Uncovery
How to Gain and Act on Customer Insights
Testing and optimization are a necessity in any marketing endeavor. I’ve gone deeper into the subject in several columns, such as “Conversion Folly Funnel” and “We Tried That Already.” Today, I want to focus on one aspect of optimization: customer insight.
Success in testing doesn’t necessarily indicate success in customer insight. For example, you can test landing pages, determine the best landing page, and enjoy an increase in conversion. But do you know why it converts better? Oftentimes marketers gain knowledge of customer behavior, which is inferior to customer insight (defined as learning why customers are behaving the way they are).
While it’s possible to optimize and see increases without customer insight, you’re chasing diminishing returns. Exclusively chasing better numbers gives the marketer a weaker 2-D approach in a rich 3-D world. Gaining customer insight is more efficient and typically more powerful in maintaining an upward trend toward your goals.
Gaining Customer Insight
How do you gain this customer insight? Customer surveys are one means.
Web analytics expert Avinash Kaushik collaborated with iPerceptions to give marketers the 4Q survey platform. 4Q is a free, permission-based on-exit customer survey. It’s delivered post-conversion and asks customers four powerful questions:
- What is the purpose of your visit to our Web site today?
- Were you able to complete your task today?
- If you were not able to complete your task today, why not?
- If you did complete your task, what did you enjoy most about the site?
At the recent eMetrics Summit in San Francisco, iPerceptions shared some early results of using 4Q. For retailers, it learned that 39 percent of visitors went to learn about products, while 27 percent went to buy. Of the 27 percent who went to buy, roughly only two-thirds actually completed that task. Visitors also told why they did not convert: 31 percent wanted better product selection, 24 percent desired better shipping options, 17 percent cited problems with the online shopping cart, and 14 percent said prices were too high.
Analytics will only tell you what people are doing, but knowing why they are doing it is a powerful optimization tool.
In this case, the retailer can make much better optimization decisions. While a retailer may already be working on an initiative to offer more shipping options, it now has data to support accelerating the project. Knowing that 17 percent said they had shopping cart problems, the retailer can dig into the analytics and gain better insight into what is happening.
You can also use this data to create personas to help your marketing initiatives.
Customer Insight and Product Reviews
Another simple means of customer insight are customer product reviews. Here’s how you can optimize using them:
- Look for products with low look-to-book ratios and reviews with 3 to 4.5 stars out of five stars.
- Pull the trigger words from each review.
- Plot them as “logical” or “emotional.”
- Modify your product descriptions based on the results.
For example, here are two bullet points from the product description for a lady’s watch before optimization:
- Contemporary style adds bold look to any wardrobe.
- Water resistant to 30 meters.
Now, here are two snippets from “emotional” customer reviews for a lady’s watch:
- It’s like wearing two silver chain bracelets with a beautiful watch centerpiece.
- I’m a constant hand-washer, and I don’t have to worry about “time stopping” just because I have to have clean hands.
Now here are the optimized bullets:
- This unusual double chain bracelet band and watch is an instant attention getter.
- No worries while washing hands, because this watch is water resistant to 30 meters.
Which description do you think converts better?
Conclusion
With customer insight you can more easily duplicate your successes, create more effective campaigns, and apply that insight to other site areas. And with our current economic situation, you can better budget and prioritize your optimization efforts.
Now go and learn what your customers are saying about you and your Web site.
*This article is cross-posted on ClickZ.
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About the Author: Bryan Eisenberg is co-founder and Chief Persuasion Officer at FutureNow. Join Bryan on June 3rd in Manhattan at the Call to Action seminar, the popular one-day course based on his New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Call to Action: Secret Formulas for Improving Online Results. Not only will you learn the most effective online persuasion and website optimization techniques, you’ll get a chance to chat with Bryan over hors d’oeurves and cocktails at our “Happy Hour with the Experts” reception.
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
The Difference Between Knowledge and Understanding
Seems everywhere I look there are articles about Toyota’s rise from small Japanese company to the largest car manufacturer in the world. There are several theories for Toyota’s success, including their much touted use of Karzai Kaizen, or continuous improvement. But another practice is equally, if not more important, is genchi genbutsu.
