I read an article recently about creating forward sales momentum with web site visitors. I love the concept.

The idea is to create site copy that leads users down a prescribed path toward a purchase. I was nodding my head in affirmation until the author stated that the path to a purchase is linear.

This is where the marketer who lives in the trenches of real life tells the marketing academic that he’s just wrong.

Momentum is great, and we should all strive to create forward momentum through our site navigation and copy.  The idea that users will follow a linear path to a purchase is just wishful thinking – nothing more.

This is an unfortunate reality that folks are only now starting to recognize.  In real life (think of yourself as an example), you enter a site. Maybe you find something that interests you.  You think it might be worth purchasing….

Then a random onslaught of questions and issues raid your mind. What if I don’t like it?  What is the return policy?  Who are these people?  How long have I been in business?  Who else has used this product successfully?  What do they have to say about it? Is it really better than this other thing? Do they offer live customer support? Is it going to break the first time I use it?

You know what I’m talking about. We’ve all experienced it. You think you may want to buy something, but you need to resolve some things first. Unfortunately for us marketers, while we CAN predict many of these issues, the order in which our users address them is not completely predictable and NOT linear.

Anyone who has spent any time with a web analytics tool watching the progression of users through a site knows this to be true. For that matter, anyone who has ever bought anything online knows it to be true. So what do we do?  How do we create forward momentum?

Here are a few thoughts.

1. There are two stages at which the user progression is generally linear: the first click or two on the way into the site and the last few clicks to consummate a purchase. Make sure these pathways are obvious, simple, streamlined, and don’t compromise trust.
2. Recognize that there is no “average” or “typical” customer.  When we attempt to speak to everyone at once, we persuade no one.
3. Develop profiles of the types of customers you serve.  The best work that I have ever seen in this regard is done by a brilliant company called Future Now. In their experience, there are typically 4-6 personas that a company must effectively address in order to maximize conversion rates online. What kinds of issues would each persona need to resolve in order to make a purchase?
4. Take this list of issues, and be sure that resolutions are well within reach on your site – and not just in your global navigation, but through text links in your copy.
5. Purchase a web analytics tool (I like Click Tracks) and watch how users progress through your site.  Which pages have the highest abandon rates? Why? Make educated guesses and refine these pages. Then watch some more. It’s fascinating.

A book could easily be written on this subject – and in fact it has.  For the best thinking available on this subject, get a copy of Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg.

I got a call recently from a friend whose company has developed a new consumer software application. He had been presented with an opportunity to buy banner ad exposures on a newspaper web site.  “The price,” he said, “seems pretty amazing.” (In a good way.)

The newspaper had offered him banner ads on their site at a price of $0.02 per exposure. So, he would pay 2 cents every time the banner was presented to a site user.  This seemed so cheap, he was suspicious. My reaction was the opposite.

This seems to be a common challenge faced by marketers – forecasting return on investment (ROI) BEFORE deploying marketing dollars. Yet I would argue that there are few if any cases in which ROI should not be the primary driver of marketing decisions.

Here is the very simple exercise that we undertook to determine that this apparent bargain from the newspaper was actually a BAD investment for his company.

His software product retails for $50.00.  With a software product (unlike tangible widgets), the cost is largely incurred by the company up front in development.  But nevertheless, when people order this particular software, they receive a package including a CD ROM that costs approximately $7.00 including shipping.

So, their gross profit on a sale is approximately $43.00 before any overhead expenses or recuperation of development costs are taken into account.

Now, lets suppose he takes the newspaper’s offer at $0.02 per exposure.  If things go AMAZINGLY well, 2% of people who see the banner will click through to his site. (In reality, this click through rate will likely be less than 1%.)

So, for every 100 exposures ($2.00 spent), he gets two click-throughs – for a cost of $1.00 per click.

Now let’s suppose that his site converts visitors into buyers at a rate of 2% (average to slightly above average for an e-commerce site). For every 100 visitors ($100.00 in banner ad exposures), he makes two sales – for a cost per sale of $50.00.

You see the problem.  Even with generous assumptions about click-through rates, his customer acquisition cost ($50.00 in this scenario) is higher than his gross margin ($43.00). Translation – $0.02 per banner exposure is a BAD deal for him in this case.

Were there a recurring revenue stream from the sale of this product (a subscription of some kind), maybe an argument could be made using a higher lifetime value for a customer, but in his case, the sale is a one-time event with no real potential for additional revenue.

The moral of this story – be sure you can realistically expect a positive ROI before you invest your marketing dollars.  The math is usually pretty simple.  The hard part for marketers is often simply gaining access to sufficient cost data to establish thresholds for acquisition costs (a topic for a future post….).

My brother in law’s family came up from Atlanta to visit last weekend.  We are both attempting to learn golf.

