What makes a message go viral? More importantly, how can you position your marketing messages to go viral?

Here at MECLABS, we recently had a front-row seat to just how easy it can be for a message to go viral. Senior Marketing Manager Justin Bridegan attended a rally at one of Mitt Romney’s events here in Jacksonville. During a break in Mitt’s stump speech, in which the former governor was attacking Newt, Justin yelled out, “Send him to the moon.”

With that comment, Justin changed the course of history. Or at least had a big impact on the latest message to go viral in the 24-hour news cycle.

Mitt started on to his next point, but then spun on his heels and asked, “What did you say?”

Justin, ever the marketer, sold the line even better the second time, “Send him to the moon.”

With that, Mitt changed the course of his speech to talk about Newt’s moon colonies, and within just a few hours, this interaction appeared on sites from New York Post, Los Angeles Times, and 7,131 other related articles.

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“I never thought what I said would be repeated or shape some of the political discussion or landscape for the day,” Justin said. “Only after posting my video did I realize my comment had been used across the country in many of the major news affiliates.”

“It really comes down to being at the right place, at the right time, and then seizing the moment. Today I witnessed firsthand what real-time marketing means.”

Of course, we were eating it up here in the office every time the quote was picked up in another major news source. (One of our favorites was a comment on a New York Times article claiming Justin was a plant for the Romney campaign.)

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How can you position your marketing messages for virality?

Just like that, with a quick spur-of-the-moment shout, Justin’s message went viral. And that’s just how easy it is.

Deceptively easy. Because, unlike, say, crafting a message in paid media, you have little control over how to get that exposure to your message.

So, I’m not going to tell you how to make your messages go viral. I simply haven’t seen anyone that can force virality. However, here are a few tips to help you at least prepare for that possibility. To remix Seneca … virality is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Get involved in the conversation

If there is anything we can learn from Justin’s experience, it’s that it never would have happened if he weren’t at the rally.

So what does that mean to marketers? As Woody Allen said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” You should be present and engaged anywhere your audience and customers are engaged in a conversation. For some, that is Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. For others, that may be online forums. For a local business, it may mean joining local civic organizations.

Being an upstanding member of these offline and online communities, and being a legitimate part of the conversation, increases the likelihood that the early adopters and influencers will start to spread your message.

But, don’t be a faker and try to force it. Or it could blow up in your face.

Understand the zeitgeist of your audience

That’s a fancy word for saying the “defining spirit or mood.” Being present in the community will help you keep a finger on this pulse. Genuinely serving your audience and responding to their needs don’t hurt either.

And, if you’re really engaged, it will pay off in myriad ways in your marketing. In this case, understanding the hot-button issues to push when creating a message you’re trying to spread virally.

Don’t be salesy

It sure is exciting that your winter whites are on sale for 20% off … but highly unlikely that it is a message that will go viral.

In testing conducted for “Can viral video clips drive targeted traffic to your web site?,” we found that although the 28 video clips we experimented with had no promotional message or content, 1.49% of viewers went on to become newsletter subscribers. In just 60 days, our videos were viewed more than 324,000 times at no cost to us.

The research goes on to recommend, “Be cautious about including commercial or promotional content. The most powerful short videos are those that are purely entertaining. It’s when people click through to your site that the time is right to add your sales message.”

Don’t overlook direct media outreach to help germinate your message

While there is nothing I detest more than the traditional spam press release that jams up my inbox, don’t forget that including digital and mainstream media in your viral campaign can be a helpful tipping point to virality (and, of course, the inverse is true as well – a viral idea can help lead to earned media mentions).

For example, Sunflower Market, an organic foods retail brand, sent branded flower pots to key media contacts six weeks before a store opening (the amount of time it takes a sunflower to germinate, natch) to support a downloadable desktop plant application they were trying to spread virally to promote a store opening.

As a result, they received 1,631,862 media impressions in the Indianapolis area, and beat the opening week store sales forecast by 24%.

Related Resources:

Romney urges sending Gingrich to the moon (good video here of how it all went down … starts about 1 minute into the video)

What do great viral videos have in common?

