Tim Ash and Joel Harvey talk testing screw-ups and “with and without” tests. Find out if there is a lab at Conversion Sciences called the “QA-tion Station” and how many Igloos Joel has built in the latest installment of Landing Page Optimization on Webmaster Radio.

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frankenstein-labWe all know the recipe for  success: Reach and Frequency. To grow your business, marketing needs to reach more people more often. Translation: “Work harder.” The modern marketer is responsible for

  • Imagining the content
  • Developing the content
  • Reaching potential prospects frequently with it
  • Collecting the leads
  • Qualifying them Getting them to sales Maintaining all of the metrics to justify the ROI

As marketers, we need some little monsters handling the details or we will drown in the effort. Marketo just launched a Demand Generation Success Center that shows marketers how to become digital Dr. Frankensteins.

From Drip to Drive

The Marketo resource center provides advice on how to automate the many things that marketers must get done. They don’t just toe the party line.
For example, I believe that marketers should move from “drip” campaigns that “nurture” prospects, to high-impact educational campaigns that drive prospects to engage with you. The new resource center has some brilliant recommendations from me.

  1. Treat leads as customers. They purchased with their contact information.
  2. Make them experts at solving the problems they have.
  3. Wow them with your helpfulness or entertainment value.
  4. Invite them to “buy” more.
  5. Treat them like adults. Don’t be afraid to be controversial.

This is all easier said than done, and exactly that’s why you need to install little monsters like Marketo.
Visit the Demand Generation Success Center. Extend your reach, turn up your frequency, and still have time to develop killer cascading content.
Brian Massey

I did a little experiment using images and copy in my Marketing Land column Take Control of Your Visitors’ Eyes. Instead of using my superior powers of page design to highlight an important piece of information, I used them to hide that information.

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I purposefully did some things you may be doing accidentally, to the detriment of your site and your visitors.

When looking at web and landing page copy, I often find the important information buried, or designed in such a way as to look unimportant.

Value propositions, phone numbers, guarantees, and special offers are some of the things that are important to visitors, but don’t look important.

Images, captions and more

Read the column or listen to the podcast to find out how I obscured an important fact, and how I highlighted another, less relevant fact using:

  • Images
  • Captions
  • Copy
  • Headlines
  • Bulleted Lists
  • Links
  • Pull Quotes

It’s a show and tell column, .


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


This is a guest post written by Melissa Sawyer

The internet has revolutionized many aspects of modern life, from the way we work, to the way we shop. E-commerce is an industry built entirely around the internet. Purchases in e-commerce occur solely within an online environment eliminating the elements of physical interaction that using a traditional brick and mortar store brings.

For it to be viable for customers to shop online instead of at a brick and mortar store, the online experience needs to be convenient and practical – more so than using the physical store. In many cases, this will manifest in the form of cheaper products and a wider variety of stock than a small store could offer.

However, the strength of a brick and mortar store will always be that the customer leaves with the stock then and there. The item is theirs immediately, without any further delay. Shoppers are willing to wait for their items only if the online shopping experience is easy and free of complications.

Excellent service and efficient delivery are just as important as a well designed site

Many online shoppers are simply there to browse. They place items in their basket, but ultimately pull out of the transaction at the end. This is what is known as shopping cart ‘abandonment’. Since online shoppers can easily comparison shop, it is important that the experience is of the highest standard. This extends beyond just how a site functions, and is applicable right up until the product has been successfully delivered to the customer.

Internet shoppers will always be influenced by the aesthetics of an online store. If it works well and looks good, customers will be happy to give you their money. Businesses know this and spend large amounts of money on web development. However, a flashy site but poor customer service is a sure fire way to alienate customers and ensure that they won’t return.

One of the biggest criticisms online retailers face is poor delivery of purchased items. Goods arriving late, damaged, or failing to arrive altogether are common issues with online retail. The New York Times recently ran a piece that highlights the some of the issues online retail face, particularly shipping mistakes.

Certain hiccups are bound to happen from time to time, but if those issues are resolved well, then the customer is more likely to return. If missing or damaged items are dealt with professionally, and swiftly, then a customer will be more likely to give their businesses in the future. However, if a customer is left waiting a long time for an inadequate resolution, then you can forget it.

