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conversion rate strategies marketing strategy

Your Marketing Mix: Stop Focusing Only on Traffic

Your-Marketing-Mix-Stop-Focusing-Only-on-Traffic-FBTW

There’s a million and one things you could do to “market” your business, but what’s the right thing? Which one will get you the results you’re after?

Damn good question.

It’s a question without a clear cut answer. And anyone who claims to be able to tell you exactly what to do may very well be a liar, especially if it’s along the lines of “now, just follow these three easy steps.”

Figuring out your marketing isn’t about replicating someone else’s results but nailing down the approach that works for you. And that’s exactly why I’m not a fan of any marketing strategy or advice being taught by someone who’s done it exactly for one person – themselves.

Unfortunately, that’s all too common online. Yes, lessons learned and first hand experience are great, but they’re not the bedrock marketing you need to build your marketing on.

Which is why you need to have a handle on what’s called the marketing cycle. It’s an easy way to understand how each piece of the marketing puzzle feeds into the next one and how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

The Marketing Cycle Explained

Your-Marketing-Mix-Explained-FBTWThere’s no shortage of marketing advice out there, but when it comes to online marketing the concept of the marketing cycle is well played out.

Originated by Perry Marshall in the book 80/20 Sales and Marketing, it’s a succinct way to make sure you’re addressing the key touch points of your marketing.

Essentially, there are three parts to the marketing cycle – Traffic, Conversions and Economics.

I don’t know about you, but you likely spend most of your time on traffic. And with good reason, this is where you’re engaging new people as they discover your business. This may be on social media, at events or publicity activities. The goal is to get people to connect with you and to want to learn more.

But here’s where shit falls apart. When it’s time to convert people from a casual connection into action such as subscribing or purchasing from you, you need your landing page, website or wherever else you’re sending them to deliver the goods.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Traffic doesn’t matter if your website totally sucks. #truthbomb New blog post” quote=”Traffic doesn’t matter if your website totally sucks. #truthbomb New blog post”]

Conversions for the (Small) Win

Enter conversions. Or as I like to think of it, as the land of small wins. When you have a website, you know exactly how many moving pieces there are involved. Copy, design, tech integrations and much more.

If you’re taking the time to send traffic to the site, you owe it to yourself to continuously be improving on what you have so you convert that traffic into action.

Think of this in the context of one of your sales pages. Every element of your page from the photo of you to the text on your purchase button to the social proof you’re using, impacts the end result. So tweaking that page, testing it and then optimizing it over time can give you a series of small wins. Those small wins bring better results in your business.

Closing the Loop: Economics

Finally, what happens once someone is your customer or client? These are the economics of running your biz. It’s not enough to convert someone, you then need to execute on what you’ve promised.

While you may not think of this part of things as marketing, it sure as hell is. Because if you do this part right, you’re going to need WAY less marketing in the long run. It’s how people build thriving businesses without an online presence.

It all comes down to the experience you deliver your customer or client from the time they first engage with you to when you’re done working with them. Never underestimate how incredibly powerful this is, or drop the ball here in favor of working harder on the front end of the cycle to get new people in the door. Happy customers are repeat customers and they will refer you to everyone they know.

If you want to dive more into this, check out the Surprise and Delight Guide with advice from 35+ smart business owners:
Get your free copy of the Surprise & Delight guide now.

Your Marketing Not-So Secret Weapon

With a firm grasp on the marketing cycle, how do you actually apply it? It’s all about finding the balance between all three pieces so that you’re essentially creating a flow where people discover you, engage and then continue to do business with you.

It’s easier said than done. So here’s a few ways to approach it:

  • Traffic: Choose a handful of tactics and focus on doing it really well so that they’re actually effective, instead of trying to be everywhere and running around following expert advice. You need to see what works for you, where your audience is and go from there.
  • Conversions: You know that moment when you launch your website and you’re so excited because you’re done. You’re never going to be done, which is why I’m a huge proponent of not over-investing in design when you’re starting out. You don’t know what you don’t know yet, so start where you are with your site and evolve over time.
  • Economics: Set aside marketing time to work on your “surprise and delight”. Keep your customers happy and close the loop so they’re dying to give you a testimonial.

The goal of your marketing is to support your business goals and get results. Not to fluff up follower counts or make you look like you’re awesome when you’ve just got an expensive hobby. Results come from getting clear, and action is what breeds clarity. Work all parts of your marketing cycle and over time you’ll watch your results grow.

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Results. Clarity. A plan that actually works for you and doesn’t mean you’re focusing on marketing 24/7.

This is exactly what the No B.S. Marketing School is all about. And this isn’t like anything else out there, it’s based on 15+ years of planning and executing marketing programs from huge brands to startups to solopreneurs. We’ll keep the cookie cutters in your kitchen and break the marketing mold to get you where you want to go.

The No B.S. Marketing School is only open for registration through September 15th, and class starts Monday September 21st. Will you join us for the founding class?

Get the Scoop on the No B.S. Marketing School

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content marketing strategy conversion rate strategies marketing strategy

A Creative Entrepreneur’s Guide to Conversion Rates

blog 8.20

Do you identify yourself as a creative?

