We live in a world of excess, where more of everything is better. "Bigger, louder and more teeth," as a character says in Jurassic World, a movie on pace to set box office records for making the most money. But it's true. You don't hear much about films that get good reviews and end up being profitable; the industry is driven by the movies that make waves at the box office.
In the marketing world, there's a similar tendency for us to get caught up in trying to drive more visits, clicks and shares. We want more fans and more comments, because these metrics tell us what we're doing is working. And to a degree, they do. I'm not suggesting traffic and social sharing data don't matter, but hear me out.
What if I told you I could press a button and either a) increase your website's conversion rate by 0.5% or b) send 2000 visitors per month to your website? Which number would you choose, 0.5 or 2000? Most business owners would take the 2000 visitors and run, and then my question would be, "Do you know you site's conversion rate?" Because if it's low - or for example if it's zero percent - 1000, 2000 or 10,000 more visitors won't make a single cent of difference for your bottom line.
In digital marketing, a smaller increase of a critical metric can have a more meaningful impact on your business. So with this in mind, we focused the newest WSI infographic on landing pages, A/B testing and the power of turning website visitors into customers. Go Forth and Multiply Your Conversion Rates!
There's no substitute for a good landing page as it literally adds money to your bottom line. Landing pages increase your conversion rate, which leads to more sales and, of course, more sales means more dollars! Whats not to love about that? Here are a few other things you should know about landing pages and their potential impact on your conversion rates.
Too many businesses still use their homepage as their landing page for offers and campaigns, which is one of the worst conversion mistakes you can make. So if you're operating with a handful of targeted landing pages, hey, you're doing alright in my book. However, we uncovered a study that found businesses with 40 or more landing pages generated an incredible 12 times more leads than those with five or fewer landing pages. We think that's enough of a difference for you to get on your horse and churn out a few more well-positioned landing pages!
Want to increase your conversion rates by 80%? Use a video on your landing pages. Seriously, we found a study that claims videos can improve conversion rates by up to 80%. Here's a link to and Distilled's guide to online video marketing. Happy reading and video watching!
If you want to improve, you have to try. If you fall while you're trying, get back up and try again. We all learned these lessons when we were kids, right? So it makes sense brands that see year-over-year sales increases are actually attempting to boost their production by testing multiple landing pages. Good things come to those who work hard and try to move the needle forward, no matter what.
During the course of our research for this infographic, we came across a few interesting factoids about the sheer volume and impact of A/B testing.
In 2011, Google ran more than 7000 A/B tests. That's a whole lot of testing! And this was well before A/B testing was the cool thing to do. I think the message here is clear: do as Google says and as they do.
Sticking with Google, the team at Gmail once set out to find the highest converting shade of blue and tested 50 different shades for their call-to-action color! Even the smallest differences can change the actions and reactions of your customers.
And finally, the U.S. Democratic Party even got in on the testing action as President Obama raised an additional $60 million with A/B testing strategies.
