7 Marketing Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies

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Who doesn’t love a good eye-tracking study?

With the ability to take a lot of guesswork out of conversion rate optimization, eye-tracking software and heat maps can reveal some startling insights into increasing conversions (and avoiding sales killers) that can benefit every business.

Today we’re going to go over 7 important eye-tracking studies that give a sneak peek into common browsing patterns and elements of human behavior that all marketers need to know.

Let’s take a look!

You don’t have to be an expert in UX (user experience) to understand the importance of Fitts’s law.

While seemingly complicated at first glance, one of the fundamental lessons Fitts’s law communicates is that object “weight” (in the visual hierarchy) is a big determinant in what attracts eyes and mouse clicks.

Consider this recent case study from TechWyse that examined the homepage of a truck service with a heat map:

As you can see from the first test, the non-clickable “NO FEES” button was hogging a lot of attention, but it is not a call-to-action and its information isn’t the most important on the page.

That’s no good.

Also, it is right next to one of the most important CTAs on the page (the phone number) and it stands out so much that it actually is drawing people away from other more important elements.

Take a look at the changes they made to alleviate this problem.

Much better!

The “Call Now” button clearly is getting a lot of attention over every other section on the page, which is great because it is how customers get started contacting the business!

Lesson learned: When you are assembling a persuasive landing page, be sure the elements that “pop” are the ones that matter, and that you aren’t giving too much weight to visuals that don’t encourage customers to take action.

Most marketers have seen those SERP (search engine results page) heat maps that show the top 3 rankings hogging all of the action… But what role do visual elements play in holding visitor attention?

In an interesting heat map study published on Moz.com, videos were shown to be particularly powerful in capturing eyeballs, even when they weren’t the #1 result.

As you can see below, both direct video results (such as a hosted YouTube video) and embedded video results (videos embedded on a webpage) commanded more attention than a regular search listing, especially if they were near the top of the results.

Why video?

There was a popular post a few weeks ago on how authorship may have hurt click-throughs for a product page. It was on the front page of Hacker News and many marketers were arguing over how Google Authorship has impacted their own search traffic.

While the debate stirred up some counterpoints, one conclusion may be valid. Authorship photos might cause people to assume that the page is an article or a blog post rather than a product page.

Video, on the other hand, should not have the same effect, since it usually is interpreted as a product video. However, instead of assuming, test to see if it impacts your search traffic for top keywords.

Lesson learned: If you want to stand out at the top of some competitive search results, you may want to test an embedded video rather than authorship for product pages.

Using visual cues to guide visitors to key areas of your site is nothing new, but just how effective is it?

According to studies such as the aptly named Eye Gaze Cannot be Ignored, it is incredibly effective. Human beings have a natural tendency to follow the gaze of others, and we have been coached since birth to follow arrows directing us to where we should be looking/going.

Consider the following example that included a page with a baby and a compelling headline for taking care of the baby’s skin.

It’s obvious that the baby’s face is drawing a lot of attention. (As a matter of fact, faces of babies and pretty women draw the longest gazes from all visitors.)

Unfortunately, from a marketing standpoint, this is a problem because the copy isn’t commanding enough attention.

Now look at the browsing patterns when an image of the baby facing the text was used.

As you can see, users focused on the baby’s face again (from the side) and directly followed the baby’s line of sight to the headline and opening copy. (Even the area of text that the baby’s chin was pointing to was read more!)

Lesson learned: Visuals are an important part of a site’s overall design, but most pages can be optimized by including images that serve as visual cues for where visitors should look next.

I bet many of you already have heard of the F-pattern of reading that is common throughout the web, but would you have guessed that it applies practically everywhere?

According to this study from the Nielsen Group, all across articles, e-commerce sites, and search engine results, people almost always browse in an F-shaped pattern that heavily favors the left side of the screen.

This coincides with additional research that shows people tend to view the left side of the screen overall far more than the right.

It is important to note all of these studies were conducted with English speaking (and reading) participants. The opposite was true for those users whose languages read from right to left.

Is it any wonder that some of the most tested websites in the world (like Amazon) have placed a clear priority on the left sides of their homepages?

Lesson learned: Web users tend to browse sites based on their reading habits. For English speaking people (and languages with similar reading patterns), the left side of the screen is heavily favored, and all sites tend to be browsed in an F-pattern.

Relying on the screen above “the fold” to do all of the heavy lifting is one of the biggest usability mistakes you can make. The idea that it is the only place web users will browse is a complete myth.

Multiple tests (including this one and this other one) have shown that users have no problem scrolling down below the fold. Surprisingly, they will browse even further down if the length of the page is longer.

KISSmetrics’s own co-founder and VP of Marketing, Neil Patel, conducted an interesting A/B test on his homepage and found that a page with 1,292 words beat a page with 488 words by 7.6%. And it didn’t end there. The leads from the long form version of the page were higher in quality than the leads from the variation.

Another great test from the folks at ContentVerve showed that moving the call-to-action far below the fold actually boosted conversions by 304%.

Lesson learned: Although it’s dependent on the page you are testing, you shouldn’t be afraid of placing important elements below the fold (and testing them there), because it gives people time to read your copy before they take action.

Who’d have thought that eye tracking and email marketing could be best of friends?

