“How do I figure out where to test first?”

It’s a smart question to ask. You can’t test all pages at once. With limited time and resources to commit and, most importantly, limited traffic to allocate to each test, test prioritization is an important part of your conversion rate optimization plan.   Tweet this:

Test prioritization is an important part of your conversion optimization plan
Tweet

The alternative happens when companies start with the areas they believe are obvious. You might consider the popularity of the page or look for under-performing pages, or start with pages your HiPPO hates.

Those are all things to consider, but they don’t give you the whole picture.

Optimizing the optimization process is often just as important as the tests themselves. Prioritizing where you invest energy will give you better returns by emphasizing pages that are more important to the business.

The Three Criteria to Prioritize Pages

You need to consider three criteria to prioritize which pages to test and in which order: Potential, Importance and Ease.   Tweet this:

Consider 3 criteria to prioritize which pages to test: Potential, Importance and Ease
Tweet

Potential

How much improvement can be made on the pages? Although I’ve yet to find a page without some potential for improvement, you can’t test everywhere at once and you should prioritize your worst performers. This should take into account your web analytics data, customer data and expert heuristic analysis of user scenarios.

Importance

How valuable is the traffic to the pages? Your most important pages are the ones with the highest volume and the costliest traffic. You may have identified pages that perform terribly, but if they don’t have significant volume of costly traffic, they aren’t testing priorities.

Ease

How complicated will the test be to implement on the page or template? The final consideration is the degree of difficulty a test will take to get running on a page, which includes technical implementation and organizational or political barriers. The less time and resources you need to invest for the same return, the better. This includes both technical and “political” ease. A page that would be technically easy may have many stakeholders or vested interests that can cause barriers. I’m looking at you, home page.

You can quantify each of your potential opportunities based on these criteria to create your test priority list.

We use the PIE Framework table to turn all of the data inputs into an objective number ranking.   Tweet this:

Create a PIE table to create an objective ranking of test opportunities
Tweet

Your Prioritization is Unique

There are no standard rules for which pages are best to prioritize. Your website lives in a unique target market, including factors like your competition, seasonality, and internal cultural environment; all of these affect how your site is used and should be optimized. The priority rating you give each of your potential test pages will depend on this unique business environment.   Tweet this:

The priority of your test pages depends on your unique environment
Tweet

By using the PIE Framework, you’ll remove gut feeling from the decision and focus your team on an objective, relative ranking.

Applying the PIE Framework

Recently, on my morning walk to work, I recorded a story of how we applied PIE with a conversion optimization client.

How do you prioritize your conversion optimization test opportunities?

Add your comment below!

One: Bill Gates coined the phrase “Content is King”.   Tweet this:

Did you know Bill Gates coined the phrase 'Content is King'?
Tweet

Two: the king needs a lot of help.

Content is important for getting people to your site, from search algorithms to social share to links to your site, but content alone doesn’t make you revenue. Content without conversions is just free publishing.   Tweet this:

Content without conversions is just free publishing
Tweet

If content is King on the chessboard of online business, revenue is the Queen.   Tweet this:

If content is King on the chessboard of online business, revenue is the Queen
Tweet The Queen can do all of the things that every other piece on the board can do, but faster. Revenue can buy good content, but good content cannot guarantee revenue.   Tweet this:

Revenue can buy good content, but good content cannot guarantee revenue
Tweet

Currently there is a tempest in a teapot about content marketing (or “Inbound Marketing”.) The problem is most of the “Great Content” drives junk traffic for the creator, or builds brand awareness associated with subjects that don’t produce business value. And much effort is used to create reams of content that don’t produce revenue.   Tweet this:

Much effort is being used to create reams of content that don’t produce revenue
Tweet

This is a game where the 1% truly rule. Those who can get the biggest mind-share for the right topic generate great business.   Tweet this:

Those who can get the biggest mind-share for the right topic generate great business
Tweet The rest just waste their marketing budget creating noise.

There are some amazing models for using content to make revenue. People like Mitch Joel, Scott Berkun, Hubspot, and Steve Snell all make great content, and they make money—because their great content has a purpose. Mitch and Scott make great content for the purpose of collecting up their content and selling it to you as a book, poster, t-shirt, or live presentation. Plus, Mitch builds business for his web agency. Hubspot has positioned themselves in front of the “Inbound Marketing” topic, so, yeah, content marketing makes sense. Steve makes great content about a product that someone wants. They ALL make great content about a product that they sell to you, and that makes them revenue.

When you start your content plans, when you do your content audits, and whenever you think about content, think about the revenue the content brings to you. If you are an e-commerce site, having an amazing blog is only useful if drives people to view and buy your products.   Tweet this:

An amazing blog is only useful if drives people to view and buy your products
Tweet If you are blogging about what you sell, maybe you should be rewriting your product descriptions too.

Let’s not tiptoe around the fact that you’re doing all this content marketing to eventually turn a profit. Business isn’t an altruistic venture. So, if your inbound marketing department can’t point to the marginal revenue you’ve produced, how long do you think you’ll be warming your seat?

