Chicken Little is Dead
Do you remember the story about Chicken Little?
The precious little chicken was in the woods one day and an acorn fell on her head. It scared her so much that “half of her feathers fell out.” Convinced that the sky was indeed falling, she went to tell the King. Along the way, she ran into Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, and Turkey Lurkey. As she recounted her story to each of her friends, they too became afraid that the world was ending and joined her cause.
To make a long story short (er, a short story even shorter), on their mad-dash, they rushed right into Foxy Loxy. Under the premise of showing them a quicker way to meet the King, the clever fox led them right into his den where they were never to be seen again.
What does this have to do with cataloging/traditional direct marketing and the web?
EVERYTHING.
From my perspective (not that I have an opinion*), catalogers and other offline marketers, are so caught up in their own bad press they’re actually believing it.
Listen up folks, if you have a strong direct business, you have an ADVANTAGE. You actually know how to use data – you know how to read it, manipulate it and act on it.
Plus, chances are good that most (or at least a lot) of your users online are coming from offline – which typically indicates higher commitment levels and a stronger propensity to move to the next level.
It’s also likely that you have enough traffic, you just need to act on it. What does that mean? It means if you want the order you’ve got to ask for it. Over and over and over and over.
Here are five things you can do to increase your website conversion now – without breaking the bank.
1. Make sure it’s clear that your site is a buying site, not a browsing site. Many catalogers and old-school direct marketers don’t show products you can buy on the first view of their site. It’s a HUGE weakness. The first view that the user sees has a tremendous impact on how they view your site and more importantly, how they act on it. If you are an ecommerce site, the user should see at least three products they can purchase on every view, especially the first one.
2. Use a perpetual cart. A perpetual cart is one that stays with you at all times. (marcopromotionalproducts.com has a good example.) In a perfect world, you’ll employ three or more perpetual carts – one in the upper righthand corner, one in the righthand column, and one at the bottom. That way it’s very clear that you want their order on EVERY view.
3. Use action directives NOW. BIG, red, smacky, IN-YOUR-FACE buttons that ask for the order (Buy Now, for example) or the lead. Make sure you have at least two buttons on every view. Yes, if you have long pages, you might have eight or so buttons per page. That’s fine. Users see each view at its own page anyway.
4. Use the perfect checkout. Statistically, the perfect checkouts are one page. However, till you know exactly where users abandon on your site, you should employ a 4-5 step checkout (bill to, ship to, payment, submit your order now), with the most emphasis on the first step of the checkout: the Welcome Screen. The purpose of the Welcome Screen should be to collect their e-mail address. You need to allow quick log-ins for returning visitors, easy access for new visitors and a guest checkout. (Do NOT forget the guest checkout – around a quarter and up to half of users prefer it.)
5. Develop an abandoned cart program. A lot of people say they have a “program” yet they only send out one e-mail. One e-mail does not make a program. Successful programs include midis, sidewinders or pop-ups on exit (main goal: collect user’s e-mail address); a series of abandoned cart e-mails (5-8 typically works best); outbound telemarketing and more.
Stay tuned for more sure-fire tips… right after I make some pot pie. What do you think? Chicken or turkey?
*Not that I have an opinion is the trademark of Government God Mark Amtower. I mean, I don’t really think he has a trademark on it per se, but everyone who knows him, knows that it’s HIS saying.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I can absolutely attest to what Amy is saying here. By following some of these principals, I tripled my online conversion rate. The owner of the company hated the design and wanted me to “make it prettier”, but all objections faded when we started getting real results. Plus, I found that over a third of my web traffic was coming from my offline circulation, so we were able to really tighten our PPC budget without compromising the quality of our traffic. The offline-sourced traffic really did convert at a substantially higher rate.
When I needed to learn more about converting my web traffic, I went to a couple of Amy’s talks. What I learned and applied in a few months took the place of years of testing. Thanks, Amy.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Dear Amy -
Please stop giving people information for free. It’s bad for business - MY business.
If someone hasn’t listened to you when times are good, they should be disqualified from listening to you when times are tough.
That being said, I’ve read your article and I’m concerned with the accuracy of your information. I will now offer a contrasting set of advice - helping those who need a “fair and balanced” approach to your topics.
1. “Make sure it’s clear that your site is a buying site, not a browsing site.”