According to this study conducted by the Nielsen Group, people scan emails very quickly, and the only areas they give any appreciable amount of time to at all are the initial copy and headlines.

From the study:

Users are extremely fast at both processing their inboxes and reading newsletters. The average time allocated to a newsletter after opening it was only 51 seconds.

This means that you need to get to the point in your emails in under a minute. The message should be as compelling as that of an online article, but you don’t have as much time to capture attention as you might in an article.

This coincides with a study from MarketingSherpa that shows people prefer short, clear, and un-creative headlines for their emails. (Creative headlines can seem mysterious, and mystery in an inbox may equal spam.)

Truly a situation where the KISS principle applies!

Lesson learned: Once you’ve earned the right to appear in a prospect’s inbox, be sure to keep that privilege by crafting emails that are clear and get to the point quickly. You don’t have as much time to broadcast your message as you would in an online article.

If you’ve ever seen this video by Dan Ariely, you know that sometimes seemingly “useless” price points actually are quite important for increasing conversions.

One common pricing element that fits the bill here is the “pre-sale” price. It isn’t literally used by customers because they don’t pay that price… But is it still “used” to evaluate the new price?

In an effort to answer this question, Robert Stevens of THiNK Eye Tracking conducted a test that examined how people look at prices and products on shelves.

In the initial test, results weren’t too surprising. Most people spent time looking at prices and product packaging.

But if the pre-sale price was included, would people look at it?

They did!

Better yet, Stevens also tested perception of the sale price to see if viewing the pre-sale price played a role.

These were his findings:

After consumers selected the smoothie of their choice, I asked them if their purchase was a good value for the money on a 7 point “like” scale (with 1 being very good value for the money and 7 being not very good value for the money).

Consumers who saw only the promotional item gave a mean score of 2.4. Consumers who saw the promotional item next to a full-price premium offer gave it 1.7, even though they purchased the same item!

Basically, humans are pretty bad at evaluating price without contextual clues (as argued by Ariely in this TED talk). We find it much easier to make decisions when we have something to base them on.

That’s why people often view a sale price as a better value when they can see what they really are saving. Without that contextual clue, the sale price is hard to evaluate because they don’t know what the product usually sells for.

Lesson learned: Sometimes “useless” prices like pre-sale prices can be used by customers to evaluate the value of a potential purchase.

About the Author: Gregory Ciotti is the marketing strategist for Help Scout, a Zendesk alternative made for small businesses that want help desk software with a personal touch. Get more data-driven content from Greg by downloading his free guide on converting more customers (with psychology).

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How to Integrate Call Tracking Data with Your Analytics

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The gap between online and offline marketing finally has been bridged. Before now, the marketing world was divided into separate silos containing online, print, and television. But thanks to developments in the analytics space, now we can blend all of these marketing niches together.

One of the most obvious, real-world sources that analytics platforms can tie into are phone numbers. Think about it for a minute. What if you…

Could see inbound phone calls from prospects inside your analytics reports?Want to know if your website phone number actually converts?Want to see which website phone number location converts the best?Want to see if phone numbers printed on mailing pieces or billboard advertisements turn into online customers? Two months later?

Well, the day has arrived, and this wonderful technology is available for KISSmetrics users. Thanks to Call Tracking Metrics and CallRail, we now have two integrations that will allow you to track phone call data in your KISSmetrics account.

We sometimes forget the power that pushing a phone number can bring us.

Depending on your business and what you’re selling, it can be much easier for your customers and prospects to simply pick up the phone and call. In addition, a well-trained sales force can up-sell and even delight your customers in a way that an online checkout process cannot.

Even if you’re not sure of the effectiveness of on-site phone numbers, it may be in your best interest to test to see how well your phone numbers convert and help your business.

In KISSmetrics, call tracking integrations allow you to use a different phone number for each particular campaign or page on your website. For example, let’s say you want to see how your home page number and a specific number you are using on a roadside billboard perform over time. And, for kicks, let’s say you changed your contact page number to see if anyone actually uses it.

In this example, three different phone numbers are used to track specific campaigns and website phone number locations.

With KISSmetrics, you can track which phone number delivers more new customers and which number produces the most loyal customers, too, since we track your customer lifetime value.

You can see what phone numbers and the number of people who converted into real business.

You can also see what phone numbers provide the best ROI.

You can also use it to:

See which pay-per-click campaigns are producing the highest returns by placing unique phone numbers on various landing pagesTrack flyer, newspaper, and business card effectivenessAnalyze call center / support center quality and how it relates to customer retention

And what is really beneficial about this technology is you can listen to a recording of the phone call, so you can gain customer insight and check on the performance of sales representatives by reviewing their calls while looking at their performance statistics.

With KISSmetrics, you can drill down to the individual level to see the visitor/customer lifecycle and when a person made their first, second, or fiftieth phone call.

Not only can you see when they called, you can know the call duration and listen to a recording of the call itself.

Here we can see the actions (events) a potential customer took before making a phone call – all thanks to a KISSmetrics and CallRail integration.