Yeah, me too. I’ve always been a creative. I was raised by a hippie photographer father, who valued creativity above all else. I grew up in a time of possibility and around people who didn’t have traditional careers, so I was fully encouraged to let my creative (freak) flag fly.

From a young age, I was a writer – that was how I expressed myself. Later, this gave way to my trying all kinds of other creative pursuits. So as you can imagine, something like math wasn’t my sweet spot. In fact, it has always been ewwwww….ugh….yuck for me.

I’m sure so many of you can relate. But as a creative business owner, I want to let you in on a secret: we can’t ignore math.

No matter how much we really want to.

Truth is…our fate rests on the numbers.

80% of businesses fail in the first year. That’s a staggering number.

We’ve all heard that tried and true stat time and time again, to the point we likely don’t even think about what that really means.

Desensitized as we may be, we need to pay attention.

With those numbers, the odds of you failing are greater than of you succeeding.

How do you do better and ensure your success? How do you not become a statistic?

You measure your results.

You have limited time to work “on” your business, so why not make it more efficient? Focusing on your creativity and uniqueness alongside your conversion rates can give you an incredible way to be truly different than everyone else out there AND get results.

You know, results. The things that mean you’re succeeding. The tangible proof that all your heart and hustle is paying off and getting you where you want to go.

As business owners and especially as women, we tend to want to focus on feelings and emotions, not the actual outcomes. So we talk about wanting to feel a certain way, instead of a hard metric like people served or money made.

We’re doing ourselves a major disservice if we don’t measure results.

We’re never ever going to feel the ease or flow we crave if we’re not paying attention. Our feelings aren’t going to be the ones we deeply desire but ones of fear and frustration but most of all, we’ll be so flippin’ tired that we’ll want to quit.

What Happens When We Ignore the Numbers

Sure, we can ignore the numbers. But, when we aren’t paying attention, here’s what happens.

We turn into the chick at the party that’s in the powder room all night long because she can’t handle herself. And we’ve all had this moment – whether you want to admit it or not. It’s my job to make sure you aren’t that girl anymore.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Are you THAT girl? Get yourself handled – conversion rates for creatives.” quote=”Are you THAT girl? Get yourself handled – conversion rates for creatives.”]

Results. Numbers. These are things we can control. It just comes down to truly understanding the art + science of our marketing.

For example, last Fall when I relaunched this website, my business changed.

As soon as I launched a new site with a clear, totally me story, my business grew quickly. The difference: more me, more story and a better focus on converting my visitors into action. I grew my list by 1000 people, I was booking out months ahead. These relatively minor changes had a big pay off rather quickly. My website paid for itself many, many times over.

That’s not to brag, but it’s to show you’ve got a choice.

You can keep working harder and doing more, or you can focus on what you can control. Your story. Your conversions. Not just more busywork to make you feel like you’re getting somewhere.

Ultimately, this is about being smarter and letting the other stuff go so you can focus on the stuff you want to do. Not hustling hard and dropping from exhaustion.

Stop Giving Conversion Rates a Bad Rap

Let’s take some time to actually talk about “conversions.” That’s the magical act where people sign up for your list or purchase from you.

In short, they take action on your site.

The idea of conversion doesn’t have to be scary, sleazy or all about the math.

Conversions is sort of like the weird creepy guy that a friend of a friend invited along to your party. You’re giving him the side eye all night, worrying he’s going to go through your underwear drawer when he heads to the bathroom, but once you get to know him, he’s actually kind of cool.

Conversion talk gets a bad rap with us creative types, which is why we’re going to get the bottom of conversion rates for creatives once and for all.

Why? For most of us, numbers and money are huge triggers. (Raising my hand – don’t worry, I’ve got this kind of baggage, too!)

Or maybe you see ranty dude bro marketers with flashing red buy now buttons that look like Web 1.0 threw up all over their sales page.

Or the fear that if you focus on conversion rates you’re going to have to turn into someone who uses hard core pressure tactics to close the sale.

No, No, and NO! Not for a second. That’s not at all what this is about.

Just because you’re working on these numbers doesn’t mean your business has to be soulless. It doesn’t mean you have to have a HUGE impersonal business. It’s just the opposite.

By focusing on this stuff you can be more efficient and spend MORE time focusing on your clients by serving them in the best way possible. Plus, you’ll actually be profitable so that you can grow exactly the way you want to. It can help you take the pressure off so you’re acting from a place of abundance and not fear.

It’s simple.

Conversions = people taking action on your site.

Action = you’ve got a viable, sustainable business and are making money.

And really, who doesn’t like that?

By understanding and tracking your conversion rates, you can figure out what’s working and what’s not so you can succeed.

For example, conversion rates typically run around 2-3% for most websites. But with the right changes and focus, you can increase those to 5% or even higher.

Imagine you have 1000 people coming to your landing page where you’re selling a product or service.

A 2% conversion would mean that 20 people purchased.

But with a 5%, that could be 50 people, or with 10% ,100 people.

That’s more people impacted, more people served and you’re being paid fairly for your work. Win-win for everyone.

