Sales Funnel Optimisation Phase 3: User Involvement

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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 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.

Beating Economic Blues Requires Upgraded Mental Software

Anders Sorman-Nilsson from Thinque wrote a very thought provoking blog post this morning that struck a chord with me.   In Australia as in most countries right now, the government is throwing cash at everyone almost everyone in a bid to “stimulate” us out of the recession.

Says Anders (emphasis added by me):

I believe people out there are genuinely scared, and they need strong leadership. Leadership that is inspirational, certain, innovative, creative - even funky! Leadership that declares that ‘we will make it through this’. Leadership that says, ‘hey, we have enjoyed 17 years of unprecedented economic growth, we are currently experiencing a slow-down, but we need to upgrade our thinking, our marketing, our positioning, our universities to ensure we get back on the right track.’ Strong leadership is not just ’stimulus packages’. Does anybody feel ’stimulated’ by the logical, analytical number-crunching administration talk of hand-outs? [Read the entire blog post]

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it - Einstein

Handouts without inner change will be spent in less than a month, to be replaced by inevitable fear because “we tried and it didn’t work”.

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Ask Your Website Users How You Can Improve: 4Q Review & Case Study

When it comes to boosting website conversion, I’ve always been in the quantitative camp - “send enough users to different versions of your landing page and look at which version works best (i.e. delivers the best conversion results)”.

And that approach works great, but there’s still plenty of room for qualitative tools to help increase your conversion rate (in fact, the two play very well together.)

Conversion optimisation isn’t about software and tools

The tools you need to do A/B and multivariate testing are relatively mature, and they’re not just cheap, they’re free (try Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer for starters.)

But the tools aren’t the constraint.  The constraint is knowing what to test.  You not only need to devise the right test elements, but you also need to apply a proven process to increase conversion on an ongoing basis.

Coming up with “stuff to test” happens in a number of ways, including marketing expertise and experience of what has worked in the past.  Another valuable source of information is to rely on the voice of the customer to help you answer the 4 critical site experience questions…

The 4 critical site experience questions

1. How satisfied are my website visitors?
2. What are my visitors at my website to do (their purpose)?
3. Are they in fact completing what they set out to do?
4. If not, why not?  If yes, what did they like best about their experience?

Knowing the answers to these questions can provide you with new optimisation ideas and priorities, straight from the customer’s mouth. You gain insight into WHY visitors are doing what they’re doing (or not doing!) on your website.

How We Used the Free 4Q Survey Tool To Answer The 4 Critical Questions

Late last year we used the free 4Q exit survey tool (a collaboration between Avinash and iPerceptions) to ask our website visitors the 4 critical questions.

Here’s how the invitation process works (from the 4Q FAQ page):

4Q employs a two-stage invitation process. When visitors arrive at your site, they will be presented an invitation to participate in a survey after their session. If they accept, a second, minimized window, which contains the survey itself, will be launched and will wait in the background for the visitor to complete his or her session. 4Q surveys are designed to be collaborative brand building exercises, not annoying browsing interruptions.

The tool is, by design, extremely simple.  Here’s a sneak peak at the control panel:

4Q Exit Survey Control Panel Screenshot

Once the survey is set up, it’s a case of insert-the-code and away you go.

One of the nifty features is the ability to adjust the survey invitation rate — so only a percentage of users are invited to participate.  For our test, we used 20% of site traffic.

4Q Survey Results - What We Discovered

• Over the course of the test, 46 surveys were completed
• The overall “task completion” rate was 75% (i.e. 25% of people who completed the survey were unable to do what they came to do on the site.)
• A few responses were “junk”, but that doesn’t matter.  We are looking for patterns and bright ideas.
• What they liked: a number of users commented on our use of fact-based website optimisation methods and liberal availability of online marketing case studies.
• What they didn’t like: a few users were looking for information/articles and resented being “sold” to.

Bright ideas:

Here are some examples of useful gems from the survey which we have translated into action:

Bright idea #1:

I had trouble finding the right subscription, which a friend forwarded me initially. I suggest having a ’subscribe’ link in your email subscription.

