September 11, 2018 – SEMpdx held its first educational event of the new year with an exceptional presentation by 3Q Digital’s Vice President of Conversion Optimization, Jeremy Epperson.
Jeremy began by describing six principles of optimization that all exponential growth companies display, including strategic business alignment, customer-focused approach, data-driven research, a scientific testing process, high velocity testing and a culture of optimization. These principles are achievable and can be broken down into a repeatable process that is universally applicable.
The proprietary CRO process that 3Q uses is a structured approach that begins with a growth plan – Jeremy recommends a 90-day project plan – and proceeds through a CRO roadmap development and iterative testing process. Once the growth plan is in place, determine your conversion strategy (i.e. gather assumptions, competitive analysis, customer profile, testing velocity). The following step, conversion research, is the most overlooked yet most important part of the process. This includes heuristic evaluation, analytics and attribution, polling, usability studies, session recordings, etc. Once your research is complete, develop a roadmap before beginning iterative testing.
The second half of the evening’s presentation focused on landing page tactics that will drive ROI:
- Understand customers’ motivation.
- Remove page leaks, using analytics to isolate high abandonment user paths.
- Overcome objections by isolating them and iteratively testing into higher converting experiences. (Note there are usually 3-7 primary objections for any site to deal with.)
- Clarify your offering. Use the “toddler test” to reframe your thinking.
- Reduce distractions on your landing page by answering visitors’ three primary questions: Where am I? What can I do here? Why should I do it with you?
- Eliminate risk, keeping in mind that perceived risk kills CVR faster than anything else.
- Find and fix what is broken. The lowest hanging fruit is what you didn’t know was broken.
- Don’t make a visitor work too hard to convert. An easy conversion process increases sales.
The evening closed with a great Q&A session. Jeremy reminded us that buy-in with CRO is the biggest hurdle. Once management is on board, follow the proven steps outlined above and you’ll be well on your way to massive CRO.
Sarah is a search marketing consultant, helping clients improve ROI through paid search, SEO and social media initiatives. She is also the Official SEMpdx Event Blogger and can be found at all of the monthly events.