Sales Funnel Optimisation Phase 4: Total Integration

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This is the final instalment of a five-part series on Sales Funnel Optimisation. [See the introduction here].

Phase 4: Total Integration

After you’ve evolved from internal orientation to objective measurement through to user involvement, you’re ready to enter the phase that can potentially unlock the most rewards: total integration.

This is where the first three phases feed into each other in a never-ending improvement process:

• developing and prioritising strategies internally
• measuring your results objectively
• capuring insights from users to acceleratete the process

These aren’t “steps” so much as never-ending improvement loop.

So the ideal website development and optimisation process goes something like this:

1. Conduct research of your market, competitors and opportunities.
2. Develop your site based on your “best guess” (plus smarts and experience) as to what is most likely to work
3. Measure everything so you can track what’s working and what’s not
4. Try different approaches and if they work, keep them.  If they don’t, revert back to the control.
5. Glean insights from users to add new ideas to the mix.  Selectively test, measure and optimise.
6. Rinse and repeat!

With most optimisation processes, it is normal to reach a stage of diminishing returns, once the most obvious improvements have been made.

But in the case of online sales funnel optimisation, the field is developing so quickly that there are always new opportunities to test new tools and strategies.

Even if your online sales process is relatively “mature”, it’s still possible to generate ongoing improvements of 10 or 20 percent per month using this process.

About Marketing Results:

As Australia’s leading internet lead generation experts, Marketing Results specialises in helping fast-growth companies generate more enquiries and sales online while eliminating marketing waste.  Find out more about our internet consulting services here.

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Sales Funnel Optimisation Phase 3: User Involvement

This is the third instalment of a four-part series on Sales Funnel Optimisation.  [See the introduction,  Part 1 and Part 2 here].

Phase 3: User involvement

User involvement (also called “qualitative analysis”) simply means getting users’ input into the optimisation process — what they do and don’t like, why they would or wouldn’t buy from you and the “WHY” behind what they do on your site.

There are many ways to get this information, but until recently, the cost or effort was prohibitive, especially for smaller organisations.

Two of the most useful tools for getting this qualitative input are the 4Q iPerceptions exit survey tool and user testing videos provided by UserTesting.com.

I’ve written a previous review of 4Q iPerceptions, but the “Cliff’s Notes” version is that 4Q allows you to understand why users came to your site and whether or not they were able to achieve their main goal for their visit. If not, why not. If so, what they liked best.

Input from 4Q can easily by fed back into your website improvement initiatives (for example: copy ideas to test, pages to emphasise, pages or elements to de-emphasise etc.). And the cost? $0.

Then there’s UserTesting.com — I’m very excited about this because it makes it fast, easy and cheap to get informed end-user feedback on your site.

Here’s how it works: for (only!) $29 per user, a trained user tester will review your site and deliver output in two formats:

1. A Flash video that records the entire session, showing you every mouse movement, click and keystroke, along with spoken comments.
2. A written report detailing what they liked, what they didn’t like and what would have caused them to leave your site.

There are a few reasons why this is a very significant development:

1. Traditional user testing costs around US$250 per user at a fancy usability lab. Now, for around 1/10th of that price, you can get pretty much the same thing, from anywhere in the world, without leaving your computer.
2. You don’t need to test a lot of users - 1 to 3 users can be enough to give you a good idea of general patterns and trends that you can ACT on.
3. Crucially, this input is coming from outside your business or sphere of influence. This is nothing like the traditional business owner practice of “emailing a few friends to see what they think of the new site”. Such “insider” feedback is almost always tainted by filters that don’t impact on results.
4. It’s a good way to introduce fresh ideas into your improvement process which otherwise may not have been considered

I’ve introduced a number of colleagues and clients to UserTesting.com and they are universally impressed with insights and value it provides.  I invite you to check it out!

So now you know about internal orientation, objective measurement and user involvement. What’s the next step? Tomorrow we’ll look at Phase 4 – Total integration.

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Sales Funnel Optimisation Phase 2: Objective Measurement

This is the second instalment of a four-part series on Sales Funnel Optimisation.  [See the introduction and Part 1].

Phase 2: Objective measurement

Yesterday we looked at some of the advantages and disadvantages of relying on internal knowledge and resources to develop your online strategy. Today we’ll look at the next phase - objective measurement.

Objective measurement tools tell you WHAT users are doing on your site and whether or not tweaks or changes are working.

