When you're told that certain visitors can never be converted, you need a new type of conversion - and need to make sure those visitors get the opportunity to convert without it looking like a 'second best' option.
There's a tactic that I've recently seen used in a few very different industries; I wanted to share this with you, as it's something definitely worth considering for your site and your business.
For you busy people, here's the abridged version:
- Have multiple actions that could be defined as a successful conversion.
- Put these options on the table, and let the user choose how to convert.
- If you have data about which actions different audience segments prefer, point them to the action where they're most likely to convert.
I'll try to keep this post brief: this will save you time that you can then spend on better things - like implementing the ideas. We'll start with some more typical conversion processes, and I'll give examples of online and offline implementations of each - and finish with three ways that sites could implement these theories properly.
Traditional Conversion Structure
For example:
- A potential customer walks past a maket stall holder, he shouts "Five apples for a pound", and the customer either buys apples, or doesn't.
- The site shown below sells cardboard boxes with a hole in the top (serving a very particular purpose) - but if you don't buy the box, there's nothing else to do.
The 'Don't Go Yet' Model
For example:
- You go to a store to buy a suit. The tailor shows you the 'best suit in the store' - but you don't buy it, so he shows you 'something very special' - but you don't buy it, so he shows you 'something that will be perfect for you' etc.
- You visit SlapChop.com, but Vince's advice to 'stop having boring tuna, stop having a boring life' doesn't convince you. On closing the page, you can practically hear him protest "BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE" - in the form of a popup offering you a $5 discount if you don't leave.
The Right Way: Pick a Conversion Action
Example 1: Handling the decisions offline
Tableau Software (a client) sells data visualization software and has recently launched a free tool - Tableau Public - for publicity and links; it can be used by individuals to create visualizations, share them online, embed them in blogs posts (as Will did here), etc.
Potential Tableau customers submit contact forms or emails; the sales team then reviews these leads, before replying to them and selling the product. The sales team know that leads from some organizations (based on the size, type or location) almost never convert - so they don't spend much time on those 'lost causes'.
However, the new free tool has given Tableau an opportunity to give these leads to the SEO team instead - someone can then get in touch and say "You asked about our enterprise software, but did you know we have a similar tool available for free? You can download it here and get going straight away."
This can even be followed up with an email two weeks later, along the lines of "How are you getting on with Tableau Public? If it's been useful, and you'd like to say thank you, we'd love if you're able to embed a viz on your website to share with others. We really enjoy seeing what our users have created, and we really appreciate any opportunity to tell more people about the tool."
Suddenly, some very basic 'segmentation' can help save time for the sales team, and build links to the website. This is possible because the company has more than one action they define as 'success' - and can aim directly at getting the visitor to take the most appropriate action, rather than trying their luck with the high value actions first, and then negotiating down to a different conversion.
Example 2: Presenting the options in parallel, let the user self-identify
Imagine a site which lets visitors donate to one or more charities. These sites often have a small call to action to 'share' the website/charitable cause - but I'd suggest defining this sharing as a successful conversion, and presenting it as an alternative to giving money. Could this inadvertently reduce the number of donations received? I suspect not, and anticipate that a page would see more traffic and more donations if the two options were presented as shown below.
Example 3: Optimise dynamically to promote the best converting option
This example uses a site that offers PPC Tools, and PPC management services. They might have read this post so far, and now have a landing page that clearly offers their two services in this way:
But why stop there? Collect some data about which visitors prefer which service, relative conversion rates, etc, and then edit the page content to reflect the type of visitor that's just arrived. Take a look at this:
Example 4: A Real Case Study
The excellent Conversion Rate Experts have posted a case study on their website for Voices.com which uses some of these techniques to segment their users into two separate conversion funnels. While not directly related to some of the things in this post it demonstrates how multiple different conversion options can work very effectively:
In Conclusion
There are already some businesses using these techniques, and some websites that are set up to benefit from the ideas, but there are also a lot of places where this isn't the case. If you're not being upfront about the steps you'd like visitors to take, or hiding your 'offers' to them, then there's potential for you to make changes that will lead to happier and more productive customers.
My favorite part of this whole article is "Email this page to your rich friend".