In a recent American Marketing Association article (”How Toyota Got So Smart“), Travis Adkins explains genchi genbutsu:
One of the most religiously followed of these practices is something that Toyota calls genchi genbutsu - roughly translated as “go and see.” In essence, this means that to truly grasp an issue, employees must get up close and personal with it.
The New York Times article gives an example of this practice with the story of Yuji Yokoya, a Toyota engineer who had been charged with the redesigning of the Sienna minivan:
He decided he would drive the Sienna (and other minivans) in every American state, every Canadian province and most of Mexico. Yokoya at one point decided to visit a tiny and remote Canadian town, Rankin Inlet, in Nunavut, near the Arctic Circle. He flew there in a small plane, borrowed a minivan from a Rankin Inlet taxi driver and drove around for a few minutes (there were very few roads). The point of all this to and fro, Jeff Liker says, was to test different vans — on ice, in wind, on highways and city streets — and make Toyota’s superior.
In the AMA article, meanwhile, Adkins points out that it’s become much more difficult to “outknow” your competition:
There’s a difference between knowing and understanding, although the two are often confused. Two organizations might have the same knowledge, but the one that posesses [sic] understanding can see consequences and implications that remain invisible to the other.
In other words, you can’t just know the facts; you must be able to interpret them.
I believe that in order to go from knowledge to understanding, one must have real-world insight into one’s customers. You have to dig deeper, ask better questions, and yes, put yourself directly into your customers’ shoes.
We don’t all have the time and resources to go as far as driving a minivan in every state in every type of weather condition. But that’s where customer personas can be your best friend. Doing a deep and thorough uncovery is absolutely necessary. This will be the first step in going beyond just knowledge to understanding. But creating personas gives you the missing link between knowledge, understanding, and applying that understanding.
Personas help you take facts about customers turn them into insight. And not just insight, but actionable insight.
So start with genchi genbutsu -- go and see. Then apply personas to turn that very valuable knowledge into crucial understanding.
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Written by:Holly Buchanan
A Half Dozen Business Choices
Every company has to make choices when it comes to how it markets and sells and, in some cases, who it is and what it sells.
In an e-mail exchange, Tom Grimes, a great and brilliant friend, shared with me what he’s thinking about in terms of business choices. Based on his list, here’s my own list of many of the high-level choices businesses typically make every day. It may help you make some more conscience choices of your own:
- Select or solicit?
- Tangible or intangible?
- Transaction or relationship?
- Speed or quality?
- Price or prestige?
- Lifestyle or utilitarian?
Click here for a further explanation and to read the rest of my column on ClickZ…
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
2 Ways to Get Started With Personas (Part 2)
Regular readers of GrokDotCom, or any of our best-selling books, heartily agree: people do things according to their own motivations. And in this unprecedented day of empowered consumers, “selling” to customers is 100% about facilitating their buying process. Any attempts to pitch (or push) products in ways that aren’t transparent, genuine, relevant or salient will be immediately blocked and discarded by our hyper-sensitive BS meters. Should you happen to try a high-pressure sales “trick” from yesteryear and succeed at fooling one of us, we’ll take our licks, then promptly tell ten friends, who’ll tell ten friends, who’ll tell ten other friends–all before lunch.
In Part 1 of this post, I alluded to a process to plan the customer experience around facilitating their buying process rather than your sales process. Those who’ve studied Jungian psychology or Myers-Briggs typology know how to model different decision making styles (or preferences) that make up individual buying processes. But the advent of advanced web analytics allows us to go a step further to prove these models as being more scientifically valid than ever.
Previously, I discussed the question many seem to ask once they embrace the concept of people operating according to their own motivations and preferences: “How do you research WHO makes up my audience, so you can then ASK them about their motivations?” I offered that the question was an understandable one to ask, but far from a productive use of the wise marketer’s time to go find an answer.
I was watching Morning Joe on MSNBC last week, and they illustrated my point wonderfully. Erin Burnett, a correspondent from CNBC, reporting from Wall St. (on, you guessed it, the iPhone) had an exchange with the host, former congressman Joe Scarborough. Joe was remarking at how he always looks at consumer confidence reports as an indicator of what trends are emerging, where gas prices will go, the real estate market, the economy in general, etc. Erin surprised Joe with her response, namely that history shows since the Great Depression–shortly after which consumer confidence began being scientifically measured–public opinion of what would be spent wasn’t exactly a consistent predictor what actually got spent as time went on. I’ll say it again, for the record, believe what they do, not what they say they do.
