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By Karl Staib

How to Use Google Analytics for a Better Website Experience

Jeff came to me with a problem that many people come to me for. The funny thing was, he wasn’t sure how I could help him.

Many of my clients aren’t sure how to solve their traffic issues. Many of them think they need to increase their advertising budget.

The reality is that adding more website traffic is not the first step.

Getting more traffic only works when your website works well.

It starts with this 5 step process:

  1. Attention
  2. Interest
  3. Desire
  4. Trust
  5. Action

AIDTA

I added the T for trust from an old advertising acronym AIDA from the 1950’s.

It was created to help simplify the process for advertising agencies. Of course once they were able to get people into stores it was up to the store to close the deal.

Same thing goes for your website.

If you are running a Facebook ad, creating sufficient enough desire the next step is to earn their trust as quickly as you can. It’s this Domino Effect that is so important. Each stage tips into the next, either building trust or quickly losing it.

If they go to your site and they are confused or distracted then you’ll lose them.

That’s why every step of the customer experience matters. If you give them a shimmer of a reason to leave they will.

The Importance of a Good Offer

That’s why the offer is so important. They get all the way to the end, they are about to check out and they stop.

Should they buy from you or maybe they should keep looking. Getting them to say “yes” is the hardest part of the whole process.

That moment when your customer says that the product or service that you have is more important than the money they have.

It’s a simple equation:

What you have is more valuable than them keeping their money and spending it someplace else.

The higher the price is the more they’ll hesitate. This is all relative to their income of course. A billion dollar company won’t balk at a $50,000 price tag vs a small company.

More Traffic vs Improving Website Flow

Jeff wanted more traffic for his site, so he could get more sign-ups for his Lego camps over the summer. The thing was a lot of his traffic wasn’t getting getting to the right place on his site.

So we made one significant adjustment.

This is a screenshot of his homepage. As you can see on the right is a super cute kid on the right next to the video, but this wasn’t helping their visitors take the action they they wanted them to take.

play-well-camp-map-increase-02-595

So we removed the cute kid and replaced it with a map on April 19th that shows all the states that they run camps in. This made the video bigger and more clickable. It’s also easy for them to get enticed by the video and find a camp near them. A type of layout that make for a better website experience.

play-well-camp-map-increase-03-595

When we made this chance we started directing the traffic to where Play-well wanted them to go. You can see the previous time period before we made the change. March 20th thru April 18th.

play-well-camp-map-increase-01-arrows-595

The main goal was to get them to find a camp near them. That’s exactly what happened.

We increased the traffic to this page by 110.06%. That’s huge!

Our main goal was to get more traffic to this page, so they could get more sign-ups for their camps. We more than double the traffic with that one change.

The bounce rate, which shows you whether they left without engaging with your site improved by 29.83%. The negative number is good here. You want your bounce rate to go down.

After we made the change we increased the traffic to their most important page by 6,984 visits over the same previous time span.

And as you can see the two main pages that feed their most important “course finder” page, the home page and the camps page didn’t increase in traffic. We just utilized the traffic that they were getting and funneled them to the right page on their site.

We effectively more than doubled the traffic to the right page.

Next Step

The next step is to increase traffic. Now that they are getting to the right page we’ll be able to better utilize the organic traffic as well as the paid traffic.

What do you think? Is there something on your site that you could remove or move to another location that will help you encourage them to take action on your site?

By Karl Staib

By Karl Staib

How to Create a Better Buying Experience on Your Website

I saw a talk from one of the co-founders of Simple Green Smoothies. She was delightful, so I went on her site and I saw some things you could learn from. To create a better buying experience you have to keep it simple and make sure people feel comfortable and excited at the same time.

I went to check out her site and loved it. I bought a gift from their store.

I also share their content because I can see how much they care. 

I had to support them.

Let’s look at why I bought and how you can create a similar experience on your site.

Home page:

green smoothie 1

They focus on helping get you onboard with an introductory course to earn your trust.

Green smoothie 2

Wonderful opening picture when I clicked on the marketplace link in the navigation menu.

Green smoothie 4

I liked what I saw so I shared it with my friends. This is the domino effect that many businesses try to create. You are tipped into a business by a friend, conference or family member. Then you go and right away you enjoy your experience.

You check out the store and you can’t resist buying. Either for yourself or a friend.