If you need to goose revenue, I’d suggest revisiting outbound marketing too.   Tweet this:

If you need to goose revenue, I’d suggest revisiting outbound marketing.(I know… the heresy!)
Tweet (I know… the heresy!) As it turns out, inbound and outbound marketing can get along!

Long live the QUEEN!

I didn’t know all the reasons that WiderFunnel had no chance to succeed.

I simply believed two things: 1. I could improve most websites agencies were building and 2. I had nothing to lose by testing to prove it.

The problem with a lot of companies (including most agencies) is that they have too much to lose and they have too much knowledge of barriers.   Tweet this:

The problem with a lot of companies: they have too much to lose
Tweet They have existing turf and reputation to protect.

I worked at big agencies and felt that they’d never truly support conversion optimization. Their clients were perceived expertise, aura and schmoozing ability. Frankly, many marketing managers choose their agency of record more for the expense accounts they use to feed them than for their results.

What incentive do those agencies have to test their ideas?   Tweet this:

What incentive do big agencies have to test their ideas?
Tweet

They don’t. In every case, anything that smelled of testing—direct marketing, database marketing, online testing—has always been shoved in a back room and down-played.

Unsurprisingly, I was an outsider in that environment. I wanted to do good work, get great results and not conform to the norm.

There’s a cautionary tale in the demise of ad agencies.

When you have success in one business model, tremendous courage is required to test something different.   Tweet this:

When you have success in one business model, courage is required to test something different.
Tweet It’s hard for the successful to believe the writing on the wall is a true warning. But, if you don’t, you’re doomed to eventual demise.

I didn’t need much courage back then. I had nothing to lose and I had a vision of something new. As Eminem said:

“You only get one shot. Do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime.”
— Eminem

Now, things have changed for WiderFunnel. We have something to lose. We have a reputation, a service model that works, a book published with our ideas, and positive inertia.

That scares me. I don’t want to get comfortable.   Tweet this:

Why I don’t want to get comfortable.
Tweet

I’m committing to you, our clients, our team and my family that we will never stop testing and learning. We will try new services that have good strategic rationale, test new delivery models, find new ways to deliver more value, challenge assumptions, test new hypotheses.

Testing is not just what we do for clients. We live this ethos because we believe in continuous improvement. We will never sit still.   Tweet this:

We will never sit still and stop testing.
Tweet

I hope you won’t either.

…

On the other hand, I may be wrong about ignorance creating courage. Ignorance of barriers may simply have the same effect as true knowledge that there are no barriers.   Tweet this:

Truth: there are no barriers. -Steve Jobs
Tweet

Listen to these wise words from the late, great Steve Jobs:

But, that doesn’t mean test results can’t surprise us. We often test innovative experiences that push the boundaries of what’s expected.   Tweet this:

We often test innovative experiences that push the boundaries of what's expected
Tweet Many times, we discover new tactics that work so well that we keep them locked tightly in our conversion knowledge-base.

Today, I’ve decided to share the top 5 winning A/B test tips.   Tweet this:

Today, I've decided to share the top 5 winning A/B test tips
Tweet You should try these on your website immediately.   Tweet this:

You should try these tips on your website immediately
Tweet

#5 – Yellow is the surprise magic colour

In test after test, we’ve found one colour that wins every time in every situation. For conversion optimization, yellow is gold!   Tweet this:

For conversion optimization yellow is gold!
Tweet

We’ve tested this dozens of times. Here’s an example of a recent ecommerce test:

Blue	Control
Green	25.4% sales lift
Red	14.8% sales decrease
Yellow	454.38% sales lift!

#4 – Offer carousels on home pages always work for ecommerce

It turns out that I was wrong when I’ve said that rotating offer carousels don’t work.

They work well, especially if you’re selling lingerie, swimsuits, workout videos or sexy Halloween costumes.

Fortunately, there are still companies to help you build these rotating offer banners, like the experts at Wakefly. They’ve found it so successful for their clients that they have one on their home page too!

Which ties in to the third most important tip…

#3 – “Hits” are the new black

The traditional web “Hits” metric has gotten a bad rap in recent years, but you should rethink that. We’ve found that Hits work better than sales conversion tracking.   Tweet this:

Hits work better than sales conversion tracking
Tweet

The benefits of the Hits metric:

• It’s much easier to influence Hits than sales conversions
• Hits is a strong indicator of sales increase (like, if people are sticking around to view more content, they’re probably going to buy more too, right? Obviously.)
• Hits are much less complicated than trying to measure average order value, revenue per visitor, multi-stream blended conversion value, etc. Remember the KISS principle!
• Hits is more encouraging for your conversion team, and they need encouragement on a daily basis.

#2 – Morgan Freeman can sell anything

Morgan Freeman is awesome because everyone believes anything he says and you don’t need his permission to put his face in your ad!   Tweet this:

Everyone believes anything Morgan Freeman says. Use him in your ads!
Tweet It’s true. I read it on the internet.

Morgan Freeman sells stuff

And the Top Tip to boost your conversion optimization results…

#1 – The Harlem Shake is hot for websites too

Not only is the Harlem Shake the hottest fad for team building, college campuses, and my daughters and friends, but it also lifts conversion rates.

Check out our latest winning home page design.