OK, ok, ok… I can see you nodding your heads in agreement. I can see you waving your hands, saying, “We agree knowing what type they ARE is not worth focusing on, but rather what type THEY WILL BE when they engage with us (and how to do we give them what they want) is where we spend our resources.” The question is, HOW do we get started?
2) Do some “work” yourself (and if need be hire a firm to come in and help wrap up)
Level of difficulty: medium (there’s a process that can be followed, you just need to allocate the resources: time or money)
Likelihood of success: great
Here’s the first exercise to kickoff your internal persona project:
- Assemble a small team (2 - 4 members) with diverse backgrounds. Make sure to include people who have close contact with end customers, and have a strong understanding of the value proposition (benefits) for the customers. Don’t worry about explicitly including experts in your business for now (if they’re there, great, but if not, the exercise will still work). Remember, the goal is to better understanding the buying process, not redoing the sales process.
- Give everyone on the team 15 minutes to brainstorm as many attributes as they can about the product, why someone would buy it, or what makes it unique. Collect these attributes, and combine them on a central whiteboard for all to see and discuss to ensure clarity.
- Next to each attribute, gain consensus on whether it’s more likely to be appealing to logic, or to emotion. Resist the urge to say “both” for each attribute, the exercise is designed to make sure you make some hard decisions. Re-sort the list into logical attributes on one sheet, and emotional on the other.
- Now repeat the process, this time gaining consensus on how hard it is to understand the attribute, and to which pace it’s likely to appeal. Is the attribute something concrete and crystal clear to anyone after 3 seconds of reading it? Rather, does it require a bit more education or a finer subtle experience level to reach it’s full value? Resort each list according to “faster” or “slower” pace.
- You know have 4 sorted lists into fast/logical, fast/emotional, slow/logical, and slow/emotional attributes. Here’s where the fun part comes in
These lists of attributes are probably too abstract for people to relate to, so make them more concrete. Use your demographic data (you know, the research you bought that didn’t answer the question of why people buy) and your market “segments” to layer a profile; a story which sets the context for the attributes on your lists to be appealing.
Did you just create fancy Personas you can put up on your walls? Are you now in line for that promotion? Sorry, probably not, but if you’re a shareholder, what you’ve done is likely far more valuable. You’ve taken the first step toward building a system to plan different experiences for different types of people, all easily executed on the same website, within the same copy, that provides feedback to prove or disprove the motivations and attributes you assumed. You’ve begun to answer question 1 of the 3 questions for designing persuasive systems.
Yes, learning to crawl can seem frustrating when all you want to do is walk. But remember, given the state of affairs online, our collective track record dictates we’re very good at persuading our visitors to take an action (97.5% of ‘em, anyway). Unfortunately, that action is pounding on the back button until they find someone who seems to understand them better! Set aside 60 minutes to go through the exercise above, and put it into place in whatever capacity you easily can.
I’d love to hear what happens from all who try, and I’ll gladly offer any advice or feedback if you just reach out and share. (If you’d prefer not to comment publicly, please do email me: howardk [at] futurenowinc [dot] com.)
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Written by:Howard Kaplan
The 5 W’s of Purchase Behavior
In expanding the question about relational-transactional purchasing by asking the question of WHAT makes people buy, a fellow deep thinker from the Wizard Academy shared that we should also add in the essential “reporter” questions:
I’d lump them into four categories: Who … Why … What … When-Where-How. Who, Why & What are big driving issues, while you can lump the other three (When, Where, How) together as the sort of mechanics of purchasing.
WHO we are (or think we are and desire to be) deeply influences WHAT we buy. Our “tribes” and “identities” are wrapped in and around our buying impulses. The other aspect of WHO is Who influences us. We care more about the opinions of people we know than we do from some ad. From the list, this might include: Prestige or Aspirational purchase - Name Recognition - Fad or Innovation - Niche Identity - Peer Pressure - Ego Stroking -
WHY we buy … this is the emotional stuff, Maslow’s pyramid, our inner individual needs that drive us. The list of intensely emotional triggers include: Emotional Vacuum - Scarcity - The “Girl Scout Cookie Effect” - Fear - Reciprocity or Guilt - Empathy - Addiction - Indulgence -
WHAT we buy … Buying a new car is a different experience than buying groceries. A car is a big purchase that in many ways is an extension of our identity. A redneck kid from West Texas will be drooling over a 4-wheel drive 3/4 ton pickup truck while the 30 year-old career girl in California is thinking her car not only has to match her “style,” it has to be green.
