I ventured into a website review clinic at PubCon (2010) the topic of which, loosely, was using social media to promote a site.
The site of which I’m about to speak shall remain nameless. Their issue was using online media to advance a rebranding effort, one meant to take a company known for one service into an entirely new realm of service.
The principal issue appeared to be that the company’s messaging effort, about the new service, wasn’t leading to conversions, i.e., new customers signing up for the new service.
The panel addressed various ways that online and social media could be used to advance the rebranding and offered a variety of ideas how to improve the rebranding, or perhaps better said, re-positioning of the company’s “we do this” message – moving away from being known as an information provider and towards being a service provider. (Message to all and to self: The money is no longer in putting information online for all to see and read for free.)
During the extended dialogue no one asked to see the website of the company that was undertaking the repositioning effort and that was having problems generating conversions. So, naturally eager to know just a little bit more, I raised my hand – essentially asking to intervene or interject – which I do cautiously in the presence of experts – and asked if the panelists could load the website to the display screen – so everyone in the room might see it.
They graciously responded, at which time then there was a bit of a silent WTF moment – as the website’s section specifically relating to the new service – appeared on the big screen. Why? Because, from the perspective of converting visitors to users of “the new service” the website was . . . how can I say this politely . . sadly lacking? As in lacking a clear and unique value message, lacking a clear call to action, lacking “evidence” that the solution to the person’s problem(s) was at hand, lacking endorsements or other forms of “social proof” that the company’s service actually worked, etc.
Being a bit taken aback by the obvious lack of “design to convert”, and hoping to avoid embarassment for the “person with the problem”, I leaned over and asked her the obvious get-off-the-hook question: “I assume your agency isn’t in charge of the website design . . just the branding effort?”
The answer? ~”Yes, that’s the responsibility of another agency . . but a redesign is in the works”.
At that epiphinic moment I got why the business of converting web visitors to users or purchasers is now becoming a science or service unto itself, i.e., conversion science or website conversion consulting – the art and science and methodologies of advancing visitors down the buy funnel.
Website visitor conversion is becoming a science or sub-specialty because it must. Someone has to be in charge of asking the right questions and, to ask the right questions you have to know what questions to ask. How can you know the right questions unless you are experience in design from a conversion perspective, i.e., “Will this alteration or change improve or decrease our conversion rate”? The relevant questions aren’t a designer’s questions. They’re an analyst’s questions. They’re a split or multi-variate testing experts questions. They’re the questions only someone who knows how to “tweak a little and study the right amount of time, in the right circumstances” will likely know to ask.
So, at this moment allow me to tip my hat to these guys (and gals?): Conversion Rate Experts.
I don’t know all the players in the field of conversion consulting but I’ve read a bit of Conversion-Rate-Expert’s online materials and viewed two their videos / tutorials and, from what I can see, extract and infer from what they reveal for free, they get conversion rate science.
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