Currently, we are partnered with two call tracking companies that integrate with KISSmetrics. They both have provided demonstration videos to show how easy it is to integrate KISSmetrics with their services:

Call Tracking Metrics

CallRail

Below are links to support documentation for both Call Tracking Metrics and CallRail:

To learn more about KISSmetrics and how to implement call tracking functionality on your website, please call us at (888) 767-5477 or contact us here.

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The 2013 Google+ Marketing Guide

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Since its launch in 2011, Google+ has been growing non-stop and now has 359 million active users according to Business Insider. There also have been a lot of changes made in their platform during that time. In this post, we’re going to look at everything you need in order to have a successful Google+ experience.

If you have a Google account for other services like Gmail, Analytics, Webmaster Tools, YouTube, or other Google services, then you may have a Google+ profile already. To find out, sign in to your main Google account through one of the services you use and then visit Google+. If you do not have a profile, you will see the following screen.

You will want to create your Google+ profile with the Google account you use most often. Do not use an email address that isn’t yours (such as an email for your workplace or college) and do not use an account you share with others, as this will be your personal profile.

Now, let’s look at the most important elements of your personal Google+ profile.

Cover Photo – Cover photos on Google+ profiles and pages are huge – 2120×1192 pixels to be exact. This means you must have a high quality, high resolution image that best represents you. Google+ does offer some stock photos to choose from, but you don’t want to be one of the thousands using the same colorful paper, bubbles, etc. that everyone else is using.

Story – Under your profile About tab, you have several sections of information to fill out. The first is your story. This is where you fill in your tagline, introduction, and bragging rights.

These pieces of your profile are important. Up to 77 characters of your introduction will show up in Google+ search results when people are searching for others who have particular keywords in their profiles. The snippet of your introduction used will be the part that most closely matches the keywords searched.

Since your links appear further down your profile, you can use the introduction section to hyperlink to your most important websites.

The tagline is important because it shows up in regular search results listings.

Work – The work section allows you to add information about your current occupation, skills, and employment.

The most current employer you list will show up next to your profile photo at the top, so make sure the information is up to date. The same goes for your education section.

Places – If you would like people to know where you have been and where you are now, add those locations here.

Your current location will be shown next to your profile photo at the top.

Basic and Contact Information – In these sections, you can give as much (or as little) information as you choose. Basic Information allows you to share your gender, networking goals, birth date, marital status, and other similar data. Your Contact Information allows you to share your email, phone, physical address, and other contact information. Note that if you use a few different email addresses and you want people to find you through them, then you should include them in your contact information.

Links – Your links section is divided into three groups: Other Profiles, Contributor To, and Links. Other Profiles represents your other social media profiles. This is where you can add your links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Quora, and other social networks.

Under Contributor To, you will add links to the sites you contribute to. Essentially, this should be links to your author pages on blogs you guest post for and contribute to regularly. It’s important to add links to these pages so you can claim Google+ Authorship for the content you create and boost your author rank. Now you also can specify whether you are a current or past contributor to a particular site, which allows you to claim your authorship while directing visitors to the places they can find your most current work.

Last, but not least, are your general links. These are links to your main website and other sites of interest that you want to share with visitors. This is why it’s a good idea to add some links to your introduction, because otherwise, the links you probably want to share most will be at the very bottom of your profile.

If you are trying to build up authority in your industry, one way to do it is by building Google+ Authorship as mentioned earlier. You do this by linking your Google+ personal profile to the content you create throughout the web, from your own site to other blogs and online media outlets.

What are the benefits of building up your Google+ Authorship? First off, you get your photo next to your content in search results, which can help boost the click-through rate. You can see how readers easily could use authorship to judge the authority of the content.

Also, people can click the by link to discover more content by you on any site you contribute to in search results.

As an author, you can visit Google Webmaster Tools and use Author Stats under Labs to see analytics data about posts claimed under your Google+ profile from any website. Included are the number of impressions a particular piece of content receives in search results, the number of clicks, the click-through rate, and the average position in search results.

If you’re a fan of Matt Cutts’s videos on the Google Webmaster Help channel, you probably have heard him mention that Google is working on identifying authorities in particular spaces with the intent of making sure that content by those authorities ranks well in search results. You can catch that around the 4:30 mark of the video what to expect from Google in the next couple of months recorded in May.

So how do you claim authorship for the content you create? There are two ways. The first is by having an email address on your Google+ profile from the domain you create content for. If you contribute to many sites, that may not be an option for you.

The second is by having a link to your content (or author page) from other sites on your Google+ profile under the Contributor To section and a link to your Google+ profile on each of those pieces of content. Also, the link to your Google+ profile should have an ?rel=author appended to it to specify that you are the author of the content. You can place this link in your author bio.

To test if your Google+ authorship is working, simply use the Rich Snippets Testing Tool. If anything is missing, it will help you find out what it is and how to fix it.

To create a Google+ presence for your business, you will need to create a page. To get started, select the type of page you are creating – local, product, brand, company, institution, organization, arts, entertainment, or other. Each will have a large variety of subcategories to choose from.

Except for the pages in the local category, Google+ page setup is similar to personal profile setup with a few nice variations. The biggest difference is that instead of having your employment, education, and location information next to your profile photo at the top, your page will have a link to your verified website.

Other notable differences include an expanded story section for different types of pages (such as Company, Mission, and Founded areas for companies) and a section for communities created by the page. Below the above shown areas are your Google+ page links and profile information.