I bought the simple green smoothie guide for a friend because we had a conversation about green smoothies. I thought this would make her happy.

Green smoothie 4

Having someone buy their friend a gift from your online store is the best form of marketing. It means that they love what you do and what to share you with their friend.

Their copy doesn’t just tell you what’s inside, but also how it will help you.

A better buying experience is usually a straight-forward approach that works well.

There are always improvements someone can make to improve their Customer Experience (CX), but that comes with A/B testing.

I wanted to make sure that you see the power in straightforward copy and really good images can do to help encourage, the customers that are a good fit for your products.

If you have any questions just let me know.

By Karl Staib

By Karl Staib

How to Do a Better Job Tracking Your Business Results

Analytics goals

Next year is fast approaching and you are probably close or finished setting your marketing budget. It’s this point in the year that will determine 80% of your success in the coming year. Tracking your business results with KPI’s is one of the most important technique you can use.

You will be able to adjust, but the first half of your year’s success is determined by your vision right now.

Last week I sent an email to a client asking for his 2016 KPI (Key Performance Indicators) goals.

KPI

For example he wanted to triple his email list from 10,000 to 30,000 by the end of the year. That means he needs to add 1,666 emails per month, plus 200 more to account for unsubscribes each month.

That’s 1,866 emails each month to reach his goal.

He add about 25 emails a day, which means he needs about 37 emails more each day, so it’s a bit of stretch.

A stretch goal is good if expectations are kept in check.

If he reaches 22,000 email subscribers by the end of 2016 then that will be a success for us.

Think about what you want out of your website this coming year.

Work Backwards

Look at what is the bigger driver of your sales then start to work backwards.

My client’s biggest driver of sales is his email. So simply put he wants to triple his emails so he triple his sales.

Now look at what drives sales in your business.

Is it referrals?

Is it your website?

Is it a combination of both?

Whatever starts your domino effect is where you should put a large portion of your dollars.

I like to start with getting feedback from customers. It’s the customer experience that is a key indicator of future sales.

NPS chart

I use NPS to help keep an overview of the trending feedback that we receive from customers.

Tracking the ROI

The next step is tracking the ROI.

Look at how much you are spending to attract a lead then look at how much the lead is worth to you. You can do this for this for your past year.

Once you see what is working well and what isn’t then it’s time to decide how to improve.

Is it worth having someone take over your ads so they perform better for you?

Is is worth having someone look at your analytics and give you a better idea of how you can improve your User Experience?

Is it worth bringing someone in to help you covert more visitors to your website to paying customers?

These are questions that I can’t answer for you.

Sales Funnel

I know most businesses don’t need to redesign their website. This is an expense that they can use to improve their sales funnel.

Being smart about where you put your focus and marketing dollars will determine your success next year. That’s why it’s important to gather as much data (sales breakdown, website analytics, A/B testing, customer feedback, etc.) so you can make informed decisions that will give you a jump on your coming year.

Informed decisions is the key phrase here.

Being smart about the choices you make will determine your success.

To a prosperous year!

If you need help setting up your KPI’s for 2016 so they are trackable and achievable then let’s set-up a time to chat.

By Karl Staib

By Karl Staib

7 Powerful Steps to Turn a Visitor into a Buyer

Visitor into customer

You might reasonably assume that customers make logical decisions when they choose to buy from you or not, but they don’t. Do you know why?

Emotions get in the way of rational decisions.

Think about your last big purchase. Was it rational?

I recently bought a new iPhone. Did I need it? Nope my old iPhone was fine. I could make calls, check my email and take notes. Or I could get a phone for free, but maybe not quite as good.

$800 dollars for a phone. That’s more than many laptops. Crazy, right?

I did it because I wanted (emotional choice) something better. Wanted and needed are very different.

Same thing goes for your customers. Do they really need what you offer? Probably not. If so then they are using emotions to make their decisions.

So the next question is how do I convince more people to buy my stuff?

It’s a common question I get when I start working with a lot of my clients. It really isn’t a great question though.

You don’t want just anyone buying from you. You want people who will get a lot of value out of using your products/services. You want people who will be so happy that they share your company with their friends. You want fans. People that love you even when the experience isn’t perfect.

Turning a visitor into a buyer starts with building trust. What happens at the first connection point until they are ready to buy from you?

There is something special about sharing cool products/services that can help people live better lives. I do this because I care about my friends, colleagues and family. I want them to feel more energized and happy.

