Test and Optimize to Soar Conversion Rates w/ Chris Dayley | #066

It feels like you’ve tried everything under the marketing moon to get your website and landing page visitors to take action.  So why aren’t they? Is it the color of your call to action button? Your headline? The video you swore was shot on a good hair day? Maybe. Could be all or none of the above. So, to find true conversion rate success, you must test.

 

If you've got a website or landing page and wonder why it's not converting like it should, you need conversion rate optimization. In this episode, ‘Convert-Like-Crazy’ Chris Dayley from Disruptive Advertising walks you through a 6-step process you can use to not only skyrocket your conversions but make you a better marketer.

 

Marketing acronyms refresher course:

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Top of Funnel (TOFu)

Call to action (CTA)

 

Episode Discussions: Ideas for top of the funnel offers The mistake to avoid when building out your customer avatar How to use and test value propositions on your landing page Optimizing the most important part of a call to action The 3 second landing page principle How to approach conversation rate optimization strategically Six landing page elements to test for max optimization Testing content with the Existence Test What page elements to consider altering for A/B testing The main factor visitors use to determine whether or not they’ll stay A 5 second test that helps reveal whether or not your CTA is effective The results of a Social Media Examiner button test and what phrase converted best Why you could get burned copying your competitors

 

2:15

Chris’s story Got start in digital marketing as an in-house SEO Couldn't figure out why organic traffic wasn't converting but discovered conversion rate optimization (CRO) and successfully increased conversion rates Fascinated with the psychology of testing to understand customer desires Started own CRO agency 3 1/2 years ago and merged with Disruptive Advertising 1 1/2 years ago

 

4:36

“The biggest mistake companies make is running random tests without a business question associated with it. “

6:08

Being strategic about funnels: Come up with a relevant TOFu offer - low barrier to entry. What might interest someone who’s not ready to become a customer yet? (Most likely seeking education during the Awareness stage)

8:34

Basic funnel overview Build out a customer profile - identify what type of education interests them Create a landing page that facilitates that kind of content Start testing on your landing page and ad

 

9:10

Dialing in your customer avatar One of the dangers of building out a customer avatar is thinking you know everything about your target market.

"At that point, you still don't know what is going to convert that person. You might know what they're looking for but you don't know exactly how to address that pain point."

Start testing to figure out how to really address their pain points and build value for them. Make sure to approach any kind of advertising with a testing strategy in mind so you give yourself room to continue learning about them.

 

11:31

Approaching CRO strategically

Influencing factors: target audience, industry, and offer

For lead generation, ad copy is more important than images First focus on messaging and CTA Start with your best guess as to what will influence the audience the most and work your way through.

 

13:09

Six landing page elements to test and optimize:

‘Conversion motivators:’

Value proposition - what you're offering and how you communicate that CTA - What you want people to do Content

 

‘Resistance factors:’

Diversions - anything that distracts attention from your CTA or value prop Anxiety - when someone feels like the effort to convert is greater than the value they're getting. Responsiveness of your page

 

17:37

Using value propositions

What are you offering and why should your audience care?

Website/landing page visitors decide within 3 seconds whether or not they're interested in learning more about the offer. The goal of the value prop is to give visitors enough motivation to take action.

 

What value proposition should you have at the top of your page?

Should they be pain points? Features? A combination of both? Test 2 or 3 well-communicated value props that will pull them in.

 

20:28

Testing headlines

The headline is usually the first thing people read on the page and determines whether or not they'll stay. Try:

A description of what the page is (helps audience draw context) A value prop The CTA

 

21:27

Optimizing your CTA

The 2 things visitors should understand within the first 3 seconds:

What you're offering How to get it Must be immediately identifiable, transparent, clear and straightforward. Use color contrast to make it stand out Be descriptive in telling people exactly what to do The button should tell them what to expect Test different phrases in the CTA and tailor it to your market

 

24:16

Social Media Examiner button test and what converted best.

 

25:34

Why you shouldn’t copy your competitors: They might not have tested it themselves. Their audience might be different than yours. They might've gotten it from other competitors.

 

26:16

"There's a time to be creative in your marketing and a time to make things flashy, and nice and pretty. And then there's a time to just be crystal clear."

26:38

Testing content with Chris’s ‘Existence Test’

What content is beneficial where?

Create variations or alternate versions for sections of content (text, video, images, etc.) Ideas: Remove About Us section or try a different number of value propositions

"If you remove something and conversion rates go down, you now know for sure that section of content is important."

 

Mentioned in this episode:

A/B testing starter guide - Get the tools and strategies to run effective A/B tests

Leadpages  - Adam uses Leadpages for the majority of his campaigns as well as his clients!

 

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