Bright idea #2:

Well, I loved the case studies; I really felt like I was connecting with a business that had succeeded as a direct result of their relationship with you and I wanted to be one of those too. But It wasn’t clear which of your services they had used to achieve those results when I went to look on your Services tab to find out more.

Sample output from 4Q

Final thoughts

Was using 4Q worth the effort?  You bet it was.  It is very quick to set up, provides a good user experience and yields measurable and usable qualitative information.

We have since installed 4Q surveys on several sites for our SME consulting clients and a couple of Enterprise clients as well.  In each case, the results have been well worth the effort. In one case, the results have heavily influenced the direction that a major site redesign is taking.   Better to know this information NOW, rather than after the redesign has taken place.

When you take your instructions directly from end users and marry them with scientific testing and tracking, you can also cut weeks or months of your conversion improvement cycles.  And you know what they say about time = money!

Why not give 4Q a go?  And if you need help with an orchestrated program of traffic and conversion improvement, get in touch and we can explore whether or not we’re a ‘fit’.

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Want To Boost Site Conversion? Increase Your Font Size

Sometimes the simplest website changes can produce the most rapid Return On Effort. One of the easiest ways to make your site convert better is to make it easier for users to read.

In fact, a whole category of website conversion heuristics is based around making your content easier for website visitors to digest.

Here are seven ways you can increase your website conversion right now:

1. Increase font size. For example, change 10 or 11px body text fonts to 13px.  Some people find these larger fonts “childlike”, but our tests have conclusively shown that larger fonts can increase conversion significantly (especially where the original font size was very small to start with).  Graphic designers often specify smaller, “cute” fonts, but you should remember that text content is primarily a means to convey your selling message, NOT a design element.
2. Avoid large line widths. The human eye just isn’t designed evolved that well for reading text on a screen.  One of the things that tends to slow people down when reading is moving they eyes from line to line.  And the longer the line width, the more difficult it is for the eye and the brain to hook up with the next line.   That’s why shorter line widths of 600px or less generally help conversion.  Test 600px vs 900px and you’ll see what I mean.
3. Increase colour contrast. Another thing graphic designers seem to love are font colour choices based on design sensibilities rather than communication and legibility.  Light grey text on a mid-grey background appears to be a designers’ favourite.  On the web, as in print, poor colour contrast = decreased legibility = decreased sales.  By increasing colour contrast (good ol’ black text on white background is my boring-but-effective favourite) you will boost sales.
4. Shorten paragraphs. Long paragaphs make it harder for the eye to navigate text.   Anything much longer than 7 lines and you’ll start to put readers off.  Where your paragraphs are longer than this, break them into two or more pieces.  The occasional one line paragraph can also work well.
5. Give “texture” to long copy. Many of these tips are centred around breaking the monotony of long, “blocky” tracts of text.  One way to do this is by adding “texture” — creating varying areas of white space around lines and paragraphs. For example, you should always leave a “ragged right” edge on paragraphs (i.e not fully justified).  The ragged edge helps the eye navigate.  Indenting the occasional paragraph with a <blockquote>, or placing content in a centred box achieves the same effect.
6. Break the monotony. White space is one way to break the monotony of dense text content — another is to use headlines, sub headlines, colour, “callouts”, bullet lists, numbered lists and text effects (bold, italics, underlines, strikethroughs etc.).  These elements help to focus the user’s attention on key selling points and create variety that keeps the brain engaged.
7. Add diagrams, graphs and images. I believe that copy is the main tool in your persuasive toolset on the web.  But other types of visual content can be a very useful way to augment your central sales argument.  Use images, graphs and diagrams appropriately when they make your point better than text.

This Is NOT A Long Copy vs Short Copy Debate

Please note that this has nothing to do with the long/short copy debate (if you could still call it a debate - the long copy folks won that a decade ago online, and a century ago in print).

This is about recognising that text content can be daunting when presented the wrong way.   By making your text content as legible and digestible as possible, you’ll get higher readership and more leads and sales.  And isn’t that what we all want?

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Easy Way To Build Links To Your Blog

One of the critical elements of search engine optimisation is creating a network of links to your website or blog. Sounds simple in theory, but it is not as easy as it seems to generate high-quality links on a scale large enough to have a positive effect on your search engine rankings.