Social Media Marketing: Viral sweepstakes targeting moms grows Facebook audience 4,488%

Content Marketing: Microsoft crowdsources content ideas with a viral contest for new Windows Phone 7 platform

Long-time MarketingExperiments readers will notice that we have shifted to a video-centric format for our Web clinic replays, which aim to deliver actionable marketing advice based on our optimization discoveries …

And we realize we still have a long way to go to fully optimize this new channel to ensure it provides the most value and most compelling experience to the audience of marketing managers and advertising creatives we seek to help. But we also realize we’ve come a long way from our previous format as well.

Since many marketers are increasingly looking to add more video into their marketing mix, in today’s post, I wanted to share a few basic lessons we’ve learned at this early stage in the process:

Get the right people involved

We never would have been able to produce a video like this without the deep technical know-how of one of the newest members of our team, A/V Specialist Luke Thorpe. While there are simpler ways to do video, we wanted to create an experience that would really grab the attention of marketers, a group that is accustomed to impressive production values. Also, we wanted the format to reflect well on our brand.

For example, the video above was shot in our green screen background, utilizing six layers of animation over the green screen. We never could have done that without the MECLABS Spielberg himself, Luke.

Make sure video is right for you

Just because lots of people are doing video and a video about a kid biting another kid’s finger got 411 million views on YouTube, doesn’t necessarily mean video is the right channel for your audience.

“There is a lot of information in our one-hour Web clinics,” Luke said. “Video gives our presenters the ability to engage with the content and guide the viewers through each step of the presentation. I believe connecting on this additional level (video) will facilitate learning.”

Practice makes perfect

Before we created the video you see above, Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS, recorded two other Web clinic replays that we never released. When trying something new, give your team some grace to figure it out well before any deadlines. That said …

Your first release won’t be perfect

So decide what is good enough to release. And keep working to make it better, because …

The medium influences the message

And opens up new possibilities as well. Producing video has caused us to take a second-look at everything … from how we organize our Web clinic replay landing pages, to how we produce the Web clinics themselves.

We don’t have all the answers yet, just lots of questions. And a good question is always the first step to true optimization. So keep in mind that …

Optimization never ends

This certainly isn’t the end of our efforts to optimize the channel … more like a new beginning.

“There is still a lot of room for improvement with our current presentation,” Luke said. “On the surface, we are improving the sound and picture quality, but more important will be the playback setup. For example, there are many ‘video players’ on the Web that allow you to add bookmarks at key points and give the viewer the ability to place bookmarks of their own.”

“Moving further along, we hope to enable the audience to more easily share these key discoveries with their peers and colleagues.”

Related Resources:

MarketingSherpa’s 30-Minute Marketer: How to Create SEO-Friendly YouTube Content

What do great viral videos have in common?

Inbound Marketing: Small business builds YouTube channel from the ground up, expands to 40 countries

Improve Search Visibility with Video: 5 Strategies

If you’ve been running PPC campaigns for longer than a month or so, there have probably been at least a few times when you’ve hit a wall.

You know what I mean … those points when it seems that no matter how much effort you put into testing and optimizing your ads with the right keywords or copy, the incremental returns are minimal and you just cannot seem to beat your star performers.

It may be you are hitting one of those walls right now … and unlike Jim Morrison would have you believe, you can’t just break on through to the other side.

So what do you do in that situation?

At MECLABS, we experiment with a lot of PPC campaigns, and we’ve seen our share of walls when it comes to optimizing them. In a recent experiment, with the help of PPC managers at ROI Revolution, we were able to help North American Spine, a minimally invasive spine treatment center, break through a “wall” to achieve 47% more leads from a PPC campaign.

We’re going to share the details of that experiment with you on our Web clinic today at 4:00 p.m. EST – Online Advertising Forensics: We investigate how and why a text-based PPC ad produced 47% more conversions.

But, before we give you the full scoop, we want you to get some practice in so you can start preparing to break through your own walls.

We’re going to let you test your marketing intuition and tell us in the comments of this blog post which PPC ad you think produced the 47% lift … and why.

If you choose the correct PPC ad and give us a good enough reason for why you think it won, you will be featured on our blog as a marketing expert and win the respect of your peers and superiors.