It is *guaranteed* to lift your conversion rate too.   Tweet this:

The Harlem Shake is *guaranteed* to lift your conversion rate
Tweet

EDIT: Please, look at the date this was posted. I know it seems legit, but it’s an April Fools joke. Gotcha!

I co-presented at SMX with Jeff Allen of Hanapin Marketing who gave a detailed (if slightly depressing for some who aren’t prepared) presentation about how to deal with Google’s changes to mobile PPC with Enhanced Campaigns. Jeff’s a smart guy and has figured out how to manage the upcoming changes. In short: PPC is going to get *much* more complex and marketers’ websites need to be ready to serve all types of devices—by June, 2013!

How are you going to deal with Google’s Enhanced Campaigns and the rise of mobile?

You have 5 options to facilitate mobile marketing:

1. Don’t customize for mobile
2. Build a mobile app
3. Build mobile landing pages
4. Build responsive landing pages
5. …or, don’t decide

If you choose option 1 or 5, don’t hold off for too long. The rate of 4G LTE adoption is bringing an entirely new type of mobile customer. There are reports of some people with 4G phone getting faster internet speeds than on their home cable!

The beginning of true high speed mobile

4G download speeds are *much* faster than 3G

4G isn’t just a little bit faster than 3G. It’s enormously faster.

The implication for you: these 4G users expect the responsiveness, product selection and experience of the full website, in a fraction of the screen size. They’ll become even more accustomed to doing everything they need to from anywhere. If you don’t deliver, they’ll move on to someone who will.

Option 2, building mobile apps, requires a unique mobile strategy and it’s not for everyone. Amazon has done well here to empower showrooming with their Price Check app. (And, I know all my retailer friends will hate me for linking to that, but it’s not going away.) But, few can pull this off. Also, the mobile app option is not effective for search marketing, and still requires companies like Amazon to create another mobile site.

Most companies that have built a mobile presence have used option 3, building mobile landing pages or a mobile version of the website. This has made the most sense for many, until perhaps now.

eMarketer went this route, but experienced one of the major down-sides: their mobile version of their site was being indexed in Google organic search instead of their desktop version.

The result was a terrible desktop landing page experience for some organic searches and none of their normal calls-to-action being shown.

eMarketer’s mobile site being shown for a desktop user – yikes!

Building mobile-specific sites and landing pages comes with drawbacks:

• (Potentially) confusing listing in SERPs – as we saw with eMarketer
• Higher maintenance costs with multiple code-bases – and think about sustaining separate sites for all different devices (!)
• Inconsistent user experience across devices – like, where are my opportunities to respond to CTAs on the eMarketer mobile version (!)
• Not future-proof - e.g what screen size are internet fridges?

The fourth option is to build with Responsive Web Design (RWD). In previous articles, I covered the fact that Google recommends RWD and how conversion optimization works for RWD.

There are up-sides to a mobile-specific solution in the short-term. It may be a quicker, low-cost solution to get something—anything—up for mobile visitors.

But, it’s still a short-term band-aid. Eventually, building a new version of your website for the many screen sizes will become impractical and RWD will be the best long-term solution.

Good news: The LIFT Model works for RWD too!

One major benefit of the LIFT Model™ is that it takes a customer-centric, experiential perspective, making it applicable to virtually any environment. At WiderFunnel, we’ve used our CRO system with LIFT to optimize mobile, desktop, apps, and even TV game experiences.

In preparing for the presentation, I wanted to give an example of how to apply LIFT to mobile. In my arbitrary product searches, I came across so many poor mobile experiences that I had a hard time choosing just one as an example. Mobile conversion optimization is clearly a ripe field for many to leapfrog their competitors.

I settled on showing a summary of a LIFT analysis for an InvisibleShield landing page because it had some common problems that were immediately apparent.

Mobile landing page LIFT Analysis

But, those weren’t the biggest problems. Below the fold had all kinds of Distraction with too many product options and a huge, scrolling page.

Too many product options!

If we were to get our hands on this landing page, we’d turn those weaknesses into strengths and test some new pages! Their sales would get an immediate boost with a few key improvements.

Mobile is not easy to do well. The constraints are greater, but the opportunities are growing. It’s no longer an optional channel and those who learn to do it well will be rewarded.

So, what’s the best way to learn what works? Say it with me: “You Should Test That!”

On that note, stay tuned for WiderFunnel’s launch and optimization of our newly RWD-converted site, coming soon.

What do you think?

How do you handle your mobile visitors? Are you ready for the mandatory switch to Google’s Enhanced Campaigns? Do you have tips for switching a website over to RWD?

  Tweet this:

Your value proposition determined your potential conversion rate
Tweet

  Tweet this:

Use These 3 Points to Create an Awesome Value Proposition
Tweet

It is why people buy from you.

It is your offering.

There’s a reason we placed it at the center of the LIFT Model. The stronger you can make your value proposition, the greater your potential conversion rate.

In the past, I’ve showed how even minor details in your users’ experience can harm your value proposition.

Today, I’m going to show you how to create your kick-ass, knock-em-dead, no-holds-barred, kill-the-competition value proposition.   Tweet this:

How to create a kick-ass, knock-em-dead, no-holds-barred, kill-the-competition value proposition
Tweet

But first…

What is a value proposition?