This is what’s at the heart of conversion optimization. You can haul ass to have more and more traffic, or you can tweak and tuck your site so that the people who show up get what they need.

Remember the creepy conversions dude? When you really break it down, this conversion guy isn’t so bad after all. At your party, he’s the one who stays until 3 a.m. helping you clean up the aftermath. And in your marketing arsenal, conversion rate optimization is reliable and trustworthy – the perfect balance to your creative whims and innovative ideas.

The Right Numbers Ensure Your Freedom

Start measuring so you are in control of your business outcomes and, most of all, your future. No more ignoring the “math stuff” and what’s really happening on your website.

Because if you do that, your business is going to be fine. In fact, it will be better than fine because you’ll know what’s what.

As creatives, we love our freedom. But the numbers are what are going to give us creative control. (And they don’t have to be scary!)

For me, they give me control over the growth of my business and now they’re my BFF. When those not-so-great days happen and I totally melt down, the numbers are my safety blanket that help snap me back to reality.

You, my friend, are in control of your business. Your business doesn’t happen to you or around you. You’re the host or hostess of this party, so it’s time for you to step up. Make friends with conversions and you may just be surprised where your business goes.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Making friends with conversion rates – the inside scoop. New blog post.” quote=”Making friends with conversion rates – the inside scoop. New blog post.”]

OW Social Media Images MM Cover (2)

Orientation Weeks starts Monday, August 24th and we’ll be talking about conversion rates among other must-know things in your business.

This August, instead of deciding you’ve got 2015 handled, what if you tapped into that feeling and took your marketing back to school? And not to just any school, but the No B.S. School of Marketing, a place where you get to reinvent your marketing (and how you think about it).

Orientation Week is a week-long, 100% free event with a daily lesson. No fluff. You’ll get in and you’ll get out. Best of all, each day you’ll get something done in your business that sets you on the path to marketing success.

Get the details and join us by hitting the button below.

orientation-week-button

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conversion rate strategies Grow Your Business Online marketing strategy

5 B.S. Online Marketing Myths Debunked

blog 8.13

Whether you’ve been hanging out in the online business world for weeks, months or years, you’ve probably heard a lot of “rules” about how things need to be done.

Rules, formulas, success strategies, blueprints – there’s an endless list of these things you should be doing according to the 24/7 parade of experts.

A lot of these things fall into the category of best practices and are proven ways to help you accomplish your goals. And hey, why kill yourself to create a revolutionary way of doing things when this shit is proven? That’s a great way to drive yourself into the ground, no need for that!

On the other hand, a lot of these things fall into the realm of what I like to think of as B.S. online marketing myths, especially when they’re taken out of context by would-be experts or business owners who simply don’t know any better. Or they actually do know better and don’t give a rat’s ass because racking up cashola in their PayPal account is priority numero uno.

Here’s my handy list of B.S. online marketing myths that need to be put to rest or at least taken with a grain of salt:

#1. The Money is in Your List

Yes, email marketing can be extremely effective, and when you sell to your list you can make some significant sales. But only when it’s done right. Which is precisely where the “money is in your list” mantra falls apart.

Email lists aren’t all created equal. Business owners who “sell to their list” successfully use a sophisticated system of nurturing, managing and connecting with their list, from opt-in sequences to ongoing content and more. They don’t just show up and say, “Hey email subscriber, welcome to my list. Now gimme all your money.”

The problem is that somewhere along the way, the concept of the money being “in your list” turned into your email list is just like a ATM. Your email list will only respond to your sales emails and promotions if you show up the rest of the time and deliver immense value, but most of all treat them with respect. No funnel, no email copy and no offer will ever replace respect. So before you decide your email is a magic money making machine, decide how you’re going to add value before you sell.

#2. Make Money While You Sleep

I don’t know about you, but I definitely love waking up to new sales in my inbox. But I don’t fall asleep every night and rub my hands together and think, “How much sweet, sweet money will I make while I sleep?”

Yes, you can make money while you sleep. But that shiz doesn’t just magically happen. And it’s likely going to take WAY more than writing an ebook and throwing it up on a LeadPage to make that baby actually work.

Here’s what’s not being said about the magic bullet called passive income. There’s nothing at ALL passive about it when you’re creating it, and it may take months or even years for it to get to the point where it’s truly passive.

[clickToTweet tweet=”New blog post – What’s not being said about passive income. (Hint: it’s not so passive)” quote=”New blog post – What’s not being said about passive income. (Hint: it’s not so passive)”]

For every passive income success story, there’s 100s of more people grinding out meager passive income sales on the side while they coach, consult and do more. Sure, you can go all in on passive income and decide you’re not working 1:1 anymore, but you’d be the exception, not the rule. (Hear that? It’s the sound of bubbles being burst, sorry friends!)

#3. Everyone is an Expert!

I’m going to spare you the string of expletives that I often spew out when I see so-called experts claiming their expertise.

Anyone CANNOT be an expert on anything. Period. Even on the Internet. No matter what that book you read says or what some blow hard Internet marketer tries to convince you. Stop.

Of course, expertise is subjective, and we all do need to start somewhere. But there’s a way to share your knowledge and let your work speak for itself without trying to trump yourself up into being an expert.

