You’re likely familiar with the finding that over half of communication is non-verbal.
So perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that your copy is “saying” a lot more than you think it is. That’s because tone of voice is at play, influencing how visitors read your copy and relate to your company.
Fortunately, tone of voice can be deliberately created, managed and optimized.
Every company wants their visitors (i.e. potential customers) and customers to leave their site with a lasting positive memory. Of course, that’s much easier said than done when you consider technical issues, copy confusion, price barriers and the like.
If you want to bring a smile to people’s faces when they hear your company name, you’ll need to understand how memory works and how you can design for it.
Right now there is almost certainly an enterprise exec in a boardroom somewhere saying, “We need it to go viral.” Kittens and memes and babies kissing puppies… viral.
When most people think about going viral, they think about raising a lot of awareness for their product or company. But what about money in the bank, what does going viral mean for your bottom line?
So, the statement becomes: We need to go viral in a way that makes us actual money. Not surprisingly, that usually looks a little different than kittens and memes and babies kissing puppies.
A/B testing is common practice and it can be a powerful optimization strategy when it’s used properly. We’ve written on it extensively. Plus, the Internet is full of “How We Increased Conversions by 1,000% with 1 Simple Change” style articles.
Unfortunately, there are experimentation flaws associated with A/B testing as well. Understanding those flaws and their implications is key to designing better, smarter A/B test variations.
As an optimizer, you might be thinking that user interviews fall outside your role. Or, perhaps, that they are a “nice to have” on the qualitative conversion research checklist. Worse, you might not be asking good survey questions because you’re rolling with an “I’ll just wing it” mindset.
User interviews are more complex and important than most optimizers realize.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, right?
That’s the mentality of comparison shoppers. If they look hard and long enough, they will find a better value. If they don’t look around, they’ll miss out on greener grasses.
Today, the term “comparison shopper” describes the majority of consumers, especially those online. If you’re running an eCommerce or SaaS company, you absolutely must be optimizing for comparison shoppers.
William A. Foster once said, “Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.”
Yet, we continue to see businesses pushing leads through doors, pushing customers through funnels… just hoping that they’ll create a high quality, engaged audience by accident.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. A high quality, engaged audience is anything but accidental. It requires that optimizers put in the effort to create user state models, dig into cohort analysis and correlative metrics, run experiments for different user states, etc.
It’s not the easy choice, but if you’re looking for long-term revenue growth, it’s the only choice.
Can you remember the last time your parents scolded you for swearing?
Throughout childhood, we’re conditioned to believe that swearing is inappropriate and crass. You could offend someone, it makes you seem uneducated, it’s unprofessional in the workplace… the list of reasons we’ve been told not to swear goes on and on.
But how bad is swearing, really? Is there a chance that it could be beneficial in business and optimization? As with most things people have told you that you absolutely should not do, there’s a chance you should be testing it.
In his famous novel, 1984, George Orwell wrote, “Big Brother is Watching You.”
When you’re browsing around online, someone is watching you, too. Actually, a lot of someones. Sites collect plenty of data about each and every visitor that passes through. “The more data, the better,” they say.
But you’re already well aware of that because all smart optimizers are watching their visitors (and customers) as closely as possible.
All of that data is now being used for website personalization in an effort to increase conversions. But, by their own admission and according to consumer opinion, it seems that companies are getting personalization all wrong.
Most people stick to one end of the testing spectrum, which is where iterative testing falls. Why? Likely because it’s the most talked about, the most publicized.
However, there is another end of the spectrum to explore, which is where innovative testing falls. Understanding one without the other is a disservice to yourself, your colleagues and your boss / clients.
A solid testing program includes the full spectrum.