribery.
What are the reasons shoppers don’t buy from you?
If only 2% of shoppers are converting right away, you either need to figure out how to boost impulse buying without a sale or put in more effort to get customers to return.
Free shipping is an example of an impulse booster. If the power of free shipping hasn’t been drilled into you enough, consider this.
People are four to five times more likely to buy the first bag.
Are you getting that these are the same exact bag? And you’d be paying the exact same price? Understand what you’re losing when you don’t offer free shipping: 61% of shoppers would abandon what’s in their cart if free shipping isn’t an option.
Equally important as free shipping, 61% of shoppers read reviews of products. Consumer reviews are even more important than the product descriptions.
Are Loyalty Programs the Anti-Coupon?
One of the alternatives to discounting from the infographic is the use of loyalty programs. If discounts and coupons hold appeal for you, and you think they’d work well with your clientele, loyalty programs might be a worthwhile option.
Loyalty programs may hold the appeal you’re looking for.
One of our Conversion Scientists is extremely loyal to Southwest Airlines and has gone to great lengths – like booking extra, random flights – to secure a companion. Another one favors the loyalty program at a bicycle shop that gave a steep discount on his new bike.
I personally drive several miles out of my way to a local local grocery store because I get 10% off my purchase every quarter and a few bucks back at the end of every fiscal year. The entire film Up in the Air places an airline loyalty program at the center of the story.
You may be occasionally offering a discount or a coupon to your loyalty program customers, but this person demonstrated that they are unlikely to take the discount and walk away. There’s a level of commitment here that you aren’t going to find with a door buster sale. People don’t commit to brands that they perceive to be low-quality.
Check out the entire infographic below for even more conversion boosting tips that will help stop the reliance on discounting.
Mobile Best Practices can be Huge Mistakes
Conversion-Centered DesignWhat is a best practice?
It’s something that works much of the time in similar situations.
What is a conversion insight?
A conversion insight is something that works for one audience in one situation.
Sometimes a best practice will work in a unique situation. But the two efforts are fundamentally different. Many best practices are informed by a long history of conversion insight.
We don’t have that luxury in mobile. It hasn’t been around long enough for us to identify best practices that are informed by conversion insights. There’s no such thing as a mobile best practice.
There. We said it [again].
Why do we keep asking about mobile best practices?
There are this many ways to potentially increase the UXO of a mobile website.
How many ways can you increase conversions for your website? This many.
For someone setting up a mobile website, these look like the eyes of a monster.
The “Infinite Solutions Monster” scares us into looking for best practices.
It’s terrifying.
So naturally we reach for some guidance when designing our mobile sites. We reach for a swig of best practices. We go looking for a unicorn.
We want to find the Best Practices Unicorns as a shortcut to optimizing.
Don’t Be That Marketer
We have tested several approaches that have improved the performance of mobile websites. They have put more money into the pockets of our customers. They have increased call volumes to incredible levels. They have generated new life-giving subscribers.
Some of them might work for you. You should find out for yourself.
Conversion Sciences Reveals Its Secrets
You have three opportunities around the world to hear what we’ve learned about the mobile web this fall.
Our opinions are definitely controversial, but that’s fine with us. When you hear what we have to say, we know you’re going to change the way you treat your mobile visitors. We have the data to back it up.
You’ll walk away knowing:
Joel aged a bit while waiting for a mobile site to load
Reaching Millennial Generation C: 5 Ways to Connect and Convert
Conversion Marketing StrategyToddlers have tablets built just for them, and elementary school kids have iPads and phones. Being connected is a way of life now, and that connectedness is starting at earlier and earlier ages.
Where did it begin? With the Millennials – that 18-34 age group that, now in adulthood, is the first generation to have had some type of device in its hands from a very young age. And for each new device and technology, they adapt almost seamlessly. Within the Millennial generation, we find “Generation C”, so called becuse of its impact on consumer culture. It consumes very differently. Anyone who has been involved in CRO already knows this, if only by experience.
What Do We Already Know About Generation C?