If this makes you uncomfortable, it may be time for you to think hard about if what you’re offering or focusing on is in line with what you can truly deliver results on. Doing something once for yourself doesn’t make you an expert.

Thanks to the expert economy where everyone is a would-be expert, the bigger distinction is just doing the work and delivering real results. That’s where we should all be focusing our energies.

#4. If You Build It, They Will Come

After spending months getting your new website ready – writing copy, working with a designer – your launch day is finally here. The hard work is over, as you’ll be live on the internet and sales will be rolling in.

Launching a website is the easy part. Actually getting traffic to your site will be a work in progress, as you focus on social media, SEO, referral traffic and so much more. And it’s harder than it seems, especially in 2015.

I started my first blog nearly 8 years ago, one that I built up to having more than 12,000 unique visitors per month at one point. How? For starters, I blogged five days a week – that’s literally hours spent every single week on writing and photography for each post. Then there’s marketing time spent on social networks, email marketing and more.

That same scenario has played out time and time again on blog projects I’ve been involved in. If you want consistent and significant traffic, you need to be creating great content, working on your SEO and promoting that content well.

Traffic doesn’t just magically arrive on your site. You earn it. Which brings me to my next point…

#5. What You Really Need is More Traffic

Let’s say you’ve got a steady stream of visitors to your site each month, but you’re not making that many sales. And the number of subscribers you acquire each month is nothing to get excited about.

Conventional wisdom is that to get more sales, you need more traffic. You need more people coming to your site to fix your problem, right?

All the traffic in the world doesn’t matter if you’ve not got the fundamentals on your website in place. If that traffic arrives on your site and it’s a janky hot mess, it simply won’t convert. You can keep sending more and more and more traffic, but it’s not going to make a difference on your bottom line.

It’s like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom, you’re never going to be able to fill it up.

Conversion rate optimization can be incredibly complex, but I can guarantee there are improvements you can make to your site starting now to help get your visitors to stick around and take action. (I’ll be addressing one of the biggest ones with online business owners during Orientation Week – details below on how you can join us.)

It’s your business and you’re the boss…so you get to make the rules and can decide if you’re going to believe these myths or not. Many of these myths we’ll be putting to rest for good during the fun and free event I have coming up, Orientation Week. Consider this your invite to join us.

[clickToTweet tweet=”New blog post – 5 B.S. Online Marketing Myths Debunked #truth” quote=”New blog post – 5 B.S. Online Marketing Myths Debunked #truth”]

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This August, instead of deciding you’ve got 2015 handled, what if you tapped into that feeling and took your marketing back to school? And not to just any school, but the No B.S. School of Marketing, a place where you get to reinvent your marketing (and how you think about it).

Orientation Week is a week-long, 100% free event with a daily lesson. No fluff. You’ll get in and you’ll get out. Best of all, each day you’ll get something done in your business that sets you on the path to marketing success.

Get the details and join us by hitting the button below.

orientation-week-button

Categories
content marketing strategy conversion rate strategies

Supermarket Psychology Secrets for Your Website

Supermarket-Psychology-Secrets-for-Your-Website

Pre-career, I had a few different jobs, from working in the video store after school rewinding the weekend’s videotapes to merchandising greeting cards for one of the giants in the industry.

When I look back, the job that taught me the very most that applies to what I do today is the 5 years I spent working in supermarkets over high school and college. The two stores I worked at couldn’t have been more different, but let me tell you, it was an education in customer service, human behavior and, most of all, psychology.

And I don’t mean the occasional verbal assault from an unruly customer who was behaving badly, or the woman who so kindly told me I was throwing away my life when little did she know I was in school full-time and working at the store 30 hours a week. (The joke’s on you lady – ha!)

The Supermarket Schools Us On Website Goals and Intentions

While I was a cashier, I loved nothing more than when I got to work in the back on displays, merchandising, stocking and more. Because nothing is left to chance in a supermarket. Which is the exact way our websites should be – we want to be intentional and guide people to the right place so they behave in a certain way.

Before you have a moment and think “Um, isn’t this manipulative?”, yes it is, but you can choose to be smart about your website or you can leave it all up to chance and see what results you get. Every retailer, corporation and business is doing it, so if you want to compete, you’re going to have to play ball.

(That’s not to say you need to turn into a sleaze ball either. You can be thoughtful and apply these ideas while still coming from place of service and ethics.)

Simeon Scamell-Katz, global consumer analyst and author of The Art of Shopping: How We Shop and Why We Buy, cites one of the biggest challenges for supermarkets is the fact that “Shopping is so ritualized that we walk around like zombies. We’re incredibly patterned in what we do.”

Sounds pretty much like the last time you lost yourself on Facebook or watching cat videos on YouTube, doesn’t it?

While Scamell-Katz’s tools of choice are brain scans, footage of volunteer’s eyeballs, live bird’s-eye views of the supermarket and more, on websites we use heatmaps, conversion rates, split tests, A/B tests and Google Analytics to get our data.

Here are a few of the lessons we can learn from supermarket psychology secrets for our own websites.