Really? Everyone knows that playing hard to get is a more effective way to draw attention. How about a little mystery? How about a little “I’m not sure that they’re into me as a customer - but I HAVE to learn more about them!”
Shroud your site in mystery and I’m sure the buyers who REALLY care will make an effort.
2. “Use a perpetual cart.”
Come on now. Carts are for supermarkets. Carts are dangerous to stand in. Besides, I can’t stand the emotional toll of knowing that every shop I visit has a cart waiting for me, FOREVER!
My solution? Use a self destructing cart. Everyone loves the old TV shows where people had only 5 minutes to stuff all the free hams and frozen turkeys in the cart as they raced to the checkout. Won’t that increase average order size? Won’t that inject a little fun back into the shopping process?
3. “Use action directives NOW. BIG, red, smacky, IN-YOUR-FACE buttons”
How rude! Customers want to tell you when they are ready to buy anything. Clearly, the art gallery approach works best online. If you have to ask how much, you can’t afford it.
In terms of colour, red is so 80’s. I prefer to recommend a shade of button that matches your background colour. If you aren’t sophisticated enough to use an eggshell white button on a linen white background, try transparent buttons - customers love looking for things to click.
4. “Use the perfect checkout”
There is only one perfect checkout.
Martha at Moulton’s General Store provides just the right combination of sass and service. She take’s pennies from the “Leave a Penny, Take a Penny” without you having to ask and she always makes correct change.
Beyond that - this whole one page, two page, red page, blue page checkout process seems overly complicated.
Until online stores add “Take a penny” functionality, they should simple replace all those complicated forms with a phone number and the message “Call Martha”
5. Last of all “Develop an abandoned cart program.”
I call this concept “Selling for Stalkers.”
Don’t you realize that just because someone came in the store, looked around and put stuff in their shopping cart, doesn’t mean they have any interest in really becoming a customer.
Everyone knows that teenagers frequently visit laboratory supply sites and fill up carts just so they can laugh as the cashiers have to go and put everything back on the shelves.
Abandoned carts are just the newfangled way teens have found to make shopkeepers miserable.
I’ve ofter found it better to require payment information up front at time of store entry. This keeps out the riff raff and makes sure I don’t have to waste hours restocking my virtual shelves.
Your midis, sidewinders and pop-ups on exit sound vaguely like a series of gag gifts. Your idea of all those follow up attempts sounds exhausting.
You’re forgetting one important thing - we all got into online commerce so that we DON’T have to talk to customers. They’re fickle and rather dull.
So, there it is - a clear eyed response to the incredibly irresponsible advice you tried to spread in your article. I’m confident that the marketing world will recognize the flaws in your arguments and adopt the more considered approach I propose.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Interesting most old school children stories end in unspeakable violence with some woodland creature snacking on another. As an analogy for your online business, this one is perfect. My company has employed most of these tactics with great success. Abandoned cart can be the most challenging to set up but worth it and we found that customers were not annoyed by these emails, at least in the B2B world. That was a concern of ours. Great stuff; good luck not getting eaten by foxes with rhyming last names.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Chicken or turkey notwithstanding — do chickens or turkeys not stand? No bother, this article hits the target — might not be good for the chicken or the turkey
but its essential for catalogue marketers. Of course maybe some folks don’t want their business to improve - who are they? Where are they? Encased in glass somewhere? Who cares?
Free expert information that is proven — priceless - no matter what credit card you use for payment!
March 18th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I am firmly in Amy’s camp. So many times a business owner says “I want my site to look just like so-and-so’s site”, and they name a nationally known business whose main concern is promoting their image, and whose site clearly doesn’t take into account how visitors read (or don’t), how visitors navigate, how visitors get lost, and why they abandon. The great thing about catalog marketers is that they know how to track and measure results — they shouldn’t give up those proven habits on their websites. Once they track as many results as Amy has, they’ll know why these are tips you can take to the bank.
March 18th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Amy
go ahead and give free advice. 95% of those out will do nothing with it anyway as they think they already know more than enough.
Not that I have an opinion.
Amtower
March 18th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Flynn is wrong and Africa is right, on all counts.
I am curious as to what Flynn’s business is and how much revenue Flynn makes from its web sites.