I’ve written extensively elsewhere on these “quantitative” strategies, so I won’t expand further here, except to provide some examples of typical objective measurement tools and what you can use them for:

• Google Analytics - broad-based analytics package, great for showing a range of key visitor (’How many visitors did we get last month?”) and conversion (”What percentage of visitors from search engines are downloading our White Paper?”) metrics.
• CrazyEgg - shows you WHERE on your webpage visitors clicked and presents the information as an easy-to-understand “heat map”
• Google Website Optimiser - multivariate testing tool. Use GWO to test different page elements (e.g. headlines, copy, offers or designs) and establish which elements convert best.

According to a survey we conducted last year of 324 Australian small and medium business owners, approximately 4 in 5 Australian companies have NOT yet evolved to this level. If you’re already using some or all of these quantitative tools, you should give yourself a pat on the back!

The great advantage of these tools is that they tell you what’s actually happening on your site — what’s working, and what’s not.

That allows you to test new things and if they work, keep them; if they don’t work, scrap them. This step-by-step process of is the basis of our online sales funnel optimisation service that we implement for SME clients.

The disadvantage of a purely quantitative approach is that you don’t have any insight into WHY users are doing what they’re doing. You have to make a “best guess”.  While you can certainly produce dramatic results from a quantitative approach, these types of tools are relatively inefficient for answering the following types of questions:

• What do prospects and clients really think of our website?
• Which specific elements of my website or sales copy are unwittingly turning new customers away?
• What new ideas should I test to improve user experience and conversion further?

To answer these types of “WHY?” questions, you need to evolve to Phase 3: User involvement.  That’s what we’ll look at tomorrow…

Sales Funnel Optimisation Phase 1: Internal Orientation

This is the first instalment of a four-part series on Sales Funnel Optimisation.  [See yesterday's introduction here].

Phase 1: Internal Orientation

Internal orientation is where people within your business (typically the business owners in the case of SMEs) decide what your website should look like and how it should be optimised on an ongoing basis.

Internal stakeholders often have definite views on “what a good website should look like” and how it should be managed. For example:

• “We need a website that looks really dynamic and interactive”
• “Plenty of pictures and graphics is the way to go - visitors won’t read heaps of text”
• “Our home page should tell visitors all about our company”
• “We need to update our homepage regularly to keep people coming back”
• “My sales letter isn’t working… I know, it must be too short! Let’s add more information!”
• “Let’s put a “news ticker” on our home page to keep people informed about new developments at our company”

Whether or not these statements bear out in the real world is not the point.

The point is that many (almost all) online marketing decisions are made on the basis of personal opinion, instead of in the context of  maximising a result desired result. “Generating as many quality sales leads as possible for $100 or less per lead” is a focused, measurable business goal.  A news ticker in pretty colours is not.

One advantage of internal input is that people who are intimately involved in a business often have valuable insights and experience that can inform the web design or website optimisation process.

But the disadvantage of this internal orientation is that it tends to be “blinkered”, focusing more on the company’s needs and priorities ahead of the website visitor or customer’s.

The internally-oriented approach in isolation invariably leads to sub-optimal results because the appropriate feedback mechanisms aren’t in place, but it is a starting point in the process of website sales funnel optimisation.

To find out whether or not what you’re doing is actually working, tomorrow we’ll evolve to the next level - Phase 2: Objective measurement.

The Evolution of Website Sales Funnel Optimisation - Introduction

The central question of online sales funnel optimisation is, “how do we get better results than we’re currently getting, as quickly as possible?”

While sitting in a banana-chair in Punta del Este, I got to thinking about this question and the distinct but interlocking approaches and toolsets you need to maximise your online lead generation results including traffic, conversions and sales.  Here’s what I came up with:

There is an “evolution” with four phases that can take you from getting poor/average results to excellent/outstanding results from your website.

Over the next 4 days, we’ll look at each phase in detail.  Here’s a quick summary of what’s to come:

• Phase 1: Internal orientation: Many companies and organisations design their websites in line with their own opinions and preferences. While this can be a great starting point for gathering content and ideas, in many cases this can be detrimental to your sales goals.  What’s more, it doesn’t tell you anything about your customers and how they use your website.
• Phase 2: Objective measurement: Objective measurement tools allow you to reduce subjectivity and manage by fact rather than by hunch. Measurement tools tell you who is visiting your website and what they do when they get there. 
  
• Phase 3: User involvement: Measurement tools are very good at telling you WHAT users are doing.  But getting website users to tell you WHY they’re doing it is one of the best ways to gather useful optimisation ideas.  Until recently, professional user testing was beyond the reach of most SMEs at $250+ per user. Now, thanks to a new web-based service, you can buy user tests from only $29 per person!  We’ll look at this in more detail in Phase 3.
  