New research on the Millennial Generation
The research has been done, and the results are in. Sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists have done the work for content marketers who are attempting to learn about this generation. Here are 15 critical pieces of information:
What This Means for CRO
There are great opportunities here. If marketing is done right, a business can have the loyalty of a customer and that customer’s entire community
There are also great risks. If marketing is done wrong, a business has lost a customer and his/her community forever. It’s hard to recoup from these mistakes.
The Four Cs
You’ve probably heard about The Four Cs of Marketing. There may be slight variations on each of the four, but the message is still consistent. Just as a reminder:
Millennials may be a new type of consumer, but The Four Cs still apply. Keeping them in mind, here are five practical applications based upon what we know about Generation C and the fact that you want conversions.
1. Millennials thrive when engaged with online communities.
They want to be engaged and you want to be a part of their communities.
To Do:
Example:
One of the best examples of a business that does all of this really well is ModCloth. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it was founded by a husband and wife team who are themselves Millennials. ModCloth is a women’s fashion retailer that has this whole “engagement” thing down.
If you visit ModCloths’ Facebook page, you will see all kinds of comments, suggestions, and conversations about this clothing and how great everyone looks!
ModCloth must be doing something right – its sales topped $100 million last year.
2. Millennials want to be entertained, shocked, and schooled in unique ways.
They will share content with their communities that meets these criteria. They want to generate comments and conversations about what they share.
To Do:
Example:
Jack Daniel’s has been around for a long time and has found ways to market to every generation, Millennials included. Understanding the need for Millennials to be involved and engaged and to share great stuff, they regularly launch new ways for them to participate and share those participations.
BarStories.JackDaniels.com features real-life bar stories that are worth sharing
Jack Daniel’s fully intends to be a popular whiskey with the Millennials and will engage in those content marketing strategies that do just that.
3. They don’t want to spend a lot of time doing research.
They want to go quickly to a business with a lot of positive “buzz” around it and/or that has been recommended within their communities.
To Do:
Example:
Millennials do not remember Steve Jobs’ early years at Apple or his disagreements with the Board of Directors that caused him to leave. The company was almost run into the ground until he came back. Millennials knew him as the “face” of Apple, a brand they could trust. And he knew how important his persona was as well. For this reason, he personally launched every new product – he was trusted. Even though Jobs is gone, the Apple brand is trusted, so long as the new “faces” do not act stupidly.
Steve Jobs acting as the face of Apple made it a company that Millennials can trust.
4. Millennials will do business with companies that are genuinely relevant to their needs.
They look for companies that communicate in an honest way and that offer a consistent experience on their devices.
Recently LinkedIn published a list of the favorite websites of Millennials throughout all of their communities. The common thread among these favorites were that they had a good reputation, were easy to access on their phones, had high-speed loading on their mobile devices, and provided them with relevant products and services.
To Do:
Examples
When LinkedIn published it list of Millennials’ most favored sites, Amazon of course was one. Two others were Spotify and BuzzFeed.
Here’s what Millennials said about these two sites:
Spotify’s app has easy-to-use navigation, gives access to your own music, helps you discover new music, and works on multiple devices.
BuzzFeed’s articles are easily digested with so many of them written in the form of a list.
5. Millennials are loyal to businesses that are principled, bear social responsibility and give back in some way.
To Do:
Examples:
Headbands for Hope engages and gives back.
TOMS has boosted sales because it has made its giving very public.
Converting Millennials requires patience and a real understanding of their values and lifestyles. While analytics can provide a lot of good information about where and when they shop, devices used, where they bounce and why, there is also something to be said about knowing your audience well enough to know where to start your testing.
About the Author
Julie Ellis is an experienced marketer and freelance blogger. Her wide experience in the field of education, self-improvement and psychology gives her the opportunity to help all people that are willing to make the world better. For more, follow Julie’s Twitter and LinkedIn.
Which SEO Landing Pages Are Making You Money?
Landing Page OptimizationWhen you’re building a blog to bring traffic to your site, it’s the organic search traffic that makes or breaks your efforts. A blog post is an SEO landing page. It draws visitors through the graces of the search engines.
SEO landing pages are challenging, primarily because it takes time to see which of them are going to work. By publishing frequently on a blog, we get a chance to try out a wide variety of SEO landing pages. Over time, we can see which drive growing SEO traffic and which don’t.