Here’s how I think about it:
Your value proposition is a cost vs. benefits equation that shows your prospect’s motivation.   Tweet this:

Your value proposition is a cost vs. benefits equation shows your prospect's motivation
Tweet

If your perceived benefits outweigh the perceived costs, your prospects will be motivated to act.   Tweet this:

If your perceived benefits outweigh the perceived costs, your prospects will be motivated to act.
Tweet

It’s all about perception.   Tweet this:

Value proposition is all about perception.
Tweet

Your benefits hold different weight to different people. You need to find out which of your benefits are perceived to be most important to your prospects.

For example, to some, it’s very important that WiderFunnel offers full service design and technical implementation for the tests we plan. Other companies that have lots of talented resources, the strategy and test plans are the most important feature we offer. For the companies that value all of it, well, they perceive the most value in what we do. (Incidentally, this is also why we customize our service to best fit our clients so they get only the most valuable service, but that’s a topic for another day.)

You need to discover your best value proposition to have the best chance to close the most sales. Emphasizing the most important parts of your value proposition will maximize your conversion rate.   Tweet this:

Emphasizing the most important parts of your value proposition will maximize your conversion rate.
Tweet

How do you find your best value proposition?

At a simplistic level, think about the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?).

Every marketer understands the WIIFM concept. You already know how to speak to your customers, understand their needs, and speak in their language.

That’s entry price to understanding marketing.

The WIIFM are all the features and benefits your prospects could get from your products and services. But, you can’t communicate them all at once. If you try to emphasize everything, you’ll say nothing.

So, how do you know which features are most important to your customers?   Tweet this:

How do you know which features are most important to your customers?
Tweet

You Should Test That!

Traditionally, marketers have relied solely on their own thinking to come up with the right features to create and emphasize. Sure, they may get input from small groups of customers with surveys and focus groups. But, there are many reasons those focus groups aren’t as great as they seem.

Or, they may be a HiPPO and just follow their gut.

Watch out for un-tested HiPPOs

Today, there’s a better way.

By testing different value proposition approaches, you can find out what works best with statistical certainty before committing to one assumed positioning.   Tweet this:

Testing different value proposition approaches will show what works best
Tweet At WiderFunnel, we’ve been promoting value proposition testing since 2007 and it’s now becoming a very popular business concept. Testing value proposition is one of the central concepts in Eric Ries’s Lean Startup (a book I recommend), for example.

The works in all types of businesses too—not just for startups.

For Electronic Arts, our testing of offer positioning for the Sims 3 player community revealed the most important benefits for members. This made a huge impact on their group and caused changes in their marketing approach and org structure. They learned which types of offers work best to inspire their gamers to act, and increased their game registration conversion rate by 128%!

But, how do you decide what could be valuable to test for your customers?   Tweet this:

How do you decide what value proposition to test for your customers?
Tweet

Your combination of prospects, products and competitive environments are unique.

To find out what works best, you need to create great value proposition hypotheses.

You need Advanced Value Proposition Optimization

The “POPs, PODs and POIs” framework is useful for identifying new positioning ideas to test.   Tweet this:

Use the POPs, PODs, and POIs framework for new positioning ideas to test
Tweet Kevin Keller discussed a similar concept of points of parity vs. points of difference in his Harvard Business Review article. He used it with respect to brand positioning, product development and brand extensions.

For existing products and brands, I believe it’s also a useful tool for thinking about the features to emphasize and hypotheses to test.

I’m a visual thinker and find diagrams helpful for learning. I created this Venn diagram to show how to think about your Points of Parity (POPs), Points of Difference (PODs) and Points of Irrelevance (POIs):

POPs PODs and POIs for value proposition testing

• Points of Parity (POPs)
  These are the features you offer that are important to your prospects that you also share with your competitors. Think of them as the basic entry requirements to the game. Your prospects need to know that you offer the POPs, but emphasizing them won’t impress anyone.
• Points of Difference (PODs)
  Here’s where you can win the game. These are the features that are important to your prospects and not available from your competitors.
• Points of Irrelevance (POIs)
  All the other features that you offer, but aren’t interesting to your prospects are Points of Irrelevance (POIs).

Your PODs are where you want to focus.   Tweet this:

Focus your value proposition on your Points of Difference (PODs)
Tweet These are the features you can emphasize that will move your prospects to action. They’re your differentiators.

You can use your PODs to destroy your competition.   Tweet this:

You can use your unique PODs to destroy your competition
Tweet

But all PODs aren’t created equal. Some will be more important than others and some will only be important to certain customer segments.

No matter how much effort and research you’ve put into your value-proposition points, you should test that!   Tweet this:

No matter how much effort you’ve put into your value-proposition points, you should test that
Tweet

At WiderFunnel, we often run experiments where we create and test value-proposition alternatives. When combined with data from surveys of customer and market perceptions, these tests add quantitative validity to the qualitative insights. The learning from these value proposition tests often generates powerful marketing insights that impact the overall marketing strategy.   Tweet this:

The learning from value proposition tests generates powerful marketing insights
Tweet

Landing Pages are your best Value Proposition test opportunities

Your best opportunities for testing your value proposition are with first impression visitors.   Tweet this:

Landing Pages are your best Value Proposition testing opportunities
Tweet These are usually new visitors to your high traffic landing pages or home page. When I refer to landing pages, I’m specifically talking about website entry pages. These are the first pages your visitors see when the arrive on your website.