Nothing like a good laugh to start Monday
I think one of the most important secondary conversion option is 'feedback'. It makes perfect sense to ask a visitor why he has decided not to convert. This feedback can be taken through a e-mail or better a phone call following the goal abandoment and it helps a lot with immediate and future conversions. So if offer-1, offer-2...offer-n doesn't appeal to a visitor, then ask him why any offer is not appealing to him. May be the product price is too high, may be the product description is too vague or there can be 'n' other reasons.
While I applaud your angle, feedback is not the second most important goal, surely the next one, behind a commercial conversion (sale, contract etc.) is to gather potential customer data, ie. Email addresses...
a preferred commercial angle would be to sign people up for email marketing, that way you have a direct channel to get them to convert in future.
I hope by email marketing you didn't mean auto signups for newsletters. An unsatisifed customer would not likely sign up for newsletter on his own free will. An alternative conversion option can be a discount (like given by GoDaddy on goal abdandoment) or feedback. Sometime feedback can result in instant conversions. I once asked a client "why didn't he make the purchase'. He said 'the form doesn't work and i tried twice'. The form wasn't working properly on mozilla firefox. So we immediately fix the problem and notifed the client with apology and he made the purchase :)
How would you make that follow-up call? Surely you can't use 'collected data' to contact a visitor. That would cause privacy issues, no?
It depends upon your privacy policy, location and market. I worked in an online insurance company and they have a whole dedicated staff just for follow up. And this company is a subsidiary of a public traded company. So i am not talking about any pop and mom store here. IMO there is no harm in calling a visitor and asking him 'why'.
When a book is on Amazon but not available for Kindle, there is a button on the side that says "I'd like to read this book on Kindle". Not a conversion today, but not an unhappy customer either - disappointed, but if the customer really wants that product (and is loyal enough to wait for Amazon to carry it), eventually Amazon will still get that sale.
I only know of two options to handle follow-ups: If the customer is funneled to log in (which requires the customer to log in before the purchase decision is made), or if a non-conversion interaction is set up. "Not what you were looking for? Click here to tell us why!" > "Would you like us to follow up with a phone call or email, or be notified when this product arrives?"
Any other ideas or examples?
Here are some follow up examples:
1.https://www.creativepro.com/article/how-follow-up-with-potential-clients
2. https://www.allbusiness.com/sales/selling-techniques-telesales/2975826-1.html
Most privacy policies cover this: there's almost always a generic marketing clause that includes something about 'contacting you about your transaction or for other marketing purposes.'
If not, and you want to apply belt and braces, then you can put an opt in box onto your guest checkout process, but most sites don't do this.
Most privacy policies cover this: there's almost always a generic marketing clause that includes something about 'contacting you about your transaction or for other marketing purposes.'
If not, and you want to apply belt and braces, then you can put an opt in box onto your guest checkout process, but most sites don't do this.
I dunno about the phone call follow up Himanshu. It could easily come across as creepy in my book.
On average 71% of visitors do not convert even after they have put the item in their shopping cart / started the conversion process. According to Forrester, the reasons why people abandon their shopping carts are covered in a blog I posted last week here
https://seewhy.com/blog/2010/06/03/reasons-why-website-visitors-abandoned-their-shopping-carts/
What’s fascinating in the list is that the top 5 all relate to either the price (in some form) or because the visitor is not yet ready to buy. Even if you do optimize the website with multiple conversion processes, and segmented funnels (all great ideas), you are still going to have more than half of your visitors abandoning, so the questions raised in this thread about following up are all very valid.
In my experience, follow ups work very well when you get the two key things right:
· Tone
· Timing
Tone – it’s about helping and offering service to the customer, not trying to sell them. This leads to reinforcing the relationship, and customers really appreciate this. You vccan see this in action by looking at unsubscribe rates for email based follow ups which are miniscule, and a fraction of the rates you’d see on a bulk customer mailing. We’ve also found that many customers keep service based emails in their inboxes for later reference.
Timing – two different MIT studies have shown that 90% of ecommerce leads go cold within one hour. So the timing of your follow up is really critical. A real time follow up will generate significantly greater conversions simply because it is more relevant. If it is written wrong (too sales, and no service) then it can annoy, but written well these emails get very high open rates (over 50%, and some up to 70%+) indicating that customers value them.
The Forrester study also shows that shopping cart abandonment is a persistent problem: 25% of e-retailers report that their abandonment rate is higher than one year previous. This is down in part to increasing sophistication of visitors looking for a deal – and this isn’t going away.