#1 Range Reduction

We’ve got more choices than ever before, but too much choice is a bad thing. This article shares that the average household uses only 300 products in a year, but a large supermarket stocks over 80,000 products.

An increasing number of brands and stores are dropping the number of products in their line in an effort to simplify. Danone cut their product line by 40% and their sales went up 20%. And in early 2015, UK supermarket giant Tesco announced they were cutting their range by 30% across the board in an bid to simplify the experience for shoppers. After all, do we really need to choose from 98 different brands of rice?

If you think about your site, how many products or services are you offering? Are you providing too much choice? It may be time for you to cull the herd and focus only on your top sellers. While less may seem like you’re going to cut into sales, more focus and simplicity will benefit both you and your potential buyers.

Start by looking at your revenue. It may have the answer of what product or service you may need to eliminate for the sake of a simpler, streamlined experience.

[Tweet “What items do you need to eliminate on your website? @magspatterson breaks it down in this new blog post.”]

#2 Signpost Brands

I’m willing to bet that you frequent the same supermarket week after week and you run off a mental map as you go through and pick things up. As shoppers, studies show that we disregard signage that tells us what’s in an aisle, favoring signpost brands. We concentrate towards the middle of an aisle and look for the recognizable brands, such as Coca-Cola or Nescafé to tell us where we are.

The positioning of signpost brands makes a significant impact on how we shop and have been shown to increase sales of all products in the category. In a study by Scamell-Katz, he advised a firm to place 4ft cardboard Guinness pint glasses at either end of the stout shelves. Overnight sales of all drinks in the category increased by 23%.

Why? It’s simple: People were being guided. Having a clear marker told them exactly where to go. So while we don’t necessarily have signpost brands for our websites, we need to look at how we can tap into the fact that people have a certain set of expectations for a website. Just like in the supermarket, our visitors are looking for the familiar and need to be guided. If you have a site that doesn’t follow a particular format or have a clear path to get them from A to B, you risk losing them. This is why clear will always trump clever, as people don’t want things to be that hard.

#3 Traffic Builder

You’ve probably heard that most supermarkets place essentials like bread and milk at the back of the store to help entice us to buy more along the way.

New studies have shown that these distraction tactics can be a major problem, as forcing the shopper to deviate from their plan can result in negative feelings. One study showed that placing quick-buy items close to the front door made people more apt to return to the store for their weekly shopping.

The message for our websites is clear: don’t make it hard to shop or try to be overly clever. Distracting us along the way means we’re less likely to return and it’s harder to build that know-like-trust factor. When you force your visitor to work too hard for what they want – it’s not creating a positive experience with your brand. And on the web, people have so many choices that in a click of a button your relationship is done and done.

There are so many secrets lurking in the supermarket and anywhere in our day-to-day lives that give us some serious clues about how to tap into the psychology of our visitors and give them what they want.

Just because we’re on the web doesn’t mean we should sacrifice common sense for creativity or a profitable website for something pretty. With the right planning and focus on user experience, we can have both. The key is understanding the psychological principles at play and assuming nothing. (Speaking of assumptions, check out how testing mine turned out in the latest lab report.)

[Tweet “Lessons from the supermarket and why common sense shouldn’t be sacrificed for creativity with @magspatterson”]

Categories
content marketing strategy conversion rate strategies

April’s Lab Report: Heatmaps and Bounce Rates

Lab-Report-April2015

Here we go – the very first of my lab reports. Back in March I shared that I was going to start giving you some behind-the-scenes scoop about my business.

My approach to business – even after 10 years – is that it’s all a test. We need to be willing to boldly experiment if we’re going to succeed. Which is my true goal with these lab reports: to share what’s working and what’s not so you can take it and run with it.

Before we go any further, I think we should stop to note that I nearly failed math in high school (more than once) and had multiple mishaps in chemistry class with the bunsen burner. Just remember, I am first and foremost a creative, a writer, a marketer…and then an analytics geek, because I love that knowing this stuff lets me get back to the creative stuff.

So right now, apologies to all the science types. This lab report takes some liberties with format and, ahem, word choice. (I’m sure my grade 11 chem teacher would give me an F for this!)

April’s big experiments focused on figuring out what was really happening on my website. I had some ideas, but I wanted to run some tests to figure it out.

Statement of Problem

After attending a two-day course on digital psychology, I was extremely curious about what was happening on my website with an eye on fine-tuning things to drive a higher number of conversions. Then I had a one-on-one conversation with Sally Hogshead from How to Fascinate, who made some very specific branding and marketing suggestions about my site. Time to dig in and see what was happening and what changes I really needed (and not just what I thought I needed to make).

Hypothesis

My initial thought was that removing the three feature boxes from the bottom of the home page will streamline decision making. Also, I thought that more emphasis should be placed on moving people to the about page from home, as it’s traditionally been the most visited page on the site.

Tools

  • WordPress-based Website
  • Crazy Egg
  • Google Analytics
  • Patience
  • One copywriter + one designer

Procedure

To make data-based decisions, I started by looking at my Google Analytics. I wanted to see what my bounce rate was for the home page.

Bounce rate is a way of measuring how many people visit your home page and leave, which is a sign there may possibly be an issue with the copy or design of your home page.

