The results of his test are not only useful in the immediate sense—he doubled the conversion rate—but also are highly valuable as a starting point for building future iterations of tests.

What we can glean from Seth’s results, and how might subsequent testing be shaped? I thought Seth was already on to the key issue here: he called it “trust.” At MarketingExperiments, we’re used to calling it “credibility” and “clarity of the value proposition.” Both of these must be understood in the context of what motivation (another special term in our jargon) the visitors bring to the page. So let’s start from the top—what are visitors looking for when they arrive?

Control
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Treatment 1
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Treatment 2
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What is the offer?

Looking at the search terms that drive traffic to the page, it appears that most visitors are interested in training, workshops, courses, seminars, etc. Targeting search terms that include these words makes sense—they connect with the “live workshop” nature of the offer. However, does the page itself reflect the visitor’s motivation?

After initially looking at each version of the page (before reading through all the copy), I didn’t have a clear idea of what it was selling. It displays a boxed product, reminiscent of a software or DVD package. However, small text at the very top of the page tells me that these are “live, online workshops.”

This might seem insignificant, but especially when you are competing in Search, your visitors are arriving on your page with a singular initial objective: to eliminate you from consideration, much like you would try to sort out the junk somewhere between your mailbox and your office or kitchen.

If they were looking for a workshop, and you are ostensibly selling a boxed product, they instantly go for the “x” button. No copy (and certainly no video—more on that below) can save you.

The confusion about what’s being offered, continues even after the visitor figures out that it’s a workshop: “Am I being offered one or all four workshops on this page? Is its $39 for each, or for all four?”

This is where I suggest looking at you time-on-page metrics. The average will not be very meaningful, but look into different time-based segments (Google Analytics breaks them down nicely into – under 10 seconds, 10-30, 30-60, and so on) as you run subsequent tests to understand whether you are improving clarity. Especially using them to slice your ad CTR and conversion data can tell you whether and who tends to bounce right off and who tends to stay and/or buy.

Why your offer?

Aside from confusion about the product—which should be fairly easy to eliminate—another key instant-elimination criterion is lack of a clear value proposition. Value proposition must be communicated throughout the page, but it’s especially critical at the top, where the visitor initially starts the “conversation” with you. If you don’t do a good job of introducing yourself, the conversation can be quite short.

One hypothesis I would test is that all three pages (in the LinkedIn discussion, Steve Myers makes an excellent point about looking for similarities) heavily rely on video to communicate your value proposition. None of them has a specific value-communicating headline. The problem with video is that it implicitly demands “work” from the visitor (time), whereas they can read text effortlessly in seconds. Video can be great at supporting the value proposition, but not as the primary means of expressing it.

In fact, I suspect that the sub-headline “69% of us …” is in large part responsible for the lift in the treatments (that would make for a great single-factorial test to confirm), along with the bullets being nearer to the top of the page. These elements quickly communicate several key aspects of value—and the visitors are more likely to want to read on.

I would test into other headline and sub-headline variations that explicitly answer the question “What will I/my company get out of watching this?” I think the site offers great answers to this question, but they need to be stated sooner and more explicitly. For example, some statements on the “Credentials” page should be tested on the landing page.

Too good to be true?

I would further put the price comparison of $39 to $699 to the test. The adage “you get what you paid for” is embedded deep in the consumer’s psyche. Perhaps the stark “discount” resonates well with some visitor segments, while to others such a wide gap can look suspicious. Consumers have been conditioned to distrust claims like “you can be paying thousands of dollars for [fill in the blank], but with this special TV offer, you can have it for only $19.95.”

I would test focusing the message on the idea that previous customers got the same results from your $39 product as others did from the $699 product. As with any of the tests mentioned above, tracking your data separately by source can reveal that different language works best for different traffic channels.

Price testing can be quite telling here. If the market currently is 17.5 times higher than your offer, you probably have some room to increase the price. Also, as Bob Schewe points out in the LinkedIn discussion, stating the price in the ad can pre-qualify your traffic, reducing the CPA.

More ideas?

I wanted to keep this post focused on the “trust” issue, but there’s certainly a pressing need to test a more continuous eye path that leads to a single action (order button). This page just makes it complicated for the visitor to answer the question “What can I do here?” More importantly, I wanted to ask you, our readers, to weigh in using the Comments feature: What would YOU test next?

Related Resources:

The MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal – Q2 2010

Reaching Decision Makers: Four biggest sales challenges Internet startups and entrepreneurs face

The MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal – Q1 2010

Where the marketing intuition gets a bit fuzzy is when it comes to strategically actualizing all the goals we have for a homepage with an optimal design. We know what we want a homepage to do, but we just don’t know exactly how to make it happen.