I've found that serving an alternative goal works really well. As your post describes, some users are just not ready to convert the BIG ONE on a first visit. Instead of losing them completely, they might convert to lower scale goals such as a newsletter subscription, sharing it with their friends or just downloading a whitepaper.
I place that second goal lower on the page to save potential losses in leads.
I agree with getting feed back and also getting a subscription to a newsletter.
I personally have an instant distrust in any website that does this chop slap type pop up of here take it cheaper. And have got rid of many of my subscriptions if they ever send me to that type of site.
P.s I just got my chop slap, I went for the second cheaper offer, damn marketing gurus!
LOL! Tell me you're kidding Craig! You should have waited for the fifth pop up. He ended up offering 5 sets for $6.95, shipping included!
Hahaha ha
yes kidding, but think of the possibilities :)
I am a sucker for things like this I got the Jamie Oliver Shaker! Best thing I ever bought!
Setting up your site for an upsell is always a great idea. I left the online marketing world for awhile and worked as a sales guy for a computer store in Soldotna, Alaska - nowhere near computers. Let me tell you, all these concepts translate directly to offline sales as well.
I think it's important to carefully consider the demographics before pushing an upsale though. For example, this guy from Space Quest III is doing it wrong:
https://is.gd/cFOho
However, if you present up-sells or missed sells recoveries in the spirit of actually helping the customer find the right product (not just pretending), you'd be surprised how well it works. "I'm sorry, you were looking for a laptop that only costs $100, but can play all the latest games? No, we don't have the laptop you're looking for. We do however, have a large selection of used desktops in that price range that could be adapted to play games down the road - so let me ask you, which is more important, the ability to play games or the portability?" - now you're switching out the "Am I going to buy here or not?" question for "Which product am I going to buy here?"
great point and awesome job... love what you have presented... what about detecting a returning visitor and providing them the incentive (second offer) then? it may be abused and people might not like you tracked they came back but seems like it might be a good idea... has anyone experimented with this?
Great post... really good tips and easy to understand.
Of all the options suggested, I think I will experiment with number 3 in a future re-design of my web, as I noticed a clear two kind of clients contacting me through the web:
1) Final clients (small to medium businesses owner of marketing VP)
2) Web Design / other SEO agencies
therefore is going to be a sort of obligation to create two separate funnels (I'd not like the option of creating two different website one for kind of client).
This is by far one of the most insightful and useful conversion rate optimization posts I have seen, and on an SEO blog no less. Love your graphics, simple, and straight to the point. Keep it up!
I'm all about big-upping the Distilled posts Rob ;-) You've definitely given me food for thought. If nothing else, I'd be certain to avoid the slap chop method. It just feels kinda sleazy.
I can definitely see using the alternate choice in a scenario like kristofcreative mentioned above. Where it fits, offering a stripped down version of the product so as not to insult those who bought the product at full price.
I agree! Same apply to services... You can always find a stripped down version of your service to offer to your customers. You just need to be good at explaning why you're previous customers, those who get the "full service", are in better position than those using the light version.
Talking about stripping and services just reminds me of an analogy with a hooker, but well, SEOmoz may not be the right audience for this one...
Generally this is a great idea. I guess it just comes down to presentation.
But like most people have said, I'm totally against the idea of having a 'wait, don't go page!'. It just seems desperate and spammy, especially when it comes up as a pop-up page, preventing me from closing the initial page. Very very annoying tactics.
In the end, if this tactics is executed right, you'll get more sales and possibly relatively satisfied customers. But if done wrong, you're gonna end up having very angry customers who just might never come up and will spread the word while they're at it too!!
As much as I understand your thinking of offering products in an alternative fashion so customers remain satisfied, your positioning to completely forgo the "Don't Go Yet Model" is way off.
Although there are times when offering different product options all up front makes sense, that's not always the case. And how a product is sold needs to be evaluated on what the product is, who is the target audience and, even more importantly, identifying the core objection why people don't buy the initial product offer.
In this case, the "Don't Go Yet" model is extremly effective when you're selling ONE product and the main hurdle is price. In which case, each subsequent offer provides the person with a lower price -- and perhaps a simplified version. For example; initial offer might be for a training course that includes printed materials and digital videos. The second offer might be a lower price for the videos and PDFs (no printed materials). In this way, the customer still recieves the same information, at a lower price, and remains satisfied.