1. Basic Needs (food, staples, repairs, etc.)
2. Lifestyle items (beer, eating out, clothing… anything you buy that’s an extension of you and your lifestyle)
3. Luxury purchase (Rolex, big screen TV, vacation travel, etc.)
4. Major purchase (house, car, long-term health care, big investments)
5. Crisis needs (medical emergency, disaster, addictions)
When-Where-How
When we buy … Is it an impulse buy? Is it a recurring purchase. Is it a major purchase like a house or car that is really a buying event that only happens a few times in a persons life? Young people have different needs (and buying power) than old farts (like me).
Where we buy … This has changed with the internet. We go window shopping online and quite often just click and get it. UPS and FedEx are as vital to online shopping as Amazon.
How we buy … Credit cards have turned us into a retail junky nation. Virtually anyone can get a card and spend their life savings drinking lattes from Starbucks.
W-W-H buying factors include: Convenience - Replacement - Lower Price - Great Value - Compulsory Purchase - Event - Holiday - The big When-Where-How companies are Wal-Mart and McDonalds.
All of these come into play in our buying. The question for marketers is where do they fit? Where can you leverage this in your marketing?
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
What Makes People Buy
At Future Now, we focus on Grokking people to understand why they do the things they do. Grok roughly means “to understand completely,” or, more formally, “to achieve complete intuitive understanding.” It was invented by science fiction writer Robert Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land. Grok, we’re told, is a Martian verb, meaning to drink or absorb on a cellular level, that was introduced to today’s English speakers thanks to a man raised by Martians.
Roy Williams qualified shoppers as operating in either one of two modes: transactional or relational, a few years ago. At that time some of us loafed around virtually, exchanging emails with friends, trying to complete a list of reasons that motivate people to buy things. (Thank you, Tom G. & Brett F.) More recently, we returned to compiling the list with the rest of my colleagues. Trying to understand these types of things is what drives us. It also benefits our clients.
The following is what we came up with, albeit likely incomplete.
Can you identify which of these motivations is relational and which are transactional? Can you see where they each fit within Maslow’s hierarchy of needs [define]? Will you help us find additional motivations?
Some of these are self-explanatory. The forces that influence whether people buy include:
Basic Needs - We buy things to fulfill what Maslow describes as the bottom of his hierarchy; things like food and shelter.
Convenience - You need something now and will take the easiest or fastest path to get it. Think about the last time you were running out of gas, or were thirsty and found the nearest beverage of choice. This could also be choosing the safe vendor (no one ever gets fired for hiring IBM), purchasing something to increase comfort or efficiency.
Replacement - Sometimes you buy because you need to replace old things you have (e.g., clothes that don’t fit or are out-of-date). This could be moving from a VCR to a DVD player.
Scarcity - This could be around collectibles or a perceived need that something may run out or have limited availability in the future. Additionally, there’s a hope to gain a return on investment, such as collectible or antiques; anything that accrues value over time.
Prestige or Aspirational purchase - Something is purchased for an esteem-related reason or for personal enrichment.
Emotional Vacuum - Sometimes you just buy to try to replace things you cannot have and never will.
Lower prices - Something you identified earlier as a want is now a lower price than before. Maybe you were browsing for a particular large screen TV and you saw a great summer special.
Great Value - When the perceived value substantially exceeds the price of a product or service. This is something you don’t particularly need, you just feel it’s too good a deal to pass up. (Like the stuff they place near the end caps or checkout counters of stores.)
Name Recognition - When purchasing a category you’re unfamiliar with, branding plays a big role. Maybe you had to buy diapers for a family member and you reach for Pampers because of you’re familiarity with the brand, even though you don’t have children yourself.
Fad or Innovation - Everybody wants the latest and greatest. (iPhone mania.) This could also be when someone mimics their favorite celebrity.
