Accelerating Purchase Consideration through Trust Identifiers

Food for thought: The Role of Trust Identifiers in the Purchase Consideration Funnel

Technology makes the delivery of marketing messages easier, but fundamentally, trust still plays a pivotal role in driving online conversion.Indeed, strategic use of trust identifiers can substantially accelerate purchase consideration. I am not simply writing about the display of privacy icons such as Hacker Safe or Truste, the lift generated from these icons is well documented.

I am more concerned with the use of the keywords associated with trust as its own Brand in the minds of the online consumer. Gaining consumer trust matters. It’s not always about the flashy banner or the clever advertising. These things often generate response.It boils down to credibility and which message among many do I trust? I typically spend money with brands I believe in and that trust can be used as a powerful tool for influencing customer behavior on your site.

Profiting from the Health Conscious with Fear

Admittedly, as I get older I have become more health conscious. I am far more receptive to that kind of messaging than I would have been just 5 years earlier. How many times have you seen that Vytorin commercial? I swear I haven't touched one single item mentioned on that commercial since--- sure, the makers of Vytorin have clearly raised awareness around the impact of cholerestol on your body. There are two types, right?

But, I am reminded of two advertising tactics clearly being used here; fear and awareness. Both drive me to change my eating habits and may even alter my spending preferences.I am not fond of grocery shopping, but in lieu of Vytorin, it has taken on a whole new meaning. I am far more discerning, watching every calorie and fat intake.

Eating healthy is expensive, but with so many products to choose from, how do I speed up the consideration process?Well... I've trained myself..or I've been trained, depending on your standpoint. I look for trust identifiers that tell me when a product is worth further consideration.

Think about it for a minute. Words like low fat, low carb, low sodium, no sugar and heart healthy take on meaning that the health conscious easily recognize. Without these identifiers, I might be forced to look at every single product on the shelf.

In an odd twist of marketing, trust identifiers make product selection a relatively painless process. Why should that be any different online?Look at your competitors' sites. What trust identifiers do they use in order to trigger a response?Wouldn't this same tactic work well online? Of course, it does. Experiment. Try adding trust identifiers to your creative. You could easily dust off those old gif or flash files that are routinely designed. Compare them against designs that do not include these attributes. Do your clickthrough rates improve? Remain the same? Vary by product? Vary by tactic? Do conversion rates increase with your acquisition programs or just those specific in raising awareness?

Web Analytics is change management. Don't just use use web analytics to review reports. Use Web Analytics to measure your ability to influence change.

That's smart marketing.

Web Analytics: Measuring Sales Persuasion

Persuasive Architecture Means Measuring the Ability of Your Site to Sale

With some intelligence, design can be used to strongly influence customer behavior on your site. Whether customers buy, sign up, come back or offer testimonials about their experiences is all a matter of persuasive design. Now that part is pretty straightforward, though not easy, but what is often misunderstood is that the influence of design can be measured online and quite effectively.

Measuring the influence of your design

Because site design is far more than colors, flash or graphics, getting customers to do more of what you expect them to do should be your goal. Design can be a statement about the strength and value of your business or conversely, it can punctuate where it is weakest. These pain points can and should be measured daily.

Measuring the influence of design on customer interactions has become easier with every technological advance forward from the legacy of logfiles or client side scripting tools like Unica, Omniture and Coremetrics.

What we used to call facts about your site were really based on statements of subjectivity about design. We'd make comments such as, I don't think, we believe or our experience shows..". ,

Web analytics has begun to take the guesswork out of site management. It helps site owners measure, manage and realize greater return on their investments. Faster.

But tools only carry you so far, the results are often in what and how you measure.

Site owners now use statements about conversion to describe the success of their web sites. Successful conversion begins at the first point of customer contact typically revolving around the homepage.

Measuring the influence of your design is easier than you think. Understanding how you can influence customer behavior is the key to improving your business over time.

The ROI of Web Page Redesign

I've been asked the question several times over by both client and workshop attendees alike. It starts off something like this: "We are thinking about redesigning our Internet or intranet. What tips can you provide us?

As tempting as redesigning your site is and trust me, we've been down that road, it's usually a sure formula for disaster.

Four Reasons Why Redesigning Your Site is a bad idea

I'll give you 4 reasons why there is almost never an ROI for a complete redesign of your site and specifically why identifying key action areas of your site may ultimately help you reach your business goals faster than a redesign ever would.

#1 Complete Web Page Redesigns Can Actually Hurt Your Business

The immediate results of redesigns are almost always tempered with a lack of long term results.
Its true. You may see a temporary interest or climb in visitation, but it will likely be short lived. A redesign often adversely affects your conversion metrics.

Further, if you have been actively collecting user data from your site, you can essentially throw those numbers away. New Site=New Data often spells new problems.

I've seen redesigns that actually reduce revenues specifically because redesigns often affect search engine placement, at least temporarily. Practically speaking, web sites are inherently flawed. Don't take the risk. Think about realigning processes, not redesigning them. You likely haven't exhausted all of your available options. Be creative. Collect data about your processes for a few weeks. Let that be the litmus for change.

#2 A Web Site Redesign can be Costly.

Redesigns often costs thousands and proper programming can cost you even thousands more, which means you essentially have to recoup those losses before you can begin to calculate any significant ROI.

You'd be better off developing better landing pages that convert your visitors at higher rates, targeting your sales messages through segmentation, optimizing your homepage, or investing in pay for performance channels to help drive traffic to your site.
Do just about anything to avoid the final nail in the coffin of a redesign.

#3 Measure the effectiveness of areas on your site that help you drive business first!