One of the easiest ways to build links back to your blog is via commenting on “dofollow” blogs. It’s simple to do, but it’s surprising how many people $*&# it up.

What is “dofollow”, you ask?

To answer that question, you first have to know about “nofollow”. “Nofollow” an attribute of the <a> tag used to specify links in HTML. By placing the “nofollow” attribute on a link, a webmaster can BLOCK any “link juice” passing from their website to your website. In other words, the “nofollow” attribute makes a link useless from an SEO point of view.

When blogs started to become popular, spammers quickly came up with programs to post auto-generated comments containing spammy links (mostly for porn, pharma and gambling sites).

That’s when major blogging platforms such as WordPress instituted the “nofollow” attribute as the default setting for blog comments. The idea was to eliminate the incentive to post comment spam.

Didn’t quite work out that way though… spam comments are still rife. It’s necessary to fit out every blog with a prophylactic anti-comment-spam plugin such as Akismet (my instance has nuked around half a million spam comments already).

Enter “DoFollow”

So, instituting the “nofollow” plugin on WordPress has been a total failure. So much so that a plugin has been created called DoFollow that is designed to disable the NoFollow attribute on external links and make comment links “count” for search engine optimisation purposes.

Seeing as it’s pretty much mandatory to moderate blog comments, my view is that it’s OK for comment links to pass some SEO value.

The Marketing Results Blog Has The DoFollow Plugin Installed

This blog has the DoFollow plugin installed. In other words, if you leave a comment on this blog, you will gain a search engine benefit.

But that’s by the by — the important thing to note is that there are plenty of other blogs out there which use the DoFollow plugin as well. All you need to do is.

1. Locate DoFollow blogs (one resource for doing this is the website DoFollowBlogs.com)

2. Add to the discussion by posting regular comments on DoFollow blogs

3. Watch your search engine rankings increase

One strategy of many

Posting comments on DoFollow blogs is just one link-building strategy out of many. If you’re operating in a competitive niche, it won’t work in isolation. However, for most product and service websites, DoFollow comments are a valuable strategy that can produce tangible results.

The key to this strategy is consistent application. Don’t post one comment and forget about it. Post regularly to key blogs over a period of weeks and months and you’ll start to see the benefits.

Another vital strategy to keep in mind is that comments that offer value are likely to get approved by blogmasters. Many practitioners of the DoFollow strategy shoot themselves in the foot by posting self-promotional drivel that is simply deleted.

High-quality comments that contribute to the discussion will tend to garner more clickthroughs, in addition to potential search engine benefits.

One final point: you can outsource blog commenting to others, providing that the quality of posts is sufficient to ensure that comments get posted.

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DVD Launched

If you liked The Secret or What The Bleep, you’ll love The Wheel Of Life, which recently premiered in Melbourne.

The Wheel Of Life examines the metaphor of life as a wheel made up of a number of different segments. In order to achieve lasting and positive change, you need to get the segments into balance to allow your “Wheel” to roll smoothly.

The documentary features 17 experts in health, wellness and self-development. I’ve been involved in the marketing of the documentary online and have been one of the first to see the Final Cut.

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Lead Volume vs Opportunity Volume

For several years now I’ve been asking subscribers and clients to visualise their online sales process as a funnel with knowable metrics. You’re no doubt familiar with the analogy:

1000 visitors hit your website (”Visits”) –> 100 opt in to your Free Special Report (”Opt Ins”) –> 20 enquire (”Leads”) –> 5 become clients (”Sales”)

Whatever the exact number or specific conversion steps are in your business, you get the idea.

But I recently came across a very useful distinction on a Marketing Experiments webinar that dovetailed with a recent experience working with a client.

That is the distinction between Lead Volume and Opportunity Volume.

Lead Volume is the number of people filling out your enquiry form, but Opportunity Volume is the number of viable sales opportunities available to your sales team (or you, if you’re the only salesperson at your company).

Lead Volume is very often a measure of activity. Opportunity Volume is a measure of results and future expected revenues.

I recently dealt with a client whose only metric was Lead Volume: “Just get us more contact form submissions”.