With that out of the way, I then added a heatmap to my website. Heatmaps are a great way to see – visually – where the action is on your website. With a heatmap, you can follow visitor’s journey through the site and see where they are clicking, scrolling, mousing over and much more.

To prepare for the experiment in March, I first used a free plug-in heatmap for WordPress. I then switched to Crazy Egg’s heatmapping tool for more sophisticated data.

[Tweet “Do you really know what’s happening on your website? @magspatterson shares what she learned about hers.”]

Results

On April 1st, I quickly determined my bounce rate for the past 30 days was very good, running at 13.09% and with an average of 3.80 pages being viewed on each visit. At month’s end, my bounce rate had risen to 32.11% with 3.35 pages per visit.

March Bounce Rates
March Bounce Rates
April Bounce Rates
April Bounce Rates

Looking at my referral traffic for April, my traffic coming from organic search rose from 15% to 24% of my total traffic, so this likely impacted my bounce rate. This is good news, but I will monitor bounce rate actively. While the current number is acceptable, if it continues to trend upwards, I may need to intervene.

Heatmaps

Lots of great insight thanks to the heatmap. The first key learning is that people actually do use the three boxes towards the bottom of my home page to route them to other pages on my site.

home-page-heatmap-boxes
Home page heatmaps with click activity

 

However, the click through rates for the boxes were averaging around 1-2%, so I looked closely at them and realized the calls to action were weaker than I’d like, so they were changed. As you can see in the image below, they were blue, meaning they were getting some traffic but there was lots of room for improvement.

new-homepage-boxes
Home page boxes with new calls to action

 

We’ll see how the new calls to action for these three feature boxes work moving ahead, but early testing is positive.

From there, I started to look at where the real action was in my navigation bar, and it was all about services. Services received 16% of clicks on the page, with the blog receiving 13% and my about page 12%.

home-nav-bar-heatmap
Heatmap on home page navigation bar

 

This prompted me to switch gears from examining my about page to my services landing page, so I promptly put a heatmap on it. Because holy shiznit – services pages are critical to my business. How could I not know exactly what was going on??? I knew business was “good,” but I wanted to know what was really happening when they hit that page.

Here’s how clicks on the services landing page breaks down:

  • 13.3% on The Story Distillery
  • 18.2% on Copywriting
  • 10.2% on Ongoing Services
  • 8.6% on Guest Posting

(And yes, I know that’s not 100, but I’ll take 50.3% clicks on services to learn more. And those other 49.7% of clicks are totally random, but interestingly, 5% of them are to my praise page.)

This accurately echoes pretty much how my services break down in terms of revenue split, and it’s no surprise that copywriting is my lead service. With that in mind, I audited the copywriting landing page and subpages with a careful eye, as that group of pages is where a good chunk of my traffic is going, so I want to do everything I can to convert them.

Working with my designer, we made a series of minor tweaks to the copywriting services page, including clearer and more prominent call to action buttons and making the invite to book a consult more visually enticing. You can see the results of those tweaks here.

We’re also fine-tuning the other services pages in an effort to improve conversions for each page and will be setting up a goal for each page  in Google Analytics so we can see how we’re doing. Right now, all post-purchase thank you pages are hosted by Infusionsoft. We’ll be moving those back to WordPress so we can track them as soon as design/development changes are completed for those pages later this month.

If you want to learn more on how to set up a goal in Google Analytics, you can view the process right here:

Conclusions

My gut was totally wrong about what was happening on my home page and seeing the numbers first hand made a significant difference in the actions we took. Instead of enacting major changes, we kept what was working and started to fine tune.

Each of these changes will continue to be tracked via Google Analytics and heatmaps  in the coming months, and the use of Google Analytics goals on each thank you page will let us see how many people go from landing on the site to ultimately purchasing.

Taking Action on the Lab Report

The point of the lab report is for you to get into action and take some of the testing and experimenting used here to see how you can start to use more data and facts to help you shape your marketing.

Here are a few things for you to dig into:

  1. What’s your bounce rate?
  2. What could your heatmap tell you about what visitors are doing?
  3. Do you know what’s happening on your services pages?
  4. Where can you use a goal in Google Analytics?

It’s important to keep in mind that you don’t have to have massive amounts of traffic to start digging into what’s happening. In fact, if you can figure out what’s happening now, you’ll be ready to capitalize on traffic as it rises over time. Because there’s nothing worse than traffic that you aren’t ready to actually convert into action.

That’s it. Lots learned this month about my website and what people are really doing, as well as what we need to change with an eye on improving conversion rates.

From here on out, lab reports will drop early each month and I’ve got some fun experiments planned, including:

  • Can Maggie grow her Pinterest following the same way she did for a crafting business?
  • Your Facebook ads cost what? Breaking down the real cost per lead.
  • Adventures in list building leading up to a launch.
  • And much more…

[Tweet “The first monthly lab report from @magspatterson: breaking down bounce rate and heatmaps”]

Categories
content marketing strategy conversion rate strategies

The Real Reason You Need to Care About Your Conversion Rate

The-Real-Reason

If you build it, they will come. (Insert other tired clichés here.)

