Call To Action; You need to have me at hello. | Hacker News Reader

Call To Action; You need to have me at hello.

blog.derekperez.com

38 pointsperezd18 comments

Minor hacks which can improve conversion rates for Zumbox:

* Lady is facing away from the signup form which focuses visitor attention away from the form. Signup conversions can probably increase if she were facing towards the form

* More details on how the service works below the fold can actually help. I think the page doesn't do a good job in convincing people who are there to learn about the service. It stresses too much on conversions.

* Having "Totally secure" and "Privacy Protected" in bold large font just next to convert button can help.

They ask personal and potentially sensitive info right on the homepage, better convince visitor that it is worth it and his data is safe.

Of course, all my suggestions can be split test :)

You should add that NO landing page analysis is near complete without numbers from testing.

My experience with landing pages is that your deepest assumptions of what is better can be proven wrong by your visitors.

My favorite data-driven decision: one company I worked at ran a contest for the best-converting copy for the homepage. The secretary came in first place, the marketing guy came in last.

Is that study documented? Looks interesting..

The marketing guy ran the study, so he made sure that the results beyond 1st place were quickly buried.

You are right! I added a bit at the end. Reminder to always do testing when you can!

If you take one thing from the "agile startup" folks, take this: refactor your processes so that testing is not a "nice thing to do when we can" but is central to your business, such that you can scarcely imagine changing code without A/B testing it.

It is amazing how much more I A/B test now that it is one line to do. Previously, I'd go back and forth with myself about whether I should add a feature or not, worried whether the marginal utility would offset marginal complexity. I don't worry about these things anymore -- I just implement it and, toggle it with an A/B test (1 line of code), then track conversions at the next step in the funnel (1 line of code), and wait a week.

Concrete example: Next up on the development roadmap is a color selector. I've put it off for three years out of the fear that color selectors will befuddle my core user, but every few months someone asks for it. Why worry when you can implement it, wait for data, and rollback (almost) instantly if it doesn't pan out?

Writing a landing page? Write two calls to action. Takes essentially as much time as writing one since you mentally brainstormed six anyhow. No problem, chuck Mr. Second Best in there. It only takes a line. Customers will humble you with how many times Mr. Second Best trounces your best writing. (Customers will humble you with how many times Mr. Total Garbage trounces your best writing, too.)

Hey what do you use to do the A/B testing? Curious.

Thanks!

He uses this - http://www.bingocardcreator.com/abingo

I visited Zumbox yesterday, as it was mentioned in a post here. I was unhappy with the design. I felt there wasn't enough information there, and I grudgingly watched the video, only after I couldn't find information in non-video format. I should note that I am in the market for this service and only gave them the extra time I did, because of that. Were I a more idle visitor, that back button would have had skid marks on it. No, I didn't convert. I went with another company, also mentioned yesterday.

The author doesn't like "distracting nav links". Maybe. If I was an expert, I'd be rich. But after struggling with this stuff for awhile, it's my opinion that when the user's trigger finger starts getting itchy, he's going to click that mouse. On Zumbox, there's almost nowhere to click but away from Zumbox. Seems like it would be better to let him stay on your site at least.

Zumbox was notable for me, in that I actually had a negative opinion of it's landing page, where usually I'm neutral or I find things to admire about almost any established companies page.

At some point some things are a matter of taste and some people will like one design while others will like the other.

For example for me it's the opposite than this author: I don't like video too much; I'd rather read and a sign-up page is more intimidating than some text explaining the service.

I agree with you. The video is a big turnoff to me. Give me details somewhere in print. I'd bounce off the Zumbox page quickly. It looks more like someone just trying to gather my info to sell.

Is video that important? I hate it when the only way I can understand what a product does is by spending 2 minutes to watch a video. Has anyone does tests to see how much video improves conversions?

If the only way I can get at product information is a video, I leave. It's that simple

I think thats a little to B&W. I don't think you should only ever have a video, Its important to have features in writing. You never know when you need to print something out for your boss to review.

My big point is, let people trust in and rely on a video as their first experience, make that experience priority, if it makes sense for your business.

ECM and Zumbox both offer very new strategies to dealing with a problem most people don't really conceptualize immediately.

I won't know about the value of video for doing the actual sell. My guess is it would vary from industry to industry. Just be careful of thinking that just because you don't enjoy video, that your visitors too won't enjoy video.

What I can attest to is a video can really help get blogger coverage. Bloggers love to be able to embed a 1-2min demo of what your site is about. I believe it was a big part of what got us top coverage(on TechCrunch/digg etc.) when we launched few years ago.

Moreover, video helps you control the precise message in a world where bloggers can do a 5min writeup on your site that totally misses the point.

Well said. I could learn from this technique!

How does zumbox work? do they scan mail... or do you only receive digital mail from businesses that have a partnership with them? How is this different from email?

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