And this is where a recent experiment might give us a little insight on how well we understand home page design. Below are two homepages that were recently tested.

Could you pick the better page on pure gut alone?

Experiment Background:

This is a homepage test for a B2B company offering email marketing solutions for small and large businesses. The primary objective that we were attempting to increase conversion for was the free trial. Therefore, the key performance indicator (KPI) for this test will be total free trial starts.

As follows, the primary research question for this experiment is, “Which homepage will generate the most free trial sign-ups?” and the test we ran was an A/B multi-factorial split test utilizing our radical redesign methodologies.

Experiment designs (two versions):

Experiment Results (UPDATED):

Which was the winning homepage design? Well, we have revealed the results since the question was first posed in this post, and to many people’s surprise VERSION A produced 59% more free trials sign-ups than VERSION B. This difference is mostly accredited to a reduction in competing objectives, a simplified eye path, and an intensified communication of the value. What else do you think contributed to VERSION A’s success?

During Homepages Optimized: How using the homepage as a channel led to a 59% increase in conversion, we looked deeper into the results of the experiment above as well as discussed five key optimization strategies that should be utilized for every homepage.

Related Resources:

Homepages Optimized: How using the homepage as a channel led to a 59% increase in conversion

Homepage Optimization: How your peers use keywords and communicate with visitors

Research Report: Beyond Landing Pages

But first, we wanted to hear your thoughts about homepage optimization. So we asked marketers. Here are a few of our favorite answers…

Keyword early, keyword often

1. Keywords are very important. Find the best for you site/business/product. Is your homepage going to be a landing page for your product or service? If so, you can use the appropriate keywords. Otherwise find the keywords that more generally describe your industry/product and use them for the home page.

2. Content: the keywords will be used to develop relevant content. Try to use the keywords early and often (but not unnaturally so) on the page. Especially effective if you can use them in a title, or bold, etc.

3. Title tags: use keywords in title tag, plus the name of your company at the end.

4. Write a good descriptive meta tag – remember this is going to be part of what shows up in natural results on a search results page

5. Limit graphics. For the graphics that are there, use Alt formatting to see that the search engine can read them.

6. Try to build incoming links into your home page

– Brent Carnduff, Owner at EchelonSEO

Optimize for people and spiders

A homepage needs to be optimized for two general audiences: Visitors and Search Engines.

From a Visitor Perspective

A truly optimized homepage offers navigation options for all types of visitors, no matter what their intent. Not all your visitors are going to be ready to buy your product/service as soon as they land on the site. They may just be shopping, looking for resources, trying to find a job or partner, or researching your company for a news article.

To help gain an idea of who is visiting your site, review your site analytics and look at what referring sites are driving them there, what keywords they are searching to find your site, and what pages they are going to from your homepage.

An optimized homepage should have a navigation option for all types of visitors. Where these navigation options appear on the page is more a matter of your objectives, and prioritizing your calls to action. For example, if your main goal is to drive visitors to learn more about a specific product/service, that should be the dominate focus of your homepage. While a secondary call to action may be to gain blog subscribers. In this case, maybe you choose to include your blog’s RSS feed below the page’s main content block.

No matter what you choose to put on your homepage, make sure it is clean and easy to navigate. You need to tell visitors who you are, what you do and how to find more information within 3-5 seconds. If it takes longer than that, they’ll get frustrated and leave. And don’t use any type of audio to deliver this message. There are still a number of visitors who can’t, or choose not to, use their computer speakers because they are in an office setting.

Make it simple for visitors to find what they are looking for, and as soon as you think you have it figured out, tweak it again and test it. Never stop trying new things.

From a Search Engine Perspective

I think Brent Carnduff pretty much nailed it. The one thing I would add would be make sure the content here is constantly being refreshed. The more search engines see that you have new content, the more often they’ll come back around and index your site.

Remember, content is the real key to optimization that is within your control. The more content you have, the more pages you can get indexed and potentially the more keywords (both regular and long tail) for which you can rank. Your homepage should make it easy for search engines to find this new content.

– Keith Moehring, Consultant at PR 20/20

Above all, get understanding

I believe a logical first step is to understand what’s currently happening on the homepage and then define goals of what you want your different types of visitors to do.

Leverage your analytics to look at which links/paths are most popular, least popular. Do certain paths lead to conversions vs. others? If there are certain clicks/paths that are popular you need to be careful about making changes if they get repeat visitors who expect certain links to be there – for example, potential customers expecting to see a login button in a certain place.