So without further ado, here are the treatments:

Treatment 1:

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Treatment 2:

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Treatment 3:

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And here’s the landing page for all three just for reference’s sake:

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All right, now that you’ve seen the ads, tell us which of them won the test and why in the comments …

And again, be sure to tune into today’s Web clinic at 4:00 p.m. EST to find out the actual results and hear actionable advice about how the discoveries from this experiment can help you improve your own PPC campaigns.

UPDATE:

Congratulations to commenter Gary Kline, for correctly predicting the outcome of the experiment and giving a darn good reason why treatment #3 received the highest conversion rate.

Related Resources:

Today’s clinic at 4:00 p.m. EST — Online Advertising Forensics: We investigate how and why a text-based PPC ad produced 47% more conversions

Online Advertising: How your peers optimize PPC ads

PPC Ads: What is search engine marketing best used for?

How to Test Your Value Proposition Using a PPC Ad

The thing about pay-per-click ads is … well, you’re paying for every click.

So how do you maximize the value you get out of this online advertising?

In this Wednesday’s Web clinic – Online Advertising Forensics: We investigate how and why a text-based PPC ad produced 47% more conversions – MECLABS Managing Director Flint McGlaughlin will share our top discoveries on increasing the ROI of your PPC ads.

First, let’s look at some top advice we received from your peers …

Always run two ads

Whenever I create a new campaign or a single group, I always run with two ads. I run with words that I think will generate interest and flow into the landing page that I create. I generally start with two similar ads but, every now and again, I will try an ad that is not similar at all just to see what the market likes and dislikes.

Sometimes I look at the competitive nature of the keyword in the search results, and then look at who is in first place, then try to match my words to the similar ones.

This all depends on if I have worked in this area or not … if I know the targeted niche, I stick with what I know has worked in the past.

When creating the ad groups, I will use a small number of keywords and nine out of 10 times use these keywords in the title of the AdWords ad itself. Now that Google doesn’t allow capitals in the URLs, I have started using the URLs with capitals in the body content on the AdWords ad, this has definitely helped keep the CTRs higher.

Say, for example, I am selling Organic Cat Food … and own the URL … I will paste this URL with caps between the words in the second line of the AdWords ad …

For example:

Your Cat Loves This?
www.OrganicCatFood.com
Freshly Made & Delivered For Free
organiccatfood.com/LoveCats

You also must consider not just clicks but conversions.

As I said, always have two ads running for the same ad group.

Set the account to rotate your ads evenly so that you can see what ad converts higher or has higher clickthrough.

You may have an ad that has high clicks but small conversions compared with an ad that has lower clicks but higher conversions. This is important to measure. It may mean that your ad, even though it is generating great clicks, is not returning the conversions. So instead of just changing your ad content, have another look at what keywords are converting and refine if necessary to ensure your quality of visitor is high.

After you have made these tweaks, test again for another period and then measure the success of the two ads running for this group.

Having the correct keywords is as important as having the two sample ads running. Keep testing and adjusting to fine-tune your account.

– Dave Lemmon, Director, Redcow Marketing Limited

3 key factors to PPC success

1. As far as performance of ads is concerned, A/B tests are the best way to check and optimize. Run different variations of images, text and calls-to-action to zero in on what is getting the best response. Study the ad analytics well because optimizing ads is a continuous process as long as your campaign is running.

2. Targeting is the key to PPC Campaigns. Have a clearly defined audience, and design ads according to their preferences. Engage directly with your prospects – don’t show your ad to people who don’t need to see it. Online advertising has this huge advantage over traditional print and TV – so make use of it.

3. Never forget the bigger picture – landing pages and conversions. The objective of an ad campaign is not to just “drive traffic” to a particular webpage but to secure business from it. To assure you are getting value or a good ROI out of online advertising, have a well-designed landing page to make sure that a decent conversion rate is in place, or else, the campaign is just wasting dollars.

– Nivesh Jain, Senior Marketing Executive, Invensis Technologies Pvt Ltd

Get everyone involved

Here’s sort of a “different” answer …

I have my co-workers write ads to test. I give them the parameters and the ammunition (landing pages, features, benefits and other good stuff for ads) and run a little contest with a prize for the winner.