He pulled from his bag a coupon/voucher that I could redeem to receive one free golf club from a company called Upswing. Simply call the number on the card – cite the unique sequence number on my coupon, and a putter, driver, or sand wedge is mine for the mere cost of shipping.  How could I refuse?

Upswing is a new (three year old) golf club manufacturer based in Seattle, WA.

Give coupons out at charity events.

Head of production for Callaway.

10% redemption rate

25% conversion rate

Growing quickly

Laser logos on wedges.

50% off for charities (to raffle)

NO CELEB endorsements – saves them a fortune.

http://www.upswinggolf.com/

Surround yourself with smart people, and you can’t help but get a little smarter yourself.  I participated in a conference call between a couple of Web marketing experts – Shell Harris and Alyssa Duvall (President and VP of Strategy for Virginia SEO firm, Big Oak) and Howard Kaplan, one of the big wigs at Future Now (the thought leaders in online conversion).

It was a simple revelation, but one well worth sharing here. The problem that most of refer to simply as Web conversion, “I want to increase my site’s conversion rate,” is actually a symptom of two separate and distinct issues. What are those issues you ask???

Usability and persuasion. As you’ll see, this is actually a worthwhile distinction.

This post primarily addresses usability.  Consider the elements of conversion that relate to enabling site visitors to overcome hurdles in the process of taking action… finding a product, putting it into a shopping cart, checking out….

An equally important but very different matter to be considered when optimizing a site’s ability to convert visitors into customers (or people who take action) is that of persuasion.  I may understand perfectly well how to use your site, but I’m simply not moved to action by what I see.  Let’s view “persuasion” for the purpose of this discussion as a matter of addressing gaps… in understanding, believability, and selling momentum. I have and will continue to address persuasion in other posts.

Shop.org research indicates that shopping cart abandonment rates are as high as 75%. I would argue that this phenomenon is more an issue of usability than persuasion.  The top issues that irritate online customers continue to be problems with the checkout process and difficulty finding products on the site.

The root of this problem is often our natural tendency to design our sites as though WE are the users. In fact, our customers generally behave (and interact with our sites) in ways that are entirely dissimilar to our own behavior. What is intuitive to you after hours of hard work in fashioning your site’s purchase process may very well be confusing to your visitors.

So what are we to do?

In a perfect world, we would all conduct usability tests and actually observe users as they interact with our sites.  Web analytics tools offer a little bit of help, but you just can’t beat the experience of actually watching your users. So, if your budget is tight, use friends and family members.  Feed them well one evening and watch as they complete certain tasks on your site.  Where do they get stumped? Make a list, and eliminate these hurdles.

Here are 15 helpful tips:

1. In the checkout process, offer a progress indicator to show where the user is in the process and how much further they have to go.
2. Show a final receipt BEFORE the order is placed and allow users to change their order quickly and easily from there.
3. Keep your shipping and return policies in plain view (or easily accessible) throughout the checkout process.
4. Label your action buttons clearly.  Don’t say “submit” if what you mean is “place my order.”
5. NEVER require customers to register in order to checkout. If you must, offer registration as an option AFTER the order is placed.
6. Use clear and simple language.  The price of confusion is lost sales.
7. Use familiar standards in designing your checkout process. This is no place to get creative.
8. Be sure people can get ALL of the information they need without placing an item in the shopping cart.  Can your users find shipping costs and return policies without embarking on the checkout process?  If not, expect astronomical cart abandon rates as you are using the checkout process to answer pre-purchase decision questions.
9. Break the purchase process into manageable pieces that are not individually overwhelming.
10. Clearly present sub totals and totals so that customers are not surprised in the end by hidden costs.
11. Guarantee your site’s security.  People still have security concerns, so address them. And if you ask for atypical information in order to checkout, explain why you need it. Displaying security related logos (i.e. Verisign and Hacker Safe) has been shown to yield 5-10% improvements in conversion rates.
12. The display of products in your shopping cart should leave NO DOUBT that the customer is ordering what she actually wants.
13. Count the clicks between product selection and final checkout. If the number of clicks is greater than three, take a close look to be sure your process is as efficient as it can be.
14. Display your physical address and phone number – and even photos of your staff to remind your customers that they are dealing with real people who have a physical presence.
15. PROOF YOUR SITE for typos, broken links and other lazy errors.  These kill your credibility.

Put these tips into practice, and half of your conversion problems will be well on their way to resolution. Unfortunately, the other half of the problem is tougher to solve – persuading your visitors to take action in the first place.  More on this in future posts.

In case you haven’t noticed, e-commerce has gotten seriously competitive.

