“Matt, you are a copywriting genius and you are really generous with your advice. So thank you in advance.
Question: I have a standard formatted sales letter. So my goal is to improve % of conversion. Right now it’s a measly 1%.
Matt, how can I best determine where visitors are abandoning the page?” Jeff
My Answer:
Good question, Jeff. And thanks for the gratuitous compliments. You know how to get the best out of me, that’s for sure. Keep ’em coming. 😉
And cheer up! There’s hope.
I’ve got a surefire, cheap way for you to boost those conversions. Turning serious prospects into buyers.
Now, most copywriters will tell you to
split test your way to success.
I have a different approach IN THE BEGINNING…
Normally, my pages convert decently right out of the gate. That’s just experience at work.
However, on a new offer, I want to get it so that I convert just an EXTRA 1 or 2 per hundred (1-2%) in the beginning. Just so the Client can easily justify running cold traffic.
That means with the process I’m about to share with you, I’m converting at about 4%.
Now, most marketers would sacrifice a body part for those kinds of conversion numbers.
First of all, I want to understand how a prospect is consuming my sales letter. What are they doing once they get there?
To do that, I use a service like http://hotjar.com or http://mousestats.com.
These are services that allow me to record the moment-to-moment mouse activity of a visitor and play it back later. Compared to the value, these services are cheap. Even free to sign-up.
I know lots of marketers use http://CrazyEgg.com. But at best, all we can get out of CrazyEgg is a colorful consolidated “scrollmap” for my way of doing things.
(Please understand, I’m not slamming CrazyEgg in the least. CrazyEgg is ABSOLUTELY GREAT for what it does. In fact, the owner, Neil Patel’s a Client. You should be using it as well. I just have different intentions at this preliminary stage of “dialing things in.”)
Ok, now let me share with you how I work with tools like this…
Playback Preferred:
First, I don’t look at heatmaps. Yeah, they’re pretty in a DMT ayahuasca sort of way… yeah, they evoke an “Oh my, that’s interesting!” response from me, but I think they’re deceiving in terms of divining insights into a visitor’s reptilian brain, when it comes to consumption of a standard sales letter.
What I do, (caution: it can be time consuming,) is playback very fast (4X or 400%) individual sessions of a visitor. Especially the longest ones.
I’m a bit of a voyeur. I like to watch. 😉
I want the mouse behavior of the longer, converting playback sessions “etched” into my brain.
The implication is the longer ones are people who spend more time are more serious prospects, right?
At least, that’s my assumption. And it seems to hold (except when prospects switch tabs and leave the page active for hours.)
How Far Are They Scrolling?:
The second thing I spend my time looking is how far down they’re consuming the page.
Farther is better, obviously. If I’m not holding them, I blame the subheads first. Then the design. (For instance, I’ll add charts or graphs.) Then I’ll rework the body copy.
If they pause and spend a lot of time on a certain part, I make note of that in a spreadsheet. It’s probably important.
Where Do They Abandon?:
The third thing I pay attention is how/where they end.
If they exit let’s say at the price, the implication is the price may be a turn-off.
I create a detailed excel spreadsheet about this kind of stuff to be acted upon later.
How to Dial It In:
When you analyze a lot of visitor sessions over time (“a lot” being more than 25 long ones), you start to develop a true appreciation for a serious prospect’s consumption of your sales letter.
If you’re like me, it’ll piss you off at first.
Because you’ll see lots and lots of serious people, but only a few are buying. This will inspire you, for sure. Because you’re sooo close. You just gotta convert one or two per hundred visitors more.
The good news is you start to see what serious people care about (i.e. spend time on) AND what they don’t care about.
Work on converting those serious people.
There are a couple of different strategies I use:
- Amplify and smooth out what people are paying attention to. The easiest way is to make it clearer, or create more of an emotional impact.
- If they’re not paying attention to something they should be, change the design.
- Always, always, always look for improvement in your headline and subheads.
- Knee jerk go-to strategy: have multiple calls-to-action.
The shorter playbacks imply visitors immediately see it’s not a fit and bounce. I don’t worry about those at all.
The goal is to get more people to spend more time interacting with the page. Initially focus on those on the one yard line and getting them into the end zone.
Done this way, you’ll glean all sorts of insights. Rather than playing “pin the tail on the donkey” with A/B split tests where you’re just “trying stuff.” If you’re buying traffic, that can get expensive. This way is cheap, comparatively.
So give my way a shot and let me know, ok? Good luck and if you need help, just reach out at matt@conversiongods.com.
P.S. Bonus: The cool thing is after doing dozens of sales letters, YOU BEGIN TO DEVELOP A SIXTH SENSE about how people consume sales letters. If you’re a copywriter you’ll look like a psychic to Clients.
P.P.S. If you have a decently converting sales letter and want to optimize it further, you’ll probably be amazed and excited to learn I offer this process as a service. I call it Conversion Therapy. It’s cheaper than a rewrite. If you need help, just reach out at matt@conversiongods.com and ask for Conversion Therapy.
