Jon MacDonald knows how to get website visitors to take action.
As Founder of The Good, a conversion-rate optimization firm, he has worked with enterprise brands like Adobe, Nike, Xerox and more.
But in speaking with him, I realized that improving conversions is very similar to being a detective--poking around, asking lots of questions, studying behavior.
We spoke recently (full convo and takeaways here), as Jon just released his second
book, Opting In To Optimization.
This is the process that he used to improve revenue 270% in a year for baseball bat maker, Easton (in
his words):
Step 1: Speak with Customers:
When we started working with baseball bat company, Easton, we started talking to customers and customer service.
We asked customer service, “ What are the biggest complaints you
hear?”
And the first thing we heard was: “Well, parents call all the time angry that they can't return their bat.”
And it's like, “Well, why are they trying to return their bat?”
Let's start there...
The reason was very interesting: Because bats are only certified for certain leagues and
a lot of times, people would go to our website and they would just get presented with a big image of bats.
And they'd all look exactly the same.
If you imagine all of these bats -- they all just look like little round objects:
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You can't really identify the differences in the bats, other than maybe a few color differences.
So parents did not know where to start, so they would also often just go by price and just buy one that was within
their price.
Step 2: Identify Their Specific Pain Points:
And so we started talking to some parents who were having these problems.
And we did some customer research and interviews.
We found out that there's a certification, and they have to have the right bat for each league.
Otherwise kids would show up to batting practice before games and they'd hit with the new bat and they'd be really excited about it.
They would mess up the paint a little bit and ding up the battle a little bit to the point where they wouldn't be able to return it.
They'd get to the plate. And the umpire would say, you can't use this bat because it's not certified, but it was too late. They've already been using it. So they had to return it.
And we
said, okay, well, that's a problem that should be solved...
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Step 3: Test a Solution for their Problems (the quiz)
Why don't we just put a brief survey or quiz on the site asking a few questions--we found out
there are really three big components to finding the right bat:
- The first was what league the
kid was playing in
- The second one is what age? Because that helps determine the weight of the bat.
- And the third was what type of hitter or is it a child? Are they swinging for the fences and trying to get a home run all the time, or are they just trying to get
on base?
Depending on the answer, we changed the contents of the page.
Implementing the quiz alone increased online sales by 270% year over year, in addition to reducing returns.
So not only were they getting more conversions, but they were also not having to refurbish
products and lose that money on something that had already presumably been sold.
So with that in mind those type of, of quizzes, if you will, the pre purchase quizzes to help with
filtering can make a huge difference.
This is massive for a corporation that is as big as Easton!
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The other main takeaway from the conversation with Jon:
Your goals and your consumer's goals are aligned: you both want a conversion!
So help them to complete the research that they're at your site to do, so that they can learn how your products or services help solve their pain or need.
And if it can, they want to convert.
So help them to do that: help them do that research and then get out of their way and make it as easy as possible to buy.
Hit reply, I'd love to help you out! Have a great Friday!
Gen
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