How a peculiar Calendar cranks conversion rates on your webite

You want to grow your conversion rates, right? One of the best ways to do that is with A/B testing.

If you’re wondering what A/B testing is, here’s a definition: simply put, A/B testing is split testing.

Here’s an easy, real life example. You own a coffee shop, and you want to see which type of packaging sells best. You offer a green package and a yellow package. You test them for one month. In the end, you learn that people buy the same flavor of coffee more often when it’s in the green package.

You just conducted an A/B test.

As it pertains to website conversion rates, A/B testing is the comparison of two versions of a web page to see which one works better – page A or page B. You compare the two, see which one converts better, and you move forward with the one that has a higher conversion rate.

A/B testing takes you from “you think” to “you know.” You might have “thought” people would like the yellow package, but after the test, you realized the green sells better. The same thing applies to website marketing.

A/B split testing allows you to spend your online dollars wisely because you learn what drives your customers and compels them to take the desired action.

In this article, we’re going to talk about how to grow your conversion rates with an A/B testing calendar.

You’re probably thinking, “What the @&%# Jon?!?! Who cares about a stupid calendar? That isn’t going to increase anything. I have a My Little Pony Calendar from 2013 sitting on my desk, and it does nothing but collect dust.”

OK, got it. You’re right, sort of. Putting your strange fetish in desk calendars aside, a testing calendar keeps you testing, even when you don’t want to. When you’ve grown bored or frustrated or are just to busy cleaning out the 31,384 emails that accumulated in your email box before the end of the year.

To be successful, you must be disciplined and keep pushing. After a while you will gain insights and break-throughs you never thought possible. Put a calendar together and kick yourself in the ass and get moving. These are the basics that actually work. The results WILL come!

Make a Plan

You don’t want to be testing just for the sake of testing. You want to amplify your conversion rate optimization, so you want a plan, a guide that moves you forward on a profitable path.

Continue reading “How a peculiar Calendar cranks conversion rates on your webite”

Grow Revenue Forever: Get a Solid Landing Page Optimization Process

Big results are great. You can point to them and say, “That’s what we do, son. We earn money.” But do you know what’s better than a great test? A solid landing page optimization process.

sexy science optimization process — Optimization Testing: The sexy science

An optimization process is not as sexy as an A/B test, but it always increases results over time. A test only increases results once. How’s that for sexy?

The marketing team at Firstmark Credit Union knows this well. The bank has 11 branches around San Antonio, and its

marketing team went on a full-bore testing rampage last year. The team earned:

250% increase in average email conversion rates in 11 months
6.9% conversion rate on a recent direct mail campaign that leveraged insights from online tests

“There has been a continuous increase in response rate and converted sales throughout everything we’re doing,” said Fred Hagerman, CMO at Firstmark. “It’s a result of the process.”

We sat down with Hagerman and Mitchell Shaw, Senior Marketing Analyst at Firstmark, to understand how they set up an optimization process that never stops earning results. Continue reading “Grow Revenue Forever: Get a Solid Landing Page Optimization Process”

Get Bigger Budgets: Make bosses care about landing page optimization – 5 tactics

How to Increase Landing Page Optimization Budgets

Landing page optimization testing can fly under your bosses’ radar. Even though tests have a direct impact on revenue, your bosses are focused elsewhere. They don’t realize you increased ROI.

So make them realize.

Optimization Testing Ain't on the Radar — Boss Radar: Optimization Testing Is Not On It

A handful of good tests can smack ’em in the face and say “hey, I deserve a bigger budget!” You just have to show them why you deserve it.

Here are five tactics to do it:

#1. Market to your boss – talk benefits

Pretend you have a new audience. You are no longer marketing to customers. You are marketing to your boss. How would you sell your boss on optimization testing?

You need to focus on the benefits he cares about.

Is your boss an executive? — Then describe how testing increases revenue, cuts costs, and lifts ROI. You need to prove that you can turn a pile of money into a bigger pile of money.

Is your boss a director or manager? — Then understand the mid-level metrics he cares about. Is his job to cut cost-per-lead? Or increase repeat sales? Find the most important metrics and focus on them in your proposal.

#2. Avoid technical stuff

Landing page optimization testing is fun and exciting, but only people like us care about it. Hard to believe, I know.

You have to assume your boss does not care. He doesn’t care about eye path. He doesn’t care about form fields. He doesn’t care about conversion rates. He cares about his responsibilities, not yours.

If your boss wants the details, he’ll ask for them. Until then, focus on how optimization testing will make his life easier, and stay away from the details on software and testing.

#3. Know the answers

You, on the other hand, need to be intimately familiar with the details. You need to be prepared to answer questions about:

The testing process
Optimization principles
Resources you need
Why you need them
What you will accomplish

Your bosses won’t ask for every detail, but you need to be prepared in case they do. Also, doing your homework can help clarify your goals and uncover the exact benefits of testing. Write the benefits on a big sign. If any naysayers come to your desk, hold the sign in their faces. Closer.

Areas to consider:

Knowledge – do you need more expertise to push your tests to the next level? What will it cost to hire someone like the optimization masters at ConversionVoodoo to do it for you? And what will the return be? (By the way: ConversionVoodoo guarantees results)

Tools – do you need better testing software?

Resources – How much more do you need in your budget? How many additional work hours will you allocate to optimization testing and analysis? Where will this come from?

#4. Find supporters

Chances are that you’re not the only person who cares about optimization testing in your organization. You have a few supporters in the company, and you should recruit them to pitch your proposal.

Look for supporters in other departments. IT is a great place to start. In your proposal, have the IT people describe how analyzing test results will teach them about customers and improve their results. This will help you show additional benefits from another perspective. Put those benefits on the sign.

#5. Make rough projections

As soon as you say what you need, your bosses will dust off the mental abacus. Save them the trouble.

optimization testing abacus — Optimization Testing Abacus

Gather your test results from the last three to six months. Translate them into the metrics your bosses care about. Ask yourself:

What are other opportunities for increasing these metrics on yourwebsite?
Looking at past performance, how would similar results affect the bosses’ metrics?
How will a larger budget help achieve these results?

Give your boss a range for potential results, and be conservative. Overhyping your potential can backfire. Big time.

Warning: Manage expectations

You must not overhype your expected results or timeline. Results from landing page optimization will be strong, but exactly how strong and when they’ll arrive is difficult to predict.

Avoid making guarantees. Instead, talk in hypotheticals. Tell your bosses what a 3%, 5%, and 10% increase in conversions on a certain page will translate into. Make sure you speak in terms of their most important metrics.