By split testing your alternative value propositions with new visitors, you’ll reduce your exposure to existing customers or prospects who are already in the consideration phase. New prospects have a clear canvas for you to present your message variations and see what sticks.

Then, from the learning gained on landing pages, you can validate insights with other target audience groups and with your customers to leverage the learning company-wide.

Landing page testing can do more than just improve conversion rates on landing pages. When done strategically, it can deliver powerful, high-leverage marketing insights.   Tweet this:

When done strategically, landing page testing can deliver high-leverage marketing insights
Tweet

How do you optimize your value proposition? How do you know which features are most important to your prospects? How would you discern your POPs from your PODs? Add your comments below.

  Tweet this:

Combining user experience design expertise with scientific testing is a powerful formula
Tweet

(Note: you can click the little “   Tweet this:

Experience Design and Scientific Testing Create a Powerful Business Combination
Tweet ” birdies in our articles to tweet key points.
Edit: In case you’re wondering, yes, “behavioural” is the Canadian English spelling and “behavioral” is American.)

Software designers are stealing the limelight from other industries by advancing more rapidly through a commitment to testing.   Tweet this:

Software designers are stealing the limelight by advancing more rapidly through a commitment to testing
Tweet

He says,

“Perhaps it is no surprise that “behavioural design” is becoming a buzz-phrase. Nick Chater, professor of behavioural science at Warwick Business School, argues that the combination of basic scientific research with user-oriented design thinking is a powerful one. Behavioural scientists in the fields of psychology and economics are producing reams of research about human behaviour, and designers have the skill and experience to turn those insights into products and services that make our lives happier or safer.”

Behavioural Design’s influence is far-reaching

Software development is only one area where behavioural design research can be applied. The research in these areas is often aimed at solving societies biggest challenges: How should our economies avoid financial meltdowns? How can we create environmental sustainability? How can people live healthier lives? Etc.

The essential belief underlying behavioural design (and the related field of behavioural economics) is that people don’t act as rational decision-makers.   Tweet this:

The essential belief underlying behavioural design is that people don't act as rational decision-makers
Tweet These researchers are disproving old assumptions and simplistic motivational beliefs.

Behavioural research and motivation

Traditional behavioural models are being turned on their heads.

Daniel Pink, for example, challenges the traditional carrot and stick motivational model in his popular book, Drive. He shows research into how much more powerful new ideas of intrinsic motivation create more effective organizational change.

The principles behavioural researchers are discovering can be applied to your user experiences and marketing strategies.   Tweet this:

Behavioural research findings can be applied to user experiences and marketing strategies
Tweet

Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational introduces studies that show how:

• Too much choice can reduce sales conversion rates
• Choice can create buyer’s remorse
• Decisions are made based on immediate comparison rather than objective value.
• Value estimates can be influenced by unrelated primers.
• And many other helpful persuasion tactics.

The findings from Ariely, Pink, and the many researchers in their fields lead us to better experience design decisions. Applying these findings can massively improve your marketing conversion rates, as leading businesses are discovering.

Apps and websites that are most successful have found a way to create wonderful experiences

I can attest to this with a recent app experience.

I was looking for a pedometer tracker for my iPhone. I knew that walking could be an important part of my fitness regime and also that if I didn’t measure it, it wouldn’t happen. But, I also didn’t like the thought of strapping new devices to myself, as with the Fitbit or Nike fuel band options.

At first I tried one of the aptly-named “Pedometer” apps by Arawella. They seem to have the most feature-rich apps, though I still don’t understand why there are 5 different free versions of the app to choose from. I mean, how many different ways are there to count footsteps?

Attempting to set up the app was confusing from the start. Multiple setup screens, options and reports were overwhelming. I felt like I was preparing for a NASA mission just to track my walk to work.   Tweet this:

I felt like I was preparing for a NASA mission just to track my walk to work
Tweet

An over-complicated experience

And, it kept trying to upsell me to the Pro version. And, probably because of all the features and GPS tracking, it kept turning off so I had to intentionally start it whenever I wanted to track my walking.

At WiderFunnel, we use the behavioural design approach built into the LIFT Model factors to improve marketing experiences. This app suffers from significant Distraction problems and lack of Clarity in the menu structure (aka. Information Architecture), and page design (aka. User Interface). It seems to be victim of the common feature-creep phenomenon that creates a lack of focus.

In contrast, when I came across the Moves App, the experience was a delight. The minimalist, focused interface gives me exactly what I want: a count of my activity. It also shows me where I’ve been in an elegant, intuitive way. It’s always on in the background, using minimal battery drain.

A wonderful, focused experience

It works because the designers have minimized Distraction (confusing settings) and Anxiety (battery life), and maximized the Clarity and Relevance of the step counter report.

Which experience more closely resembles your website and landing pages?

Do your websites, landing pages and products have focused, on point messages with wonderful experiences?   Tweet this:

Do your websites, landing pages and products have focused messages with wonderful experiences?
Tweet Or, are they multi-functional, cluttered and frustrating annoyances?

