Category: Conversion Rate Optimisation

Discovering Your Value Proposition

Any company that offers a product or service has a value proposition; whether or not they know it is a different matter however. Commonly, companies find themselves looking for a way to get a potential customer interested in their product or service, only to get progressively more frustrated as new offers and sales just don’t return the results they were hoping for. This is where a well-communicated value proposition comes into play.

The application of a good value proposition can be broken down into two parts: identification and communication.

Identifying your Value Proposition

An effective value proposition should answer the following question:

If I am your ideal customer, why should I choose you over your competition?

Answering this question is simpler than you may think, but it may take a little reshuffling at the business end to discover your best value proposition.

To become the best choice for your ideal customer, you must differentiate from your competition by exceling in one element of your offer; whether that is “voted UK’s number one retailer of oven mittens”, “97% of our customers would use us again over any other retailer” or “unbeatable price match guarantee”. Look at the claims your competitors are making, and ask yourself how you can stand out from that crowd with one short, effective sentence.

In most cases, the ideal prospect wants to know what they get from choosing you, or why you are the right choice for them; they don’t want to think and they don’t want to scour your website to stumble across valuable information or offers.

If you use the first few seconds of their attention to talk about the industry you are in, the founding of the company or the team in head office rather than your unique selling point then they will simply retort with a simple “so what?”, and leave to find a competitor who is willing to put their offer on a plate.

Simply put, your value proposition is what your customers get from choosing you that they would not get from choosing a competitor.

Communicating your Value Proposition

Now comes the trickier part, effectively expressing the value proposition.

There are many things to consider when refining an effective value proposition; in the latter stages of testing we would look to incorporate congruence, continuity and credibility through all stages of the conversion process, but for now let’s concentrate on some easy to digest, actionable principles.

Heads Up

Two of the most powerful weapons in your VP arsenal are your header and sub-header; with these you can grab attention, highlight your unique selling point, add credibility or direct to conversion. It’s vital that your header acts as a quick, effective means of engaging visitors in a conversation, and drives them to read on by earning their interest.

Here’s an example of an ineffective header and sub-header:

“Find out how our specialist software can save you time and money”

“At Daniel Travis Brown software ltd, we have a great range of accounting software solutions, read on to find out more! “

 

And now a more effective, amended version:

“Save time and money with our range of custom-built accounting software packages”

“We will put together an accounting software package that meets your needs entirely, all for the unbeaten price of £79! “

 

The original version prompted the reader to find out more; already we were opening with a task for the visitor, without giving them any real information. We then followed it by prioritising the company name in the sub-header and failing to mention the competitive price that is on offer.

In the amended version, we grabbed attention immediately with “save time and money” and then went into further detail in the sub-header, mentioning the “unbeaten price” and custom-built package.

This gives the customer all they need to read on; they now know about the low price and product/service, and many of them will now be closer to converting than they would ever have been with the previous headline.

 

Now, an Ineffective Real-World Example

Compared to an Effective Real-World Equivalent

Notice the first example gave no information about the service; instead they tried to convince the reader to read on without giving any incentive. The second example however immediately shows the hosting service is: reliable, secure, located in the UK with onsite engineers, allows hosting of multiple websites, features 24/7 support and more. In the top right there is information about a 70% three month discount and below is an award from computer shopper. All of the information is clear, easy to digest and most importantly gives multiple incentives to the user, driving them to read on.

There is much more to expressing an effective value proposition than simply revising your headline, but this is a great starting point and will help you learn the principles or value identification and communication.

For help identifying an effective value proposition and more on our CRO Services, call the Web Vitality Heroes today for super powered conversion rate optimisation

Principles of the ‘Landing Page’

Ensuring your website is performing to the best of its ability will always be an on-going process. Creating more channels for inbound traffic (and in turn designating more landing pages) will open up new opportunities when it comes to encouraging visitors to convert; but are your landing pages performing as they should be, or are they yielding a worryingly high bounce rate?

