Urgent Reactivation
This email is relevant (to the recipient), well written and adds urgency (coupon code expires in 30 days)–
Gift Ideas
MetroKitchen.com is a site that specializes in cookware. They have a simple, yet very effective Gift Ideas page … … where shoppers select a relevant option and see a list of highly targeted gifts. Opportunity: On “For wine fans” page (for example) MetroKitchen.com just lists products– Which means I have to click the first item, read description, hit back button, …
Enter Email, Get Price
Compostumbler.com doesn’t reveal “Sale Price” of their composter immediately. They ask visitors to enter their offer code (blue arrow below)– If you don’t have the offer code you can get one by clicking “Get one here” link (yellow arrow above). This reveals a form– When I filled the form and hit Process Request button the “Sale Price” turned out to …
Wonderful Ad
The picture below was taken from a POM advertisement in Money magazine. Lighting wasn’t great so below the ad photograph, I’ve added bigger screenshots of every important ad section. Section by section analysis (screenshot followed by explanation)– 1: Relevant headline– I saw this ad in Money magazine so the headline LIFETIME RETURNS is particularly relevant and has been used intentionally. 2: …
Hot Outside
For the last 2 weeks the state of Texas has been exceptionally hot. What would happen if you (an e-tailer) pulled the list of your Texas customers and sent them this email (with a nice introduction message like– “We’ve been thinking about our Texas customers.”) … Would email relevance make customers laugh out loud? Would they forward it to family and …
Infographics and Conversion Rates
Infographics are used to convey information visually. With infographics, you’ll be able to majorly improve conversion rates.
Daily Special
Sometimes one finds great ideas from the least expected places. The iPhone app world is highly competitive; in order to generate mass appeal app developers are forced to keep prices low (mostly free) but in order to make a living they must generate profits. So they have to think outside the box. Here is a great example. Last Friday I …
Make it Seem Special
HeartlandAmerica.com has a pretty persuasive call to action: I took this screenshot on 6/8. The Post-it note below ADD TO ORDER gives the impression this is a one day only deal, after all, it’s a graphical element. Because it’s easy to edit HTML text skeptical shoppers might expect plain text version of 6/8 Order TODAY and receive FREE SHIPPING* to …
Handwritten Testimonials
Folica.com specializes in hair products. Their site has 100s of products and 1000s of reviews. How could we make reviews more persuasive? They should pick a popular product and for any customer that buys this item two weeks after purchase mail out two pre-stamped postcards requesting a handwritten testimonial. Scan these testimonials. Then run a split A/B test where one group of visitors see the …
Mighty Small
Nankin Battery is a one location car/motorcycle battery shop in my neighborhood– This small business has some serious disadvantages: 1. Higher costs (because of higher per item overhead)2. Smaller selection (small shop)3. Limited reach (1 location) If the business owner spends her entire day stressing over her much larger online competitors she’ll want to shut shop. But Nankin Battery has …
Bait and Switch Tactic
In the book Mind Programming author Eldon Taylor shares his experience selling sewing machines using bait-and-switch: It started with an offer too good to be true. In the 1960s credit depended upon a deposit– a down payment of 10% in those days. Credit was freely available. Getting the down payment became the most difficult part of making a sale, so …
Empty Calories
1. When a shopper walks into a brick-and-mortar store in their head they’ve pre-allocated time and money investment. The same phenomenon happens online. 2. Etailer X launched his site in 2003 with 37 pages. These included product pages, category pages, checkout pages, shipping info, return policy, about us and newsletter sign-up. With time etailer X learns more about ecommerce and …
Return Shipping Insurance
Lafumafurniture.com is testing a novel concept (observe orange box below)- My first thought was, “Yikes, this is a horrible idea. This call to action is casting purchase doubt less than 5 seconds of me landing on the site. I should blog about how terrible this idea is.” But then, when I read the details, I had a change of heart- …
Selling 18th Century Items Using YouTube
Every e-tailer (big-small, broad-niche, impulse buy-pricey stuff, PPC-SEO, single purchase-lifetime value) has a definite set of strengths and weaknesses. The key to success is focusing on your strengths. Jas-townsend.com is a niche e-tailer that is good at making product videos, which they use abundantly throughout their site. I wonder how many conversions can be directly attributed to these clever videos? …
Case Study: Novica.com Product Page
Once a serious shopper is ready, their attention shifts to ADD TO CART area. Novica has a 5 course meal laid out for them (numbered in screenshot below)- Course 1: Today’s Price- 99.9% of shoppers pay attention to the product price, which means they notice this hyperlink. Novica.com uses that click to tell their story. Suddenly the price becomes a …