Steps can be taken to prevent delivery mishaps

It seems painfully obvious, but a well placed ‘fragile’ sticker on a package can work wonders. People will tend to be more careful if they know the item will be easily damaged. Packing orders well is another must. If orders from your e-commerce site keep arriving broken, then your packaging may be to blame just as much as an heavy handed courier or delivery staff.

Selecting a reputable company to carry out your deliveries is essential. As always in the world of business, reputation is everything. Choose someone you know has a good track record of quick, safe deliveries. It is even better to use a company that offers recorded delivery, especially if real-time tracking of shipments is offered. This offers peace of mind to online stores who dispatched the order, and customers who eagerly await the goods that they have paid for. After all, if any complications arise, it will be your job to explain this to the customer. This is a small detail that is often overlooked and can be extremely damaging to customer relations.

Many online retailers opt to do as money.co.uk suggest and protect their items during the delivery stage through the use of ‘goods in transit’ insurance. This means if items are lost or damaged while it is being delivered, then they are covered and costs can be recuperated.

If your store operates locally, and runs its own local delivery service, then it may be an idea to fit delivery vehicles with a vehicle tracking system. This allows you to see the driving habits of delivery staff, with some systems being so advanced that they can analyze the sharpness of turns and harshness of braking. These can be valuable tools for stamping out any aggressive driving that may be responsible for damaging products in transit.

Ultimately, e-commerce is built upon trust

Online shoppers put their trust into online stores to a greater extent than in physical shops. There is a massive degree of faith involved. Online shoppers cannot inspect the items themselves, so are trusting online retailers that the products they order bare resemblance to what is presented on screen, but also that they will be delivered within the time frame stated.

People flock to online shopping due to its ease and flexibility. The majority of time, this will prove to be a smooth experience, but even small errors cost businesses money. It is important to remember, just because an order has been placed and the products have been shipped, it does not signify the end of an online retailer’s relationship with a customer.

Don’t toss out those holiday cards you’re getting! There are lessons to be learned in those colorful envelops.
We wanted to pick the right Christmas Card to send to clients and friends, and decided to analyze four different options.
What we learned was often applicable to a successful website.

Website Optimization Lessons from a Christmas Card Video

http://conversionsciences.wistia.com/medias/gcj49vw3jx?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=501
What You Can Learn About Website Optimization from Christmas Cards
We sought to maximize the Open Rate of the card as well as a new metric, Pins (to the office wall) per Recipient, or PPR. Our thinking is that, f the card is effective, it will be displayed for others to enjoy.
Consider it our Christmas card to you.

World Market Opacity What parts of your ecommerce product page are seen in the crucial first seconds of a visit?

What’s the worst and the best thing that could happen to your e-commerce site?
The answer is that a Conversion Scientist tried to buy something from you.
It’s good because, we are very likely to write about our experience. It’s bad because we are going to point out what you’re doing wrong.

We recently tried to buy some stand-up desks for some of the team here at Conversion Sciences. Like so many shoppers, we found ourselves paralyzed by choice.

In true Conversion Scientist form, we decided to collect some data to help us with our choice. We compared desks at National Business Furniture, Rakuten and World Market. However, our decision to buy was based on how their product pages performed, not on price and features.

We invented the game Product Page Roulette.

Find out which site won our dollars (and probably the dollars of many other visitors) in my Marketing Land column An Expensive E-commerce Game: Product Page Roulette.


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Please Click to Tweet one of these

Why the @WorldMarket site is winning the ecommerce game.
Tweet: Roulette is a game of chance. Your product pages shouldn’t be a game of chance. http://ctt.ec/0Kv4R+ @bmassey via @MarketingLand
Tweet: The job of the product page is to provide what the visitor needs to decide to “Add to Cart.” http://ctt.ec/bN7e1+ @bmassey
Tweet: Eye-tracking simulators estimate what an eye-tracking study would tell us without the expense. http://ctt.ec/n5EGO+ @bmassey
Tweet: When your marketplace offers a spectrum of prices and features visitors are paralyzed by choice. http://ctt.ec/96a3c+ @bmassey

It’s time to stop boring people with how good your open rates and click-through rates are. Tell them what each and every person on your list is worth in dollars by measuring Revenue per Recipient (RPR). When you track the results of your emails down to the dollar, you track your own value down to the dollar.
From Marketing Land: Marketing Power Processes: Tracking Email To The Dollars by Brian Massey


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Tweetables: Click to Tweet

Power Process: Ignore Email Open Rates & Click-Through Rates
Revenue-Per-Recipient (RPR) Ties Marketing to the Money
Like trees in the winter, it’s important to prune and shape your email list.
Most email clients now show the subject line and the beginning of an email in the inbox view.