Optimising a page for conversion is by no means simple; there are thousands of potential changes and tests to be carried out on each page, all of which could have a surprisingly good or disappointingly poor effect on your conversion rate. There are however, certain ‘safe’ rules and principles that you can apply to your landing page which will reduce ‘conversion friction’ and create a smoother transition between landing on the page and continuing towards conversion.

1-      Make Clear your ‘Call-to-Action’

As obvious as it may seem, it’s surprising how many online companies complicate their conversion process by clouding their primary ‘call-to-action’ with attention grabbing content. A simple and informative headline and short but detailed subheading are great at showing off what you offer and also directing visitors to conversion, but by adding distractions to your site you can take a huge amount of attention away from the primary focus of the page: the path to conversion.

Whether your call-to-action  is a registration form, a ‘buy’ button or an enquiry submission, your route to conversion should be easy to see, simple to complete and unintimidating. If your visitor has to think about what they are supposed to do on your landing page, it’s unlikely that you will then see them convert.

Remember, make your offer clear in your headline, quickly detail the benefits in your subheading and ensure your call-to-action is above the fold and draws the eye more than anything else on the page.

2-      Exceeding Expectations

Your landing page should be exactly what visitors expect when they make that decision to click through; ensuring they see exactly what they came for when they arrive (or even a little more) can be that first all important ‘micro yes’ on the path to conversion. Often, companies will tempt visitors to opt-in for a free trial or consultation, only to over-face them with details on monthly subscriptions or registration forms. Visitors will immediately pick up on this kind of misdirection and more often than not, will abandon the website. There’s plenty of time for details regarding subscriptions and registration later; if you have offered the visitor something or told them something is waiting on the next page, make sure it is there waiting for them.

This principle should be applied through all channels to each landing page; if your landing page’s meta-description displayed on a search engine’s results page details the great features of your winter mittens, you should make those savings prominent when the visitor arrives.

If you have ‘promised’ something is waiting for users that click through, make sure that is exactly what you give them. Deceiving visitors will likely lose your site a lot of credibility.

3- Simplify the Registration & Enquiry Process

It’s unavoidable that in some industries companies are required to collect a great deal of data and personal information as part of their conversion process. Perhaps visitors need to give a description of their enquiry to outline exactly what kind of service they require, or the specifications of your service or product need to be detailed and extensive.

It’s important to remember that the more extensive data collection (such as enquiry specifications) can be left until a later stage; the priority is the initial registration, enquiry or newsletter sign-up.

Once you have the appropriate details to initiate first contact with the prospect, you can collect further details in incremental steps via email or telephone; this will allow you to avoid asking for too much information in one sitting and risk losing the conversion.

4- Too much Text

Landing pages which display dense blocks of text upon arrival can be intimidating. Think about it from your visitor’s perspective; do you want the only thing on their mind when looking at this for the first time will be “Do you expect me to read all this?”

It’s unlikely that you’re visitors have found their way to your website with the intention of reading through masses of text; they want quick information within seconds of landing on your site, and it’s your job to give it to them. Highlight exactly what the visitors need to know, clearly and concisely; save your masses of copy and text for a page dedicated to product or service details. Any perks or offers that were buried in the copy should be worded into your grabbing headline, and detailed in your subheading. A heading such as “Sign up today to receive your free 30 day trial” can direct attention to the conversion (the sign up) and highlight how the user can benefit too.

Optimising a website for conversion is an extremely lengthy and complicated process, and the methods used to effectively identify ‘conversion killers’ and replace them with more effective features is a science in itself. But by ensuring your landing page adheres to these basic principles, you can create an solid foundation on which to build and test the content of your pages one step at a time.

For specialist help regarding conversion rate optimisation, contact Web Vitality today!

 

The examples shown above were taken from the following websites:

http://www.vuze.com/

http://www.sealskinz.com/