– Stacy Taylor, Online Marketing Manager at XO Communications

Divide and conquer

One can divide homepages in two types – 1. Transactional, 2. Non-transactional. The transactional are the homepages which can generate purchases from the website (pages of most electronics companies, for example). Non-transactional homepages are those, which cannot generate sales from the page (majority of the consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands – think Tide detergent, Ragu sauce, etc.).

The optimization strategies for these two types should be different. Transactional homepages should have clutter-free and clean navigation towards products, reviews, and a super easy way for the visitor to buy a product (plus…actually compel them).

The non-transactional homepage should showcase their ads, latest campaign, and major usage of their product. For example, a food brand should showcase its own super-hot recipes (example: Kraft). These type of brands can integrate the page with a social media presence – this will add excitement and activity to otherwise not very active pages.

Finally, a homepage (irrespective of kind) should not be too advanced or have loads of videos. Many visitors will not have fast Internet connections and will simply navigate away.

– Subhra Ghatak, MBA Candidate at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

Related Resources

Homepage Optimization: How using the homepage as a channel led to a 59% increase in conversion

Web Page Optimization: Basic principles yours peers use to increase conversion

What to Include on Your Home Page

The above quote is from Chris Chariton, Vice President of Supplier Marketing & Marketing Services at GlobalSpec – the engineering search engine. To help you incorporate virtual events into your marketing mix, we conducted a virtual interview with Chris…

Let’s start with the obvious question – what is a virtual tradeshow and how is it different than a webinar?

Chris Chariton: Virtual tradeshows go beyond a webinar or webcast, as they include elements of both an educational conference and a tradeshow. A typical webinar lasts between 30 and 60 minutes, and is usually focused on a single topic.

On the other hand, virtual tradeshows encompass a “conference” portion featuring many different educational sessions with a variety of speakers, as well as a “tradeshow” component including exhibitor booths, live chat and networking.

The platform for virtual tradeshows is much more comprehensive, the interactive capabilities are greater, and they offer additional multimedia opportunities, including video.

In what situations should marketers use a traditional event? When should they choose a virtual event?

CC: Two reasons why marketers use in-person events are the opportunity to be face-to-face with an existing or potential customer, and the opportunity for someone to see your products “in action.” Virtual events also provide this interactive ability for one-on-one discussions.

Additionally, the economic, time and resource benefits of virtual tradeshows and online events are too big not to experience. They can serve as a complement, a supplement or a replacement to in-person events, as they offer lead generation, branding and networking opportunities – much more conveniently, and without travel, hotel and entertainment costs.

However, you will want to evaluate each individual event for itself, determining the quality of the audience, the “fit” with your company, its products and services, and other factors.

How should we approach a virtual event differently than we would approach a traditional event?

CC: We recommend that you approach a virtual event in a similar manner that you would approach a traditional event. Having a successful presence requires effort, so you want to be sure that you have a solid project plan in place.

You also want to create a content strategy that ensures that you are outfitting your virtual booth with the content that is most relevant and valuable to attendees, and that positions you as a thought leader.

Much like a traditional tradeshow, you want to interact with all of your virtual booth visitors as well. Know who the subject matter experts are, in case you need to pass the person off for a technical discussion. And understand the content of the collateral that you have on hand, so you can offer them the appropriate materials.

Maximizing results is key. After exhibiting at a virtual event, you want to follow up on opportunities – like you would for a traditional tradeshow, or any other marketing initiative for that matter.

And while there are many similarities between virtual events and traditional events, there are some differences – without travel costs and time away from the office being a factor, you can implement a cross-departmental team to staff your virtual booth and participate in online chats, especially during high traffic times. So in addition to the traditional sales and marketing folks who typically staff your in-person booths, you can also invite engineers and other subject matter experts to attend.

How do you incorporate social media into virtual events?

CC: We use a variety of social media channels – including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – to promote our events, both prior to the event to encourage registration, and during the event to attract and engage attendees. For each event, we have a dedicated social media strategy designed to drive interest and registrations, as well as attendance.

How do you determine the value of participating in a virtual event?

CC: To maximize your virtual event investment, select one that will help you effectively achieve your marketing goals. Before participating in a virtual event, there are a number of important criteria to consider.

First, understand the audience for the event – both the quantity and the quality to expect, including the titles and industries of the attendees.

Next, ask yourself if the topic is relevant to your target market, and a good fit for your business. Inquire how these events are being promoted, both pre- and post-event. And understand the support you will receive as an exhibitor. Will you have a dedicated client services manager assisting you? Is the technology platform secure? All of these will help you ensure you are making the right decision.