Behavioural Design research is just the beginning

Understanding the latest research findings in behavioural design is a great place to start for improving your website experience. But, which new principles should apply to your website and business? How can the abstract findings be integrated into your communications? Which ones really have conversion optimization applications?

You may wonder how to apply all this research to your website.

That’s why testing within your specific environment is important.   Tweet this:

Testing general research within your specific environment is important
Tweet

The “best” answer is not always intuitive. It is always influenced by external variables. The best design and content depends on context.   Tweet this:

The best design and content depends on context
Tweet

You’ll get better advice from people that do the most testing, and the best from people who advise you how to test these ideas within your own context. Context is key for any behavioural design principle.

In other words, seeking out the latest research is helpful, but testing it in your own business is vital.   Tweet this:

Seeking out the latest research is helpful, but testing it in your own business is vital
Tweet

How do you test and improve your experience design?

I moderated an interesting panel discussion at PubCon Las Vegas in 2012 where Ruth Burr reminded me of the importance of this topic. Below is a follow-up interview I had with Ruth that I think you’ll find useful if you use agencies. By the way, this works for SEM Agencies, Design Agencies and, of course, Conversion Optimization Agencies.

Who is Ruth Burr?

Ruth is the Lead SEO at SEOmoz (and imagine having the guts to apply for that job!) She presented two topics at PubCon: Getting the most out of your SEO agencies and Advanced Relationship Buildings for Links. Here are some of Ruth’s insights for how to become the ‘best’ client for your agency.

Being your best client for your agency

Ruth’s believes that an agency engagement will often fail because of actions on the clients’ part. As clients, we only can control what we do and many clients don’t realize how their actions affect the results they’re getting.

So, what do you need to do as a company to prevent a failing agency engagement?

• Do the things you commit to
• Turn around approvals quickly
• Share information needed to do the job
• Hand holding and yelling are billable
• Being responsive
• Being partners in the engagement
• Not expecting they just hired you and never have to deal with you again.

Benefits of being your agency’s best client

What do you get when you try to be your agency’s favorite client?
You are going to get more work out of them, because you turning things around faster so they are able to more done sooner.

The more they like you as a client, the more they’re willing to work for you and keep you as their client. In an emergency, they’ll go the extra mile for you to keep your business.

What’s happening at SEOmoz?

SEOMOZ is growing like crazy. Recently they acquired followerwonk. Followerwonk is a tool that you can use to search for Twitter accounts based on keywords people have in their bios, you can look at individual Twitter handles and compare them to see who follows whom and where the overlap of followers is or isn’t. It’s a great tool!

SEO for SEOmoz; that most have been an incredible terrifying job to apply for?

Terrifying is actually a good word! I was really concerned because I don’t think that I’m the greatest SEO in all of the land. I think SEOmoz has done a great job as an employer of saying: we don’t expect you be magical or work miracles. They have been very realistic about the engagement, but also one thing I learned about, that I found kind of heartening, is that all websites are all the same. The story of the cobbler’s shoes applies.

Tips to break into a great job in a hot company like SEOmoz

Meet people, put faces with a name, stay in touch on Twitter, at networking events and make a point of just like keeping in touch. It’s regularly networking, in real life (IRL). And when you know some people and you build a relationship with somebody, you know they will go the extra mile for you, because you would do the

By the way, these tips also can help for getting a job at WiderFunnel. (We’re hiring!)

I was young. I had no money. I wanted to be cool. And to get some free food.

So, as a marketing intern, I “customized” my answers to their profiling questions to what I thought they were looking for.

There’s no harm done, after all, I thought. This behemoth video-game company can afford to include me in their focus group, even if I’m not really a hard-core gamer they’re hoping to hear from.

Plus, they’re offering free pizza and a video game. That’s, like, a $70 value!

So, I find my way to their boardroom with its long table surrounded by similarly pimpled kids. The huddle of marketers at one end eagerly scribble notes as we discuss game features.

I don’t remember what I said. I think I made a point or two that seemed to be what a hard-core gamer would say. Good enough to get my pizza and video game, anyway. But, probably useless for the video game producer.

Later in my marketing career, that tables were turned. I created focus groups to evaluate advertising messages for our ad agency. We traveled across the country to pull in small groups of target audiences and stood behind one-way windows saying things like “Aha” and “That’s interesting…”

I wondered how much we should act on that input from a couple dozen people. If one person makes a comment about our print ad, and no one in the room disagrees, does that mean they all feel the same way? And, would our entire target audience of hundreds of thousands agree?

Now I also wonder if they were as qualified to be there as I had been in my video-gaming days. Where they just there for the pizza?

The Hidden Risks of Qualitative Research

There are several reasons why using qualitative feedback alone can lead to misleading findings   Tweet this:

Reasons why using qualitative feedback alone is misleading
Tweet .
(Note: you can click the little “   Tweet this:

Online Testing: The Ultimate Customer Research
Tweet ” birdies below to tweet key points.)