“More contact form submissions is a brief that is relatively easy to fulfil. For starters, you can make the form easier to complete. Second, remove “strings” from the offer or add a guarantee.

When you do this, will the leads be more qualified? Will you create more viable Sales Opportunities? Not necessarily. In fact, you can very often clog up your sales pipeline with unqualified leads that do nothing more than take up your salespeople’s time and detract from closing genuine sales opportunities.

That’s why I’ve now included Opportunity Volume as one of the key lead generation metrics to track. It is a more reliable indicator of the success of your pre-sales marketing activities.

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7 Step Game Plan For Boosting Your Online Sales In A Slower Economy

Lately the media seem to be rubbing everyone’s faces in the “slower economy”.   I don’t like it - it gets people in the wrong frame of mind, thinking contractionary thoughts rather than expansionary ones.

So it seems there’s a recession on, but I’m refusing to participate.

It’s true that there are fewer discretionary dollars being spent, but all is not doom and gloom, especially in the online space.  On the macro-level, the indicators look strong:

A recent report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers Europe comments that while a contracting ecomomy normally reduces total media spend, investment in online marketing and media continues to increase rapidly:

“…overall online advertising growth is expected to slow down to about 20% according to the Advertising Association. While this is still a very strong growth rate, far stronger than other forms of offline advertising, this represents a slowdown compared with last year’s growth rate of 38%.”

So we can still expect 20% growth in online spend this year.

Another perspective: online was the third biggest media category in the UK in 2007 with a 16% share (behind Print Display and TV).  By 2009, it is expected to become the single largest advertising channel.

[While this is UK data, the general trends are equally applicable to the Australian market]

Here’s a 7-step program that I recommend for any business owner who wants to increase sales, even in a slower economy.  Outsized rewards will go to companies who implement these steps:

The 7 Step Online Marketing Game Plan

1. Know how much a client is worth to you after the initial transaction, and in the first 3, 6, 12 and 24 months of doing business (or whatever time periods make sense in your particular business) - this gives you your Allowable Cost of Acquisition.
2. Know how much a lead/sale is costing you, split by source. This means that all online goals need to be tracked (this can be done with Google Analytics for general goals and Google Adwords conversion tracking for Adwords-generated conversions).
3. Track everything, not just Adwords. Other types of online campaigns such as email newsletters can be tracked with Google’s URL Builder. This will tell you the exact volume of sales generated from a specific email blast, for example.
4. Make sure ALL ads and promotions are associated with a specific, trackable offer. You should not be running ANY promotions with a generic “call us” offer.  Many of our clients run print ads that invite prospects to download a Special Report or Info Kit by following a special, tracked, URL.  This allows them to do more of what’s working and less of what’s not working.
5. Cultivate and develop MORE THAN ONE successful lead generation approach. Many websites are highly dependent on, say, Adwords alone.  If Google changes their Terms Of Service or the way they serve ads (and they frequently do), this could literally put you out of business.  You need to test and run with at least 5 separate, independent prospecting methods that you can call on if required.Most of our clients have successful PPC accounts, SEO campaigns, referral systems and offline campaigns running simultaneously, automated via their website as the central “hub”.  If any one lead generation channel dries up, they still have a business.
6. Don’t drop new leads quickly - nurture them. You should aim to develop the following three communication sequences to make as much of incoming leads as possible: (a) - one for “soft leads” before they enquire (i.e. an info pack, or Special Report), backed up by a ongoing sequence of education-and-information emails.(b) - one between the initial enquiry and closing the sale - could be a book, a White Paper, or a Feasibility Analysis.(c) - one for un-converted leads who may convert in future. Especially where the value of a new client to your business is high, these communication sequences can deliver exceptional ROI.  You’ll also notice that almost nobody you’ve done business with in the past does this.  If you do it, you’ll be exceptional in the eyes of your prospects - always a good thing!
7. Resell to your existing client base by offering more value. Don’t forget about your current client base - how can you serve them better?  One of the most effective ways to develop a more stable cashflow and serve you clients better is to offer some kind of continuity-based service.For health supplement companies, this means shipping the product every month until the customer says “stop”.  For professional services, this might mean providing a retainer service on an ongoing basis for a set price.

