Holmes and Moriarty, Batman and the Joker, online and offline… There’s a popular view that online and offline commerce are arch enemies, no more likely to work together than any of the famous rivals listed above.
This doesn’t have to be the case. Read the rest of this entry »
In this post we look at how to improve your profits using Multi Channel Funnels. There’s lots of new data available through this new Google Analytics feature and it’s easy to get distracted. We give you our top tip on where to focus your attention to make money!
If you missed our earlier posts in this series you can find them here:
Do you know that Google Analytics has changed the way it counts visits? The introduction of Multi Channel Funnels impacted figures including visitors, repeat visits and bounce rates. If you’re unaware of these changes, you’re in danger of being misled by your data and this could be damaging to your profits!
In the second of our three part guide to Multi Channel Funnels we explain these changes and how to account for them.
In December we’ll publish the final part of our series:
Part 3: Beginning to use the new data to increase your profits
Have you ever wondered what leads to a repeat visitor becoming a paying customer? Do some of your marketing activities play a hidden role in bringing customers closer to making a purchase?
Our three part guide introduces Multi Channel Funnels, a powerful new feature in Google Analytics, which gives a new depth of insight into which of your marketing activities have the most influence. Armed with this new data you’ll be able to further optimise your advertising spending and increase your profits!
In this, the first of out three videos, we explain the principles behind Multi Channel Funnels and familiarise you with the new reports available in Google Analytics.
In November and December we’ll publish parts two and three of our series:
Part 2: Understanding how Multi Channel Funnels affects data across your existing analytics reports
Part 3: Beginning to use the new data to increase your profits
We also run a training course in Multi Channel Funnels. If you want to get the very best out of these new tools and ensure that your whole team are up to speed, why not get in touch?
Mel Henson
The difference that online copy can make to online conversion rates is not always well understood. However, changing the words on your website is often one of the easiest changes you can make – no technies or code changes required.
In this post, I interview Mel Henson, Founder of Words that Sell, which provides copy for e-commerce websites. Mel’s company works with companies like Aspace, Cotton Traders, David Nieper, Donald Russell, House of Bath, Lyco, Muddy Puddles, SHOP.COM, Race-World.com and Turtle Mats.
Hi Mel, Can you tell me a bit about you and Words that Sell?
Like AWA we’re specialists in home shopping. When a retailer needs a large volume of high quality copy for products on the website – typically 150 or more – we take all the stress away. Our team of trained writers, editors and project managers means that we’re geared up to make everything go smoothly and deliver the content on brief, on budget and on time.
As for me, I have been lucky enough to work both agency and client-side, but for the last 12 years I have been a professional copywriter to multi-channel retailers. This year my book, Flicks and Clicks – How to Create Websites and Catalogues that Sell More.
What it’s the difference between great copy and great online copy?
Good copy depends on two things – understanding the customer and knowing your product. Copy is the bit in between that tells the customer about the product in the most compelling way possible. It’s often called ‘salesmanship in print’.
Online copy has to do that job just as much as traditional offline copy. The two main differences are the format and keywords. Format comes out of the web design and its content management system. The art of using keywords in copy is to sprinkle in just enough to make the search engine spiders notice you but not too many that it becomes dull to read. You can’t bore your customers into buying!
What sort of difference can good online copy make to an e-commerce website?
They say that retail is detail, and often the difference between success and failure is down to a small increase in the margins. Websites work like a funnel, pushing their visitors towards the sale.
Copy is at the thin end of the funnel – the very point where a customer is teetering on the brink, making up their mind whether to buy or not. If the copy can ‘speak’ to the customer, and persuade just one in a hundred to buy who might otherwise not, that’s a 1% increase in sales. If your average conversion rate is 2%, then copy has just helped you increase your revenue by 50%.
Why do you think companies often underestimate the job of writing copy?
Mark Twain said ‘If it reads easy, it was writ hard’. In other words, the more effort and skill that’s gone into the writing, the easier it looks to write. (It’s no coincidence that the highest paid journalists work for The Sun). I always love working for clients who have tried to write their own copy, because they have a much better appreciation of how difficult it is to get the message right – and just how long it takes.
Are great copywriters born or made?
Like any skill, copywriting is something that can be taught, although some people will always be better than others. For any copywriter, some life experience helps a lot because it helps them understand human nature and often the best writers have had a job in sales in the past.
It’s also true that practice makes perfect. I trained my first writers for Words that Sell over three years ago, and it’s been great to see them improve over that time. Different writers often have strengths in different areas. I have some ex-journalists on the team who are great at writing newsletters, brand overviews, category overviews and buyers guides. There are others who are really good when it comes to more technical products.
What businesses do you admire for their copywriting?