The Hawthorne Effect

The act of observing a thing changes that thing   Tweet this:

The Hawthorne Effect: The act of observing a thing changes that thing.
Tweet . When people know they’re being observed, they may be more motivated to complete the action. For example, knowing that you’re looking for usability problems in a user testing scenario, they may be more motivated to find problems whether or not they’re actually important.

The Hawthorne Effect in action

Observer-Expectancy Effect

Researchers in one-on-one research studies can unintentionally influence participants and change the results   Tweet this:

Researchers unintentionally influence participants and change test results
Tweet . This is similar to the Hawthorne effect. It’s very difficult to avoid communicating with subtle verbal and nonverbal cues that direct the user.

Limited Sample Sizes

The feedback you get is only valid for the small number of people you’re testing   Tweet this:

Qualitative feedback you get is only valid for the small number of people you’re testing.
Tweet . Although you can often gain valuable insights from a small number of users, you don’t know which ones are valuable. And doing qualitative testing, like usability studies, with large sample sizes is generally cost-prohibitive.

Don’t misinterpret small samples

Sampling Bias

The first of two selection biases, sampling or user-selection bias occurs when you have a mismatch between your actual customers and the criteria you use for selecting study participants   Tweet this:

There are two errors that distory user testing findings: sampling bias and self-selection bias. Here's how to fix them.
Tweet . You may have an inaccurate view of your real customers or may skew toward the segments that are easier to attract into the study. For example, by studying me as a 14- to 24-year-old video-gamer the producer may miss out on the growing and lucrative 25- to 44-year old females, who will clearly have very different interaction styles and needs.

Self-Selection Bias

Self-selection bias is a significant problem when users volunteer to be in a study. This is the error I introduced as a young focus group participant. You’ll also never be able study people who don’t want to participate in studies. Look out for real customer motivations for giving feedback.

Preset Goals Creating an Artificial Scenario

In usability testing, the researcher sets predefined goals for the user to attempt to accomplish and then monitors their success or failure and points of difficulty. Probably the most fundamental limitation of this type of user testing is that the scenarios are artificial. The task you choose for the user may not be the task a typical user would choose. It’s also not likely to be relevant to the particular user you’re testing. In other words, you’re asking a person to imagine and act as if they were the type of person who wanted to accomplish the task you want them to. That’s asking a lot!

Mis-matched motivations?

Limited Imagination

Qualitative feedback can tell you about possible miscommunications, interface problems and technical errors, but they usually don’t generate ideas about the layouts, content, and value proposition that would be more persuasive. Steve Jobs was once quoted in BusinessWeek saying, “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them   Tweet this:

...people don’t know what they want until you show it to them. -Steve Jobs
Tweet .” Your customers don’t know how you can motivate them, and they can’t tell you which landing page design will work best for them, either.

All of these errors and biases limit that value of qualitative feedback.

Is all Qualitative Testing Useless?

Focus groups, qualitative surveys, and usability testing can be useful for gathering feedback from your visitors. They can lead to valuable hypotheses to test. Traditional usability testing, for example, is valuable in exploring a variety of scenarios quickly, gaining immediate interactive feedback, and developing hypotheses that could not otherwise have been predicted.

But when used in isolation, these aren’t good tools for website decision-making. This is not conversion optimization.

The potential insights generated need to be validated through controlled testing. Blindly following qualitative findings without verifying using controlled A/B/n tests can lead to dangerous mistakes.

Conversion Optimization Requires Quantitative Testing

I still come across people regularly who say they’re doing website testing. When I probe into their methods, often they have run user testing or have customer panels who have opted-in to be surveyed. I’ll repeat: this is not conversion optimization!   Tweet this:

Qualitative feedback alone is not conversion optimization!
Tweet

By all means, incorporate qualitative methods into your marketing system. Then, use the input from them to generate better hypotheses for split testing.

The scientific method of marketing starts with formulating questions to ask of your visitors. If you can use these qualitative studies to help you develop better hypotheses, that’s great! That’s the role they should play.

Some of the most dangerous traps marketers face are jumping to conclusions without data, acting too early with limited data and misinterpreting data. A reliable scientific testing system avoids those traps and helps you make proven marketing improvements.

What do you think? Add your comments below.

You Should Test That: Conversion Optimization for More Leads, Sales and Revenue or The Art and Science of Optimized Marketing is now available!

It may be the longest book title ever, but hopefully it makes sense when you see the cover design.

You can simply call it You Should Test That!

You Should Test That!—the book that redefined conversion optimization

In this post, I’d like to share some of the background, how this happened and what I hope the book to achieve.

If you’d rather not read the whole story, you can skip to the book’s website where you’ll find:

• An overview of the book
• All of the pre-release reviews
• A free chapter download
• An area to discuss each chapter with other readers.

Or, you can head over to Amazon to buy a copy.

An Evolution of Knowledge Sharing

I was so fortunate in the early days of WiderFunnel to connect with Google as a partner and client, which game me that chance to meet great people like Tom Leung and Avinash Kaushik. They both encouraged me to start speaking at conferences and webinars to share the insights we’d been gaining.

From those early presentations, it didn’t take long for news of our results and case studies to spread and the conference invitations accumulated. Someone recently asked me to quantify my speaking experience and I thought this trend was interesting.