March 18th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Ah yes, the famous IN-YOUR-FACE red buttons which cause so much uproar (and inspired a Halloween costume last year at work, I kid you not) - love them or hate them, they work, as do all your other pieces of advice here, Amy. Having applied these concepts at two separate companies, with two completely different business models, I can honestly say that following these simple tips will increase conversion, raise AOV, AND as a bonus, inspire “energetic” debates between the internet marketing department and the creative team, which only helps to make the day go by faster, right? So much good from such simple logic that everyone seems to want to hide behind flashy graphics and artistic flourishes - just get the message out, they are there to buy your product, not admire your graphical prowess - when you can sell that strategy with Amy’s data standing behind you as proof, you’ll find things work much better on your site.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
OK I admit it! I have (on occasion) been “chicken little” …
But I’ve been lucky enough not to run into Foxy Loxy and instead have been guided to great success by Amy Africa.
We worried that following up with customers on abandoned carts seemed “too big brother”. Not only is it our single best performing marking effort (the response rates are through the roof), but our customers actually call to thank us for that service.
These web tips are like magic and give real results. Our web sites have continued growing in an economy that is doing the opposite thanks to Amy.
March 19th, 2009 at 6:43 am
Ah the basics. It really is the little things that count. Of course getting management, who so often have their heads severely stuck up their…er…I mean are still stuck in catalog-time… to give the go-ahead on no-brainers like these can be like pulling chicken teeth. Jah forbid we offend anyone with our big face-smacking red buttons or maybe have a handful of email subscribers opt-out because we sent them one too many abandoned cart emails. Would not our world be a better place if the off-liners just got the heck out of our way? I think so too.
March 19th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Who cares about a about the silly little fox?
Who cares about the silly little acorns?
Who cares about the silly little chicken?
In the real world – it isn’t acorns falling in the forest – it’s the damn oak trees. And trees have a habit of squishing chickens. So, really now, who cares about the silly little chicken?
So what’s the moral of this story? Who knows? But the rest of the stuff is pretty darn good.
Heck, we might even find that with a big RED Cape, and the PERFECT little goodie CART, and HUGE big button eyes, that we can survive 2009 and the trip to Grandmother Amy’s.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:52 am
After the mad-dash and the dust settles, you can enjoy the benefits of all labor involved whether it be chicken or turkey pot pie.
March 22nd, 2009 at 11:09 pm
I’m with Africa - direct sellers have a great advantage. It’s time we all look at what we CAN do to create stimulate a little more buying. For one thing - make sure those people that you have dealing with the customers are in the best shape they possibily can be. Word has it that the majority of customers these days are a little bit testy - to say the least. Some of those customers are downright cranky.
In the b-t-b sector especially, so many people have been put between a rock and a hard place and it’s made them angry - and they are taking it out on those people who answer phones in customer service departments and order departments.
This is a time of opportunity. Make sure your staff is smiling, welcoming, inviting and delighting the customers you do have so they will come back and tell their firends. And watch your back before Zappos moves into your category.
Oh yeah, how’s your culture faring in the midst of all this?
March 24th, 2009 at 11:06 am
As usual, Amy is right on the money … and the chicken. DO NOT participate in this “recession.” Remember the adage, “more millionaires are made in recessionary times?” With so many companies running for cover, it’s a great time to use RED to get in the black. Direct Marketers need to use thier power of proven rules, data and testing and we will be more than successful. In fact, we will come out on top and become the fox!
Thanks, Amy … keep it up. I will be forwarding your wise words.
Lois Brayfield
March 26th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Amy has absolutely hit the nail on the head! With Amy’s help, we launched a brand new internet based business in 2008. I know, perfect timing going in to the worst recession in 10, 20, 50, or is it now 100 years?
But, guess what, everything that Amy tells us to do, we have done and we are experiencing PHENOMINAL results. All of our long-established (I mean entrenched, stagnat, stale, unchanging, you get the point) major competitors are down 20-35% in online/offline revenue this spring, BUT we are up 89% for the first 3 months of 2009!
Yes, those BIG, RED, BUY NOW buttons really work and even though it goes against my “classy” style, I’ve become a believer that “gawdy is good” for online marketing!
Thanks, Amy, for all your help & keep preaching that the Sky Is Not Falling!
Chris a.k.a. Sparky Hansen