Compulsory Purchase - Some external force, like school books, uniforms, or something your boss asked you to do, makes it mandatory. This often happens in emergencies, such as when you need a plumber.
Ego Stroking - Sometimes you make a purchase to impress/attract the opposite sex; to have something bigger/better than others, friends, etc. To look like an expert/aficionado; to meet a standard of social status, often exceeding what’s realistically affordable to make it at least seem like you operate at a higher level.
Niche Identity - Something that helps bond you to a cultural, religious or community affiliation. Maybe you’re a Harvard alumni and Yankee fan who keeps kosher. (You can also find anti-niche identity by rebellion, assuming you’re pretty comfortable with irony.)
Peer Pressure - Something is purchased because your friends want you to. You may need to think back to your teen years to think of an example.
The “Girl Scout Cookie Effect” - People feel better about themselves by feeling as though they’re giving to others, almost especially when they’re promised something in return. Purchasing things they don’t need–or wouldn’t normally purchase–because it will help another person or make the world a better place incrementally is essential certain buying decision.
Reciprocity or Guilt - This happens when somebody–usually an acquaintance, or someone rarely gift-worthy–buys you a gift or does something exceptionally nice and/or unnecessary. Now it’s your turn to return the favor at the next opportunity. Examples:
- Event - When the social decorum of an event (e.g., wedding, bar mitzvah, etc.) dictates buying something or another.
- Holiday - ‘Nuff said.
Empathy - Sometimes people buy from other people because they listened and cared about them even if they had the lesser value alternative.
Addiction - This is outside the range of the normal human operating system, but it certainly exists and accounts for more sales than any of us can fathom.
Can you think back to the last time you bought something and fully explain the reason why?
These are the things we help our clients think about. We hope this list at least gets you started. And let us know if you need help understanding your customers motivations. It’s what we do. But in the meantime…
What do you feel motivates people to buy?
. . . . . . . . .
ADDENDA:
Fear - From pink Taser™ stun guns to over-sized SUV’s to backyard bomb shelters–and even stuff so basic as a tire pressure gauge–are bought out of fear. So, before you go knocking “fear” as a motivator, ask yourself: Are you Y2K compliant?
Indulgence - Who doesn’t deserve a bit of luxury now and then? So long as you can afford it, sometimes there’s no better justification for that hour-long massage, that pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream, or that $75 bottle of 18-year single malt scotch other than “you’re worth it” (best when said to self in front of mirror with a wink and/or head tilt).
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
7 BIG Questions for Online Marketers
We hear the questions businesses ask: How do I increase my sales or leads? How do I get more traffic to my site? How do I get better search engine rankings? How do I get fewer customers to abandon their shopping carts? What do I do with all this data I’m getting from my analytics software?
These are important questions.
Ask a Bigger Question
What makes people buy? When you focus on this question, all the subsequent details fall much more easily into place. This is not a word game; it’s a change in perspective. Without a proper strategy, you can win every battle and still lose the war.
Tactics: The Unspoken Assumptions
Whenever businesses tackle optimization, site design or redesign, they start with a set of assumptions. Very often, these assumptions depend on a granular, detail-oriented view of the problem as the business sees it (from the perspective of the business, not the customer). Very often, the problem is couched in the language of “best practices”, a series of tactics. However, to paraphrase Sun Tzu, tactics applied without strategy are the noise before defeat.
Asking a “bigger question” broadens your view of your situation beyond the details; bigger questions often lead you to reevaluate your strategies, which in turn allows you to devise more effective tactics. The critical answers to these bigger questions—the answers that meet your specific needs—can only from you.
7 Online Marketing Challenges & How to Frame Them as Bigger Questions
Here’s a list of the top seven challenges clients put to us, with their variations. We reframe them through bigger questions to target the deeper issues that influence your marketing effectiveness.
1. “We need to reach more people.”
Sometimes you simply need to reach more people. You need to improve your search engine rankings; you need to add more keywords to your search engine marketing; you need to find new or more places to advertise; you need to grow your list; you need to advertise offline; you need viral marketing; you need to increase the number of links to your site; you need to add or modify an affiliate program, and other variations on this theme.
Bigger questions to explore and ask yourself:
- Are enough of the people coming to our website sufficiently satisfied with what we present that they buy, or does our presentation damage our reputation and create an impediment to buying?