When it comes to the web, that’s sooooo not the case. For some reason, even in 2015, we’re conditioned to think that you launch your site and ta-da! The world will be SO excited and you’ll be drowning in traffic.

Nothing could be further from the truth. To have traffic (aka visitors) to your site, you’re going to need to hustle. From blogging to social media to guest posting to whatever else you decide to do, you’ll need to put time in to getting them to your little slice of Internet.

And once you’ve done the hard work of getting them to your site, the even harder part starts…keeping them there.

Unfortunately, this is where so many websites (especially in our online entrepreneurial world) fail. Epically. Massively. Disastrously.

There’s countless reasons this happens, but the bottom line is that if you have visitors coming to your site and you’re not converting them, all of your efforts are a bloody waste.

If that seems dramatic, hold on to your hat – because it comes down to simple math:

Let’s say you get 100 visitors to your site, but only 2 convert into a sale, which gives you a 2% conversion. If you want to make more sales and more money, do you try to double the number of visitors to your site?

Or do you improve your site so you can get 6 or 10 of the visitors to buy from you? By improving your conversions, you’ll get 3x or 5x the sales from people already visiting your site.

So in classic sales speak, do you serve the people you already have or do you work to acquire more leads?

As someone who literally built the foundation of my business on referrals, I know exactly what I’m going to do in this situation. I’d focus on ensuring that the people already coming to me are getting what they need to improve my conversion rate, instead of hustling and grinding to get more and more and more traffic.

The answer isn’t more traffic, it’s more conversions on your site. If you want to reach your business goals, you need to give a flying fig about this conversion rate stuff. (Even if you’re a creative and math makes you all stabby, because this is the stuff that impacts your bottom line and very likely your sanity.)

So, why, then, are so many sites failing when it comes to creating the connection with visitors and closing the sale?

[Tweet “Your website doesn’t have a traffic problem. It has a conversions problem, says @magspatterson #conversionschallenge”]

Here are just a few of the reasons it happens:

#1. Pretty Over Practical

Have you ever arrived on a stunning website and thought, “Okay, this is so cool. Wait, WTF am I supposed to do now?” Me too, and way more often than I care to admit.

While we can all make fun of the web 1.0 sites out there from the Internet marketing dudes that are red, black and yellow, I’ll tell you one thing, those sites often convert like gangbusters. They work because they are extremely well thought out and use proven principles to move people into action.

Does this mean you need an ugly site from 1999 to convert visitors? No. Hell no. But it does mean you need to get much more intentional about what you want your visitors to actually do when they land on your home page. You need a plan that takes them from home to the place where you want them: a place where they feel comfortable enough to opt-in, buy, or get in touch.What’s the plan that gets them from home to the ultimate place where you want them to opt-in, buy or take action?

It’s way too easy to be caught up in the cool design, groundbreaking images or funky navigation. But if your visitors don’t get it, it doesn’t matter.

When you’re assessing designers, you want to look for someone who speaks the language of conversion and digital strategy. Pretty is great, but if your site isn’t doing its job, it’s not going to give you the ROI you need. In a world where User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) are critical (thanks, Apple), you can’t afford not to have a clear plan for how people interact with your site.

#2 Copy That’s Clever, But Not Clear

Way back in the day, when I was studying writing for the web, we had a catchy way of assessing our writing, and we were marked against this filter. Meet the 4Cs: – clear, correct, complete and concise.

If your copy can’t pass that test, you may have a conversion problem.

Clever, cute, quippy, whatever you want your copy to be, you can’t sacrifice clarity. Because without clarity, no one – and I mean no one – is going to be able to decipher what you’re really saying. And that means they’re they are not going to stick around to sign up for your list or read more about your products or services.

Truth is, as attached as you may be to your words, cut that by about 95%, because that’s about how much your reader really cares. Yes, you need to connect with them and address their problem, but they also want you to do it in a way that doesn’t make them feel like they’re a Ph.D. candidate or that they need a dictionary to understand.

If you want your copy to convert, you need to answer your customer’s most burning the question: “What’s in it for me?” and then make sure that you’re speaking your reader’s language. And if you really want to have copy that gets results, please don’t confuse conversion-boosting copy with the breed of personality-driven, fluffy copy that’s all style and no substance.

#3 You’re Making it Too Damn Hard

Nothing, and I mean nothing, kills conversions like making it too damn hard for a visitor to do business with you.

If you really want people to convert, you need to make things dead easy for them to follow through. From clear pricing to answering questions upfront to having calls to action that make sense, your job is to reduce the number of decisions they need to make.

It’s called Decision Paradox. And if you’ve ever been to the Cheesecake Factory, you know exactly what that’s all about. When we have too many decisions, we tend to over analyze things. So the fewer decisions you can offer up for your visitors, the better.

A great example of where many online businesses make it too hard is with pricing. If you make it hard for your visitor to figure out what something costs and how to do business with you, you’ve just created friction. With every second they spend doing math or figuring out what happens if they do press buy, you’re giving them time to reconsider.

Same thing with your call to action buttons. You need to make it so crazy simple that they can take action on autopilot and feel like they’re making the right choice. Asking for too much info, making them click one too many times, or being unclear means more decisions. And with every decision, they become more apt to abort their mission.