Jessica Davis of Godot Media how to increase lead conversion rates.

Converting leads through your website is an essential objective for any website owner. If your business relies solely on the performance of your website, then this becomes even more important.

For success online, you have to constantly strive toward improving the conversion rate of your website.

Conversion rate basically refers to the frequency of converting casual visitors on your business website into success leads for the business. This list can include customers who buy your services or products, sign-up on email lists, post comments, make inquiries, as well as perform interactions with your website.

Converting visitors into leads is not child’s play. Even when armed with social media and content marketing strategies, companies are still unable to successfully convert visitors to leads. A good conversion strategy requires constant testing and analysis.

Essential tips to improve lead conversion rates

Improving conversion rates should be your primary aim when operating a business website. Below, are a few points to help you boost lead conversion rates.

#1 – Employ different strategies for for different leads

You have to treat your leads individually. Your customer base will likely be comprised of different groups who have different interests and triggers. For instance, there may be some customers who like reading exhaustive content describing your business, yet others, may lack such patience and would rather take part in a webinar. As you can see, each group would have a different trigger so you need to approach each category with material that appeals to them.

Offering incentives is a great way of converting leads. This method has been used in the online business scenario for a long time now. The longevity of this method proves its success in lead conversion. An example of this method can be seen in several blogs where casual visitors are asked to give their emails in exchange for an exclusive link to a free resource such as an eBook. This principle is applicable in any online business for lead capturing purposes. You can increase you email list very quickly if this is done correctly.

#3 – Get to know your leads better

Every business has its ideal customer. You should ask yourself how well you know yours before creating your content marketing strategy. If you don’t know them very well, then it’s time to get to know them. Check out their demographics. You should know their location, income, occupation, buying habits, lifestyle, and similar data pertaining to financial situations. This data is called as Central Demographic Model or CDM. Apart from this, you will also want to know customers’ Central Psychographic Model or CPM. This defines the preferences, behaviors, and other factors affecting buying decisions of customers. CDM and CPM collectively can help you in converting leads better.

#4 – Understand successful conversion processes

Conversion processes are not an exact science. You may be surprised at how something mundane has contributed toward lead generation in the past. Hit and trial also works in online business lead generation. As such, you should always look at what has lead to successful conversions in the past. Proper attention should be paid to your website’s history in converting leads. Once you realize what has impacted your visitor’s decision in buying your product or service, that should be properly incorporated into your content marketing model, and should be duly communicated to everyone in the sales and marketing teams.

#5 – Always customize follow-up communication

Customizing follow up according to client preferences is also a must for lead generation. Whether you are using batch signs or whether the sales team is directly following up with specific leads, you have to ensure that you have proper understanding of the follow up campaign. Doing this will assist in customizing campaigns and avoid any clashes between the different follow up campaigns. As with the process of tailoring lead generation campaigns and content marketing according to client preferences, follow up measures should also be done for best results.

About the author: Jessica Davis is a Content Strategist at Godot Media – a leading copywriting company. She is an expert in article writing category, and has helped several businesses succeed through effective use of content. Other areas that interest her are technology, social media and fashion.

Champagne Fountain Your presentation will set off a cascade of content.

It was a few paragraphs from my book in a Chapter entitled “How Content Fuels Conversion.”

It started off pretty well, but it ended in a lie.

Amid my discussions of video and images; of draftsmen and imagemakers and storytellers appeared a few lines. They’re there on page 92.

Digital content has legs. One item of content can be cascaded into a variety of channels like a fountain of champagne glasses at a wedding.

For example, how many opportunities do your employees get to present at conferences, training sessions, seminars, and webinars? Film them and record good quality audio. This bubbly content fills the top glass of your cascade.

Have someone edit the video into a series of shorter videos, ripe for YouTube and other video services. You’ve just filled the next layer of glasses.