Like an in-person tradeshow, virtual events can position your company as a thought leader, and deliver branding, exposure and qualified sales leads.

You can hear Chris discuss virtual events at Frost & Sullivan’s GIL (Growth, Innovation, and Leadership) 2010: Silicon Valley in San Jose. Chris will be presenting “Building Brand Exposure, Generating Leads with Virtual Events” on September 15^th during the “BtoB Marketing: Best Practices” breakout session.

Our own Brian Carroll (CEO of InTouch , our sister company) will also be presenting in that session – “Playbook for Marketing and Sales Alignment: How to Collaborate to Optimize Lead Generation Programs.” If you’re interested in attending, you can visit Brian’s blog for a discount code.

Related Resources

Why Your Web Site Isn’t Enough

Internet Marketing Research: A behind-the scenes look at MarketingExperiments Web clinics

B2B Marketing: Playbook for sales and marketing alignment

Carrying around a Native Sun loyalty card while questioning the wisdom of Foursquare is a prime example of how the duality of man is witnessed through marketing. “Your idea is stupid, while mine is smart (yet they are both the same).”

It’s good to be the mayor

Foursquare allows marketers to conduct loyalty programs without having to rely on customers carrying around yet another piece of pocket flare with a bar code. In fact, it’s the easiest, most customer-responsive way to have a loyalty program.

A good analogy would be a comparison between a pay-per-click (PPC) ad and a TV commercial. A PPC ad gives you continuous, real-time metrics that can be changed to react to new information on the fly. A TV commercial is a great chance to go grab a beer before getting back to the Jaguars game.

In the same vein, with Foursquare you can change your promotions in real time. Perhaps you decide your #1 fan (your “mayor”) gets some free food. You can change that overnight to giving a reward for every five times a customer visits your restaurant…or even giving a dollar off for every check in.

Also, how many plastic pieces of junk will Dan carry on his keychain to be rewarded for his loyalty? Since Native Sun was the only card on there, I’m guessing not many.

But man doth not live by (even organic) bread alone. With my iPhone, I check in anywhere using Foursquare and am rewarded for my loyalty. Thus a deeper set of marketers can have a relationship with me than just the local organic grocer Dan carries in his pocket.

So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice

Using Foursquare at retailers just scratches the surface. Unlike Dan’s synthetic keychain, when I say I can check-in anywhere using Foursquare, I really do mean anywhere – no bar code scanner required. This is where the possibilities really start to open up. No longer are loyalty programs only easy to pull off for retailers with inventory management systems.

Say you’re a golf course. All you have to do is sign up with Foursquare, and then you can give your mayor a free drink at the 19^th hole. Even better – how about a parking space right at the front of the country club? This is another benefit of Foursquare, your customers fight for bragging rights.

Let your fingers do the walking

If you’re a local marketer, hopefully I’ve got you salivating already. Now here’s the biggest benefit I see – local search. If I’m hungry, I just whip out my iPhone and Foursquare tells me what deals are near me. Hey, a dollar off at Starbucks. Ooh, free chips and salsa at Chili’s.

This is a local marketers’ dream come true. I remember when running a TV ad for pizza around dinnertime was considered targeted. Foursquare blows the rabbit ears off of that strategy. You are able to target people near your location who are interested in your product. This was unthinkable just a few years ago!

Now go and learn

Of course, Foursquare is just starting and there’s a lot to learn. I wish we were at the point where we could give you test results. However, we are currently testing with Foursquare and hope to have results to share in the near future.

Oh, and Dan, perhaps you can get Native Sun to fix that pothole for you with some organic gravel. This mayor is out to lunch (and getting some free chips and salsa while I’m out.)

Daniel shared his opinion of Foursquare on Monday. You’ve just read what I thought. Now we want to hear what you have to say. Let us know how you use Foursquare or Groupon for marketing, if you think they have any value, or if you have a better local social media technique. We’ll publish the best answers right here on the blog in a future post.

Related Resources

Local Social Media Marketing: Obama is not the mayor of the White House

Antisocial Media: Social media marketing success does not lie in you

Social Media Marketing Human Factor: Finding the right person for the job

Well, it turns out that Rob R. is the so-called Mayor of the White House. Rob who? I don’t know, but clearly not Barack O. So, if the Leader of the Free World can’t even be in charge of his own house, how valuable of a technology is this really?

I don’t care where you are

After I found out about his Mayordom, I also learned that Andy is the Mayor of a local Dunkin’ Donuts and Chili’s. But what do I really learn from this other than that Andy could be making healthier choices in life than scarfing down Boston Kreme donuts and Baby Back Ribs?