If you want to give multiple people the ability to manage your Google+ page, you can do this by going to your Google+ page settings and clicking on Managers. There, you can add anyone who is following your page as a manager. Managers have limited access compared to page owners, but they can do the basics such as post content, edit circles, edit page information, and change the settings. Page owners and managers are not publicly listed on the page itself.

If you have a local business, you must have a Google+ page. Google+ took over Google Places, which means that if your local business had a Google Places listing, it’s now a Google+ listing. So when you attempt to create a page in the local category and enter your phone number, Google+ will find your local page and connect you to it. If your business isn’t on Google+ already, or formerly on Google Places, you will get to add a new listing for your business instead.

The setup of a Google+ local business page is very different from the regular Google+ page setup. You will have to add your business information – physical address, phone number, and website – and then have it verified by Google before your updates will go live. Verification happens by phone or by postcard.

Once your Google+ local business page is verified, you can start adding additional details, updates, and photos, and you can even create events. Note that local business pages have a few extra bits of information right at the top along with the website link.

You also will get free local business insights about how your customers discover your business online and information about your followers, +1's, and engagement.

Another major difference between regular Google+ pages and local business pages is the option for visitors to leave reviews. The more positive reviews your business has, the better it is likely to do in local search results. If you do happen to receive negative reviews, you can reply to them publicly on your local business page, showing future visitors that while bad experiences do happen, you are willing to do your best to help rectify the situations.

On Google+, you can post updates with text only, photos, videos, or links. Within your updates, you can mention other people and pages that you are following by typing their name after an @ symbol. You also can add hashtags to your Google+ updates to help them receive wider exposure.

One key thing to remember about your Google+ profile and page is that when they show up in search results, they will show your latest status update.

Therefore, if you want to show that you are active on Google+, you need to keep your profile and pages up to date.

As with any social network, if you’re unsure what to post on Google+, do a bit of research into what your competitors are posting. Look at the types of updates that work best for them in terms of engagement (+1's, comments, and shares) and try similar types of updates with your audience.

Also, keep in mind that you can target your updates based on your circles. For example, if your company wants to send updates to only your employees, create an Employees circle and send it to just that circle.

However, when designating specific people/circles for your status updates on Google+, remember that any update which is not Public will not be seen in search results or shown to people you are not following. Therefore, you probably will want to make most of your updates public so that everyone can see you are active on your profile and pages.

Local businesses also should consider adding some locally relevant content to their updates. This can help attract even more local followers to your Google+ local business page.

Google+ is similar to Twitter in that you can follow anyone, they will be notified when you follow them, and they will have the option to follow you back. If they do not follow you back, you may not get to see or interact with any of their updates beyond the ones they make public. Here are some tips for building a following for your personal profiles and pages. Just use the dropdown menu at the top right of your Google+ screen to select the profile or page you want to use throughout Google+.

Add a Google+ badge to your website so people can follow you immediately.Use the Google+ find people page to find connections from Gmail, past workplaces, past schools, and other services (for personal profiles only).Use the Google+ search box to find people and pages with similar interests, follow them, and interact with their public updates.Join (or create) and participate in Google+ communities (personal profiles and pages).Occasionally share the link to your Google+ presence on other social networks to encourage others to follow you.Include a link to your Google+ presence in your email signature and newsletter.Leave reviews for local businesses to gain more local exposure. While you can leave reviews as both your personal profile and as your business page, reviews by your business page will not always be shown to the public or count toward the total number of reviews.

As you follow others on Google+, be sure to organize them in relevant circles, which are like friends’ lists on Facebook. You can target updates to people in specific circles on both your profile and your page. You can narrow the view of your newsfeed to specific circles. The better organized your circles are, the better your Google+ experience will be.

Participating in Google+ communities can be a terrific way to gain exposure for yourself and your business. The great thing is that unlike Facebook pages or LinkedIn company pages, you can use your Google+ page just like you would your personal profile to create, join, and engage in communities.

To join and participate in a Google+ community, simply select the profile or page you want to use, then search for Google+ communities on a specific topic.

Depending on the settings, you will be approved right away or will have to be approved by the owner or moderator. Once you’re a member, you can post status updates in the groups just like you would on your profile or page.

Remember that Google+ has a great spam moderation system in place. This means that if your status update has a link, it may get put into a queue to be moderated. If the owner or moderator of the community considers your update to be spam, they have the option to remove your update and ban you from the community!

If you find a hole in the market, you can create a community using your personal profile or page. To create a community, click the blue Create Community button on the communities page. Then follow the guide to set up the perfect community to attract the people you want to connect with on Google+. As a public community owner or moderator, know that you will have to regularly go through and moderate the spam so you can approve the legitimate posts by members and remove the rest.

One of the most unique features available to Google+ users is Google+ hangouts. These are live video chats that you can create with up to 10 participants. You can hold private Google+ hangouts as online meetings, or you can stream live Google+ hangouts for an unlimited number of viewers to watch on YouTube.

To start a hangout, visit the Google+ Hangouts on Air page. If you’re not ready to create your own just yet, you can see if there are any hangouts on air that you can join with your followers or watch live to see how they go.