What’s the point? Many times “professionals” and those closely associated with marketing can get too “markety.” We start using fancy words and lose sight that there’s a real person searching with questions they want answered.

Getting others involved that don’t know so much about the campaign can lead to some great ads as they use different language and come at the problem and solution from different angles. Plus, it’s a lot of fun!

Don’t get caught thinking that these ads can’t be winners. You might be surprised!

– Mike Fleming, PPC and Analytics Manager, Pole Position Marketing

Great minds think alike, Mike! Right now, we’re running our own PPC ad writing contest right here on the blog, because, as you suggest, we too think it is critical to case a wide net. The winner receives a free PDF copy of MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report – PPC Edition (a $397 value).

Related Resources:

Online Advertising Forensics: We investigate how and why a text-based PPC ad produced 47% more conversions – Free Web clinic, Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. EST

PPC Ad Writing Contest: Win a $397 Benchmark Report while building your optimization peer group

This Just Tested: How PPC specificity drove 21% more clicks and cut costs 66%

Converting PPC Traffic: How clarifying value generated 99.4% more conversions on a PPC landing page

PPC Advertising: 5 winning display ad tactics that increased paying customers by 2,900% and dropped cost-per-lead 37%

A test is a great way to settle arguments. The highest-paid person in the room thinks he has a better headline? No problem. Just test it.

But, to truly optimize, sometimes it helps to start a few arguments as well. Get some key people in the room, question your landing pages, question your value proposition, and let everyone (Sales, Customer Service, Product Development, Consulting Services) come up with test ideas to really push the envelope on your marketing.

The way we do that at MECLABS is with a series of meetings called Peer Review Sessions. It gives everybody – from the most senior to the most junior members of the team – a chance to jump in, question the status quo, and come up with test ideas.

Because, as marketers, optimizing by ourselves is hard work … even for the experienced optimizers at MECLABS. No one can truly optimize in a vacuum. We need other minds to broaden the horizons of our creativity and give us ideas for what to test and how to test.

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Find your peer group

Sometimes it also helps to find optimization peers who work at other (preferably non-competitor) companies to break away from the groupthink in your organization (“Our product is the bestest ever!”) and throw some tests against the wall for a little brainstorming.

This is why we at MarketingExperiments are trying to build a community of marketers around the field of optimization. Because the more people there are sharing ideas, the better we can all get at optimization. And, the better we can get at optimizing, the better we all become at performing our jobs.

You can find that peer group in a few places:

• Among the 4,610 optimizers on the MarketingExperiments Optimization group on LinkedIn
• Local marketing events
• Optimization Summit 2012 in Denver
• The comments section of this blog post

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Win a $397 MarketingSherpa Benchmark Report

That’s right, I said the comments section of this blog post.

You see, as I said earlier about the MECLABS way of optimizing, we seek to get as many ideas as possible for the tests we run with our Research Partners. For an upcoming test we’d like you to suggest the best PPC ad copy in the comments section of this blog post.

So scroll down. Take a look in the comments. Find some PPC ad copy you like. And reach out to that marketer to see if you can form a peer relationship, helping each other produce better tests.

To make it worth your while, once we have several submissions, we will choose one lucky marketer’s ad treatment to run in our experiment. And, to sweeten the pot, we’ll also give that marketer a free PDF copy of MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report – PPC Edition (a $397 value).

So let’s get to the challenge (if you choose to accept it)…

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The challenge

As I said, to make us all become better optimizers, we need your ideas for a real PPC experiment we are going to run for one of our Research Partners: North American Spine. We’re going to have you, dear marketer, write PPC ads to help us discover some things about North American Spine’s ideal customer.

At the end of this post, you can submit your ad treatment in the comments.

So, now that you know what you’re in for, sit back, and get your thinking caps on while you read the background of the experiment.

Please read it carefully as there are some very specific things we are looking for to make this test successful. The closer you read and understand, the more likely you are to win.

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Experiment Background:

North American Spine (NAS) is the inventor and sole provider of a fascinating (in my opinion) minimally invasive spine surgery called the Accurascope procedure. They essentially provide people who are suffering from serious, chronic back pain with an alternative to open back surgery.