Share the slides used on slide-sharing services such as Slideshare and Scribd. Voila—another, wider layer glasses fills  with sparkling champagne.

For just a few dollars, the video can be transcribed. Lay this out as a report or white paper and distribute it for lead generation. Another layer of glasses fills.

I go on to describe how this transcription turns into blog posts, social media posts and more. I then go on to tell the lie.

The transformations discussed in this example are often not time-intensive.

The truth is, that they are not as time-intensive as creating the content from scratch. But these transformations do take time.

My idea has been stolen

Since the publication of the book, I’ve tried to get someone to steal my idea so that I would have a resource to turn to. I’ve had conversations with a number of agencies and freelancers about why content is like champagne. Businesses are creating the champagne every day. They just need glasses, stacked just so to turn it their content into an online party.

Dust off one of your presentations

How many people saw that webinar you recorded last quarter? Most webinars draw less than 100 viewers. There are a lot more people out there who won’t watch a webinar, but who are qualified prospects. I invite you to dust off your webinar or presentation and turn it into a Slideshare presentation, blog posts, a report, an eBook – you choose the package.

Most importantly, create the content landing pages and social media posts that generate sales and leads. After all, this content is only valuable if it grows your business.

Every so often, your CEO is asked to speak about some aspect of the market. Every now and then, your tech guru is asked to talk about how brilliant your technology is. And how many times is your sales team pitching to audiences about your fantastic offering? Each of these moments is an opportunity for a cascade of content for your marketing efforts.

Is your presentation cascadeable?

Here’s how you can tell if your content is a good match for the cascade:

  • Do you have recorded audio or video of the presentation? Slides are rarely enough to convey the understanding needed for someone to do a good job creating content. The quality of your audio need only only be good enough to generate a transcript.
  • Do you have presentation slides? Video and recorded webinars don’t provide the resolution needed for visuals.
  • Is your presentation just slides full of bullets? These kinds of presentations don’t typically make for good visual content such as infographs, eBooks and reports.

Other than that, there’s no risk in uploading your presentation for us to look at. We don’t ask for a credit card.

The Audience is Bigger Than The Room

The audience that initially heard the presentation is tiny compared to the audience for the cascade of content it will generate.

  • Cascade content is shared with a larger audience via email and social networks.
  • Cascade content increases frequency with multiple slices from the same presentation.
  • Cascade content engages more of the audience through text, audio and images.


Photo courtesy paulodonnel on Flickr under the creative commons.

Our LIVE landing page clinic with Unbounce on October 22 was a huge success. Hundreds were on the call as we did an overview of the Chemistry of Landing Pages, and then proceeded to critique the pages of several attendees.

Unfortunately, There were a number of unanswered questions that we wanted to be sure to address.

If you couldn’t attend, you can relive it here.

The Science of Landing Pages & How To Build One Backwards (feat. Live Landing Page Critiques) from Unbounce

Questions we didn’t have time for. Answered.

About Social Media Icons on Landing Pages

There is always heated discussion around the use of social media icons on landing pages. We say, “Save them for the thank-you or receipt page.” One smart attendee asked if these wouldn’t qualify as trust symbols, which they can be, if the cost is not too low.

Teresa wanted to know if placing a Facebook comment widget on the page that didn’t take visitors away was OK. This widget can be a great source of social proof, if you’ve got people commenting. I’ve seen it used effectively on video sales pages for entrepreneurs with big lists. Most of us won’t have that kind of following, and so the widget can simply be a distraction or a resource for trolls.

Live Critiques

We marked up several pages in our live landing page critiques.

About Generating Calls

Phil asked about his high-priced security product. His call center operates 7 days a week. Shouldn’t he focus on getting calls? We say, “Yes!” My partner on the call and fellow Conversion Scientist Joel Harvey is our “Lord of the Rings.” He makes the phone ring. Find out how to make the phone ring in my MarketingLand column.

Vicky asked what we thought about having a Live Chat button on a lead-generation landing page. We think that your prospects are going to be delighted to get instant access to someone who is knowledgeable. Conversion rates for live chat can be much higher than for completed forms. However, if you don’t have someone manning the live chat during appropriate hours, it may work against you.