Some great ideas for hangouts include forming panels of people to have discussions on topics related to your industry, recording one-on-one interviews, running a webinar using Google+ hangout’s screensharing feature, or hosting a Q&A with your audience. The possibilities are endless. Best of all, you can record all of your hangouts and use them as part of your video marketing strategy.

YouTube now allows you to use your Google+ profile to change the display name of your YouTube channel from your username to your real name. You can see the difference in the examples below.

If you want your YouTube channel to match the name on your Google+ personal profile, then go to your YouTube channel’s settings page and click on Link channel with Google+.

What if you don’t want to change your YouTube channel display to your name? Then check out these instructions to try linking your Google+ page to your YouTube channel. This will help you link your YouTube channel to your brand vs. your personal profile.

The following are different ways you can integrate Google+ with your website.

Google +1 Button – Similar to the Facebook Like button, the Google +1 button allows visitors to your website to +1 a page. You can use it to get people to +1 your homepage or +1 individual product and content pages.

Google+ Direct Connect – This piece of code allows you to connect your website to your Google+ page. When people search for your brand, they will see your website along with your Google+ page at the top of search results.

Google+ Comments – This is similar to Facebook comments, but it’s on the Google+ platform. The option to use Google+ comments is available directly for people using the Blogger platform. WordPress users can install the Google+ Comments plugin to add this functionality to their blogs.

Unlike Twitter and Facebook where you have a lot of management options with third party tools, Google+ has been very particular about which companies they work with. Fortunately, they keep a current list of supported third party management tools. So far, they all allow you to manage only your Google+ pages. These tools include well-known platforms like Dlvr.it, HootSuite, Sendible, and Sprout Social.

Like any online marketing strategy, you will want to look at your analytics to make sure Google+ is both driving traffic and leading to conversions. Google Analytics Social Reports will help you track direct conversions; that is, traffic that comes to your website from Google+ and, within the same visit, converts. KISSmetrics can help you track a visitor from Google+ who converts on your website, regardless of whether they convert on their first visit or later.

You also can use analytics services like SumAll and Social Report to connect to Google+ along with other analytics programs and social networks to see your marketing data across multiple platforms in one place.

Congratulations if you made it through this guide! If you apply everything you’ve learned, then very soon you should have a great Google+ profile and be well on your way to building authorship authority and a strong local presence for your business (if applicable), engaging with your audience, managing your account with terrific tools, and seeing the results of your Google+ activity. What else would you like to know about Google+ marketing? Please ask your questions in the comments and share your own great Google+ tips, tools, and resources.

About the Author: Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, professional blogger, and social media enthusiast. Her blog Kikolani focuses on blog marketing for personal, professional, and business bloggers. You can follow her on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.

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Are You Losing Business With The Wrong Value Proposition?

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Struggling to decide what you should write on your home page?

Striving to whittle a headline? And bullet points?

Composing an online value proposition probably is the hardest part of creating website copy.

Your online value proposition explains what you offer to your customers – usually in a headline, subheading, and a few bullet points or introductory sentences.

The wrong value proposition may chase away potential customers; and when they click back instead of reading on, you’ve probably lost them forever.

How can you ensure your value proposition wins you customers rather than turning them off?

Let’s have a look.

Web visitors don’t look at your home page the same way you do.

They barely glance at your home page before making a snap decision as to whether they’re in the right place or not.

We’re thinking “great literature” (or at least “product brochure”), while the user’s reality is much closer to “billboard going by at 60 miles an hour.” ~ Steve Krug

When web visitors arrive on your website for the first time, they see your value proposition:

Your headline and possibly a subheadingA few bullet points or introductory sentencesAn image

Your value proposition is a conversation starter. It should entice a scanner to start reading your copy.

Your value proposition must give people a strong sense that you may offer what they need. You should assume that potential customers will not make an effort to understand what you’re about, so you need to be quick at getting your most important points across.

A value proposition is compelling when it encourages your target audience to read further to learn more about you. Your value proposition needs to be:

Credible: You boost your credibility by being specific and by avoiding gobbledygook and superlatives. For example, 99designs mentions a precise number of designers in their subheading: Let our community of 233,581 designers create dozens of designs for you.Clear: Web visitors may ignore you if they don’t “get” your headline quickly enough. Create a simple and clear statement. Skip word play. Cut puns. Your visitors are in a hurry and cleverness may slow them down. TimeTrade’s headline simply states Online Appointment Scheduling for Business.Concise: Conciseness is not as important as credibility and clarity. Keep your value proposition as short as possible, but not so short that you lose clarity.

There’s no rule for how short your headline or bullet points should be. Focus on simplicity and don’t try to be comprehensive. Your value proposition isn’t a magic pick-up line. Your only goal is to start a conversation with a potential buyer.

Your value proposition always starts with a headline. Your web visitors see your headline first, probably even before they look at your image.

Your headline can be combined with a subheading, a few introductory sentences, and/or a series of bullet points.

Let’s look at examples of a few common formats:

Option 1: Highlight the key benefit of working with you

To use this option for your value proposition, simply state what your product does for your customer. How do you make your customers feel happier, healthier, or more productive? How do you help them save time or money?

An example: Evernote’s headline doesn’t refer to note taking and archiving software. Instead, it highlights the key benefit of using its software: Remember everything.