After all, when he checks in somewhere, all I really see is “I’m at BLANK.” So how social is FourSquare really?

The true power of social media is not that it allows people to be a shill to their friends (Andy ate a donut, and then two of his friends ate a donut, and then four of their friends ate a donut…). Social media, broken down to is essence, is essentially Transparent Marketing microcast to a highly niche audience – people who care what you have to say.

And the quickest way to turn those people off to caring what their friends and associates have to say is to shill.

Even in a tweet, I learn something about what someone thought of something – the bare minimum essential for communication to actually take place. They liked it. They didn’t like it. They ate too much. Something. Not just, “I’m at BLANK.”

Beyond that, once the novelty of campaigning against Mayor McCheese wears off, what value is there going to be to the FourSquarers? Essentially, all I’m learning is that someone can be enticed by the potential for a free cup of coffee and a virtual Girl Scout badge to let his friends track him on an odyssey through the strip malls of America.

Get your Groupon

Now, don’t get me wrong, I agree that the convergence of Local + Mobile + Social Media = The Next Google. And since the current Google hasn’t mastered this equation (Buzz is about as likely to generate any buzz as non-alcoholic beer), the field is wide open to upstarts. To me, the let’s-use-incentivized-social-media-to-get-people-into-B&M-stores horse to bet on is Groupon. For one, there is clear appeal to users. Huuuuuuge discounts (the prices are insane). And two, people ACTUALLY SAY SOMETHING about the product or service. Sure, there’s some discussion on Foursquare…

But on Groupon, people are actually putting their money where their mouth is, and making a buying decision, so the information for those interested in making a local purchase (which is, after all, what both Foursquare and Groupon are really about), is much more valuable – a true marketplace of ideas…

Tips for location-based social media marketing So if you have a local company or a national brand with bricks and mortar locations, what should you do? Until we release more detailed research into social media marketing, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Transparency – Something both these services get right is that they are clearly, openly, and honestly promoting local businesses. That’s a huge plus considering all the unethical, black hat social media “powerful promoters” currently flooding the digital airwaves with what is essentially spam.
   

  But Groupon gets my vote for that extra layer of transparency. As you can see from the comment above, people debate if these deals are really worth it, and that provides much more value to a local consumer than just knowing your buddy likes to grab a beer at the local pub.

   

  While your company may not be on Foursquare or Groupon yet, keep the value of transparency in mind on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs as well. If you are promoting a product, service, or non-profit, be clear in your intentions. And encourage your followers and customers to be clear as well, if you incent social media action with a contest, discount, or freebie.

   
• Actual content – Social media is, after all, a form of content marketing. And as the name suggests, content marketing requires actual content.
   

  Groupon does a better job than Foursquare of actually producing content that a local customer would be interested in. Even if I don’t purchase a discount through a Groupon, it’s interesting to get people’s feedback on that product or service.

   

  But content can help you in another way as well. Both of these services, especially Groupon, rely on incentives to grab attention and drive traffic. And that’s a great way to begin your local social media promotions…especially in a down economy. But if that incentive is the only value you offer potential customers, you’re going to kill your margins.

   

  Content marketing, through social media or any other media, does an excellent job of building an audience for your offering while strengthening your brand and showing the real value you provide. But to get to that step, you must first provide real, valuable, genuine, authentic content that is valuable to your audience in its own right. In this arena, both Groupon and Foursquare fall short.

   
• Actual decisions – If you’re a local business or a national brand with B&M locations, here’s the real value of Groupon over Foursquare. Groupon drives actual purchase decisions. Users get a discount, they debate the merit of your product or service, but you’re likely getting significant net new traffic to focus on what you have to offer.
   

  The difference is akin to the gap between surveys and real-world testing. With a survey, you’re asking people what they might like to buy. With Foursquare, the conversation (if you can call it that) essentially revolves around places people have been and may go.

   

  Groupon, like real-world resting, is focused on actual conversions. The buying process itself. As such, it provides content and value that is aligned with your goals, which is likely not traffic and badges but rather – real purchases.

Unless some major changes are made, in two years FourSquare will largely be remembered as a lame game you play at recess when you can’t find a football.

Oh, and Andy, if you really are the Mayor of MarketingExperiments, when are you going to fix the pothole in front of my office?

Join us on Wednesday when Andy hopefully answers that question while telling you the value he’s discovered in Foursquare from working with some of our enterprise-level Research Partners…

Related Resources

Social Media Measurement: Are you getting value out of Twitter and its peers?

Facebook Case Study: From 517 to 33,000 fans in two weeks (plus media coverage)

Social Media Marketing in Four Steps