Right now, with ROI Revolution managing their paid search advertising campaigns – NAS is doing an impressive job of getting people who are already shopping for back surgery solutions to buy the Accurascope procedure.

However, as probably all of us know, there are likely potential NAS customers out there who aren’t shopping for back surgery. Instead they are shopping for more information so they can make an informed decision about whether they need surgery or not.

We know this because there are several medium-to-high-traffic keyword terms centered around certain back conditions:

• Lumbar Bulging Disc
• Sciatic Nerve
• Degenerative Disc Disease
• Etc.

It also happens that NAS is looking to implement a content strategy to help position them as an authority in the back pain treatment space.

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Experiment Goal:

The trouble with a content strategy is that it is very difficult to create content, and very difficult to predict what content will resonate with your customers.

You could spend a lot of time creating high-quality content only to find out later that another approach would have been more profitable.

To help provide clarity to NAS’s content strategy, we are going to run some PPC ads to “take the temperature,” in a sense, of the people who are searching for the following conditions:

• Lumbar bulging disc
• Sciatic nerve
• Degenerative disc disease
• Herniated disc
• Pinched nerve in lower back
• Lumbar back pain

So the goal of this experiment is to learn which types of content resonate with the largest audience of condition-based searchers. This way, NAS can tailor a content strategy around those motivations and start building content they know will be effective.

But the ultimate goal is to have prospects come in for a needed Accurascope procedure, as shown in the chart below:

Experiment Hypothesis:

It wouldn’t be an experiment without a hypothesis. Here’s what we think these condition-based searchers are really after:

• May be experiencing back pain symptoms and are simply searching online or asking around
• Have come across this condition and now want more information on it
• May have already seen a doctor and been diagnosed with this condition and now want more information on it and possible treatments
• May be a friend or loved one searching on behalf of someone

Therefore ads that cater to these motivations will likely receive a higher clickthrough rate.

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The Research Question:

It’s hard to ask a research question without also having your treatments in mind, but I’ll go ahead and pitch one here, assuming your treatments will be flooding in soon after:

Which condition-based ad template will receive a higher clickthrough rate?

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The Treatments: What we need from YOU

If you didn’t notice above in the research question, the treatments we are looking for will be templates. Each PPC ad will be a different approach for more information that we can simply drop a back condition keyword into. So, to give you an example, I’ll show you my submission:

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Have [Condition]?
Learn 3 treatments with the highest
success rates in this free report
NorthAmericanSpine.com/[condition]

However, you might take an angle like this:

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[Condition] Info
5 things you need to know to give
your loved one the care they need.
NorthAmericanSpine.com/[condition]

Whatever you decide, be sure to keep the goal of this experiment in mind: to learn which types of content resonate with the largest audience of condition-based searchers.

Also, keep in mind that PPC ads have character limits, if you don’t know them, you can use this tool to help you stay within those limits and not be disqualified from the contest.

Because you’re writing ad templates and not ads, it’s going to be difficult to fit each of the conditions above in a single template. But we know you’re very smart, and if there is a way that you can think of to get around that problem we’re open to suggestions. Just leave them in the comment below your submission.

The Call-to-Action:

So with that, I’ll let you get writing. When you’ve written an ad, all you need to do is post it below in the comments. Once we have enough submissions, we’ll sort through them and choose one ad that we think will best help us answer the research question.

The writer of that ad will get:

• A free PDF copy of MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report – PPC Edition (a $397 value)
• The opportunity to brag about how they were included in a real MECLABS experiment
• A shot at having their treatment actually win the experiment (more bragging rights)
• A mention (and link) on this blog as a marketing expert (yes, even more bragging rights)

Go ahead and post your ad in the comments and we’ll announce the winner during our next Web clinic: Online Advertising Forensics: We investigate how and why a text-based PPC ad produced 47% more conversions (Educational funding provided by ROI Revolution)

Happy writing!

UPDATE: Winner(s) Announced…

The results are in. Unfortunately our team was torn between two submissions from our generous commenters below. We were SO torn, in fact, that we decided to give away TWO 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Reports – PPC Edition to two lucky commenters. Unfortunately, due to validity constraints we are only able to use one ad template in the actual experiment.