- Are enough of the people who buy from us sufficiently delighted to purchase again, are we wasting resources by driving new traffic?
- Do we provide enough of the right information for people to return even when they are not ready to buy right now?
- Are we focused more on marketing to the search engines or marketing to the people who visit our site?
2. “We need to reach better people.”
Sometimes you simply need to reach better people. You need to target more appropriate publications; you need to select better keywords; you need to source better lists; you need to find more qualified buyers; you need to reach your competitor’s customers; you need to reach people when they are ready to buy; you need the right content to attract search engine traffic, and other variations on this theme.
Bigger questions to explore and ask yourself:
- If we reach those people, do we have relevant content for them when they are in the early, middle and late stages of their buying process?
- Is our offering so narrow that there are too few “better” people?
- Does the buyer only identify the need and buy on a very short time horizon, such that we need to find them before they have the need?
- Is the message we’ve been telling the “wrong” people strong enough for them to reach out and tell the “better” people?
3. “We need more resources.”
Sometimes you simply need more resources. You need more money; your need enough time; you need the right consultant; you need better-skilled people; you need the right talent; you need the right vendor; you need to justify your opportunity costs, and other variations on this theme.
Bigger questions to explore and ask yourself:
- Do our priorities and goals match our resource allocations?
- Do we commit our resources based on predicted rates of return?
- Do we hold people accountable for those returns when allocating new resources?
- If we don’t have the resources or time to do it correctly now, when will we have the resources or time; when, exactly, will we commit to do it?
4. “We need better testing and usability.”
Sometimes you simply need better testing and usability. You need to make it easy to buy from you; you need to make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for; you need to make it easy to checkout; you need to get feedback from visitors; you need to set up tests and watch how visitors vote with their mice; you need to test to isolate which variables are most important to your visitors; you need to test to see which offers work best, and variations on this theme.
Bigger questions to explore and ask yourself:
- What motivates people to buy even when sites aren’t usability-friendly?
- If usability is the only critical factor, why haven’t conversion rates improved in any meaningful way over the last five years, when attention to usability has increased dramatically?
- What if what we’re testing is only what we can think of, but the problem lies in what we haven’t thought of yet; which variables are truly significant and which are not?
- How do we know that pages further up or down the click-stream don’t affect the test we are conducting on one page?
- Do our scientific tests include an hypothesis of the outcome, a theory for why we expect the outcome and a statistically meaningful sample size so we can validate or refute our hypothesis and learn from the results; can we apply that learning more broadly to other situations?
- Would different click-through paths for different audience segments give us a cumulatively higher conversion than the best average conversion?
5. “We need to redesign.”
Sometimes you simply need to redesign. You need to scrap what isn’t working for you; you need more persuasive copy; you need more persuasive or illustrative images; you need to refresh your company image; you need to update your technology; you’ve added so many pieces to the original design that you need to reconceive it, and variations on this theme.
Bigger questions to explore and ask yourself:
- Do we need a redesign or do we need to make what we have work?
- Why will the redesigned site better serve visitors?
- How, exactly, will the redesigned site better serve visitors?
- Why are the best-converting sites so often boring in their design?
- Will our redesign incorporate a scientific testing methodology that will allow us to optimize click-streams based on a prediction of how different audience segments will engage with the site?
6. “We need better metrics.”
Sometimes you simply need better metrics. You need to measure the impact on conversion of the elements on your website; you need a good web analytics program; you need to turn your data into wisdom so you can act upon it; you need to measure whether your predictions were correct; you need to identify what campaigns, keywords, elements and audience segments give you the best return on your investment, and variations on this theme.
Bigger questions to explore and ask yourself:
- How can we better implement the web analytics program we are currently; do we understand how the data we collect impacts our financial statements?
- Are our metrics based on the way we set up our website to sell or on our visitors’ buying cycles and buying modalities?
- Do our metrics help us refine our website to meet visitor expectations?
- Have we identified and planned an intentional path so that metrics can help us separate the signal from the noise or is our analysis an attempt to divine order from randomness?
7. “We need a better Conversion Rate.”