We name our SEO landing pages based on the traffic patterns they produce. Last week, I told you about Icebergs, Eagles, Burps and Fizzes. Now I’m going to show you how to quantify these.
You can get the background in my Marketing Land column Evaluating Website Performance: I’m All About That Slope.
Subscribe to Podcast
A Flock of Eagles
Eagles don’t travel in flocks. However, when you have a bevy of eagles roosting on your website, the results are astounding.
Eagles are those blog posts which draw more and more traffic over time. Not all Eagles are created equal. Using the tools outlined in my column we can understand which of our posts is flapping along and which is using afterburners.
Following are the aggregated traffic of nine SEO landing pages that have begun to soar, or show signs of becoming an Eagle.
A bunch of landing pages with relatively slow individual growth can add up to some serious overall traffic.
Of our top 25 posts, 14 are Eagles and two are Dodos, or Eagles that are slow to take off. Only eight are Burps or Burp Fizzes. Not bad.
Comparing SEO Landing Pages
We analyze blog posts based on the amount of organic traffic they bring, how quickly the organic traffic is growing, and how many subscribers they generate as measured by the conversion rate. Google Analytics offers a convenient Landing Pages report that provides the raw data for our analysis.
Here are two “Eagles.” Post A took off at a strong pace, while post B has been going for longer.
Which of these is the higher performer? The data tells us something that our eyes don’t see.
Using the SLOPE, INTERCEPT, and RSQ functions of Excel, we calculate a growth rate of 3.92% for post B and 6.30% for post A. Our confidence in the fit of the trendline for Post B is 0.81 and for Post A is 0.68. We have less confidence in Post A.
Post A seems to be flattening out, but many Eagles get new life and continue climbing. Maybe Post A will one day be an iceberg. So far, Post A has generated new subscribers at a rate more than double that of Post B.
Using Data to Guide SEO Landing Page Development
Here is a selection of SEO landing pages from The Conversion Scientist Blog and Course. I pulled this data from Google Analytics using the Behavior > Site Content > Landing Page report. We can get specific data for up to six landing pages by checking the box next to the item and clicking the Plot Rows button.
Checking the stories and clicking “Plot Rows” tells Google Analytics to export your data.
These are ranked by the conversion rate for subscribers to our conversion mini course.
Trendlines: Slope, y-intercept, and R-squared value.
For each, I’ve calculated the key values of their trendline: Slope, y-intercept, and R-squared value. From this I can define the growth rate and organic traffic pattern.
What do we do about the Low-R-Squared posts?
The R-squared values tell us that the slope and intercept data is suspect. Do we just ignore these?
For these, and the others that don’t make sense (71.38% initial growth rate?), I recommend zooming in on the most recent trends.
Our “5 Elements of Persuasive Writing” post is young and had a pretty big coming out via email. So, we’ll focus on the most recent trend in the data.
Taking a snapshot of the data can improve our confidence.
Here’s what it looks like in Excel.
Graph of blog post traffic with trendline
You can see that we can increase our R-squared value to .54, and the rate for the more recent data is the slope (4.4956) divided by the intercept (17.975), which is 25%. So we have a .53 confidence that the orgranic traffic is growing at 25% for this post.
The infographic “What Makes Shoppers Click?” has an R-squared value of just 0.16.
Google analytics graph of traffic for blog post
However if we look at weeks 27 through 39, we get an amazing growth rate with a high R-squared value.
Graph of traffic from “shoppers” blog post with trendline
For this more recent period, we see a growth rate of 34% (2.967/8.76920) and an R-squared value of 0.80.
Be Careful
If you’re not careful, you can choose your data points to tell whatever story you want it to tell. Furthermore, if you’re making decisions on too few data points, you may be making the wrong decisions.
When in doubt, choose the time frame that gives you the most data points and the most conservative results.
To understand the effectiveness of your SEO landing pages, count up the number of Eagles you have as compared to those that aren’t growing. Use the landing page report in Google Analytics to find out which are resulting in the most conversions. Then calculate the slope and y-intercept to understand the future potential of these pages.
For additional reading, check out this piece on landing page best practices for optimal conversion.