Hi, folks...
Today, one of the biggest lessons I've learned over my years
online. Simple, but it can make a big difference for you if you
apply it. First, a quick note...
Last email, I asked if you thought a tutorial on mindmaps would
be helpful. You didn't comment in the usual overwhelming
numbers, but those of you who did reply were almost all
strongly in favor of the idea. And, as usual, you gave me the
kind of intelligent feedback that completely changed what I'm
considering doing with the product.
It will be a much more useful thing for everyone because you
took the time to let me know what would help. Thank you for
that.
Speaking of useful products... If you haven't picked up a copy
of the "Profit Plan" system yet, what's stopping you?
Check it out. This is one seriously useful product, for anyone
in the business.
http://talkbiz.com/profitplan/?e=1
It's got a whole new take on building a "list." Starting by
redefining 'list' to something more relevant for the current
online culture.
That one is surprising a lot of people.
"Building From the Basics"
========================
Last full issue, we talked about simplifying things, breaking
them down to the most important fundamentals, as a way to get
better results and a clearer grip on what you're doing. One of
the examples we used was breaking down a subscription page to
the various elements that could affect your results.
There are a lot of those elements, but only two of them are
truly critical: The offer and the subscription mechanism. Get
those right, and you have a winner.
Let's take a look at them.
....
I read a comment recently on a discussion board, in which the
poster mentioned that only 21% of the people who signed up for
his list completed the process by confirming their
subscriptions. This sort of abysmal ratio is part of the reason
so many people claim that confirmed opt-in (mistakenly referred
to as 'double opt-in') is a bad choice.
We'll leave that argument for another day. Let's look instead
at why some people get more than 80% confirmations, while
others can't even break the 25% mark. And, more importantly,
what kind of difference that can make to your bottom line.
As with most things, the important parts are simple.
1: Person lands on the sign-up page.
2: They sign up or leave.
3: The ones who sign up get an email, with a link they
have to click to confirm that they asked for the
subscription, and no-one else used their email address.
That's a COI (confirmed opt-in) system, in a nutshell.
....
There are only a few ratios you have to watch when testing this
sort of process.
The first is the percentage of visitors to your sign-up page
that enter their email address, click the like button,
subscribe to your RSS feed, or whatever other method you use.
The percentage who take that first step gives you the real
measure of the effectiveness of your offer. Yes, design and
sales copy have an impact, but they're rarely a big factor. The
visitor's impression of "what's in it for me" is the thing.
If you doubt that, consider the page you saw when you signed up
for this newsletter. It was long (over 2000 words), with
nothing but plain black text on a white background. No fancy
graphics, no red headlines, no outrageous promises, no "cool"
factor to speak of at all. Just a clear offer, and a way to say
yes.
In the three and a half years since I put that version of the
page up, a little over 60% of the people who've landed on it
have entered their email address to request a subscription. For
a broad topic publication like TalkBiz News, that's acceptable.
The fun part is the confirmation rate. Of those people who
entered an email address, a consistent 83% to 86% have
confirmed their subscriptions. That's huge.
Yes, some very highly focused niche publications will do
better. Most do a lot worse, like the gentleman who mentioned
getting only 21% confirmations. That should never happen, and
is a sign of a broken process.
A woman in that same discussion mentioned having worked really
hard to get her confirmation rate to 88% in one niche. She used
screen grabs and tweaked and fine-tuned and finally got to that
level, after a lot of effort. Again, something that should
never need to happen.
Getting your basic subscription rate as high as possible will
take constant tweaking of the sign-up page. It's worth that, as
that's the first ratio, which sets the baseline for everything
after it. But getting a solid confirmation rate is simple. In
fact, I am using exactly the same text now as I did on my first
version of the process. It took me about 15 minutes to write,
and hasn't been changed since.
Why haven't I tested other versions?
Well, depending on who you ask, anywhere from 5% to 15% of the
addresses that get entered into most subscription forms are
either misspelled or completely faked, so 86% is close to the
reasonable max. The effort required to make incremental gains
is just not worth it.
You're better off focusing on traffic at that point.
The real gain came from inserting an extra step in the
process. Immediately after entering an email address and
clicking the "Subscribe" button, the new subscriber sees a page
with the following text:
Please check your email
In a few minutes, (assuming things are running as usual),
you're going to receive an email with the subject line,
"TalkBiz News - Please confirm your subscription." To
complete your request, you'll need to open that email and
click on the link in it.
This is done to make sure that it's really you that
requested the subscription, and not someone else using your
email address. I genuinely hate spam, and I have no desire
to send anyone anything they haven't asked for.
As soon as you confirm that you are the one that requested
the book and newsletter, I'll get an email to you with the
download link.