I’m always impressed by Betterware. They sell products that solve problems people didn’t know they had, and it’s full of active headlines that get straight to the benefit, like Keep jewellery jumble free Achieve smooth feet, Speedy cooking without the cleaning. Their website doesn’t look pretty but it certainly sells. I’m a fan of copy where there is real passion and a distinctive tone of voice that fits with their brand values, like Lakeland, Hotel Chocolat, Boden, Joules, Fur, Fin & Feather and Wiggly Wigglers.
What are your plans for Words that Sell?
At heart I believe that better copy is good for business and good for people, and I’m expanding the team so that we can do more. I’m also looking at new software to make it easier for clients to upload copy to their website,and tightening up our project management systems to make sure every project runs like clockwork.
Great, Mel. Thanks very much for your time and I wish you well with Words That Sell
You’re welcome.
In this post, I interview Reuben Barrett, Managing Director of York estate agents, Coalters. Reuben reveals how, despite the issues with the housing market, he has doubled the number of enquiries his business receives using split-testing tools and a laser-like focus on improving conversion.
Hi Reuben, could you tell me about yourself, and the business, Coalters, you run?
I originally came here to study engineering at York University, and after that moved down to London to work in within the banking sector, where I stayed for 11 years.
During my time in London, I completed a MBA at INSEAD, and 6 years ago I returned to York to start an estate agency. I now run Coalters, a York estate agents.
I am married, with two children, as well as being a keen cyclist and cycle most Saturdays with the York Pedallers.
What do you think makes a successful website for an estate agent?
For me it’s a process of attracting suitable traffic and then converting that traffic into a positive outcome. For Coalters that outcome is for property sellers, buyers, landlords or tenants to contact us.
I learnt a lot of what I know from setting up a web-only estate agency as well as following other internet-only businesses. I realised through a process of trial and error and watching how other websites did it, that you had to simplify the process of getting the visitor to ‘convert’.
Often, our old website had far too many call-to-actions, and too many different navigation paths. With Coalters, I have tried to simplify everything, and re-design the navigation so that ‘all roads lead to Rome’
What have you done to optimise your website and what results have you achieved?
As I said, I learnt a lot of building a website for our previous Web-only estate agency. So with the Coalters’ web site I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted to achieve.
In the course of improving the website, we have managed to double our number of requests for valuations.
I have used tools like Google Analytics, ClickTale and especially Google Website Optimiser to test different versions of the same page.
Coalters Home Page
We have successfully tested introducing video onto the home page, and that’s worked really well. We got a 15% uplift when we got the guy in the video to point to the “Book your free valuation now” button.
We tested different colour buttons, different sizes, having arrows to point at each field the visitor has to fill in as well as varying levels of contrast in the main navigation buttons.
Coalters Property Detail Page
On the property details page, we have experimented with very aggressive messaging as well as quite subtle versions, and what we have found that converts highest, in split tests, is a third version that I would call “reasonably disruptive”.
But I wouldn’t have known this without testing the three versions side-by-side.
What have you learnt and what has surprised you most?
What has been great is having bets in the office as to which version will convert the best. We watch the results come in minute-by-minute and are often surprised.
Once we know which version is the clear winner, part of me isn’t that surprised as with hindsight, I now understand why this particular generated the best results. But you have to run the tests to get that 20/20 hindsight vision.
I suppose there’s always a bit of post-rationalisation that goes on.
A lot of companies don’t focus on optimising their website, why do you think this is?
I think you need a basic understanding of what split-testing is and the technology involved. But most companies still treat their website as ‘brochureware’ and just say to themselves we can put a tick in the box marked ‘got a website’.
Another thing, businesses don’t focus on the call to actions and some don’t really get the whole idea of testing different versions.
Partly, it might be about resource and cost, but for us the doubling of the number of enquiries we receive has been easily worth the time and money we have spent.
What are the next steps for the Coalters website and the business
I have got some new ideas for the home page to try out, including replacing static graphics with videos. It will be interesting to see whether we get an uplift in enquiries and by how much.
But it’s an ongoing process that never stops, just continuing to tweak small things and see what the impact is.
Great, Reuben. Thanks very much for your time and I wish you well with Coalters
You’re welcome.
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You might also like: An overview of multi-variate testing tools
We’ve been working with Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate for over a year now, helping them boost their conversion rate, as well as embedding web analytics into their business culture. We’ve done this through a mixture of usability testing and deep-dive analysis on their products and categories - see our other post on online merchandising.
When we asked them what they thought about working with us, well, we were chuffed to hear what they had to say.
So we’ve put together a little video clip of what Tamsin Daniel, Head of Marketing at Bettys had to say about us.
If you’d like to get the results that Bettys are now enjoying, give us a call on 0800 990 3580 or email info @ appliedwebanalytics.com
Supermarkets spend a lot of time and resources researching the best way to lay out their stores. They know which of their product categories are the most successful, and position these categories at significant points in our shopping journey.
E-commerce websites can also benefit from this form of merchandising. Read the rest of this entry »