About Landing Page Length

Moazzam asked about customers who are known to need more information before taking action. We say, “Put whatever you need on the landing page.” You may need a multi-page landing microsite to satisfy your methodical prospects, but in most cases, you can put all of the objection-handling content on the page. Use tabs, scrolling and even overlays to get the information to the visitor without letting them navigate away from your offer.

Bradley wanted us to speak to the value of brevity. We say that brevity for the sake of brevity isn’t helpful. Write as much as you need to in order to deal with objections and reduce abandonment. If your copy is boring or irrelevant, then brevity is your friend. Hire a copywriter and trust them.

Massimo asked if putting the call to action button below the fold impacted conversion. We often increase conversion rates by moving important elements, such as trust symbols, above the fold. For those who come ready to take action, put the button above the fold. This may not be the right thing to do for longer landing pages.

About Mobile Landing Pages

Kelly asked about having desktop and mobile landing pages. Is a responsive template that resizes dynamically a good idea. Dynamically responsive templates can be difficult to test. Visitors can change the look of the page simply by resizing their desktop. Visitors on tablets can get a desktop template, but have a very different experience from desktop viewers. We say, “Turn off the dynamic nature of the template while testing your landing pages.”

Myrtha asked the common question, “What is a good conversion rate.” The average ecommerce conversion rate is less than 2%, so a conversion rate over 5% is considered good. With the right traffic and a great offer and lots of repeat visitors and a well-known brand, conversion rates over 15% are expected. Myrtha, a better question is, “What is my acquisition cost?” Divide the number of new customers by the cost of generating the traffic, and you can see how your conversion rate is affecting your business.

About Video on Landing Pages

During our discussion of video on a landing page, Mike asked, “How do scribble or text-based videos do?” We actually did an eye-tracking study of landing page video. To learn some of what we learned, watch our mini-course on .

Ronald asked if a landing page video should ask the viewer to “click here.” The answer is, “Yes.” Landing page video is most effective when it addresses the offer on the page, and includes calls to action. Remember that lighting and audio are always important in video.

Eric wanted to know if videos should start automatically. This is something that changes from page to page. Auto-start video frequently tests best, but we suggest only autoplay video if the ad or link to the landing page promised a video. This is “playing it safe.” Steve asked about on-screen spokes-model video, the kind that seems to walk around on your page. We’ve seen autoplay work here as well in one situation.

About Other Kinds of Landing Pages

Casey asked if the home page could be considered a landing page for a site that sells multiple products. We say, “Nope.” The job of a home page is to get visitors off of the home page (thanks Tim Ash) and into the site. The job of a landing page is to keep people on the page until they take action. Treat your home page as a multiple-choice question and your product pages as landing pages.

Sérgio asked about B2B catalog ecommerce businesses, like restaurant and hotel supplies. If you’ve done your ads and SEO right, the primary landing pages are going to be the category pages and the individual product pages. The product pages in particular should follow our rules for landing pages: Minimize distractions (like navigation), build trust, offer proof, show the product and provide all the information necessary for the visitor to take action. The call to action is almost always “Add to Cart” or “Add to Basket.” These are great offers.

Steve asked about landing pages for our email subscribers. Should landing pages that offer new content ask for contact info, even if we already have it? We say, “Not necessarily.” If your personalized landing pages can track visitors individually, it’s better to learn something new about them.

Dave wanted to know what image we would recommend on a landing page that is offering a newsletter. We say, “Show them a copy of an issue or two, even if the newsletter is strictly electronic. The image at right is for a weekly newsletter that we offer called For Further Study. It’s just a screen grab of one of our emails.

Thomas noticed that our examples used in our critiques didn’t seem to be optimized for search. Landing pages don’t need to be optimized for search traffic. They serve ads, links and emails. They are often not part of a larger corporate site. A landing page is designed to single-mindedly keep the promise made in an ad or email and to get the visitor to take action. SEO isn’t important in this case.

Angie Schottmuller asked about what makes a compelling testimonial on a landing page. She mentions including a photo of the testifier, dates of engagement, location of testifier and targeting testimonials to a certain persona. These are all good ideas. I’d ad this: summarize the most important point in the testimonial quote.

Enjoy the recorded version of the full presentation.

Thanks to the brave souls who submitted their landing pages for review.


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.


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