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On September 6, the Conversion Summit 2012 took place in Frankfurt. Our Online Dialogue colleague and strategist Michiel Jansen was there and looks back on the ten most memorable tips.
But first: the links and slides from Bart and Ton's presentation are found here. If you want to sign up for the beta invites for the wheel of persuasion, go to wheelofpersuasion.com.
With 12 talks, this year's Conversion Summit once again offered a wealth of information, tips and exchanges of ideas with peers. In making these ten tips, I deliberately did not look in my notes. With that, this blog also gives you an idea of which insights ‘hold up’ after 10 hours of congress. Everything I do not remember by heart, you will find here including the names and many of the presentations.
One of the most fun slides of the day is the slide showing all the ‘winning conversion buttons’ from Chris Goward's tests. A patchwork of green, orange and red buttons show that ‘best practice stories’ like comments ‘green converts better than orange and red’ are nonsense. You can never generalize test. In one test, even a rotating pink flash button (poor puppy) was the winner. The target audience was girls 8-12. So best practice does not exist. You never know how your target audience will respond to your product. And it also matters where they come from and what they come to do. Context, in other words. Ton Wesseling and Bart Schutz even give an example of a test where on the same page green did better than orange one day and worse the next. Green did better in the weekend because of the many oriented visitors on the site and orange did better on Monday; just a quick exit, so a button with a signal color.
A few speakers said that A/B tests prove that ‘sex sells’ is a myth. Bart Schutz indicated that there are tests that prove that ‘on average’ is indeed not significant. Pictures that stimulate testosterone production make men restless, they want to make quick decisions and are willing to take more risks. Ideal if your visitor is a man and in the purchase phase. But if your visitor is a woman or is orienting, so it doesn't work. So on average, ‘sex sells’ is a myth.
Many presentations have slides showing A/B tests with high increases in conversion ratios. Chris Goward, Bart Schutz and Avinash Kaushik zoom in the most on ‘the why’ of conversion. If you only observe that conversion is higher you are leaving something out. Ask yourself why your conversion is higher. That will help you build your differentiation and your customer view.
Increasing conversion is nice, fantastic even. It drives additional sales and most colleagues will appreciate that. But A/B testing is a complicated process ‘on the back end. How do you get people involved in the substance of the process? Guessing which page variation scores best does well in most corporate canteens. Seems simple but creates engagement and knowledge of the importance of the process and that is of not inconsiderable value to put conversion on the map internally.
By showing some ‘high prices’ directly on the site, the customer ‘gets used to’ high amounts and the ‘competitive offer’ they clicked on in the newsletter ebbs away a bit again. The more expensive products then seem more affordable again. It also works like this when giving three options (a medium, large or extra large subscription): show the most expensive one first, and they more often choose the medium variant and you convert more.
Many people know the thunder speech which Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glenn Cross fires off to a team of slumped salesmen: “ABCeeee, Always, Be, Closing.” John Eckman zooms in on a sales process and offers the tip ‘always ask yourself what else you can sell. Too many companies think, ’so, that's in the pocket‘ and then stop. They forget to ask for something extra (’Anything else?“ the baker would ask), a ”share button‘ on the thank you page, a ’other people bought too,‘ ’sign up for the newsletter‘ or ’matching accessories.
A page that improves conversion among the ‘buyers’ group is nice. If you manage to turn this 1.4% into 2%, for example, that can generate a lot of additional revenue. But ask yourself what that page does to the other 98% of your visitors. Maybe that one will find the page too garish and drop out. Avinash Kaushik fleshes out ‘what to do for the other 98%’ . He shows how to measure other important goals such as ‘newsletter exit’ or ‘offline store lookup in store locator’ and how to incorporate them into your strategy. He calls these goals micro-conversions and so they are also important and can be quantified.
It is notable that many speakers (Avinash Kaushik, Chris Goward and John Ekam) show examples of how NOT to do it: hellishly long forms, conversion buttons below the fold, unplayable phone numbers and hopelessly outdated splash pages (Avinash: Every time a website uses flash a puppy dies!). They all come along. In their presentation, they lend this additional authority and it is their prelude to saying how they think it should be done. How to do it then? Test! Be creative in your testing and also don't be afraid to do a test that doesn't yield anything. But do it fast, then you will have learned and you can get it right faster. ‘Fail fast, Fail forward’ Avinash sums it up.
Philipp Spethmann speaks on behalf of a large German site that ships fresh flowers. He warns that you have to record your tests well, including the losers. Always in the same format, even if the team complains that ‘this test’ really doesn't fit that format. If you do a lot of tests, after three months you really will have forgotten whatever good ideas you got from that one test. Chris Goward claims to have tested 88% significantly improving A/B hypotheses. What he learns the most from? Occasionally zooming in on the 12% that ‘didn't’ do well and seeing what's going on there. Often that leads back to a winning hypothesis.
The central question at Bart Schutz and Ton Wesseling is ‘Why is online selling not as personal and relevant as the dialogue at the bakery you've been coming to for years? They have a large number of slides but the room relaxes at the announcement that they are ’available for download. The casual remark that there are also ’secret slides’ shows the effect of persuasion tactics on persuasion professionals. Ton Wesseling shares a list of tools you should know as a ‘conversioniasta. Bart Schutz reveals some new cases from his ’wheel of persuasion‘. This overview shows all the ‘persuasion principles’ you can use when designing your pages, content, route and product offerings. Categorized and supplemented with practical examples. A kind of bonbon box full of inspiration.
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