Option 2: Tell readers which problem you help them avoid

Research has suggested that people are risk-averse. Rephrasing your headline to highlight what people will lose if they don’t buy can increase conversion of web visitors into customers.

To use this template, consider: What will web visitors miss out on if they don’t buy from you? Or, what problem do you take away for them?

Intuit, unlike its competitors Square (Start accepting credit cards today) and PayPal (Get paid anywhere), highlights the potential loss (Never miss a sale) before stating the benefit in their subheading (Accept credit cards anywhere).

Option 3: Simply state what you do

Traditional marketing usually has a preference for focusing on a benefit in the headline. However, online – where people are in a hurry – you can successfully attract web visitors simply by stating what you do.

The home page for Premise states what Premise software does: Point-and-Click Membership Sites and Landing Page. The subheading explains that Premise can be used for any WordPress Site. Three short introductions explain that Premise allows you to (a) create different types of landing pages, (b) build membership sites, and (c) perform split tests.

Option 4: Target a specific group of customers

You also can quickly assure web visitors that they’re in the right place by mentioning your target audience in your headline. This can be an extension of option 3 as you state what you do and for whom.

QuickBooks, for instance, states in its headline that it provides accounting software for small businesses before explaining in bullet points what the software can do for you.

Step 1. Describe your ideal reader

One of the biggest mistakes web writers make is trying to write for too many people. It makes sales messages wishy-washy, watery, and ineffective. By trying to talk to too many people, we end up having a conversation with nobody at all.

The problem with writing for a target audience is that it’s a faceless crowd. Writing to a group of people makes you sound as if you’re lecturing.

People don’t like to be addressed as a crowd. They prefer to read something that addresses them personally, directly.

Describing and visualizing your one ideal reader makes your value proposition stronger, more personal, and more enticing. It doesn’t mean you target just one person. It means that whoever closely matches your ideal reader feels that your value proposition is exactly right for him or her.

Create a one-page bio of your ideal reader. Include a few simple demographics plus favorite books, movies, or websites. Write down what your ideal reader dreams about achieving and what keeps him or her up at night.

Step 2. Create a list of benefits and problems

Are you excited about the recent improvements you’ve made to your product? Or about the new app you’re launching?

The hard truth is that nobody is interested in your app, your company, or your new features. People are interested in themselves. To write your value proposition, you need to consider your ideal reader’s self-interest, such as saving time, reducing costs, making more money, or becoming happier.

Compile a list of features and specifications, and translate them into benefits for your reader. Next, for each feature, consider whether there’s a problem or hassle the reader can avoid. A simple example:

Feature: scheduling of social media updatesBenefit: more social interactionHassle your reader avoids: no need to interrupt work for social media updates

Step 3. Write your headline and bullet points

Now that you have your list of features, problems, and benefits, imagine your ideal reader, and decide:

What is the biggest problem you overcome for her?What is the most important benefit she draws from working with you?

Write a dozen headline options based on the four templates outlined above. Then, pick your favorite four or five. Combine them with three to five bullet points. Finally, decide on your favorite value proposition(s). Of course, the best way to decide on your favorite value proposition is to test them!

The “secret” to writing a seductive value proposition is to know your ideal reader well.

Know exactly what interests him. Understand his worries and his fears.

See when he’s nodding his head. Hear him mumbling his approval. Predict the questions he wants to ask. Understand his objections to buying from you.

When you know your ideal customer as well as an intimate friend, your value proposition becomes persuasive and your sales copy becomes enticing. And that’s how you sell more.

About the Author: Henneke Duistermaat is a marketer and copywriter. Her new book How to Write Seductive Web Copy, An Easy Guide to Picking Up More Customers is out today. This guide helps small business owners write more persuasive web copy. The book is available exclusively from Amazon and you can download it for free until 1 July 2013.

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App Store Optimization – A Crucial Piece of the Mobile App Marketing Puzzle

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With over 2 million mobile apps in the major app stores, getting your app discovered is one of the biggest issues facing mobile app publishers today. If you’re in the mobile app space, it’s important to understand the various methods for marketing your app. We’d like to share with you one very important technique that continues to be overlooked by most – app store optimization (or ASO for short).

More apps are discovered through search than any other method

ASO is the process of optimizing mobile apps to rank higher in an app store’s search results. The higher your app ranks in an app store’s search results, the more visible it is to potential customers. That increased visibility tends to translate into more traffic to your app’s page in the app store.

The goal of ASO is to drive more traffic to your app’s page in the app store, so searchers can take a specific action: downloading your app.

Also, the ASO process requires a crucial understanding of your target customer base, including the keywords your potential customers are using to find apps similar to yours. When you learn more about which keywords are being used, you will have a better understanding of the language of your potential customers – a crucial piece of any marketing plan – and you can home in on your keyword choices.

According to Forrester, 63% of apps are discovered through app store searches. This makes search, in the app store, the most used method for discovering and downloading new apps. Recently, at Google I/O, Ankit Jain reported that “For the average app, search actually makes up the vast majority of installs.” Simply put, this means that:

If you’re not using ASO to increase your app’s search ranking, you’re missing out on the largest discovery channel available to your app.

