Five on Friday: Increasing Conversion Rates, Posting Subscriber Reviews and More

This week’s Five on Friday explores online reviews, 404 Errors, improving forms for B2B conversion, customer engagement and increasing your productivity.

Five on Friday: Increasing Conversion Rates

Photo Credit: Creative Commons labeled for reuse

As the INSIDER Guide to New Product Development (NPD), I’m constantly keeping an eye out for bite-size information that will help you develop and scale better subscription products.  Here’s my “Five on Friday” compilation for January 29th, featuring the five best trends, tips, quotes or stats from my reading this week.  

1. Reviews Do Influence Subscribers

It may come as no surprise that prospective buyers are influenced by the reviews of current customers, but the data is even stronger than you think.  According to a study done by Dimensional Research, 90% of respondents who recalled reading online reviews claimed that positive online reviews influenced their buying decision. Of course, 86% said that negative reviews had also influenced buying decisions.The takeaway?  Monitor social media to make sure you know what your customers are saying, and ideally build a relationship that encourages them to say it to you first!

“90% of respondents who recalled reading online reviews claimed that positive online reviews influenced their buying decision.”

– Dimensional Research study of 1,056 U.S. survey respondents.

2. A “Page Not Found” by Any Other Name is – an Opportunity

You already know it pays to create a strong, unique personality for your subscription. Following are a few amusing ways to do so even when your subscribers get a 404 Error.

What is a 404 Error? According to Wikipedia, “A 404 error is often returned when pages have been moved or deleted. The web site hosting server will typically generate a ‘404 Not Found’ web page when a user attempts to follow a broken or dead link.”

The customized error message can be playful or serious, as long as it offers a solution for your subscribers to get back to your website easily. While many businesses create sophisticated 404 Error pages with animation and sound, note the NPR example (on right) that leverages very simple graphics and links in a way that is meaningful and appealing to their readers.

404

3. Improve Your Forms to Improve B2B Conversion

A recent white paper from from Pardot,Double Your B2B Conversions in 8 Steps“, is worth downloading. It outlines some specific best practices for improving B2B conversion rates. My favorite?  These tips for improving your Contact/Call to Action Form:

  • B2B sales are complex. Don’t try to get every bit of information in the first response form. Settle for name, business name and email as required fields.
  • If you’re beyond the initial-contact phase, these tips will be helpful:
  • Don’t put two or three mutually-exclusive options into a dropdown menu; use a radio button instead. This helps users scan faster.
  • Use checkboxes when users can select multiple values simultaneously, or when giving a single option that can be toggled on and off.
  • When you need a single selection, but you have more than a few options, use a dropdown menu.
  • Only select a default when the vast majority will select that option, and ensure it’s clearly labeled.
  • If your labels are beside your form fields, consider making them right-aligned for enhanced readability.

conversions

4. More on Customer Engagement from Mindsea

In last week’s Five, I summarized an article from the design firm Mindsea. In case you weren’t able to get to the whole article, I’m sharing another important fact/recommendation from that piece – the importance of engagement.

While one company’s experience isn’t precedent, it does illustrate how interaction, versus one-way communication, can improve customer engagement. Neil Patel’s content-creation site QuickSprout reported a 41% boost in return visitors after starting to systematically reply to comments. He felt specifically that replying to comments had the biggest impact on customer interaction.

“Replying to comments by far had the biggest impact. It’s caused readers to continually come back, comment, share the posts via Twitter and Facebook and even recommend the blog to their friends” said Patel, the founder of both KissMetrics and QuickSprout.

Patel also recommends adding a question at the end of your reply to keep the conversation going.

Five On Friday‘s Opinion:  While I like what Patel has to say, I’m going to add that I don’t like his use of an immediate firewall (asking me to log in through Google) on his QuickSprout Homepage and “Start Here” navigation option. A company this savvy about engagement should realize it’s too much, too soon. Maybe I’ll send him a comment he can reply to…

5. Reduce “Shift Friction” to Become More Productive

A recent Quora post responding to how to get organized had this tip: Remove start-stop schedule and shift “friction” from your workday to improve productivity. What are these “frictions,” and how can you minimize them?

stopstart frictionStop-Start Friction is doing 15 minutes of work on an article, 30 minutes on expense forecasting, 5 making a quick call to your web designer, another 15 on sales with a couple peeks at email wedged in for good measure. The time it takes to turn your mind toward even the smallest tasks can result in more wasted time than you know, not to mention a task less well-done than it could be due to lack of concentration. 

What’s Better? Build in chunks of time to make calls, work on content, build strategy and – yes – sit and think!

Shift Friction is the small bits of time used in those transitions, as well as multitasking with “diversion” activity such as checking social media. Looking at your phone while walking – or heaven forbid, driving – can slow your progress toward what you’re really doing. Checking LinkedIn or Facebook is never the quick 15 seconds you actually have to spare.

What’s Better? Fold these tiny, less-important or purely social activities into a couple larger segments of time each day that are dedicated specifically to them.

Every minute of your day doesn’t need to be a frenzy of productivity, but most of us could claw back a few minutes from time squandered in “friction.”

Have a great weekend, everyone. And remember: Send me a note with your ideas to improve the reputation of our national news media, and I’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift card. I’ll compile some of the answers in a February edition of Five on Friday

Diane


Diane Pierson has deep experience in product management and marketing, having delivered results to companies including Dun & Bradstreet, LexisNexis, American Lawyer Media and Copyright Clearance Center. She has built products & services that have delivered over $100 million in revenue and knows what works, and what doesn’t, when executing product plans and strategies. She is also a contributor to Subscription Insider. (Read Diane’s full Bio)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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