So congratulations to both Amy Harold and Carrie Hernandez for their insightful submissions. Both of you should be receiving a Benchmark Report in the next few days. With that said, if you saw yesterday’s Web clinic [Subscribe to be notified when the replay is live], you know that only Amy Harold’s submission will be in the actual test. That is because we needed a template that we could use to test different approaches and hers was the most flexible.

With that said, we found Carrie’s submission incredibly insightful for two reasons:

1. It was short. It wasn’t even close to using all of the characters the ad was limited to. Common sense tells us this is a bad thing. Be we love challenging common sense with experimentation. So we would love to eventually test shorter than required ad copy.
2. The idea of offering a comparative clinical study was a particularly interesting content angle

Again, thank you to all of our commenters. If you need help writing a PPC ad, simply take a look at the comments below for some ideas. And try to get in touch with anyone whose ad you particularly liked to brainstorm. Remember, we can’t optimize in a vacuum.

Related Resources:

Blandvertising: How you can overcome writing headlines and copy that don’t say anything

Banner Blindness: Why your marketing messages are hiding in plain sight

The Ultimate Click: How to get what you pay for with pay-per-click advertising

PPC Ads: What is search engine marketing best used for?

Sometimes great products can be hard to sell on a website. The market is so saturated with mediocre goods and services that when a truly great one comes along, the same old marketing tactics simply don’t work anymore. Excellent products need excellent websites to communicate their full potential.

And that’s the main problem with this website submitted for live optimization by the makers of the Npower PEG on a past Web clinic.

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The product is essentially a battery you can hook to almost any device. But the fun part is that it charges with the kinetic energy you produce while you go about your daily life.

I personally found it fascinating. And I want one.

Unfortunately, (as the owners of the site probably know) the website doesn’t effectively communicate the prodigiousness of the product.

Perhaps you’re in the same boat as the Npower PEG. Maybe you’ve got a great product but you feel like your website doesn’t live up to it. Don’t tune this post out because it’s about someone else’s company.

To help you, I talked to Adam Lapp, Associate Director of Optimization and Strategy, MECLABS, about Npower’s website. From his years of optimization experience, you can hopefully glean some wisdom for your own site.

There are eight main test ideas that Adam highlighted in our conversation about how to improve this website.

Test Idea #1: Make the homepage more like a landing page

One thing Adam noticed was that this entire site is for a single product. Because of that, you could potentially make the homepage a lot more like a landing page with most of the information they need to make a buying decision right there on the first page.

Generally, a homepage like the one they currently have is used to funnel different segments of the audience to the correct sections of a site so they can further engage with the products and services they need.

But it’s not needed here, because you have a single audience looking for a single product.

• Transferrable Principle:

Determine the correct use of your homepage based on the number of audience segments and products/services you have. Many segments and products need a homepage that reflects a high number of offers. But single product homepages can generally be thought of as a landing page.

Test Idea #2: Make the entire site more like a micro-site

Another thing Adam mentioned along the lines of idea #1 was that the whole site might benefit from more of a micro-site look and feel.

“Don’t make a complex traditional website for the sake of making a complex traditional website,” Adam said. “You don’t have to have a big elaborate 10-20 page website with dropdown navigation. Keep it simple. Determine what your objective is and make it as simple as possible to accomplish that objective.”

One way to do this might be to create a navigation that is made up of four (or so) key benefits. So for instance, the links might be:

• Compatibility
• Battery Life
• How it works
•  FAQ

No dropdowns needed. Just four key sections, four single clicks.

• Transferrable Principle:

Sometimes you don’t need a website in a traditional sense. What you need is a way to effectively sell a product for the most profit. A website is just a means to an end. With that in mind, think of what your customer needs to know to make a decision and give it to them in the simplest and clearest way possible.

Test Idea #3: Communicate your credibility

Because of the novelty of the product, there might be some credibility issues in the visitor’s mind. Someone looking to purchase the product may be thinking about how reliable it is and what kind of track record it has.

