I offered some thoughts on ways to boost holiday spending on your site in a recent newsletter, and was surprised at just how many people read the article. Seems as though as marketers, we're beginning to embrace testing and optimization, even during such an inconvenient time as the hectic holidays.
My point in the article was that as the holiday season draws near, we can't afford to give in to the fear that testing might somehow jeopardize the wonderfully increased numbers of the season.
In fact, giving in to fear and avoiding such a smash-hit
tactic as testing can be far more risky during the holidays
than continuing to test. After all, the testing of promotions and
content during off-peak times results in significant increases in ROI.
Imagine, then, now much more you can bring in by testing during the
busiest time of year.
Testing technology, too, has changed in recent
years, so that web operators no longer need to fear that making
changes, testing those changes and optimizing for the best results will
put any real restriction on their daily traffic or run the risk of a
system-wide failure.
Rather than avoiding testing because of fear,
I suggested that marketers take control of our sites and our traffic by running some simple tests.
Here's a shortened version of some of the things you might try testing. Or, go here to read the article in its entirety:
1. Landing page merchandising
Nothing is more important on a retail landing page than the way
merchandise is displayed. What products you show, how many items
are displayed, whether photographs are large or small, the quality and
quantity of copy all benefit from aggressive testing and optimization.
Consider how products are
grouped: Try listing best-selling items versus most popular items
versus most-often-recommended.
2. Percentage off versus dollar savings, and other promotions
Customers often respond differently to promotions,
depending upon how it is framed, even when the ultimate price is the
same (e.g., 10% off a $100 purchase versus $10 off a $100 purchase).
You can also test free shipping and with the threshold for free shipping, to
see if the resulting boost in sales makes up for the loss in shipping
fees. And don't forget to testhow long you offer free shipping. The
promotion matters a lot in, say, early December, but it ceases to
matter later in the month.
3. Encouraging customers to “act now”
You can often improve conversions by generating a sense of urgency
among visitors. Test different scarcity messaging like “Limited Time
Only” vs. “While Supplies Last” vs. “Offer expires November 31st.”
4. Reflecting paid search content
Create customized landing pages for your 5
top-performing keywords. Then, make sure that the landing page content
obviously relates to the search terms. You might repeat the search
phrase verbatim, or reorganize your content to narrow the focus of the
page.
5. Reinforcing your affiliates
Reminding customers where they came from can also
increase conversion, especially if a visitor stands to gain by spending
money with you (e.g. Upromise).
Try showing the logo of the affiliate to those who
arrive from affiliate sites. Test size and placement of logo, as well
as reinforcement copy.
6. Promotions in email marketing campaigns
You don’t have to limit yourself to testing a
promotion within the email itself. You can also carry the promotion
forward onto the website, customizing it so that only the people who
received the offer will see the offer, and so that they will see only
the specific offer that they received in the email.
7. Call-to-action
On paid search and email campaigns, test “Learn
More” or “Start Now” versus “Buy.” When writing your call-to-action
copy, finish the “I would like to...” sentence.
8. Gift suggestions
Test whether gift suggestions affect sales in your
particular environment. If so, you might begin testing what you
yourself think will be a great gift idea. Is it really something people
want to give? Keep back-up ideas on hand in the event that what you
think they want to give turns out to be wrong.
9. Increasing trust during checkout
Test placing confidence information (return policy,
privacy policy, customer service number, recent awards, etc.) and
security trustmarks (TrustE, VeriSign, HackerSafe, etc.) above the fold
and in combination with each other to see if you can reduce abandonment
rates.
10. Radical simplification
Yes, cross-sells and other content may increase
your visitors’ average order value, but in
some cases, superfluous content distracts customers from completing
their purchase.
Lost revenue from abandoned shopping carts may exceed revenue gained from cross-selling. Test it and find out!