• Phase 4: Total integration: While each of the previous three phases have a part to play, they become exponentially more effective when used in concert. Give this process the time it deserves and it will reward you with increased sales and reduced marketing costs.

Tomorrow we’ll take a closer look at Phase 1 - Internal orientation.

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Funny: Gabe & Max’s Internet Thing

Things are pretty busy right now, hence the slowdown in posts recently, but I came across this today and thought that people interested in Internet Marketing would enjoy it:

And it’s only “3 easy payments of $69.99″. I actually think they could sell this…

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Traffic Windfall I Just Noticed

I noticed that Marc Dussault recently posted a video to YouTube on how to speed read on screen using a very cool program called Rapid Reader.

What’s interesting is that quite unbeknownst (great word that, unbeknownst) to me, he mentioned Marketing Results and our URL in the video as the source of the tip. That video has now been viewed 38,787 times so far, meaning that (up to) 38,787 people have heard our name and URL as a result.

While I can’t track the type-in traffic that may have resulted directly, this does illustrate the potential worth of providing value to “Sneezers”, who then re-package or re-transmit those ideas to their audience.

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Effort vs Results Productivity Matrix

Check out this productivity matrix I drew up last week, harnessing all my powers of graphic design

Where are you spending most of your time? What needs to change to get achieve more and feel more happy and fulfilled with less effort?

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This Is Clever: The Credit Crisis Visualised

This is a very cool explanation of the origins of the current credit crisis. It’s not only a very clear explanation of a complex issue, but I love the visual design and presentation. Bravo to the creator, Johnathan Jarvis.

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New Audio Program, Search Engine Strategies For Lead Generation Websites, Released Today

I’ve just released the new-and-improved version of my audio program, Search Engine Strategies For Lead Generation Websites.

This program is designed especially for time-poor, results-focused business owners and managers who want to learn how to deploy practical and proven Search Engine Optimisation strategies to drive top search engine results.

This 4-part, 97-minute audio program shows details how to:

• Generate immediate “windfall” income by generating more sales leads and sales at lower cost.
• Save thousands of dollars on paid traffic generation such as Google Adwords
• Leverage your existing website content while incurring minimal additional expense.
• Reduce or totally eliminate pay-per-click expenditure.
• Bypass the steep SEO learning curve (is it worth your time to spend dozens of hours studying what you could easily digest in less than 2 hours?)
• Become your own “SEO guru” and master the tools and tactics the big players use
• Gain an instant credibility boost: studies show that consumers believe that the websites at the top of the search engines are more credible and pre-eminent than paid advertisers.

The price is just $47 (that’s Aussie dollars), putting this program well within reach of any business owner, and it comes with a no-questions asked, 60 day money back guarantee.

Update: 4 May 2009: A number of commenters have asked me to elaborate on what makes this program different - here’s a brief update:

How is this SEO program different?

There are a lot of SEO experts and “gurus” on the Internet - many with impressive experience and qualifications - so what makes this program different and why should you buy it? Here’s a brief analysis as to what makes this program different:

• An SEO program for business owners - many SEO programs delve into excessively technical details.  My program provides a “business owner”-level overview of the core techniques of SEO, plus implementation steps for the 20% of SEO techniques that deliver 80% of the results.  Business owners can either use this program to quickly get up to speed on SEO in order to tell good SEO firms from bad, or delegate the implementation to an in-house person to implement the action steps laid out in the program.
• Focused on lead generation applications - most SEO programs take a generalist approach — this program focuses specifically on SEO for lead generation websites (i.e. websites where the principle focus is generating qualified enquiries for a product or service).  In the program I provide specific advice on the kinds of SEO strategies that work best in lead generation applications.
• Based on what works - the program is 100% practical and is focused around the exact same strategies that have produced first page rankings for dozens of our clients in real lead generation scenarios.
• Concise and to the point - the entire audio program is only 97-minutes long - long enough to cover all the key points, but not so long that you need 20 audio CDs to listen to the entire thing (and business owners typically don’t have time for that anyway).
• Very affordable - other programs are priced at up to $1,000 (or more).  This program is only $47.   I deliberately priced it so low to ensure that price is not an option.  Any business owner can acquire these skills for a fraction of the cost of engaging most SEO firms.
• All future updates included FREE - because the SEO world is changing so fast, I intend to occasionally update the program.  When I do, all purchasers of the program will receive the updates free.  A one-time investment ensures unlimited updates, for the time being at least…

Click here for the full story and to purchase the program

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