Bottom line is that no sales model shouldn't be excluded. It's important for every business to test differnt techniques and sales funnels so they can discover the method that works best for their situation
Another thing I really like about multiple conversion options is how it lends itself to PPC. Rather than creating paid ads that send everyone to the same sales page, ads can be optimized for the specific conversion option it is pitching. This will likely lead to higher conversions which lead to lower CPC. It's a win-win!
In terms of maximizing ROI, I really like this topic. It is very important to understand the fact that different customers have different wants / needs. Assuming a 'one size fits all' pricing model is bound to lead to money left on the table.
This is something I think we do very well. The crux of the downloadable games market is the 'try before you buy' model. All games are free to download and play for one hour. After that, it is $6.99 to own the game and unlock unlimited play.
However, this assumes everyone responds positively to these price points. The fact is...some people want an option that is less than the base rate and some people will even consider an option that is more!
In our case this has led to the addition of the following three price points (shown in bold below)...
By offering more purchasing options, we help our customers find an option they feel good about and that meets their current need.
From an analytics stand-point this is really important to test on an A/B/C... basis so that you don't find yourself pushing higher value members into lower cost actions.
I quite like Google Analytics ability to segment and show the sales funnel. Identifying the driving points, waypoints, and beacon points is every bit as important as continually measuring the content.
Nice post, just going to put that strategy into play on a website i babysit for a charity...
As always thanks for the info
At the end of the day its about quality data building right? For a sale today or a lead tommorow.
I think the post in on the right track, only comment i would add is in the method of 'offer'. As i said you want to build quality data, if your offers are too confronting, good luck getting them to perform any action or return again. I use any process it takes to get TO the offer (including them researching about it) as an opportunity to build data or build a relationship. E.g. collect email/feedback.Which i then can use to construct amore accurate offer for their data type.
Nice post
pretty interesting post, thanks for pointing this out
Great illustration and article.
In one of the competition campaigns we used Social as alternative conversion too, so if customers where reluctant to join the full competition they could join a prize draw by simply sharing the info to their friends.
So there is scope to use such alternative/parallel conversion in some campaigns.
Tried to listen to that tableau video and switched it off after 5 seconds due to the dumb ass, bubble headed American voice over
Conversion optimisation tip: provide voice overs in different accents and male/female. Put a picture of the person doing the voice over
Its really crap to do loads of good SEO work and then lose the customer cause the video is rubbish...
Your comment about a bubble headed voice made me go listen to the tableau video. The guy sounded like a perfectly normal Yank to me. You don't like Yanks???
Speaking of different accents firegolem, I watched the slap chop video in Spanish as well as English,and they actually did a different video for Spanish. Added some Spanish food, and threw the slap chop through the window instead of in the sink.
Spanish or Hispano? That is a great difference (as UK English and USA English)...
I'm going to check it out.
Hmmm...not sure G. My guess would be Hispano as they probably greatly outnumber those from Spain.
Let me know what you think when you check it out.
https://www.tableausoftware.com/products/tour
This is the one I watched. Linked to from their contender for most uninspiring homepage of the year.
I have no problem with anyone based on where they are from or how they were made.
Im sensitive to a good user experience and when a video annoys me, I turn it off and go look for a more pleasant experience.
If the video is annoying, what kind of attitude do I go into actually testing their software with?
Well done Rob! Insightful post on the correct way to imagine conversion solutions.
Rob, I try not to big-up the Distilled posts too much so as not to appear biased. But there is some really great advice in here.
However, the "presenting the options in parallel" is a largely untapped resource and it is particularly useful for charitable organisations (that so often fail at SEO). This is a really nice way of empowering the user to help them feel like they can still make a difference even if they can't afford to donate money this time around.
The stars ranking here is a really nice approach as well. I'm going to be forwarding this on to a friend of mine who runs a charity right... MEOW.
Thanks a lot- this is why I miss having you working in the UK office! :)
Thanks for the abridged version! This way I can get the gist and then go back and read it when my long To-Do List gets just a bit shorter! :D Points for catering to the needs of your audience! I'm seeing a trend like this in a lot of writings nowadays - even in books like "Drive" by Pink.