I’m managing a pay-per-click campaign right now where I’m bidding $7.15 per click for a 9^th place listing on Google Adwords. When you’re spending $7.15 for a click, you become HIGHLY conscious of what it takes to turn that click into a sale.

So, let me offer you five things that make an e-commerce site great – and turn a $7.15 click into a high-yield marketing investment.

#1 – Show me your stuff.

Broadband is quickly killing the load-time argument against displaying a lot of products within a given category on a single page.  So at least give people the option of seeing it all without having to advance through 20 pages each displaying 10 items.

#2 – Tell me EVERYTHING.

Your online customers can’t pick up your merchandise, try it on, touch it, taste it, or smell it, so you’ve got to compensate in other ways. Go overboard… WAY overboard on providing great information on what you’re selling.

Remember, folks get hung up on the details. Online conversion is about resolving the issues that keep visitors from buying, so your job is to be sure that your customers can find the answers to their questions and reach a sufficient level of confidence take action online.

Offer the following… in abundance:

Product details. Feed the nerds.  Give them the weight, dimensions, battery life, warranty details, return policy… whatever the fanatic comparison shopper might need to make a decision. And if “fit” or compatibility is a key factor in the purchase decision (as is the case with clothing, toner, cell phone chargers, and laptop cases to name a few) be sure to address those specifics.

Savings. Especially for sites that boast discount prices, if you’re saving me money, tell me how much.

Stock and delivery. Tell me you’ve got the product I’m falling in love with. And let me know how fast I can get my hands on it and what the shipping is going to cost me. There is a segment of online shopper whose purchase decisions hinge heavily on shipping specifics. Tell them what they need to know WITHOUT requiring them to get to the final stages of a purchase transaction.

What others have to say. Who doesn’t love to have access to some candid product reviews from real people who purchased before you?

#3 – Show me EVERYTHING.

I’m losing count of the number of times it has been demonstrated that a wide array of product images increases sales online. You can’t have too many pictures… from every angle… up close… from a distance… in use….

If size matters, offer perspective by showing the product in someone’s hand rather than hovering before a white background. If texture is important (clothing), zoom in for an ultra-close up of the fabric.

#4 – Speak with personality.

You can always tell when a retailer copied the manufacturer’s boring, sterile product description. Manufacturers make stuff.  You inspire people to buy it. Look to the manufacturer for the specs, and generally elsewhere for a memorable and inspirational description of the product and why I should own it.

#5 – If I can’t be in control, at least keep me informed.

Take a lesson from Amazon.  When you buy a book from them, they know you don’t get the gratification of walking off with it in your hand.  So they give you the next best thing – detailed information confirming what you ordered and when/how it shipped to you.  It’s hard (make that impossible) to go overboard in making sure your customers feel in control at all times following a purchase.

The truly great sites even allow you to spot an error in your order after the fact and correct it before the product arrives on your doorstep.

Put these five requirements into place, and watch your conversion rates climb.

I’m hung up right now on the issue of online conversion and why conversion rates are, in my estimation, generally so far beneath where they could be.

One reason we fail to convert visitors into buyers online is that we fail to speak to them in a way that coincides with their needs at the time.  Sometimes this is understandable.  We can’t read the minds of our visitors, can we?  In fact… sometimes, maybe we can.

For many of us, the bulk of our site traffic comes from search engines. People turn a question of some kind into a search term/phase; enter it into a search engine; and follow what they perceive to be the most relevant resulting link.

Let’s consider that first action that people take when searching.  They translate a question of some kind into a search phrase or term. Let’s think about two people – each with an interest in buying a digital camera.

The first person searches: “digital camera”

The second person searches: “Nikon D80 10.2 Megapixel”

What can we infer about what these two people need to see in order for them to achieve sufficient resolution to take action on their interest?

We could assume that the first person is earlier in the buying cycle than the second.  She is searching in general terms and therefore may not be firmly resolved on what exactly she needs.  The appropriate landing page for her might help her to narrow her choices. We could invite her to shop by price, resolution, or brand. We could show her the best sellers. We could offer her advice on how to choose a digital camera.

To push for an immediate sale when a person uses highly generalized search terms is rarely an effective approach.

Now let’s look at our second person.  He has entered a highly specific search – suggesting that he is deeper into the buying process.  What might he need to see when he gets to your site?

First, he had better see that particular camera prominently featured on the page. He will probably be interested in pricing, the availability of that particular camera, technical specifications, reviews of that camera, return policies, accessories for that camera, and an escape route to other options in case he concludes that this is not the camera for him.

You see the difference.  Through their search language, each prospect gave us a clue about where they were in the buying process.  From there, we can make educated guesses about what they need to see when they arrive at our site.  It is our job to give it to them through our landing page design and SEO planning. Is this a perfect science?  No.  But if we do this well, we will sell more online.