Enjoy!
Paul Myers
You can see that at http://talkbiz.com/confirm.html
....
The page itself is extremely plain. The key is that the
message is quick and simple. It creates an expectation of
what's next, an explanation of why, and gives a very clear set
of instructions. "Open the email and click on the link." Fast,
painless, and very hard to misunderstand.
It also reminds them of the offer - the thing they signed up to
get - and ties it into that simple step.
You've been through that exact process. You know just how
smooth it was, once you decided to join our merry little band.
The only confusion about it - ever - is when the email gets
lost or someone doesn't spend the 8 seconds it takes to read
those instructions.
Not much you can do about those.
....
I said earlier that I hadn't changed that text since I first
wrote it. That's not 100% true. I did test a change of one
word. I added 'Please' at the beginning of the headline.
That made a small, but noticeable and consistent, improvement
in the confirmation rate. (@ 1.5%) That's probably due to the
tone of the rest of the process, and may not translate well to
other approaches. But it's worth testing.
....
A lot of people hear about testing and think it sounds nice,
but they never actually do any of it. Let's look at what it can
mean for you, though.
Assume you get two people sending 10,000 visitors to a sign-up
page. Person A gets 50% to sign up and 21% to confirm. That's
1050 new subscribers. Person B gets 60% to sign up, and 85% to
confirm, for a total of 5100 new subscribers.
Almost 5 times the results from the same amount of people
visiting the site.
Improving your initial sign-up rate from 50% to 60% by
focusing on creating a better offer, or presenting your
current offer more clearly, is almost too simple. You can do
that easily, in most cases.
If you're using basic opt-in (often called 'single opt-in'),
that's an immediate improvement of 20%. There aren't a lot of
businesses in which a simple test that takes 15 minutes to a
couple of hours can yield an immediate and lasting increase in
profits like that.
Let's say you're using confirmed opt-in and go from 21% to just
a 50% confirmation rate. That's almost 2.5 times the results,
with no extra expense or effort.
That's the value of breaking things down to the basics and
working up from there. Or, as the champions in any sport will
describe it, "executing the fundamentals."
....
This is why I laugh (privately, of course) at people who say
that you absolutely must have fancy graphics and a
"professional" looking sales pages to get subscribers.
Could they help? Maybe. Sometimes they make a big difference.
Other times they get in the way. The only way to tell is to
test. But first, get the basics down. Start simple. That way
you have the purest measure of your offer. You have a baseline
you can depend on.
When you get the basics right, you can make all sorts of
"mistakes" and still keep making money. Get them wrong,
especially the offer, and all the slick graphics and smooth
copy in the world won't do you any good.
Master the basics.
....
There are many other factors that play a part.
Consistency of presentation is big. Keep the same look and feel
throughout, and don't jar people with odd changes.
Watch your pacing. It's okay to speed things up, but don't get
folks on a roll and then slow things down in odd ways. Creating
drag in the system will screw your results up almost every
time.
Be aware of the source of your traffic. Match the lead-in ad
(the traffic generator) to the landing page. If you're
generating traffic through ads in emails, sending people to a
text-heavy page is fine. If they're coming in from a slick
graphic banner, you may want to use a shorter, more visually
intense sign-up page.
Make sure the offer matches the expectations created by the ad.
For example, don't use a cutesy ad to send someone to a sign-up
page that relies on highly professional layout and language.
You're creating an experience and an expectation. As long as
you keep that in mind, you'll improve your odds at every step.
....
These are the sorts of things you either learn through ongoing
dialogue and testing, paid courses, or both. They matter, and
they're not things you're likely to get right the first time.
The more you learn, the more you realize that it all fits
together to make a single "piece." That's why most of my
products focus on skills, systems, and concepts. The techniques
are all part of the visitor's experience, rather than centering
on the latest "magic button."
That's the idea behind the "Profit Plan." It breaks down the
process so you can see each element, and where it fits into the
overall picture. And it gives you tons of techniques as
examples (in this case, for building a list) to make the
concepts clear.
That's a sneaky product, by the way. The examples focus on
building a list (defined as "your network"), but it's really
about planning out any online business activity.
Of course, with a list of 162 ways to get subscribers, it's not
surprising people forget it's not just about "the list."
If you haven't got a copy yet, you probably should. ;)
http://talkbiz.com/profitplan/?e=1
If you have a copy, and want to kick things into an even
higher gear, check out "The BEAST."
http://talkbiz.com/eas/?e=1
And don't just leave them sit on your drive, collecting
virtual dust bunnies. Use those systems. They can add a lot to
your bottom line.
Paul
-----===(*)===-----
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"100% of the shots you don't take don't go in."
- Wayne Gretzky
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