With hundreds of thousands of apps in each app store vying to rank above one another, the amazing reality is that the majority of publishers are not investing in app store optimization. So here’s our gift to you: ASO is your secret weapon. Spend time every week improving your ASO, and you will meaningfully impact your app’s ranking and overall success.

Let’s start by breaking down the various components that can affect your ASO:

Title – The keyword placed in the title should be the one with the heaviest search traffic. Spend time researching which keyword that is, because changing your title often to include different keywords can be detrimental. As your app begins to rank higher and gain more reviews, news of your app will begin to spread by word of mouth. Changing the title can make it difficult for word to spread about your app.Keywords – To improve your search rankings, you need to know which keywords are relevant and used most often by your target audience. It is helpful to monitor competitors in order to realize how you compare week to week.

In addition to being the most important factors for ASO, the fact that the title and keywords can be modified easily means that you can regularly optimize them.

Total # of Downloads – Your number of downloads are extremely important to ASO, but you don’t have complete control over them.Ratings and Reviews – Also important and difficult to control. However, there are ways to incentivize happy users to rate and review.

With a sampling of keywords, they looked at the top 25 ranking positions and calculated what percentage of apps had the keyword in the title vs. those that did not. This provided a total aggregate score for the apps with the keyword in the title and the apps without the keyword in the title.

Based on this test, apps with keywords in the title ranked on average 10.3% higher than those without a keyword in the title.

So, is a keyword worth placing in your title? Yes.

This test was done by taking a random sampling of keywords and categorizing them by difficulty as related to result count. An “easy” keyword results in fewer than 25 apps trying to rank for that keyword. “Medium” keywords are those that are included in 25-100 apps, and “competitive” keywords are those in 100+ apps.

Based on this test, there is a clear trend showing that apps with higher ratings also rank higher for keyword difficulty.

Do apps with better ratings rank higher? Yes.

(But don’t beg for them; earn better ratings for your apps the right way.)

Only the developer and the app store know the number of times an app has been downloaded. Since we do not know the number of downloads, we took the number of ratings instead. The belief here is that, averaged out, the download-to-rating conversion rate is more or less similar across most apps. Therefore, it is fairly accurate to look at the number of ratings as a proxy for the number of downloads.

Again, the results of the test are clear. The trend, regardless of difficulty, showed that apps with more downloads also rank higher.

Do apps with more downloads rank higher? Yes.

It is important to notice the difference between “competitive” keywords and the other difficulties. If your keyword falls into the “competitive” category, you need a significantly larger number of downloads to rank higher.

ASO is a process that needs to be monitored and constantly tweaked over a period of time. Your optimal set of keywords rarely is the set that you first opt to put in the app store.

Today, the most common approach to ASO is no approach at all. Developers often pick keywords and write descriptions at the last second during an app’s submission process. In most cases, little or no research on keyword searches occurs before the app submission, leaving most apps hidden and the likelihood of discovery quite low.

We had a moment to sit down with Ian Sefferman, the CEO of MobileDevHQ, and he told us how investing time in ASO has affected their customers. He said:

“ASO is having dramatic effects on our client apps. For those who put the time in to understand, iterate, and test, we’ve seen many apps increase their downloads by a factor of 2x-10x, and an increase of revenue by a similar, or bigger, rate due to the increase in engagement of users earned by ASO. ASO is not a simple process, and you might not see the impact overnight, but if you’re willing to invest in it, the outcome can be incredibly worthwhile.”

App developers need to consistently track their own rankings and the rankings of their competitors over time. More apps are published every day, and the constant stream of new ratings, reviews, and downloads can affect your search rankings. Keep testing and experimenting with your keywords in order to consistently rank well and drive more traffic to your download page.

To recap, let’s look at the ASO factors and the methods you can use to improve in those areas.

Title – Having a keyword in your title can improve your app’s search ranking for that keyword by an average of 10.3%. As a best practice, you want to place your most relevant keyword, regardless of the keyword difficulty, in the title.Keywords – Constantly tracking your own keywords and the movement of your competitors takes time and effort. In order to have the time to focus on your app and not solely on ASO, use a service such as MobileDevHQ to track your search rankings, analyze your keywords, choose better keywords, and get updates about your competitors.

To reap the rewards of ASO, you need to invest time and effort. If you do, you’ll have a consistent channel driving traffic to your app. Being found is one of the most difficult challenges for mobile apps, but it is a problem you can actively solve.

About the Author: Robi Ganguly is the CEO of Apptentive, the easiest way for every company with an app to talk with their customers. When he’s not at the office, you can find him running, reading, cooking, spending time with friends, or hanging out on Twitter (@rganguly).

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Make Your A/B Testing Create Results – Not Statistics

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12 months. That’s how long many conversion rate optimization (CRO) professionals say you need to wait to see results and/or make the investment back.

Alternatively, you can do your own testing. And potentially waste even more time waiting for good results.

People are starting to believe conversion optimization doesn’t work at all. The promising case studies they’ve seen can be misleading, and many of the tests people do themselves never reach statistical significance.

But conversion optimization can be extremely profitable. Many-fold increases are possible with systematic and well-conducted conversion optimization.

Most importantly, you need to test the right things in the right order.

