How to nudge your customers towards conversion

Take it as an established truth: your customers are lazy. They want you to come to them, offer your product and ask minimum effort in return. They will pay you more if you allow them to be lazy. This means your first concern is to check whether your website will be admired by anyone except you. Ask your friend to “buy” something there. Did they manage it in 4-5 clicks? Have you made your registration form too complicated? Are delivery prices and conditions clear? To scale this to a more, I recommend you run a series of user tests with services like User Testing or What Users do in this Smart Insights list of online customer research tools.  You can also review this checklist for eCommerce beginners with which you can verify your online store. For those who want to get a…

An interview between conversion strategy specialists Hugh Gage and Craig Sullivan

Structured testing to improve website effectiveness has gained a lot of traction among digital marketers in recent years. Its adoption has been helped by success stories of subtle changes such as Google adding $200m in revenue by testing 41 shades of blue on their ad links, or the $300 million button, or even the $500 million button.

These types of 'quick wins' have encouraged more structured programmes moving from simplistic conversion rate optimisation split test to a more compelling realm of driving incremental revenue and profit.

The examples of improvement above are perhaps too tantalising, since they suggest that it's easy to get started and get great results. For many, the real world isn't like that - you have to make the case to colleagues and tests may fail to give these rewards.

As part of writing the Smart Insights…

Use the 6Cs of online customer motivation to help you structure your website's conversion funnel

The 6Cs of motivation is a recognised tool used in higher education and looks at ways to improve classroom motivation and student participation. In 2004 Dave Chaffey suggested the 6Cs of customer motivation in a world where the online offer was developing. The aim was that a model of customer motivation would help define the Online Value Proposition.

How should this model be used?

The 6Cs provide clarity when building or refining a website. You can use the template below to assess the benefits a website and online services offers online audiences, as well as those of your competitors.

What are the 6Cs?

Content

‘Right content’ including more detailed product or service information or value-adding content ‘Right context’ of content for the site visit ‘Right media’ including…

How to optimise your B2B website

Did you know that the average visitor spends only four seconds on a website, before deciding whether to stay on it, or return to the search results? As such, it is critical that a website homepage be high-impact, while also captivating visitors with useful cues and information. To achieve this, there are specific elements that website visitors immediately expect to see. These items are what make the visitor feel confident in the company and comfortable awarding their time to this one site, rather than the hundred others it is likely competing with. These elements span design techniques, optimization strategies, foundational information and call-to-actions that guide visitors throughout the site or to other relevant pages that support build the all important 'social proof'. This infographic, “Top 10 Features Every B2B Homepage Must Have”, will take you on the journey of a business-to-business (B2B) website homepage, differentiating keenly between…

What a high converting landing page needs

Being a digital marketer is simple. All that’s required is to get people to do exactly what you want them to do. That is: act. That act may be as basic as wanting them to click on a CTA button to “learn more.” The act may be a tad more complex, like getting someone to share their personal information with you. Or, the act might be transactional (i.e. getting a customer to buy your stuff).    Unfortunately, getting a person to do what you want, be it online or in person, is one of the most difficult tasks in the world. Some might say, darn near impossible. Among the many powerful tools a digital marketer can enlist to aid in his/her effort to get someone to take action, the most effective is a dedicated page for a…

5 steps to getting started with merchandising for Online Trading

In the broadest sense, merchandising is defined as 'the activity of promoting the sale of goods'. Whether this is in a store, over the phone or online the principle is the same – 'Sell more stuff (Profitably)'; the differences come in the techniques employed to do this. A traditional retail store will use gondala end displays, clip-strip cross-sells and sales assistants to maximise revenues, but without the advantage of face-to-face sales influence how can we sell online?

[si_guide_block id="74974" title="Download Expert Member resource – Online Retail Merchandising guide" description="This guide examines all aspects of the buyer journey and gives great tips along the way to improve your customer's experience and make them more likely to buy. Via detailed examples of sites including JohnLewis.com, B&Q, Asos and more, in both desktop and mobile views, the guide lets you learn from market leaders…

Mobile commerce predicted to reach $250 billion by end of the decade

Mobile commerce is at an inflection point. Whilst over the past few years many have been disappointed by relatively low conversion rates from mobile visits, things will soon turn a corner. A wide array of new apps, innovations and improved experiences mean buying from a mobile device has never been easier, and will only get more so. Forrester forecast that thanks to the removal of barriers to m-commerce over the next four years, things are going to hot up fast. Purchases from mobile devices will double by 2020 reaching an impressive 250 billion dollars worth of transactions. So for any marketers out there working for ecommerce sites, you need to make sure your mobile experience is as slick and seamless as possible. And no that doesn't just mean having a mobile responsive site. It means fast load times, simple forms, easy…

Online Video is maturing, and often delivers higher ROI than TV ads.

The way people consume media is changing. Traditional TV is down, desktop is plateauing. People are canceling their cable TV subscriptions, but are signing up to streaming services like Netflix or Amazon prime in droves. Mobile is exploding and online video is enjoying a huge surge in popularity. YouTube has over a billion users, and that number is growing over 40% per year, with revenue growth up an even more impressive 50% over the same period. This is starting to mean that YouTube is becoming more effective (or at least more cost effective) than TV when it comes to video advertising. A dutch brand called Landliebe, which focuses on dairy products, studied it's ROI on both TV ads and YouTube ads, to discover which form of video advertising was more effective. A 20-second spot ran on several German TV channels, while…

Landing pages are a key tool in your CRO arsenal

So, you’ve already invested a considerable amount of time, money and resources on developing a fully-functional and navigable site. What next? You plan to set a budget for PPC ads, social media and email marketing in order to drive traffic to your site. Great! But what happens when a visitor clicks on your PPC ads or links on your social media profile? If they land on the company’s homepage, you’ve already failed! Remember, you don’t just need to drive leads to your site; you also need to convert them. This is where landing pages come to your rescue. They help you convert your web traffic into qualified leads. In case you’re still looking for reasons why you must invest in landing pages, check out these stats: Companies see a 55% increase in leads when increasing their number of landing pages from 10 to 15.…

3 new features make Facebook ads a tempting prospect for bricks and mortar retailers

Importance: [rating=3] (For bricks and mortar retailers) Recommended Source: Facebook blog 9 out of 10 retail sales still take place in-store, despite everything you hear about shopping moving online. Mobile is a great facilitator of in-store purchasing, with people using their phones to research purchases and locate stores. Now Facebook are launching new features to help retail businesses take advantage of the growth of mobile, to both target ads more effectively and help track the effectiveness of their campaigns. Here's a breakdown of the new features just announced:

Native Shop locator

Facebook already has an ad format that lets stores with multiple locations serve ads that dynamically display the location of the nearest store to that person. But now to remove friction on the buyer journey Facebook is launching a shop locator, that lets people find the route to the nearest…