Often its not the entire site that needs an overhaul, but rather the processes that connect it. Before considering a redesign, start by documenting key process or action areas of your site. These areas are often tied to things such as registration, promotional areas, entry pages, shopping carts, product pages, your homepage, forms, content pages, etc.
Measure the activity of these key areas. Are your customers abandoning your shopping cart on Step 2 of the registration process or are your call to action links simply not compelling enough? Consider the purchase of web analytic software to help you better manage your business.

#4 A Complete Web Site Redesign May not Actually Solve Anything.

If you want to better understand how your web site is performing, consider using funnel analysis to help you identify bottlenecks. Try surveying existing customers that did purchase from you to find out what was and was not compelling about the buying experience.
Try an overlay tool to help you visually understand customer behavior on your site, as well as the revenue impact of your links.
Sample with A/B testing and prove that one page design is more or less effective than another.
Increase your revenue by up selling to existing customers or exploring customer segmentation models.

Avoid Costly Web Page Redesigns

Taking smaller, incremental steps and documenting change can help you better reach your business goals than any full scale redesign could. Invest the time in learning more about your existing web site now, you'll find it can help you both identify and manage strategic changes that positively affect your bottom line.

From Buckets to Funnels: Optimizing Your Web Conversion Funnels

"When does a web site cease to be just a web site? When it works for your business, of course...." Web Analyst, Ross Jenkins.

The work of managing a web site is hard enough without a plan. I have long described the process of managing web sites to that of a large leaking bucket. To be sure, web sites are really less design and more about problem solving. The more you know the less you are sure.
Problems are made more evident when you realize that your site is riddled with holes. You know that there are issues, but you simply aren't sure where to start the mending process.
Some would argue that if the bucket is faulty, throw it away and get a new one, but the investments of site design and planning are not easily disposed and even if that was an option, could you be sure that your initial problem would even be addressed?

The holes are the variety of questions that site owners have about their web sites, but they should not include issues of color and flash. Site owners should be concerned with issues of business. They, and they alone are worthy of consideration. Designing for design sakes falls largely under the category of brand.

So what is the work of business driven design? How can site operators begin to build an appetite for the business behind the design? What are the holes that should be addressed and ulitmately filled?

Start by identifying and measuring the following properties of your web site: Conversion. Revenue, sometimes? Profit, always. Customer Satisfaction. Cross selling. Upselling. Retention.

None of the preceding attributes of your site can be measured accurately by visible eye or through technographics provided through logfiles or fancy web reporting systems. Only a framework for continuous improvement and the necessary analytic mind rarely afforded to business owners can measure them with value metrics.

If you want to run a web site..hire an analyst. If you want to run a business hire a strategist. You want success, then align business goals to your site.

Improving Landing Page Effectiveness

Landing page development is an important part of the marketing and sales process. As a result, assigning business value to landing page real estate provides insight into maximizing lead conversions and improving overall campaign performance.

From a strategic standpoint, determining how page elements contribute or detract from conversion can quickly become a critical business component that drives the bottom line.

By securing just a few of the following landing page best practices, the marketer is likely to dramatically improve campaign ROI.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Placement and merchandising still matter online.
• When developing creative and messaging, remember that landing pages make up an important part of the sales process.
• Content drives clicks, particularly when targeted at particular audience.
• Set appropriate targets. Forecast visitor and conversion rates in advance of campaign flight dates to determine realistic break-even scenarios.
• Measure and make appropriate changes throughout the campaign lifecycle, not at the end.
• At the very least, A/B compare landing page approaches. Assuming you have enough traffic, use multiple landing pages to drive campaign success.

Best Practices at a Glance

1. Reduce Customer Anxiety

Does the content reconfirm the reason why the prospect came to the landing page? Look to include content that reduces customer anxiety around the buying process. Be very specific about setting customer expectations, ensuring that the customer knows exactly what to do next. Don’t make the customer think too much. Landing pages convert at less than 2% on average, so you have a very short amount of time to direct your prospect. Finally, content should anticipate customer objections.

2. Button designs

Buttons aren’t just functional. Buttons are a part of the sales process too. Effective designs should spell out customer expectations, e.g ‘Get Your Free Newsletter”, Order OnDemand Programming. Note: More often than not standard form buttons do not contribute to conversion lift.

3.Do include bullets

By emphasizing product benefit at a glance the customer may ‘scan’ the value proposition. Consider using content that has an indirect benefit..don’t just list product attributes.

4. Highlight trust identifiers

Include privacy statements, customer or industry quotes, online guarantees, product endorsements, comparative statements/charts,etc. If customer information is requested, do divulge what will be done with it.


5. Take care of the Call to action

The CTA should be immediately visible and standout above all elements on the page (likely top right) and/or near transactional buttons. Minimize customer distractions. Flash should be used when it strengthens the value prop and/or call to action.

6. Include a Hero Shot

Usually an image representing what the customer receives as a result of taking part in the sales process. Typically found in the right or left margins above the fold or near the call to action button.

7. Make the Offer Clear

Try framing the offer in a way that makes it stand out from other page elements. Use Headlines to provide the customer with visual cues – emphasizing keywords when appropriate.

8. Minimize noise elements

Remove unnecessary navigational elements when appropriate

9. Flash Elements

Flash may be used as call to action contributors, but should not replace necessary content.

10. Don’t overuse hyperlinks – hyperlinks can often be used as customer bail out points. Research suggests that when pages have too many links, customers read less and assume there is more to read on subsequent pages. Try not to use ‘Click Here’ . Every click should create momentum for the sales process.