“Change one thing at a time so you know exactly how each change affects conversion rates.”

Maybe you’ve heard that. It kind of makes sense, too.

But it’s hopelessly slow and ineffective. Yet, many “experts” say it’s the right way to do A/B testing.

Sure, if you’re writing a doctoral dissertation, you might want to stick to single changes to get scientifically accurate data. And to be fair, changing just one thing on a page is sometimes the right choice.

But assuming you’re after concrete business results—sales, prospects, leads, contacts—you should usually stay away from the “test one thing at a time” idea.

Instead, test the message.

Some back-story might be necessary here.

The landing pages with the highest conversion rates work so well because they focus on the right ideas; they make visitors understand why they should take action (convert).

To do that, you need to know what are those reasons that make your target customers convert. In other words, you need to know your value proposition.

Your value proposition is the collection of the best believable reasons your target customers have for taking the action you’re asking for.

The key thing when talking about A/B testing is collection of reasons; you should start by testing which of the ideas (in the collection) need to be the most prominent to get the highest conversion rate.

Here’s an example of a (fictional) dog shelter’s home page:

The message of the page—the idea of the value proposition the page focuses on—is it’s unfair that some dogs don’t have a chance to be happy and have to live in cages, and you can help at least one of them.

Everything on the page focuses on that message.

The tagline, “Giving dogs another chance at life”The main headline, “When can we get out?”The button text/call to action, “Give a dog another chance to be happy”The picture of caged cute puppies

If you test one thing at a time, the test version could look like this:

The variation (the headline) is too small to make a significant difference because it doesn’t change the message of the page; visitors don’t perceive anything to be different.

Instead of making tiny changes like that, your test should focus on the message of the page. Here’s what the test could look like:

This page would most likely create a significant difference in conversion rate because the message is so different: you can get a new family member and best friend.

You should test all the different messages (reasons) in your value proposition to find the one that works best.

After testing miniscule details, unorganized testing is the second most common reason for limited or non-existent results from A/B testing.

If you want to see great results, you can’t do conversion optimization haphazardly. Instead, you need to base decisions on what you’ve already learned.

For example, let’s say the original home page (in the previous example) had a higher conversion rate than any variation you came up with. What next?

When you start testing a page, you’re looking for the best message. When you know the best message, try exaggerating it.

In this case, maybe the page below would have an even higher conversion rate because it’s going one step further in getting the original message across (it’s unfair that some dogs don’t have a real chance at life).

I’d expect this page to create a lower conversion rate than the original because it’s so negative. But you never know before testing it.

Once you’re happy with the message and its intensity, it’s time to move into A/B testing “big details.”

Until this point, you’ve made each page focus on just one message from your value proposition. That’s how you find out what should be the primary message.

Now you can test mixing in a secondary message. They’re ideas in your value proposition, but they’re not quite as persuasive as the primary message (as proven by the previous testing).

Continuing with our dog shelter example, let’s assume that the original page won all variations, and the variation focusing on family was the second best. Below is a page you could test next.

Most of the page is identical to the original, but one key element—the headline—is focused on the secondary message.

You should also try switching the button text (or other page elements) rather than the headline to find the ideal place(s) for the secondary message.

You can also try squeezing in a third message, and maybe a fourth. How many messages you should have on a page depends on the page’s purpose and length and the messages; you can’t communicate clearly several complicated ideas in just a few words.

But usually on short landing pages, the first two messages will make up the majority of the conversion rate, and additional messages just create confusion.

Finally, you can move on to testing details, which is what many people start with.

But even though you’re changing just details, A/B testing can still create significant results.

The key is visitors’ perception. For example, changing the wording of a headline as in a previous example won’t make a difference in your conversion rates unless it changes what visitors perceive.

So, you need to look at each page systematically and find the weaknesses. And then test different solutions for those issues.

For example, the home page for the dog shelter might need to address some common objections. Specifically, people might be worried that shelter dogs aren’t healthy.

So, create a test that tests if that assumption is right:

Let’s say this version wins the A/B test. Similarly to testing the main message, when you know the direction that seems to work better, you can try amplifying the idea.

The version below would test if people need even more reassurance about the dogs’ health. It also addresses the worry about how difficult it is to get a shelter dog.

As you long as you can find potential issues, you can create more tests and keep increasing the conversion rates.

Sure it’s nice to know how exactly each element on a page affects conversion rates in relation to all other elements. But you’ll never really know that unless you create a massive multivariable test with hundreds of variations, which is hardly ever viable.

Rather, focus on getting real business results with A/B testing and conversion optimization.

Don’t shy away from them because you haven’t seen significant results yet. And if you’ve hired someone to do the testing for you, don’t let them just test minor details hoping for a freaky stroke of luck.

Start by getting clear about your value proposition—if you don’t know what are the best reasons people have for doing what you’re asking them to do, you don’t know what you should test and can’t hope to see great results.

Then test which aspects of it pack the biggest punch before moving to details.

You’ll see significant results with A/B testing in a greatly shorter time than before.

About the Author: Right now, Peter Sandeen is sailing with his wife and dogs while the weather is still warm (he lives in Finland). But you can download his 5-step system for finding the core of your value proposition quickly and landing page checklist to improve your conversion rates.

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