April 6, 2015Comment

You’ll Never Look at Marketing the Same Way Again (Part 1 of 6)

Think about all of those investments you’ve made into your marketing. Your website, your e-commerce platform, your brand, your message, your email list, campaign after campaign, the list goes on…

That’s a lot of investment and chances are you’ve spent a lot of money. And guess what – it doesn’t stop there… that’s only the beginning. The question is: is every dollar you’re spending being maximized to it’s full potential? What if there was a way to be ensure that every dollar you spend was returning it’s value in multiples?

Welcome to CRO – also known as Conversion Rate Optimization.

In this 6 part series, we are going to introduce you to the world of CRO and show you how to maximize your marketing efforts. Here’s the simple truth – if you’re doing marketing, then you need to be doing CRO. If you aren’t, you are just gambling. Period. And if you are employing CRO correctly you have a ridiculously unfair advantage over your competition. It’s the closest thing to insurance on your digital spend as you can find.

What is CRO?

CRO replaces the guesswork and gambling and puts in its place a data-driven, science-based decision making process with results that are tangible and directly impact your bottom line.

Do you think racecar drivers just show up to the track on race day, hop into their cars, start driving and merely hope for a win? Absolutely not. For months leading up (and even during the race) they’re tweaking settings – air-fuel ratios, tires, aerodynamics, and engine parts. They are honing their strategy and fine tuning every minuscule detail before they actually hit the gas on race day. They are constantly analyzing real world data and iterating to continually increase their advantage and effectiveness – to win first place.

That’s what Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) does for your digital investment, for everything from your marketing to your website, ecommerce store, and/or mobile app. By taking the guesswork out of your marketing, by testing and fine tuning your website, CRO allows you to maximize your spend and effectively and scientifically increase whatever conversion metric matters to you (sales, user signups, leads – you name it).

It makes you money. It helps you win.

Can CRO Help You?

Ask yourself these three simple questions to determine if CRO is right for your website

1. Do you have an action you want someone to take on your website?

Hint: The answer is “yes.” You wouldn’t have a website if you didn’t want people to do something. This action is your conversion, whether it is purchase a product, sign up for a newsletter, share, watch a video, etc.

2. Do you know your conversion rate, or how many people are doing what you want them to do?

Hint: If you don’t, you should. You need to know how effective your site is.

3. If you do know your conversion rate, is it 100 percent?

Hint: The answer is “no.” Even the best websites don’t convert everyone, and opportunities are always missed. CRO reveals the best ways to improve.

Breaking Down CRO

In the simplest terms, CRO is the scientific practice of getting more people to take a desired action on your website.

The conversion, or desired user action, enables you to achieve a business goal. The rate is the percentage of users who took that action. And optimization gives you a scientific methodology for improvement.

CRO gives you the answers to questions like these:

What button color and call-to-action text within the button will work best?
What landing page layout and content should I use?
What discounts or special offers lead to better conversion rates?
Which PPC ad copy works best?
Is the email opt-in more effective as a pop-up or in the sidebar?

Science vs. Speculation

Just about any functionality or design element on your website can be tested and improved. And that’s the difference between a struggling e-commerce store and an e-commerce store with consistent growth.

The store with consistent growth isn’t guessing.

It’s almost unfair. If every decision you make is based on hard data, how can you fail? How can you not continue to get better and better? CRO lets you take control of your future and ensure your website is always becoming more and more effective.

On the other hand, if you don’t take a systemized, methodical approach and test everything, you’ll have no idea what’s working and what’s not. Instead of relying on data and science, you’re relying on hope and luck.

It’s like taking your investments to the craps table and letting dice decide your future.

CRO is a practical option for anyone with a website, and if you’re not using it, there’s a huge opportunity being missed. The visitors are already there, you’re just not taking control of what they do next.

In this 6 part series, we’ll cover: