Your 2021 Guide to Creating (and Optimizing) a Value Proposition
As a marketer, your job is to tell folks what makes your product or service the best out there. But that’s easier said than done, right? It’s one thing to understand your brand’s overall value to your customers. It’s another to craft a clear message that works in multiple contexts. Once you learn how to break a value proposition down, though, you’ll be able to optimize messaging across your landing pages and other customer touch-points to make sure you’re making the best impression possible. So, let’s dive right in and make sure your value prop is top-notch. We’ll explain what it is, how you can create one for your brand, and how it can lift your landing page conversions. What Is a Value Proposition?As CXL puts it, a value prop is a clear message that shows the primary value you provide to your customers. When you see a value prop out in the wild, it might be presented as a single statement, or it could be carefully sprinkled throughout a larger piece of copy.
Plenty of marketing resources touch on these factors, so let’s cover what isn’t a value proposition. A good value prop isn’t:
Your value prop should offer clear-cut benefits convincing the audience to choose you. Your value prop should be clear rather than clever. Leave the fuzzier stuff for higher-level messaging. MECLABS points out that value propositions come in four varieties:
The Role of Value Propositions on Your Landing PagesValue props work magic on landing pages—if you know how to use them. Your value prop should give the reader a reason to keep scrolling or click your call-to-action. You’ll need to answer the question, “Why should my visitor care about my landing page?” Every landing page you make should have a unique value proposition. When you have different value props on your landing pages, you can test their performance against each other to refine your brand’s main value prop. Plus, as you learned from the different types of value props in the last section, you have plenty of angles to share your value props from. When you have so many opportunities to draw in customers, you don’t want to waste them, do you? (Hint: No, you don’t.) Once you’ve got a variety of landing pages running with unique value props, you can use technology like Smart Traffic to send customers to the versions that are likely to resonate most with them. (For example, a results-focused visitor would be more likely to convert on a landing page with a value prop that mentions your performance numbers.) How to Create Your Value PropsNow that you know what a value prop is and how it’ll supercharge your landing pages, you’re probably wondering how to make one. Just like most things in marketing, there’s no single answer. (Go ahead and mark off “it depends” on your marketing-jargon bingo card.) Some companies create their value prop using a chart, while others use a different kind of template. No matter which method you go with, you’ll want to start by answering these three questions to cover the core elements of a value prop:
We’ll pause a moment here for you to answer those questions. No, seriously. The rest of this will be WAY more useful if you actually answer those questions. OK. Now that you have those answers let’s combine them into a few sentences explaining your main selling points. As you make your value prop, Shopify recommends writing in your customers’ voice, putting clarity before creativity, and emphasizing benefits instead of hype. While you ultimately want a concise value prop, don’t be afraid to give it the room it needs to communicate your value. Let that thing breathe! When MECLABS tested a landing page for an online high school with a more detailed value prop than the original, the new landing page had 32% more conversions. Now let’s see how you can tailor your value prop for some of the specific industries that use landing pages most often. Value props for SaaSThe software as a service (SaaS) world is all about solving problems. Customers looking for this tech want to make their life or work easier. If you want to create a powerful SaaS value prop, you’ll need to ask yourself: What pain point can I solve that my competitors can’t? The payment platform Deel nails their differentiation on this landing page. In a market filled with established competitors—‘sup, Paypal?—Deel embraces its unique take on the market: international payments for remote teams. They solve customers’ problems with simplified compliance and onboarding. Wondering which of your solutions will wow visitors the most? Try creating different landing pages that emphasize distinct features or solutions, and compare the results with A/B testing. Value props for ecommerceThe novelty of buying something online has long worn off. According to Statista, there are 2.14 billion online shoppers across the globe in 2021. Your ecommerce company’s value isn’t that you sell things online; it’s all about how you make the online shopping experience feel new or easy. So, when you craft an ecommerce value prop, you’ll need to ask this question: What does my store offer beyond products? Online pet retailer Chewy thrives on delivering a top-notch customer experience—so much so that Forbes wrote about it. Chewy showcases this primary value prop on the landing page for its mobile app. Why should you download the Chewy app, according to this value prop? It makes Chewy, well, Chewy-er. The value prop argues that the app expands Chewy’s convenience through a mobile experience. Of course, if you’re gonna go the customer experience route, remember that different customers value different experiences. Develop a few value propositions about various customer experiences, then use a tool like Smart Traffic to automatically route visitors to the one that’s most relevant. Value props for professional servicesProfessional services are a little more abstract than a physical product or software. You’re gonna need to make your benefits as concrete as possible to communicate your value. One way to optimize your professional services’ value prop is by answering this question: How does your service make life or work easier? Border Buddy frames its benefits as solutions to pain points on this landing page (made with Unbounce--woot!): In the “Who Are We” section’s value prop, Border Buddy addresses the biggest customer pain point: They’re sick of paperwork. The benefits of “online importing and exporting solutions” become clearer after you hear why someone might need them. Editor’s Note: This value prop technique works great if you’re trying to snag more leads for your business. Try sealing the deal with an Unbounce lead-gen form like Border Buddy did here. Show Your Stuff With a Killer Value PropNow that you have the tools you need to make a value proposition, you’re one step closer to increasing your conversions. But—you’ve still gotta work hard to create a good one. It’ll take careful research, testing, and self-reflection to nail it. And landing pages can help you a lot during the process. Get started today with a free trial to test and optimize your value prop on your landing page using Smart Traffic. Via Marketing http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://samanthasmeyers.blogspot.com/2021/05/your-2021-guide-to-creating-and.html May 14, 2021 at 05:22AM
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How to Create a Customer Journey Map That Works in 30 Minutes (Free Template)
Hashing out a customer journey map is on most marketers’ to-do lists, but it keeps getting pushed back. Maybe a high-priority project gets in your way or—ugh--who has the time? Whatever the reason, customer journey mapping often doesn’t happen, even though it should. To help you start that long-delayed project, we’ll break down what a customer journey map is, walk through why it matters, and help you make your own in less than 30 minutes with our handy, free template. What Is a Customer Journey Map?A customer journey map is a step-by-step visual guide detailing your customers’ experience with your brand. And if you’re thinking, “Hey, isn’t that what a marketing funnel is?” Not exactly. A marketing funnel explains the process of turning a prospect into a conversion. However, a customer journey map goes beyond the conversion funnel to show you every part of the customer experience. While a marketing funnel sorts customers into their statuses as prospects or customers, a customer journey map looks at the actions they take. As a Business 2 Community article points out, many customer journey maps don’t follow a straight line—they include roadblocks and loops. Think about your experience as a customer: Haven’t you put an item back on the shelf or visited a website from two different devices? We typically don’t go straight from point A to point B when buying: We waver back and forth. When you make a customer journey map, you try to capture every step of the customer experience, including the not-so-linear parts. That way, you have a game plan for whatever direction your customers take. Should You Create Customer Journey Maps?Yep. But don’t just take our word for it! Sixty-five percent of customers say they’d keep buying from a brand that gives them a great experience during the whole customer journey. Plus, 44% of marketers say that complete customer journey mapping leads to better customer experiences. Customer journey maps also make sense on a human level. If you know what your potential customers want at each stage of their buying journey, you can serve it to them on a silver platter. And they’ll pay you back in loyalty and conversions. What does this tailored content look like in action? One of our favorite landing page examples of 2021 by Grass Roots and Mutesix uses the company’s knowledge of the entire customer journey to tell a story, taking you through the whole conversion process. When you have a customer journey map on hand, you’ll be able to make hyper-focused content and landing pages that deliver what your audience needs when they need it. In other words, you’ll have content and landing pages that convert. Editor’s Note: If you’d like to create a landing page like the one above, you’ll love our drag-and-drop editor and easy-to-use templates. You could also try using technology like Smart Traffic to send your landing page visitors to variants that match their stage in the customer journey. How to Create Your First Customer Journey Map in 30 Minutes or Less (Free Template)It can be tricky to capture the essential parts of a customer journey without taking hours to do it. Fortunately, we have a template that will spare you a ton of work. Try this quick-and-easy method using our template:
Your completed spreadsheet should look a little something like this: If you don’t have detailed answers for every section right now, no worries. Just write in what you can. Your customer journey map is a living document that you’ll edit as your customers’ experiences grow. Ready to Put Your Plan Into Action?The best time to get started on your customer journey map was yesterday. Fortunately, the second-best time is today! Follow these steps to change that “to-do” into a “ta-da”!
Easy as that. Once you’re ready, start putting that customer journey map to good use by creating landing page variants for each of your different touchpoints. Sign up for an Unbounce trial to start building today—no coding required. Via Marketing http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://samanthasmeyers.blogspot.com/2021/05/how-to-create-customer-journey-map-that_13.html May 13, 2021 at 11:22PM
How to Create a Customer Journey Map That Works in 30 Minutes (Free Template)
Hashing out a customer journey map is on most marketers’ to-do lists, but it keeps getting pushed back. Maybe a high-priority project gets in your way or—ugh--who has the time? Whatever the reason, customer journey mapping often doesn’t happen, even though it should. To help you start that long-delayed project, we’ll break down what a customer journey map is, walk through why it matters, and help you make your own in less than 30 minutes with our handy, free template. What Is a Customer Journey Map?A customer journey map is a step-by-step visual guide detailing your customers’ experience with your brand. And if you’re thinking, “Hey, isn’t that what a marketing funnel is?” Not exactly. A marketing funnel explains the process of turning a prospect into a conversion. However, a customer journey map goes beyond the conversion funnel to show you every part of the customer experience. While a marketing funnel sorts customers into their statuses as prospects or customers, a customer journey map looks at the actions they take. As a Business 2 Community article points out, many customer journey maps don’t follow a straight line—they include roadblocks and loops. Think about your experience as a customer: Haven’t you put an item back on the shelf or visited a website from two different devices? We typically don’t go straight from point A to point B when buying: We waver back and forth. When you make a customer journey map, you try to capture every step of the customer experience, including the not-so-linear parts. That way, you have a game plan for whatever direction your customers take. Should You Create Customer Journey Maps?Yep. But don’t just take our word for it! Sixty-five percent of customers say they’d keep buying from a brand that gives them a great experience during the whole customer journey. Plus, 44% of marketers say that complete customer journey mapping leads to better customer experiences. Customer journey maps also make sense on a human level. If you know what your potential customers want at each stage of their buying journey, you can serve it to them on a silver platter. And they’ll pay you back in loyalty and conversions. What does this tailored content look like in action? One of our favorite landing page examples of 2021 by Grass Roots and Mutesix uses the company’s knowledge of the entire customer journey to tell a story, taking you through the whole conversion process. When you have a customer journey map on hand, you’ll be able to make hyper-focused content and landing pages that deliver what your audience needs when they need it. In other words, you’ll have content and landing pages that convert. Editor’s Note: If you’d like to create a landing page like the one above, you’ll love our drag-and-drop editor and easy-to-use templates. You could also try using technology like Smart Traffic to send your landing page visitors to variants that match their stage in the customer journey. How to Create Your First Customer Journey Map in 30 Minutes or Less (Free Template)It can be tricky to capture the essential parts of a customer journey without taking hours to do it. Fortunately, we have a template that will spare you a ton of work. Try this quick-and-easy method using our template:
Your completed spreadsheet should look a little something like this: If you don’t have detailed answers for every section right now, no worries. Just write in what you can. Your customer journey map is a living document that you’ll edit as your customers’ experiences grow. Ready to Put Your Plan Into Action?The best time to get started on your customer journey map was yesterday. Fortunately, the second-best time is today! Follow these steps to change that “to-do” into a “ta-da”!
Easy as that. Once you’re ready, start putting that customer journey map to good use by creating landing page variants for each of your different touchpoints. Sign up for an Unbounce trial to start building today—no coding required. Via Marketing http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://samanthasmeyers.blogspot.com/2021/05/how-to-create-customer-journey-map-that.html May 11, 2021 at 07:22PM
LEGO Playwaves: A World-First Google Assistant Voice Experience
LEGO Playwaves is a world-first, Google-assistant voice experience that lets kids turn old LEGO bricks into new sonic adventures. Kids can access LEGO Playwaves by simply saying “Hey Google, talk to LEGO Playwaves” on any Google-assistant device. This will then launch the app, which allows kids to explore five different sonic worlds: Magical Kingdom, Downtown [...]
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Via Marketing http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://samanthasmeyers.blogspot.com/2021/05/lego-playwaves-world-first-google.html May 06, 2021 at 10:22PM
5 Cool Optical Illusions That Will Help Boost Your Conversions
Was the dress black and blue, or white and gold? (Oh no, not this again…) Yep, we’re about to dig up the ol’ viral perception conundrum, and you’d be surprised how much our eyes (and how they process info) play a role in landing page design and conversion lift. Landing pages are supposed to be clear. Optical illusions are the opposite of that. So how the heck can they help you boost landing page conversions? Let’s first answer another question: Which animal do you see in the image below? You’re right if you say “duck.” You’re also right if you say “rabbit.” Some might even see a seagull, although this illusion’s original name is “Rabbit and Duck.” Your answer can depend on which animal you’re more familiar with, which one you’ve seen more recently, or even whether it’s spring or fall. The answer varies because our minds interpret information based on its surrounding context. So… what lessons can we learn from “Rabbit and Duck” and other optical illusions when it comes to building a landing page, you ask? Conversion rates depend heavily on context—it’s not always about what your customers see, but how they see it that matters. If you understand how perception and interpretation work, you can easily improve the design of your landing pages in a way that increases conversions. Without further ado, let’s talk about brains, baby! Placement and Proportion: The Ebbinghaus IllusionWhich of the orange circles below is larger? The one on the right, right? Nope. The two circles are the exact same size. One only seems bigger because our minds perceive size based on context. And in the context of the different-sized blue circles and varying spacing, the orange circle on the right seems larger. There are two useful ways we can use this knowledge for our landing pages: First, placement matters. This is pretty much general knowledge by now, but to get the necessary attention, the most important parts of your landing page should be prominently placed (the CTA, for example) and not overshadowed by other content. You should also carefully consider the context that’s surrounding your product, as it can affect how a visitor perceives its size. If you’re selling furniture, it’s a great idea to include a sample image from a living room, so a customer could see what their new sofa would potentially look like in their home. And getting a more vivid idea of your product can sway the visitor to convert. Doesn’t this armchair look much more appealing with such a serene background instead of a blank white one? This whole image conveys feelings of comfort and peace that you will experience if you buy the chair. However, you should be careful not to display your product out of proportion. The last thing you want to do is deceive your audience. The DFS furniture company got a lot of bad press and even had their ads banned for shrinking the models used in the images of their furniture. With that being said, the second lesson with the Ebbinghaus illusion is that image dimensions matter. According to a study by CXL, the actual size of your product image can affect its perception. It turned out that in the case of a hard drive, people were willing to pay more if the product image was larger. And apparently, this effect depends on what type of good you’re selling, as the opposite was true for T-shirts. What’s the key takeaway? To boost conversions, experiment with variants to find the best-converting placement for the most important parts of your landing page, as well as the optimum image sizes. But be careful: Don’t play with placement and proportion to deceive your customers. They’ll remember you—and not in a good way. (By the way: Check out how easy it is to send visitors to the highest-converting page variant with Unbounce’s Smart Traffic.) Priming and Anchoring: The B/13 IllusionFor the next illusion, let’s take a look at the following image, similar to the Rabbit-Duck illusion from up top. What’s pictured in the image below? That’s the letter B, right? That’s B for Bingo! But what does it look like now? Oh, snap! Now it’s the number 13. An illusion very similar to this was used in a study in 1955 where one group of subjects were shown a set of letters while the other group was shown a set of numbers. In both groups, an ambiguous B/13 figure was shown. The study found that the subjects who were previously presented with letters perceived the figure as B, while the subjects that were presented with numbers perceived it as 13. So, this optical illusion shows how perception changes depending on what comes before and after the element in question: This brings us to an important concept in psychology called a perceptual set. In a nutshell, a perceptual set is the tendency to perceive things a certain way, depending on factors like expectations, emotions, motivation, and culture. Because of this, a visitor arriving on your landing page might not really understand your offer right away. Instead, they might make a premature negative judgment based on other similar landing pages and offers they’ve seen. While you can’t affect someone’s cultural traits, you can—to a certain extent— affect your visitors’ expectations, emotions, and motivations to overcome their perceptual set. To better get your offer across, you should use priming and anchoring techniques to create the kind of context on your landing page that would prompt the user to perceive the product the way you want them to. If you manage to nudge them in the right direction, your conversion rates will improve. A great example of priming is this ad for Coca-Cola: Can you see the Coke bottle? There’s no actual bottle in the image, but you’ve most likely seen a fair share of the distinctive bottles in your life, so you’re pretty much bound to imagine one here, too. On top of that, the copy (“Feel it”) can trigger memories of previous experiences with the drink as well as other Coke ads you’ve seen. A great example of priming comes from Teamflow: Yes, this page is very straightforward—”Feel like a team again.” But it does the trick. Teamflow’s page evokes an office layout and triggers memories of synergy, productivity, and success in visitors. This helps create a positive connection with the product. However, keep in mind that you don’t accidentally prime negative associations. Sometimes simply mentioning the word “spam” will decrease conversions—although the copy clearly states, “We will never spam you.” (Your brain says: “Yeah, right.”) What’s the key takeaway? When crafting your landing page, use priming and anchoring to consciously create the kind of context for your visitors that would nudge them towards perceiving your product the way you would like them to. Focus-Pocus: The Schroeder StairsNext, let’s play a little trick on your eyes: Take a good look at the stairs below. If you focus on A, you should perceive the image as a regular set of stairs, leading from the bottom right to the top left, with side A of the stairs being closest to you. However, if you focus on B, you should see the same staircase inverted, with side B closest to you, looking at the staircase from underneath. The Schroeder stairs help demonstrate how perception changes depending on where attention is drawn. In extreme cases, perspective can even be completely reversed. Now, if the letters were removed, you could perceive the image either way, based on your perceptual set. Or maybe worst of all, you would keep switching between the two views. (Brain = fried.) Similarly, when a visitor arrives on your landing page, sending mixed signals or giving them too much choice can make them bounce. To make your visitors convert instead, you should make your landing page as clear as possible: Focus on one problem, one solution, and one call to action. And on top of doing this on the landing page itself, you should keep the whole landing page experience consistent. If a user arrives on your landing page through a link that primes them to expect A, they’re likely to be confused once they arrive and see B instead. Let’s take a look at Later, featured in this list of high-converting landing pages. This is a wonderful example of a consistent landing page experience, with the design and copy completely in sync between the ad, email, and landing page: Another great example to learn from is the Simply Business landing page. They keep the page simple and consistent with a CTA that’s repeated below the fold with the exact same copy. For more examples, you can look at other mentions in the same list, or analyze any Unbounce landing page template, really. You’ll most likely get great results with any one of them, as long as you keep everything consistent. What’s the key takeaway? To boost conversions you should unify your message, focusing it on one key aspect, and make sure you provide your visitors with a consistent landing page experience. Visual Contrast: The Disappearing Yellow DotsIt’s been thoroughly proven that adding video to your landing page can boost conversions. However, if you’re not doing it right, you might be missing out on some potential conversions. Of course, the content of the video is crucial—but you’ll also want to pay attention to how the visuals affect your landing page. Let’s look at the illusion below. If you focus your gaze on the center green dot, the three surrounding yellow dots will soon disappear. The effect is a good way to demonstrate what is known as motion-induced blindness (MIB)—a phenomenon in which motionless elements disappear in front of an observer’s eyes when masked with a moving background. What does this illusion mean for your landing page? Well, if your visitors focus on a background video or animation, they are highly likely to pay less attention to surrounding or overlayed static objects. This could mean copy on top of a background video or CTA buttons and other strings of copy that are too close to the video, animation, or other moving objects. To boost conversions, it’s definitely wise to use video. But to maximize your landing page conversions, you should be careful—especially with background video. Let’s look at a few useful examples: The Yacht CompanyAbove the fold, there’s a background video that’s blurred out when you first load the page. This gives you a chance to first get a look at the copy on top of the background video. The design is very consistent and sleek, although the contrast between the background video and copy could be A/B tested—especially with the CTA button. TogglHere’s another great hero area video example, with high contrast that doesn’t take too much attention away from the clear copy and CTA. In addition to this video, the whole page has a bunch of animations—using fewer could be A/B tested as well. ShutterstockShutterstock features a hero area video with great contrast between the background and the copy. The pause button in the bottom right corner is a pretty neat feature, too! What’s the key takeaway? Don’t overuse videos or animations on your landing page, and make sure to test contrast and placement for the CTA and copy—especially when putting them on top of a video. Combine and Convert: Snag Those Leads Using a Mix of Optical Illusions in Your Landing Page DesignRemember the Coca-Cola “bottle” illusion? That’s a great ad, isn’t it? It’s simple and ingenious and displays great use of priming. Also, it’s bound to catch a viewer’s attention and be remembered. This brings us to our final illusion: What can you see in this image? Probably a happy family, yes? Most likely, you also see a figure forming in the white gap: a dog. This ad is part of a clever campaign by World For All—a Mumbai-based NGO for the welfare of stray animals. Not only does the ad prime feelings of joy and love, but also masterfully creates an animal figure from the gap between the people—an empty space in one’s life that could be filled by rescuing an animal. Consequently, this ad combines many of the key takeaways from the optical illusions so far, focusing on one problem, one solution, and one call to action, as well as overcoming perceptual set (in this case, negative associations with stray animals) while also creating positive connections with priming. And on top of that, the ad is truly eye-catching and memorable—probably even more persuasive than a typical ad. A great real-life landing page example that combines key takeaways from all these optical illusions is none other than Netflix: Their design is simple but impressive. The page is focused on key copy and only features a few images and two small videos that showcase the interface—either on your TV set or your computer (a beautiful iMac, of course, a good use of priming). The CTA stands out really well thanks to the contrasting background and is repeated word-for-word at the bottom of the page. And there’s even a small optical illusion featured on the page: the ad for The Haunting of Hill House, immediately eye-catching. What’s the key takeaway? Combine the key takeaways from all these optical illusions in your marketing campaign to boost conversions. Be creative to stand out from the crowd, and don’t be afraid to use actual optical illusions to create a lasting impression (make sure you don’t go overboard with them, though). Grab Your Audience’s Attention and Get the Conversion Boost You NeedEven if your visitors don’t convert immediately, they’re bound to remember your page and are more likely to come back, or at least give you their email. And triggering visitors’ interest with an optical illusion can be really helpful for boosting conversions on a squeeze page—especially if you combine it with an automated email marketing tool to keep engaging your visitors. The most important thing is to keep building and testing new variants of your pages using tools like Smart Traffic. Don’t be afraid to try out the key takeaways we laid out in this post to see how they can help you land more conversions. Via Marketing http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://samanthasmeyers.blogspot.com/2021/05/5-cool-optical-illusions-that-will-help.html May 06, 2021 at 06:22PM
Psychographic Segmentation: A Simple Guide For Marketers
Most marketers understand the importance of customer research. Still, when it comes to creating a complete profile of our audience using data, it’s tough to know where to begin. The most common starting point is demographic data: who our customers are, from age to sex, race, marital status, and income level. Demographic data can be incredibly helpful. But sometimes we need more. We know individuals aged 18-35 may be interested in performance biking gear, but demographic data alone can’t tell us who likes to spend their weekends training for cycling races, and who’s more likely to fall off the stationary bike at the gym. A number of women may be interested in organic shampoo, but demographic data can’t help us figure out which will prefer unscented cosmetics and be willing to pay more for sustainable products. If we want to truly know our audience and adapt our marketing and messaging to suit them, we need to know more about our audience’s motivations, preferences, and beliefs. We need to move from who they are to how they are. That’s where psychographic segmentation comes into play. (Don’t worry. It’s not as scary or complicated as it sounds.) Getting In Your Audience’s Head: Psychographic Segmentation“Psychographics” refers to an individual’s psychological characteristics, such as personality, attitudes, values, opinions, and interests. Because this type of information most often comes from within, it tends to be less easily observed or tracked from afar. Psychographic data is most often collected via a survey or interview with audience members, using a series of questions designed to surface specific views, beliefs, preferences, and more. Psychographic segmentation is the process of separating or grouping an audience based on those psychological qualities. Sometimes this is done to identify a subset of audience members who fit certain criteria, but it can also be used to create many separate groups within an audience. At the most basic level, this could mean splitting a group into two categories based on a single characteristic, like whether they enjoy shopping online:
But as additional psychographics are used to segment the audience further, the number of segments can grow very quickly:
Psychographic Data PointsExactly how many psychographics are used to segment an audience—and which data points are used to create those segments—will depend on what info is available and most relevant for your specific use case. Here are some of the most common variables used in psychographic segmentation: Personality: Segmenting by personality traits means grouping the audience based on their beliefs, motivators, morals, values, outlook, and demeanor. If you’re marketing a trip that involves white-water rafting, skydiving, and ziplining through a jungle, it would be helpful to know which members of your audience are risk-taking adrenaline junkies, and which ones get nervous going up a tall escalator. Social Status: This refers to the audience members’ relationship with and standing within their community. Social status can be heavily influenced by demographic data points (like income, marital status, or education level), depending on the value placed on those characteristics. Lifestyle: This encompasses three closely related psychographic data types: Activities, Interests, and Opinions (AIOs).
When you’re able to collect enough of this type of psychographic information to create a detailed portrait, it’s called a “psychographic profile.” Here’s an example of a basic psychographic profile for a customer of an ecommerce fashion retailer:
How to Use Psychographic Segmentation in Your MarketingHaving psychographic data about your audience is interesting, to be sure. (It’s like being part Sigmund Freud, part Sherlock Holmes.) But if it’s used correctly, it can majorly boost your marketing efficiency and your conversion rates. Psychographically segmenting your audience, when combined with demographic and other data, allows you to know more about your audience. You’ll have a much clearer portrait of who your audience is and which types of marketing may be best for reaching, engaging, and converting them. This data can also be used to create more accurate ad campaign delivery on any platforms that allow for psychographic targeting. Adding hobbies and interests to your targeting parameters can help fine-tune your delivery, ensuring your messaging only reaches the subset of the audience most likely to engage with it. When you have psychographic information about your audience, you also gain a better understanding of what type of messaging, positioning, and language they are most likely to relate to and respond to. With this data, you can create multiple landing page variations—one for each relevant psychographic segment of your audience. On each landing page, you can use customized copy that speaks directly to the motivations, values, and concerns of each subset of the audience. Remember the fashion ecommerce psychographic profile we created earlier? We can use many of those insights to inform landing page copy and design to optimize their experience and, hopefully, conversions too: Insight: Prefers using their mobile device to shop online. Action: Design pages mobile-first. Insight: Enjoys having multiple payment options for online purchases. Action: List all of the payment options. Insight: Interested in up-and-coming designers vs. “overplayed” big names. Action: Avoid using imagery from big-name designers and opt for lesser-known brand imagery. Insight: Loves styling their friends and helping them shop. Action: Be sure to mention “gifting” in the copy. Insight: Believes that quality and craftsmanship are more important than price. Action: Share details and imagery from the product’s production to emphasize craftsmanship. Insight: Prefers to support companies with sustainable practices. Action: Highlight any sustainable practices in the copy, and include any sustainability seals or certifications for each product. And it’s not just your current marketing that benefits from the use of psychographic data. Knowing which psychographic subsets exist within your audience can help you structure future campaigns. Having this information upfront means you can iterate on the copy, imagery and calls to action on your landing page variants, allowing you to optimize for conversions. Additionally, psychographic data on your audience may reveal needs, challenges, concerns, or pain points that can inspire feature additions, product development, expansion of services, new partnerships, and more. Understanding your audience is a superpower. But like any superpower, it takes a little training (Cue the training montage…) As you begin to collect and analyze psychographic data about your audience, use Unbounce’s landing page analyzer tool to see how well your copy and layout are doing. Via Marketing http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://samanthasmeyers.blogspot.com/2021/04/psychographic-segmentation-simple-guide.html April 30, 2021 at 05:22PM
“What’s a Good Conversion Rate for My Landing Page?” [Conversion Benchmark Report 2021]
You might’ve noticed that 2020 was an interesting year for marketing. (Yeah, that’s the word for it. Interesting.) For some marketers, the effects of a global health crisis felt (and continue to feel) insurmountable. For others, the pandemic encouraged creative thinking to take advantage of new opportunities. There are even a lucky few marketers who hardly noticed it—at least in terms of their conversions. And an even luckier few benefited directly. (That elusive product-market fit just kinda works itself out when you’re peddling business casual pajamas.) The truth, though, is that the gulf between top-performing digital marketing campaigns and the rest of the pack has never been wider. Wherever you land on this spectrum, the pandemic shake-up means that the competition you face is fiercer than ever before. The most successful businesses in your industry aren’t sitting on their hands in 2021—they’re looking for ways to give themselves an advantage in the post-COVID world and edge out their competitors. And that’s why it’s never been more important to ask yourself this question: “What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?”How do your pages stack up against the competition? How do you stay the leader, or close the gap between yourselves and the best performers? And how has the digital marketing landscape changed between the simpler days of 2019 and today? That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) Conversion Benchmark Report for 2021. It helps answer all these questions and more. Introducing the 2021 Conversion Benchmark ReportThis year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to analyze more than 33 million conversions across 44 thousand Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these landing pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, France, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. You’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform. Quite a family you have.) Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks. Benchmarks can energize your post-pandemic rebound strategy in four big ways:
Let’s rundown some of the deeper insights, how we got ‘em, and how you can apply them. (If you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. It’ll open in a new tab.) Conversion Intelligence Insights: Beyond the BenchmarksBenchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons we just talked about. (If you work for an agency, you already know this. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) Beyond industry averages, though, the Conversion Benchmark Report contains dozens of data-backed insights that you can use to build variants and boost your conversion rates. Using A/B testing or—much easier, if you’re short on time or traffic—Unbounce’s Smart Traffic, you can have variants running today based upon learnings in the report. Start by exploring the report, build some variants, automatically optimize ‘em using AI-powered tools like Smart Traffic, learn new things about what’s working, then rinse and repeat. That’s the formula for an approach to marketing we’re calling conversion intelligence. You’ll save time, boost conversions, and increase revenue and ROI. Traffic Insights: What Channels Deliver the Highest-Converting Visitors in My Industry?You asked for it! New for the 2021 report, we’ve layered in some data-backed insights about what traffic channels are most popular (and perform best) in many industries. Is paid search really all it’s cracked up to be? Or are email and social unsung heroes you should be exploiting more often? And should you spend your time optimizing for mobile or desktop? (The answer… will surprise you.) Of course, in many of the industries we analyzed, paid search ads are by far the dominant way of driving new traffic. That may not be surprising—PPC has always been the primary use case for landing pages—but take a look at the graph from business services below: Not only is the median conversion rate for visitors that come from social media (6.0%) twice that of paid traffic (3.0%), but top performers achieve conversion rates well into the double digits. Our best guess why? These business services pages are built specifically to target and convert social visitors, matching channel and landing page to deliver maximum relevance. This is just one industry, but the Conversion Benchmark Report covers many others to give you the best sense of what channels deserve your time (and money) and which ones you can safely ignore. Jump into the report if you’d like some suggestions on how to apply these learnings. Reading Ease Insights: How Do I Best Communicate with My Target Audience?In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it usually makes sense to keep things basic. Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). In other words, ensuring the readability of your pages is key for some marketers, and relatively unimportant for others. Cybersecurity companies, for instance, don’t appear to benefit from simpler language, while landing pages promoting mobile apps do. How’d we get these numbers? Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words mean more… harder. Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down: Word Count Insights: What’s the Best Length for My Landing Pages?While the data confirms the best practice that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots in which they can break the rule—if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers. Conversion Type Insights: How Do I Choose Which Types of Landing Pages Convert Best?It may seem obvious that a click-through page is gonna outperform one that asks your visitors to fill out a form. Clicking a button feels a heck of a lot less like commitment than sharing swathes of personal info, after all. (People have been pointing this out since, uh, forever.) But there’s actually a lot of nuance when it comes to conversion types that can be effectively applied to your campaigns to improve campaign performance. For instance, did you know that in the finance and insurance industry, forms convert best when you use two fields? Or that mixing multiple conversion types—as in, “I’ll just throw in this phone number to be safe”—tends to produce weaker results? What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and adding subcategories (verticals) whenever sample sizes allow. If you don’t see yourself represented, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. Sentiment Insights: What Emotions Might Relate to Better Conversion Rates?You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. (Spoiler: Using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”) If you’re running an ecommerce business (especially in the midst of a pandemic), you might be tempted to press down hard on those pain points your visitors may be feeling. Why not hammer home all their worries before promising relief? Isn’t that B2C Marketing 101? Turns out, not so much. Look at the graph below. When it comes to ecommerce conversions, it turns out that language that conveys negative emotions (like words associated with sadness and fear) can correlate with lowered conversion rates. Our advice: Stay positive, stick to benefits, and keep ‘em clicking that “Add to Cart” button. You can explore this example, and many others, in the report. A Conversion Intelligence Approach to Your Next CampaignWhen it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable only so you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?
In short, this year’s report uses AI to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. But you’re the special ingredient here: by pairing your knowhow and intuition with AI-based technologies, your marketing grows smarter. Whether you sell “bizcaz” PJs, software that lets people appear awake on Zoom when they’re actually sleeping, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? Take a gander at the 2021 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below. Via Marketing http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://samanthasmeyers.blogspot.com/2021/04/whats-good-conversion-rate-for-my_21.html April 22, 2021 at 10:22AM
“What’s a Good Conversion Rate for My Landing Page?” [Conversion Benchmark Report 2021]
You might’ve noticed that 2020 was an interesting year for marketing. (Yeah, that’s the word for it. Interesting.) For some marketers, the effects of a global health crisis felt (and continue to feel) insurmountable. For others, the pandemic encouraged creative thinking to take advantage of new opportunities. There are even a lucky few marketers who hardly noticed it—at least in terms of their conversions. And an even luckier few benefited directly. (That elusive product-market fit just kinda works itself out when you’re peddling business casual pajamas.) The truth, though, is that the gulf between top-performing digital marketing campaigns and the rest of the pack has never been wider. Wherever you land on this spectrum, the pandemic shake-up means that the competition you face is fiercer than ever before. The most successful businesses in your industry aren’t sitting on their hands in 2021—they’re looking for ways to give themselves an advantage in the post-COVID world and edge out their competitors. And that’s why it’s never been more important to ask yourself this question: “What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?”How do your pages stack up against the competition? How do you stay the leader, or close the gap between yourselves and the best performers? And how has the digital marketing landscape changed between the simpler days of 2019 and today? That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) Conversion Benchmark Report for 2021. It helps answer all these questions and more. Introducing the 2021 Conversion Benchmark ReportThis year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to analyze more than 33 million conversions across 44 thousand Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these landing pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, France, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. You’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform. Quite a family you have.) Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks. Benchmarks can energize your post-pandemic rebound strategy in four big ways:
Let’s rundown some of the deeper insights, how we got ‘em, and how you can apply them. (If you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. It’ll open in a new tab.) Conversion Intelligence Insights: Beyond the BenchmarksBenchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons we just talked about. (If you work for an agency, you already know this. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) Beyond industry averages, though, the Conversion Benchmark Report contains dozens of data-backed insights that you can use to build variants and boost your conversion rates. Using A/B testing or—much easier, if you’re short on time or traffic—Unbounce’s Smart Traffic, you can have variants running today based upon learnings in the report. Start by exploring the report, build some variants, automatically optimize ‘em using AI-powered tools like Smart Traffic, learn new things about what’s working, then rinse and repeat. That’s the formula for an approach to marketing we’re calling conversion intelligence. You’ll save time, boost conversions, and increase revenue and ROI. Traffic Insights: What Channels Deliver the Highest-Converting Visitors in My Industry?You asked for it! New for the 2021 report, we’ve layered in some data-backed insights about what traffic channels are most popular (and perform best) in many industries. Is paid search really all it’s cracked up to be? Or are email and social unsung heroes you should be exploiting more often? And should you spend your time optimizing for mobile or desktop? (The answer… will surprise you.) Of course, in many of the industries we analyzed, paid search ads are by far the dominant way of driving new traffic. That may not be surprising—PPC has always been the primary use case for landing pages—but take a look at the graph from business services below: Not only is the median conversion rate for visitors that come from social media (6.0%) twice that of paid traffic (3.0%), but top performers achieve conversion rates well into the double digits. Our best guess why? These business services pages are built specifically to target and convert social visitors, matching channel and landing page to deliver maximum relevance. This is just one industry, but the Conversion Benchmark Report covers many others to give you the best sense of what channels deserve your time (and money) and which ones you can safely ignore. Jump into the report if you’d like some suggestions on how to apply these learnings. Reading Ease Insights: How Do I Best Communicate with My Target Audience?In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it usually makes sense to keep things basic. Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). In other words, ensuring the readability of your pages is key for some marketers, and relatively unimportant for others. Cybersecurity companies, for instance, don’t appear to benefit from simpler language, while landing pages promoting mobile apps do. How’d we get these numbers? Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words mean more… harder. Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down: Word Count Insights: What’s the Best Length for My Landing Pages?While the data confirms the best practice that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots in which they can break the rule—if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers. Conversion Type Insights: How Do I Choose Which Types of Landing Pages Convert Best?It may seem obvious that a click-through page is gonna outperform one that asks your visitors to fill out a form. Clicking a button feels a heck of a lot less like commitment than sharing swathes of personal info, after all. (People have been pointing this out since, uh, forever.) But there’s actually a lot of nuance when it comes to conversion types that can be effectively applied to your campaigns to improve campaign performance. For instance, did you know that in the finance and insurance industry, forms convert best when you use two fields? Or that mixing multiple conversion types—as in, “I’ll just throw in this phone number to be safe”—tends to produce weaker results? What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and adding subcategories (verticals) whenever sample sizes allow. If you don’t see yourself represented, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. Sentiment Insights: What Emotions Might Relate to Better Conversion Rates?You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. (Spoiler: Using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”) If you’re running an ecommerce business (especially in the midst of a pandemic), you might be tempted to press down hard on those pain points your visitors may be feeling. Why not hammer home all their worries before promising relief? Isn’t that B2C Marketing 101? Turns out, not so much. Look at the graph below. When it comes to ecommerce conversions, it turns out that language that conveys negative emotions (like words associated with sadness and fear) can correlate with lowered conversion rates. Our advice: Stay positive, stick to benefits, and keep ‘em clicking that “Add to Cart” button. You can explore this example, and many others, in the report. A Conversion Intelligence Approach to Your Next CampaignWhen it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable only so you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?
In short, this year’s report uses AI to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. But you’re the special ingredient here: by pairing your knowhow and intuition with AI-based technologies, your marketing grows smarter. Whether you sell “bizcaz” PJs, software that lets people appear awake on Zoom when they’re actually sleeping, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? Take a gander at the 2021 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below. Via Marketing http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://samanthasmeyers.blogspot.com/2021/04/whats-good-conversion-rate-for-my.html April 15, 2021 at 07:22PM
So Long, Third-Party Advertising?
Yep, the rumors are true. Paid advertising is about to change in a big way. With Apple’s latest iOS update, iPhone users will be able to opt-out of behavioral and demographic tracking on apps. (Heck, they’re invited to opt out.) Assuming that most folks will choose to keep their data private, these people will essentially become ghosts when it comes to PPC campaigns on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Okay, just breathe. Woosah. Count to 10. You’re gonna be just fine. Your campaigns are gonna be just fine. We reached out to digital advertising experts for a clearcut rundown of the what, why, and how behind the update—paired, we’d hoped anyway, with foolproof solutions to help you get ahead of it. Instead, we found an amazingly broad range of insights that goes even further than this one solitary update. We’re talking about far-reaching privacy trends that may have you rethinking traditional PPC models. But first, let’s kick-off with the basics: How the iOS Update Will Affect Facebook (+ Most Other Apps)Internet privacy has become a major topic of discussion over the last few years, especially when it comes to players like Facebook and Google. Remember the Cambridge Analytica fiasco? (Who can forget?) Yeah, using personal data to spread misinformation for political campaigns is an unpopular (or, ahem, evil and illegal) move. And the thing is, we’ve only just begun to see the repercussions. In theory, the latest update to iOS is a move from Apple to put users in control of how their data is used and sold. (I say “in theory” because there are lots of questions about Apple’s own data-collecting habits—but that’s a discussion for another day.) The mechanics of it are simple: going forward, iOS 14 will require all apps listed on the App Store to show an App Tracking Transparency (ATT) prompt, requesting that users opt in or out from allowing an app to collect and share their data or track their usage. For those approving the prompt, it’s pretty much business as usual. Where it gets a bit sticky for advertisers is the people who opt out. To be clear, we’re specifically talking about apps that will need to send out the prompt, so this includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Candy Crush, and more. Also, privacy preferences are specific to each *app*—so separate from social networking habits on desktop browsers. Why all the fuss about Facebook then? With an advanced algorithm that offers unparalleled insights on its users, Facebook is at the front of the conversation right now because it’s the biggest player that will be most impacted by the update. Although iOS 14 has already been up and running for a couple of months, and different privacy functionalities have been rolled out so far, the full ATT feature is only expected to go live later this year. It’s rumored to be packaged in the iOS 14.5 update, but there’s no firm release date yet. To prepare yourself, you’ll likely want to read Apple’s privacy specifications for iOS 14. You can also learn more from the Facebook Business Help Center for platform-specific advice. To get to the bottom of the big-ticket items that’ll affect advertisers when it comes to PPC campaigns specific to Facebook, we enlisted the help of digital advertising wiz Jonathan Naccache, co-founder and president of marketing agency Webistry. Key issue #1: TargetingJonathan clarifies that Facebook will still serve iOS users ads—whether they opt out of tracking or not—this is not a trick to an ad-free browsing experience. But for those opting out, ads will no longer be as relevant to their interests. For example, if you’re looking to target Canadians with a keen interest in fashion, you can still do that. But you’ll have a hard time reaching your ideal target in the opted-out iOS segment. So instead of a hip, 20-something fashionista, your carefully tailored ad might end up in front of a middle-aged construction worker with a deep passion for 12-pin bowling. Remember, though, you can still target niche audiences from desktop, web, and other operating systems. Jonathan is also keen to point out that not every iOS user will opt-out—but the numbers are yet to be seen once Apple releases the ATT prompt later this year.
Key issue #2: RetargetingAh, the mighty Facebook Pixel. Well, when it comes to retargeting iOS users, it’s not so mighty anymore.
Jonathan is encouraging his clients to set up Conversions API (Facebook’s official workaround for the update) on their websites. This is essentially server-to-server tracking that will allow you to collect first-party data on your website and then share that with Facebook.
Jonathan emphasizes that the trick here is that most advertisers need to set this up and share the information with Facebook for it to work properly. “This is what will save or heavily impact Facebook,” he explains. If every single advertiser did this and then sent that information to Facebook, then Facebook would essentially get the same data as they would through the Pixel, if not more. Key issue #3: Reporting and AttributionHere’s where the biggest impact will be felt for most advertisers—the oh-so-powerful reports.
While previously you could claim a conversion from someone clicking on your ad and converting within 28 days, your timeframe has now been cut short. Yes, the conversions will still happen either way. You just won’t be able to report on them or connect them to a specific ad or campaign. Similar to the ATT update from Apple, Facebook is planning to launch its attribution window change later this year. According to Jonathan, this will mostly impact advertisers with a longer buying cycle. For example, a campaign promoting an ebook download will probably not be affected as much as a home renovations campaign. What does this mean in the big picture? Underreporting—regardless of operating system. That’s where it gets tricky when we’re talking about iOS customers. You’re already underreporting on your overall efforts, and now the opted-out iOS users roll into town—well maybe, we actually don’t know since we can’t track ‘em! Jonathan explains the math: “If 50% of your users are iOS users, and 50% of all iOS users opt-out, that means you won’t be tracking 25% of your users.” (Yikes!) Solutions—The Pros Share Their AdviceWith experts having very different ideas about the best way to proceed—some are not even willing to make public recommendations at this point--marketers are finding themselves at a crossroads. Here’s a sample from #MarketingTwitter:
There’s a lot of uncertainty, and with good reason. Right now, there’s just no big, red button that automatically fixes everything—sigh. There are many rumors and ideas about how the privacy update might affect PPC. But until it’s in action later this year, you just don’t know what it’ll really mean for your campaigns. So what can you do to get ahead? First and foremost, you can head over to the official recommendations from the Facebook Business Help Center. Then, you can experiment with these easy-to-action hacks suggested by a couple of enterprising marketers: (We’re calling ’em hacks because they’re not officially supported, nor have they been tested. You may not be able to rely on them in the long term, but they’ll definitely get you thinking.) Hack #1: Cookies for who?
Engaging with and building your audience in-app is a great best practice. You’re creating a community of people that are passionate—or in the very least interested—about your offering, giving you organic access to their timelines. But it seems like investing in your homegrown audience might just pay off for PPC, too, as it enables you to bypass third-party data tracking limitations. Akvile explains the thinking behind the theory:
Although this workaround hasn’t yet been proven as the one-stop-solution marketers are dreaming about, it’s definitely a strong incentive to engage with your Facebook communities in a more targeted way. Hack #2: Deep-dive into historical data
With the loss of 28-day attribution, you’re going to be missing conversions across all operating systems and devices. This means your reports are going to look worse than you’re used to. It’s. Not. Really. Worse. To put these numbers into perspective, go back in your data from previous years and compare apples to apples. So that means comparing 7-day clicks to 7-day clicks. Then, look for patterns in your data to make an educated guess about the conversions you might be missing up until the 28-day mark. Jonathan explains, “Understand your data, and understand when your conversions take place so that you can understand your current performance.”
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if less than 1% of your conversions came from iOS devices? Although highly unlikely, talk about sleeping soundly at night instead of being hounded by iOS nightmares! But you only know you don’t have a monster under your bed if you look for it, so start pulling up those spreadsheets. Hack #3: First-come, first-party
Setting up server-to-server Conversions API is a great way to generate first-party data to plug into platforms like Facebook for more efficient targeting and retargeting campaigns. But buyer beware: it can be quuuuuite a technical process. Unless you’re clued up with your integrations—or have a developer on-hand—you might want to outsource this step or use plugins from tools like Shopify that have native integrations. But also, first-party data doesn’t need to be technical to be helpful. With customer lists and email sign-ups, you can build a quick-win campaign while getting tools like Conversions API up and running.
When’s the last time you engaged with your home-grown leads? This could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for to divert some PPC budget and experiment with email marketing or organic retargeting. Hack #4: Fill the gap with landing pages
We’ll be the first to say it—this can become a lot of work very quickly. But that’s not the point. Since you won’t be seeing data from opted-out iOS users in your Facebook reports, using dedicated landing pages for campaigns targeting iOS users is a great way to do a pulse check as a real-time comparison. Creating platform-specific landing pages is much easier and much more effective than you might think. Here’s how you can create irresistible landing pages specifically for Facebook campaigns. The iOS 14 update does not affect Unbounce—we operate on first-party data. This includes tools like Smart Traffic that sends visitors to the landing page where they’re most likely to convert based on attributes like browser, device, location, and timezone—all safe. Here’s how we handle data and privacy to keep your landing pages secure. Hack #5: Just roll with it
The final stage of grief is acceptance. Accept that you’ll be underreporting, know that you’ll have a hard time reaching a specific segment of your audience, and move on. PPC is more than just Facebook, and it’s definitely bigger than a portion of iOS users. Take in the relevant information, evaluate your ecosystem, and test workarounds. Then rinse and repeat. Privacy and Data Hurdles—Trend or One-Off Issue?Welcome to the marketer’s new normal. Twitter is exploring a new pay-to-follow monetization model, and Google is eliminating third-party cookies by 2022 and has committed to stop selling ads based on browsing behaviors in the near future. (We’re not even mentioning ever-changing data-privacy regulations like GDPR.)
Change is here—it’s part of life, and it’s very much part of digital marketing. Stressing out about the iOS 14 update and your Facebook ads will not help you get ahead. What will help is staying in the loop about an ever-evolving situation around privacy, data, and advertising—across all platforms.
Deep breaths. You got this. Via Marketing http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://samanthasmeyers.blogspot.com/2021/03/so-long-third-party-advertising.html March 30, 2021 at 07:23PM
7 Formulas for Landing Page Headlines that Practically Write Themselves (With Examples)
Here goes: the secret to writing great landing page headlines is … *dramatic pause* … just kidding! That would be way too easy. Sadly, there aren’t any shortcuts when it comes to writing effective landing page headlines. You need to put in the work, figure out how it fits into your campaign, and understand your audience to pull it off. In other words, there’s no single right way to write a landing page headline. But the good news is that there are certain time-tested headline formulas you can rely on to better connect with your target audience. Even better, you’re in the right place to learn all about them. We have plenty of tips and examples lined up to help you write effective landing page headlines without overthinking it. But before we jump into those formulas, let’s talk about what makes an effective headline. (Unless you really want to get to those headline formulas ASAP, in which case, click here!) What Makes a Good Landing Page Headline?Well, that depends on a few different factors. Though there are several different types of headline formulas you can leverage for different use cases, there are also a few general rules of thumb that apply to almost every headline. Keep these in mind when crafting your next landing page headline to make sure you hit the right notes. Rule #1: Always prioritize message match.Say it with me: Landing pages don’t exist in a vacuum! One of the top priorities for any landing page is to align with the rest of your campaign. As soon as your page loads, visitors should be able to tell that they’re in the right place (after all, they clicked on your link or ad for a reason). This is an important point to remember, not only for writing headlines but for designing all aspects of your landing page. Furthermore, creating unique landing pages for each campaign allows you to tailor your messaging to specific audiences from different channels. For instance, if you’re running a social media campaign, chances are that some of your visitors won’t know much about your brand. In this case, you might want to add some personality to your headline to leave a stronger impression on those who aren’t familiar with your business. For example, Mooala introduces their odd-but-delicious-sounding beverage with this self-aware statement: “Bananamilk. It’s a thing.” Rule #2: It’s better to be clear than clever.You don’t need to be witty to write a good headline. Your goal isn’t to make readers laugh or to come up with the next great pun. Your goal is to communicate and prevent visitors from bouncing. This is why message match is our number one rule—but it’s just as important to use clear, easy-to-read language that sets expectations for the rest of the landing page. This lesson is vital for lead gen pages with opt-in forms. You don’t have to take our word for it—the proof is in the data. After testing over 150,000 opt-in headlines, Sumo reported that straightforward headlines out-performed their creative alternatives 88% of the time. In the example below, the basic headline “Free Ebook: 15 Emails Everyone Should Send” scored more than 2X as many downloads as “Why Aren’t You Sending These 15 Emails?” Rule #3: You don’t need to reinvent the wheel.Sometimes the best headlines are simple and formulaic. The structure of your headline doesn’t need to be original to be effective. That’s why you can and should study existing headlines to get inspiration and ideas for your landing pages. Experience has shown us that great landing page headlines need to include a few key elements to make a real impact. Your headline should focus on at least one of these goals:
If you can wrangle all three into a single headline without forcing it, even better. In fact, this is probably the closest thing you’ll find to a plug-and-play headline formula: Benefit/Pain Point + How You Solve It + The Hook When writing your next landing page headline, start by focusing on a benefit or problem you can solve for your target customers. Then, see if you can work in your unique perspective or hook. Note that the “hook” can be anything that makes your headline compelling to the target audience. It could be a persuasive piece of data that appeals to logic (“X increases results by 50%!”) or works as social proof (“4 in 5 athletes struggle with X”). Alternatively, your hook could be colorful language or something unique to your brand. Keeping these rules in mind, let’s dig into those landing page headline formulas we promised you. Want to know how your SaaS landing page stacks up against the competition? Get your personalized copy report here, along with tips to crank up your conversions. 7 Landing Page Headline Formulas (For More Conversions)Ready to get inspired? Here are 7 formulas you can use to write your next landing page headline. Keep in mind that product, brand, target audience, and context inform which formula you should follow. 1. The How-to HeadlineThis is one of the easiest headlines to write. It’s also an extremely effective way to communicate the purpose of your landing page. You’re clearly stating the benefit of your offer and promising a solution (teaching your readers “how-to” do something). The better you know your audience and their goals, the more ideas you’ll have for a How-to Headline. The basic formula is simple: How to [Achieve X Goal] We’ve all seen plenty of How-to Headlines out in the wild (thanks, Dale Carnegie), but I’d argue this formula can be used in two very different ways. The “how-to” aspect can be explicit or implicit. Consider “How to Win Friends and Influence People” versus something like “The Networker’s Guide to Winning Friends and Influencing People.” Or, as used in the example below from Later, “Instagram Influencer Marketing Strategy Guide.” Each of these has the potential to hook readers and driven conversions within different contexts. If you’re writing a headline for a lead magnet landing page, the concept of a guide is likely more compelling. But, hey, it’s your landing page and you can play with as many different headline formats as you like. You can even run multiple variants at once using Smart Traffic to optimize your conversion rates. Another lesson from this Later example is that your headline doesn’t need to do all the heavy lifting by itself. You can use supporting copy to complement the headline to provide more in-depth explanations—while still keeping your headline short and sweet. 2. The AgitatorSometimes, your customers might not realize they need your solution until you remind them of a problem they’re facing. So, rather than emphasizing the solution, this formula works by highlighting a pain point and rubbing it in. This type of headline creates problem awareness and can drive action for those closer to making a purchase by reigniting their frustration. The Agitator can take a couple of different formats, but the basic formula is along the lines of:
Here are a few examples of this headline formula in action: Claim Compass “Delayed flight?” Misery loves company—which is exactly why this example works. The headline invites readers to commiserate over the very pain point that Claim Compass addresses. Combined with the visual of a disgruntled would-be flyer, this headline conveys a shared struggle and sense of frustration that says, “You, too, eh? Flight delays are the worst!” The Listings Lab “Stuck at 6-Figures in Your Real Estate Business?” You’ll notice that both the Listings Lab and Claim Compass use their headlines to ask an agitating question. But while Claim Compass wants to appeal to anyone struggling with a flight delay, the Listings Lab’s approach is much more targeted. The headline actually names the ideal customer, speaking directly to real estate professionals looking to grow their business. It’s also worth pointing out the supporting copy here, which effectively calls out additional pain points related to the headline: “…without wasting time at open houses, cold calling, or working even more hours than you are right now.” Border Buddy “Importing and Exporting is Hard” This one’s a simple, straightforward statement, but it clicks with the right audience. As a customs broker for anyone looking to transport high-value items (like vehicles), Border Buddy knows how easily people get overwhelmed when trying to figure out the ins and outs of importing and exporting. When visitors arrive at this landing page, they’re already researching how duty, tariffs, and importing paperwork works—and they’re likely looking for anything that will make the process easier. 3. The Value Prop (AKA the Promise)The Value Prop is the opposite of the Agitator. With this headline formula, the focus is on the value prop or unique selling point, rather than any of a customer’s pain points or problems. The idea here is to introduce the benefits and highlight your offer. Depending on your landing page and campaign goals, this type of headline can be results-focused or value-focused. It’s similar to the “how-to” formula discussed above in that the emphasis is squarely on the solution—but there’s even less reference to whatever problem you might be solving for your customers. So, rather than a headline like “Say Goodbye to [X Pain Point]”, a more value-focused headline would be “Say Hello to [X + Y Benefit]”. Or simply, “Achieve [X, Y, Z].” Here are a couple examples of landing pages built with Unbounce to show you how it’s done: Alps & Meters “Upholding the Tradition of Classic Alpine Sport” This succinct headline tells us a lot about the luxury ski wear brand Alps & Meters. Following the Value-Prop Headline formula, it makes an implicit promise (we’re committed to manufacturing high-quality ski wear out of respect for the sport itself) while elevating the brand above mediocre ski wear. Cameo “Famous Faces on Demand” This headline is a comprehensive description of the product, but it’s also short, punchy, and value-driven. Even if you somehow arrived at this page without knowing a thing about Cameo, you’d figure it out pretty quick. The headline is followed up with some explanatory copy that clearly says what Cameo lets you do (“book personalized video shoutouts”) and who some of those “famous faces” actually are. 4. The SuperlativeThe superlative headline isn’t about lying to your audience by pretending to be the best at everything--it’s about niching down to that one thing that you really are the best at. For example, Western Rise uses this subhead on their landing page for the AT Slim Rivet Pants: “The world’s most versatile pants for work and play.” They make a bold statement with the superlative “most versatile” rather than something watered down. However, it’s a much more viable claim than simply “best pants in the world” or even “most versatile” without the specific caveat: “for work and play.” Samuraw “Discover the Highest Quality Real-Food Multivitamin Mineral and Probiotic Formula Ever Created” Here’s another example of how the Superlative, when used responsibly, can help build trust and credibility. Samuraw boasts that their “real-food multivitamin mineral and probiotic formula” is the “highest quality […] ever created,” but it sounds like a perfectly reasonable claim because it’s so specific to their product. 5. The Call to ActionA strong call to action (CTA) is a necessity for any landing page, but it can also help fuel your headline. As we’ll see in the examples below, this formula works well for sports, activities, and rentals. But it can apply whenever your goal is to inspire immediate action, like registering for a course or filling out a lead gen form to get a piece of gated content. Nathan Sports “Electrify Your Run” This bold, neon headline from running gear retailer Nathan Sports urges visitors to wear bright lights when running at night. We give this landing page headline bonus points for visually representing what it’s asking the audience to do. GoBoat “Be Your Own Captain” We love this example because it’s both simple and attention-grabbing. “Be Your Own Captain” is a fun and engaging twist on the CTA Headline formula, while the subhead (“And Explore Copenhagen From the Water”) clarifies what the landing page is actually about. 6. The Special OfferEveryone loves a good deal. If your campaign goal is to attract new customers, drive sales, or promote a new product, your headline can simply state the offer. The benefit is inherent (you’re saving money) and customers who click on a link for a discount can immediately tell that they’ve arrived in the right place. Check out these examples from two Unbounce customers: Good Eggs “Get $20 off Harmless Harvest coconut water.” This headline example is pretty self-explanatory, especially when paired with a targeted campaign. Coconut water fans who click on an ad offering a discount want to see the same offer as soon as they hit the landing page—which is exactly what Good Eggs does here. A CTA button immediately follows the headline, so visitors can nab the deal right away. Alchemy Fine Home “Get 15% off Your First Order” This headline is similar to the Good Eggs example above, but with a slightly more candid approach. If you look closely, you’ll notice that offers are only available to first-time customers—and the two headlines treat this fact very differently. While Good Eggs leaves this detail to the fine print, Alchemy Fine Home bakes it right into their headline. Rather than saying “Get 15% off,” they qualify it with “your first order.” Of course, this likely has something to do with their very different price points. Buying coconut water is a smaller commitment (and cost) than purchasing home décor. The takeaway? Use these formulas as a guide, rather than prescriptive models. The details of your product or offer will influence the best approach for each headline. 7. The Playful HeadlineJust because these formulas exist, doesn’t mean you have to work within them. You can get a little more playful with your headlines—especially if it’s obvious what you’re offering from the rest of your page or imagery. Here are a few of our favorite examples that break the mold a bit by leveraging humor or creativity rather than clarity. Indochino “The Tailor is in” If the main goal of this headline is to pique readers’ interest, Indochino pulls it off. We don’t get the full story from the headline alone, but it does set us up to understand (as we scroll down the page) that Indochino isn’t just selling menswear—they’re selling an experience. Mizzen+Main “The Business of Dressing Up” Another example from the menswear department, Mizzen+Main manages to tell (and show) us exactly what they offer without spelling it out or following any particular formula. Instead, the headline touches on their brand values and plays with the font to reveal the duality of fashion: the enjoyment of “dressing up” and the necessity of looking sharp while takin’ care of business. Start Writing Headlines that Land, Every TimeNow it’s your turn! Whether you apply these landing page headline formulas to your own campaign or break the mold completely, use these tips as inspiration for your own headlines. Can’t decide which headline formula is best for your page? Stuck between two equally awesome headlines? No problem! Landing page variants allow you to experiment with different concepts, which means it’s possible to find the best headline for every use case. Writing the perfect headline ain’t easy, but it sure helps to be armed with the right tools. Between the headline formulas provided above, Smart Traffic variants, and the copywriting tips linked below, you’ve got everything you need to craft high-impact headlines that convert. Ready, set, write! Via Marketing http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://samanthasmeyers.blogspot.com/2021/03/7-formulas-for-landing-page-headlines.html March 23, 2021 at 06:22PM |