Sometimes you simply need a better conversion rate. You need a better return on investment on your traffic; you need to remove obstacles to conversion; you need to plug the holes in your leaky bucket; you need to reduce shopping cart abandonment; you need visitors to complete more lead generation forms; you need more business, and variations on this theme.
Bigger questions to explore and ask yourself:
- How does our conversion rate affect our advertising and promotional budget?
- If we could attract a drastically reduced audience that converts better, we’ve increased our conversion rate. Are we prepared to reduce our conversion rate if we can generate more sales at an acceptable return on investment?
- If what we are offering is good, what are all the potential reasons why someone wouldn’t convert today, in 30 days, in 60 days, etc.?
- What is the percentage of visitors we would expect to lose to each of our potential reasons?
- After identifying all the potential reasons why someone wouldn’t convert, if we can’t justify why our conversion rate is less than 20%, why would we set our goals so much lower than that?
- Is it possible that the strategy that helps you increase the average conversion rate isn’t the strategy that would produce the most overall sales or best results?
- Would different click-through paths for different audience segments give us a cumulatively higher conversion than the best average conversion?
Meeting your challenges
Time and again we have learned that the answers to these bigger questions, which depend on a critical appraisal and an intimate knowledge of the business, its marketplace, its audience and its objectives, make the difference when it comes to being successful online.
You can tackle these bigger questions yourself. Objectivity and being able to see outside the box that defines your current situation will best serve the quality of your answers.
What happens if you don’t want to rethink your challenges or to identify more effective marketing solutions? Things stay the same, and you never realize your potential.
What happens if you’re unsure how to, or can’t, rethink your challenges?
Well, that’s why we’re here!
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Written by:Jeffrey Eisenberg
Unspoken Assumptions
Kick the habit of assuming who your customers are, what they should want and how should deliver it.
Remember this classic scene from the Odd Couple?
Felix Unger: [to woman on witness stand] Ah … you assumed. My dear, you should never assume. You see, when you assume… [Felix writes the word “assume” on a blackboard] … you make an ass out of u and me.
Want to know what really gets in the way of better conversion rates? All too often it isn’t what you do. It’s what you don’t do! It’s not what you put in to your conversion system; it’s what you leave out of your conversion system.
I’m talking about the unspoken assumptions every business makes when it plans for conversion. Come see what I mean.
Read the rest of this article.
Read the entire newsletter: Volume 145
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Written by:The Grok
Unspoken Assumptions in Action
Unspoken assumptions in Apple’s conversion process undermine the online purchase of a 30GB iPod.
Poor Melissa. A dastardly somebody broke into my dear co-worker’s car and stole her video iPod!! *passes out tissues* This is a woman who lives the fully-integrated iPod life Apple imagines for its customers - podcasts, audiobooks, movies, TV shows, music. She was devastated. And she knew, without question, she had to replace her iPod immediately.
So she started her search for a replacement iPod the way many folks do: online through a search engine. How hard could it be for Apple to answer one important question and help her get back quickly into her pod-groove?
Harder than you might think … because the scenario Melissa stumbled upon was laced with Apple’s unspoken assumptions about what Melissa should need to know.
Read the rest of this article.
Read the entire newsletter: Volume 145
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Written by:The Grok
How Many Personas Do You Need?
In past columns, I’ve talked about creating personas and evaluating them. Today, I’ll explore how many personas are enough.
When clients ask us how many personas they should have, we typically tell them a handful — two to seven — is enough.
Not long ago, a client tried to identify its market segments and announced it would need 42 personas. After the uncovery process, we identified a need for 7 personas, not 42. The client was skeptical, believing we couldn’t address the needs of its entire customer base with only seven personas. We began creating scenarios for the personas, and the team realized one persona was so similar to another it wasn’t adding any value to the persuasion planning process. They suggested we remove that persona. We did, committing what we affectionately term “personacide.”
Uncovery can also introduce a persona that’s being ignored or overlooked by marketing or sales. Another client resisted using a persona we developed largely from a gap we identified researching its lost prospects. The team kept telling us, “This doesn’t seem like our customer.” We agreed, telling them they were failing to close this persona (or market opportunity) because its needs and motivations weren’t addressed by the current sales process. By creating new scenarios for this persona and staying aware of what it needed during sales calls, the client began to close more of these prospects types.
Continue reading my column at ClickZ…
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