To correct this, Adam proposed using the testimonials that are currently on the blog and moving them to a more appropriate place on the homepage to boost credibility. There is also the issue of who is giving you credit. It might also help to have some statements like, “Used by all the members of xyz hiking club in Portland, Oregon.”

Associations or organizations that use your products can be great credibility sources.

• Transferrable Principle:

Consider whether your ideal customer is questioning your credibility (Hint: they almost always are). If so, cite reliable and well known sources who like or use your product.

Test Idea #4: Optimize your buying process

Currently, the funnel for the buying process appears a little over-complicated. The site asks visitors to reserve a Powerpeg, then wait for it to be manufactured, and then pay if they’re still interested by the time it’s done. But it seems like it would be a lot simpler to go ahead and get the payment up front.

Once that’s in place, Adam pointed out that he would “make it clear that they are made to order. Tell the visitor how long it will take to build it and have some specific money back guarantees to reduce anxiety.”

If the reason for reserving the product ahead of time instead of a purchase was to get leads, there may be alternate means of achieving that goal. For instance, you may try testing an offer like: “First-time customers sign up for our newsletter and you’ll receive a coupon code for 10% off your first order.”

That way if they don’t order the same day, they have a coupon code to come back and complete the order, and you have an email address.

You might even lead the checkout page with a coupon code link under the code box that says: “Don’t have a coupon code? Get yours here.” And collect the lead that way.

• Transferrable Principle:

Friction in the buying process is one of the easiest things to reduce for large conversion rate lifts. Make your buying process as easy as possible and don’t ask for a lead when you should be asking for a sale.

Test Idea #5: Consider an up-sell

As Adam astutely observed in our conversation, an up-sell for this kind of consumer electronic product might also be a great idea. This is the kind of product that people might want two or three of for each member of the family. So depending on how many items people are currently buying per order, you may want to offer something like, “Buy two, get 10% off the second,” or “Buy 20, get one free.”

• Transferrable Principle:

If your product is something people may want multiples of or you have auxiliary offers, test having an up-sell or cross-sell in your purchase process. You may be leaving money on the table because someone wanted to buy more, but you didn’t offer it at the right time.

Test Idea #6: Lead with a clear headline

One of the main problems with this page that Adam pointed out was the lack of overall clarity about what the product is and what it can do.

As Adam said, “I see this image of people hiking. Although there is a description of what this image means, and since its small text, I’ll probably overlook this headline. So you’re wasting about 200px of space here with an image that doesn’t really communicate where I’m at or the value of the product.”

To fix this, lead with a clear headline at the top of the page, rather than the middle, that clearly states the name of the product and the primary benefit. Your sub-headline could then state the different uses or some secondary benefit of the product.

• Transferrable Principle:

The purpose of a headline is to drive the reader into the sub-headline or first paragraph. In doing that, it should help the viewer understand immediately that they are in the right place and they should stay on the page.

Test Idea #7: Use relevant imagery

Another problem Adam mentioned was the actual image used on the homepage.

“Instead of a picture of hikers, I’d use an image that more clearly communicates what the product is and how it works. The current image doesn’t connect the dots for me yet.”

One idea for a better image might be a diagram of how the product works. A video may also be a great idea here.

• Transferrable Principle:

Images should be as relevant as possible to the offer on the page and should communicate the value of the product in a way that copy cannot.

Test Idea #8: Move the call-to-action into the eye-path

The right side of the page looks like ads … which wouldn’t be so bad if the primary call-to-action (CTA) wasn’t there. The last thing you want your website visitors to think is that your CTA is an ad.

To fix this, simply drag your call-to-action to the bottom of the page after the viewer has been guided through the value of the product.

• Transferrable Principle:

As Flint McGlaughlin says in almost every Web clinic we’ve ever aired, keeping the CTA above the fold is like asking for a kiss before you’ve even had a conversation. What’s worse is putting the CTA among things that look like ads. Generally, a CTA should always be directly in the eye-path and after the visitor has been convinced of the value of the product.

Related Resources:

Website Optimization: Landing page test leads to 548% increase in conversion

How to Increase Conversion in 2012 — Web clinic replay

Website Optimization: How your peers increase their conversion rate…quickly