Life is hard enough, so if you make it hard for visitors to get the information, purchase or subscribe, you’re not building trust, and you’re less likely to convert them into action.

Think about your favorite stores or brands. I’m willing to bet they’re the ones that make things simple. Their merchandising, their pricing and the overall experience is relaxing and makes it easy for you to give them your money.

Your website should do the exact same thing. Less is more, especially if you’re talking conversions.

[Tweet “Are you making it HARD to do business with you? @magspatterson breaks down common problems”]

 

Categories
Business Strategy for Entrepreneurs conversion rate strategies

Why You Need Conversion Rate

Categories
conversion rate strategies Grow Your Business Online

Give Your Gut Check a Reality Check: Why Conversion Rate Matters

Give-Your-Gut-Check-a-Reality-Check

A couple of years ago, I finally realized that one of my real superpowers in my business was my intuition. And that as the CEO of my enterprise, this is one of the most valuable tools I’ve got in my arsenal.

When I ignore my intuition, things go to shit pretty quickly. So when my gut speaks, I listen.

I’m going to wager to guess that you’re nodding right along, because you, too, rely on your gut to run your show.

But there’s a little problem with too much intuition, too much relying on all the feelings ﹘ sometimes it can be seriously short-circuited by things like PMS, ego or that nasty bitch in your head. (Or possibly even delusions, because hey, sometimes big dreams give way to delusion.)

Which is why if you really want to succeed, you need to find a way to strike a balance between the realities of your business and your gut feelings. I like to think of this as the gut check vs. the reality check.

Why You Can’t Ignore the Numbers

When you’re in camp intuition, it’s all too easy to let that be your driving force and run from a place of knowing.

And that’s a big old problem. I know because I see this every freakin’ day, sometimes multiple times a day. People struggling to make their business work because they’re doing their absolute best but they aren’t looking at the numbers. Or they’re unwilling to because they feel like that makes their business icky or soulless.

I get it, I really do. But if you’re going to be the boss, you need to get this in check and understand that, if you’re going to succeed, your gut cannot be the only thing running the show.

Knowing your numbers doesn’t make you sleazy or soulless. It makes you smart. Smarter about your decisions. Smarter about what to do next. Smarter at predicting results. Most of all, it sets you up in a way that means you can set goals and reach them.

When you know your numbers, you can create a realistic plan and reverse engineer what you need to do from there. Best of all, you’ll suddenly find more flow and ease in your business because the plan is solid and you’re not killing yourself chasing unicorns.

Business gets a lot less scary when you have facts on your side.

[Tweet “Knowing your numbers doesn’t make you sleazy or soulless. It makes you smart. New post by @magspatterson”]

Breaking Down Your Numbers: Making Conversion Rate Your BFF

So, what numbers do you need to pay attention to? There are a lot of numbers floating around your business, and unless you’re a math whiz, you likely don’t want to crunch them all day long.

There’s one simple number that can help our businesses grow and thrive.

Meet conversion rate.

This little number is something you want to make your BFF because it holds so many secrets to what’s really happening with your marketing and sales. This is exactly why conversion rate matters.

(If you want to learn the ins and outs of conversion and what exactly conversion rate is, check out the new challenge I have coming up at the end of this post.)

And before you tap out by saying, “Hey Maggie, I’m not like the Internet marketing dudes. I’m not going to run my business this way,” I encourage you to take a second and hear me out.

How did your last launch go? Your last anything? Did you meet your goals, or were you flying on a wing and a prayer? What if you could make where you’re succeeding even stronger so you could reach more people?

I know that as online business owners we’re all special snowflakes, so this type of thing can feel super restrictive, but knowing your conversion rate actually is a proven way for you to take power back in your business. For you to be the fierce and feisty CEO of your empire, because you’ve got shit handled.

Plus, things get simpler when you combine the power of your gut feelings (intuition) + reality (facts) to guide the way.

A great example is list size. In no way do I advocate for treating your list like an ATM or focusing on growing in a way that’s not aligned with your vision. (Nor do I condone becoming obsessed with numbers.)

A typical conversion rate when selling to an email list in our industry is 1%. You may get a higher conversion rate depending on your activities, but if you plan for 1%, you’ve got a great baseline.

So why then do people expect to have a list of 1000 people and get 100 people enrolled in their thing? It’s because they don’t know the numbers. Or they expect that their special snowflake status will supercede facts and they will be the raging success story that defies the odds with their 10% conversion rate.

What if…instead of making things so hard, we looked at the facts at hand?

What if…we just took a few minutes and really focused on the realities of running an online business, instead of raging so hard against the “rules” because we’re scared of being a sleazebag?

What if…we used our gut check alongside our reality check?

Here’s a math equation you can stand behind no matter how creative/special/unique/amazing/mathphobic you may actually be:

Gut check + reality check = unstoppable success

That’s something I totally stand behind in my biz, and I invite you to join me in finding out how you can put conversion rate to work.

[Tweet “Join the free Conversions Challenge with @magspatterson to get your gut checked. #conversionschallenge”]