The 4 Hour Chef (Link that buys my coffee) by Tim Ferris was recommended to me by a friend and I in turn have recommended it to thousands of people.

So how do you create this for yourself? Let’s look at how you can do this too.

Remove Your Customers Trust Barriers

The customer of your dreams deserves a customer-of-your-dreams experience. Easy to say, but hard to do when you have 100 things that you need to do today. You want each step to be so easy and enticing that it doesn’t feel like they are going through a buying experience.

It’s why your favorite website that you buy from keeps you coming back. From Amazon to iTunes, they aren’t perfect, but they make it very easy to make a purchase. Everything is right at your finger tips and helps you make an informed decision.

We have talked before about Selling to the Spark, the spark that stems from their pain that you can solve. Now that they are interested, you have to remove the barriers that stop them from connecting and allowing you to earn their trust.

A client was struggling to get their conversion up on their product. They have very good traffic, but people are dropping off when they hit the sales page. As I looked over the sales page, I began to see why.

There were too many hoops to jump through. Small barriers that made the process less inviting. We went through a 7-step process to improve her sales page.

Step 1 – Tell a Compelling Story

The foundation of conversion is connection. People must connect with you before they buy. This starts with a great story. A story that compels them to want to learn more. A man walks into a coffee shop. He tells the barista that most coffee shops don’t make coffee hot enough. He takes a seat and waits. They call his name after just a few minutes. He walks up grabs the cup, pulls off the lid and puts it to his lips.

You want to know what happens next. Did he burn his lips on the coffee? This simple story is an example of how to draw a person into your website.

Step 2 – Improve Layout

We started by looking at the layout of how each piece flowed into each other. This is where most people get tripped up. They know what they need to say, but aren’t sure how to start. The start point is the most important aspect part of your sales page. If it doesn’t grip them quickly, they’re gone.

Step 3 – Remove extraneous copy and images

We started by eliminating anything that was extraneous. If each sentence didn’t help walk the visitor down the path of why the product was valuable, we got rid of it. If the image wasn’t focused on telling the story of the product’s value, we got rid of it. If the video dragged on too long, we cut it down to essentials or removed it.

Step 4 – Remove links to other pages

This is a simple step that many people forget. There shouldn’t be links to other sites or pages on your site. You want to keep their focus on the content on your page without giving them an excuse to click away.

Step 5 – Create a Domino Effect

You’ve seen dominoes tipping into each other. All the energy comes from the first domino, and as long as they rest are in their proper place, the effect is exhilarating. This is how your customer should feel as they go through your website and your sales process. You need to create a emotional hook at each step, that’s why the layout is so important. If you try to sell them before they are excited to buy, you’ve lost the sale. Make sure each section builds on the previous and helps earn their trust as they find out more about your product.

Step 6 – Make a Compelling Offer that Shows the Value of Your Product

The last step is creating a compelling offer that speaks to your ideal critical buyer. The buyer that needs what you are selling, but it’s hard to convince them to buy. This buyer is the one you should focus on because if you can win them over, the rest will fall into line. The last step is making your sales page feel like it’s very calmly arguing its point. Each barrier is addressed and answered to make it easier to trust you. Then when they get to your offer they know that you will follow through on what you say you will deliver. This is not the time to do the hard sell. You should have won them over by the time they get to your offer. It’s best to be straightforward to have an offer that makes them feel comfortable.

Step 7 – Follow up

This last step will help you turn a buyer into a fan of your company. This is important because you’ll find that it’s easier to get someone who bought from you to buy again. The better you get at follow-up the more they realize that you care. Truly care about their experience.

After going through this 7 step process, we are usually able to double the conversion rate on 50% of my clients sales and landing pages. Would you like to double your conversion? Then let’s set up a time to chat. I get to learn more about your business and you get to talk with a customer conversion expert. A nice win-win for both of us.

Let’s Review

Your connection system has to tip them from one section to the next. This connection must strengthen the longer they stay on your page. The sales page detail is usually congruent with the cost of the product. The more expensive the product, the more you have to show them the value that they will receive.

Do you need help with your conversion systems? Let’s set up a time to chat. Just click here to fill out the contact form and I’ll send you my calendar schedule ASAP, so you can pick a time that’s good for you.

By Karl Staib

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  • How to Use Google Analytics for a Better Website Experience
  • Getting Closer
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