Conference speaking events

(I don’t expect the hockey stick curve to continue or I’ll soon run out of weeks in the year.)

Then, people asked for more. At conferences, I was asked many times when my book was coming out.

I entertained the idea, but couldn’t imagine having time on top of building WiderFunnel, traveling to conferences and being a dad to my daughters.

In 2011, I finally decided that days weren’t going to get longer and I’d have to find time if I ever wanted to get my message out. At the same time, the excellent Acquisitions Editor, Willem Knibbe, approached me again. After much discussion, he convinced me that Wiley could develop the unique approach I wanted to take.

A Different Kind of Marketing Book

I wanted this book to be different.

I didn’t want to write a technical how-to manual. There are lots of those already that do a better job than I could. And, I don’t believe technical skills are the most important for getting results.

It also couldn’t be a purely conceptual business book that wasn’t applicable. Execution of a strategy is just as important as the concept.

I wanted the book to be about how to really get results in your business.

I wanted to create a balance between inspiration and perspiration — a mix of how-to and why-to. It’s a lot like what I believe conversion optimization must be: art and science, right brain and left-brain, gut and test. (Check out our marketing optimization manifesto for more on this)

In the book, I show details that have never before been released about WiderFunnel’s optimization system. It shows how to:

• Use the LIFT Model as a conversion optimization planning framework (with many examples)
• Find data in your web analytics to help prioritize your tests
• Find the triggers that move customers and prospects to act
• Re-evaluate your value proposition (including both tangible and intangible aspects)
• Create powerful hypotheses
• Optimize the relevance of your entire conversion funnels, including landing pages
• Test to improve the clarity of your information hierarchy, eyeflow, imagery, color, copywriting, and call-to-action
• Reduce negative anxiety and use the right kind of anxiety to your advantage
• Optimize your pages to minimize distraction
• Create and test urgency tactics to boost motivation
• Move beyond simple conversion rate lift to dramatically lift revenue and profit
• Make business decisions through tested insights.

And lots more too!

The book includes 15 full case studies of real tests plus many more examples of how companies are succeeding and failing in their websites and marketing.

An Unorthodox Approach

I also wanted to take a different tone than other books. The publisher calls it “unconventional.”

Rather than creating a dry, textbook-style information dump, I’ve attempted to communicate conversationally, using hand-drawn annotations to communicate clearly and comics to disarm defences.

Here’s a comic from Chapter 8 – Optimize for Anxiety that says more than a page full of writing could:

A comic from the Optimize for Anxiety chapter

(Yes, I hand-drew all the original illustrations myself.)

But, it’s not all fun and games. There are lots of real LIFT Analyses and recommendations for conversion rate the profit improvement. Here’s a sample illustration from Chapter 5 – Optimize Your Value Proposition that shows my modified microeconomic model based on real-life, observed pricing impacts.

The Goward Economic Model

It Takes a Village

I’m pleased with how the book turned out. It seems others are as well. I’ve been humbled by the support I’ve received from very smart people.

I was so thrilled when Avinash offered to write the book’s foreword. He’s brilliant.

And so many others have given glowing pre-release reviews too. For example, here’s what a few awesome business thinkers have said:

“In You Should Test That! Chris doesn’t just talk about what you should test, but how to think about your marketing in a very smart and strategic way. Too many brands are wasting too much money on marketing without doing the strategic testing first. You Should Test That! screams, ‘You should buy this book!’“
— Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image & Author, Blogger, Podcaster of Six Pixels of Separation

“Chris Goward does a fantastic job of explaining not just effective testing techniques, but also the strategic value testing can deliver to your entire marketing program. This well-illustrated guide to all aspects of testing is a must-read for anyone responsible for marketing decision-making.”
— Roger Dooley, author of Brainfluence

“Chris Goward knows the secret to business: listen to your gut, and then test what it says. This book is a must read for understanding why scientific testing is the key to continuous improvement in your organization.”
— Jackie Huba, author of Creating Customer Evangelists and Citizen Marketers

“Read this book, and you will profit. Chris Goward gets it. I know. I’ve stalked him for years. His LIFT framework was the missing piece of my CRO puzzle leading to millions of dollars in additional sales for our small family business over the past few years.

If you’re a competitor of mine, I’m just kidding. CRO is just a fad. Your shopping cart is just fine. Don’t change a thing.”
— Rob Snell, Gun Dog Supply

The only problem I’ve had is choosing which reviews to show. So far, I’ve received insightful reviews from 42 business leaders.

The Unanticipated Benefits of Writing the Book

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.
William Makepeace Thackeray

The process of writing the book also forced me to spend a lot of time thinking about WiderFunnel’s approach.

Every morning for a year, no matter which city I was in, I woke up early to put in an hour or two or three (or more) of writing.

The morning writing routine

That thinking and writing time forced me to organize thoughts and develop new systems and frameworks, many of which we’re just now testing out and continuing to evolve.

Over the past year, we’ve refined our system and continue to improve greatly because of it. It’s the best thing I could have done for the business. I hope to continue a similar discipline whether it turns into another book or not.

Now, I want to give you a chance to get ahead of your competitors too:

1. Buy it now

2. Read it quickly

3. Share it with others

I hope you like it!