Whatever you do, don’t succumb to the doom-and-gloom in the media.  Executing the 7 Step Game Plan can bulletproof your marketing engine so you can not only survive but thrive in 2009.

Summary for business owners:

• Overall media spend will decline in the short term while online spend will continue to increase rapidly.
• Within the online category, advertisers are moving away from non-accountable methods (e.g. display advertising such as banner advertising) and toward accountable methods (e.g. paid search such as Google Adwords).
• This means that more dollars will be spent online to attract fewer customers (although more customers are shifting their purchasing from offline to online as well).
• Many of the new entrants into the online space will be unsophisitcated players who don’t know what they’re doing (yet).
• Companies with tightly managed and monitored online campaigns can expect to do as well if not better than they have always done.

–

Marketing Results can of course help you ramp up the lead and sales generation capacity of your website with smart, accountable marketing so you can focus on managing and growing your business.  Contact us to enquire about availability on our Gold Client Program for SMEs.

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Lead Generation Survey Of 324 Australian Small Business Owners Released

Earlier this year I conducted a survey focused on Australian Online Lead Generation practices, in collaboration with Dr Marc Dussault of Platinum Programs. The results were telling but not particularly surprising - most Australian SMEs don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to generating leads over the Internet.

And that’s understandable.  I don’t know how to perform brain surgery, build a house or prepare a company tax return because that’s not my core business.  But if I want to do any of those things, I find someone who can do it and outsource it to them.

The Survey:

324 Australian Small to Medium sized businesses from a diverse range of industries were dissected, scrutinised and thoroughly examined via an online survey of 28 questions. 81% of the study participants came from organisations with less than $1 million in annual revenue.

Key Findings:

The findings expose the fundamental reasons why a deadly ‘heart attack’ is almost assured for the majority of Australian small business websites and what needs to be done to stop the bloodshed.

• SMEs understand the importance of online marketing – 77% assess their website as being moderately to critically important for generating enquiries and influencing sales at the present time. A WHOPPING 98% predict that their online channel will be moderately to critically important for generating enquiries and influencing sales within two years’ time.
• 82% suffer from marketing blindness because they don’t track any KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for their website. 65% aren’t tracking ANY conversion rates such as newsletter opt-in rates or shopping cart checkout rates.
• 83% suffer from acute traffic depression and are either moderately dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the traffic volume their website receives.
• 86% admit they have no clue about their Search Engine Optimisation results and can only estimate their Return On Investment in ballpark figures
• A staggering 83% suffer from major cellular damage, running with online promotions that are actually eating their profits. They never realise the consequences of their actions because they don’t TEST to optimise results when they introduce new website features or content.
• 58% suffer form an embarrassing memory loss that’s costing them tens of thousands of dollars in lost profits, as they hardly ever or never send email broadcasts to their suspects, prospects or clients, thus missing out on a major revenue opportunity that could boost their constitution in a matter of days.
• 96% of respondents assess their website as being only minimally to moderately effective at achieving their revenue generation goals.

Dissection of the answers obtained from this extensive survey lead to the conclusion that one of the main problems lies in the lack of systems, strategies and processes that can create and sustain a profitable online lead or sales generation pipeline.

Most Australian SMEs are not doing the basics right (testing and tracking, keep-in-touch marketing, optin-and-followup), let alone the advanced strategies required to get outstanding results.

From a therapeutic standpoint, we recommend that Australian businesses begin taking a much keener interest in the health of their Internet marketing. Prevention is better than cure and as the saying goes, “An ounce of perspiration is worth a gallon of blood”.

A diet high in well-targeted online advertising with attention-grabbing headlines and clear calls to action that leverage proven Internet marketing strategies such as opt-in email marketing, information and education, testimonials, “proof” elements and sales process automation will ensure a long, healthy and prosperous life for any small business.

The full internet marketing survey diagnoses the source of the ailments and proposes several potential cures, providing that the unsuspecting victims are warned in time and take proactive action to protect themselves.

Download the Full Lead Generation Survey Report Here (PDF)

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