Firstly, I hate the term “white paper”.
Secondly, I hate the idea of locking up a fancy pdf document behind a firewall, and then making the visitor provide tons of information to access that fancy pdf.
Thirdly, please don’t make your visitors fill up a form like this – ever! (Yes, this is for a webcast and not for a white paper, but you get the point)
Why should I tell you all that to read your paper?
Here is why this is a bad idea -
- I don’t have the patience to fill out all that information you are asking for. I am most likely to give up after three fields and walk away from your webpage.
- I know you are doing it to get my email address and contact information so that your sales people can call me / email me. But I get so much spam everyday that I am most likely to delete your email anyway. Or better, I have a separate email account to use for purposes like this. So forcing me to give you my email id is not beneficial to you in anyway.
- If you really have something valuable to say (and don’t want to charge dollars), then you are much better off writing a blog article about it. With a blog article - the google spider will find you, I can quote you and link to your article, and you will overall generate much more traffic than having a fancy pdf behind the firewall.
- Also, provide me with a simple “voluntary email signup” form in case I really like what you have to say and I am really interested in hearing more about you. That way, you will get a quality list of addresses to follow up with.
Marcom Ink blog discusses the case of Reachforce.com who increased their clickthrough rates by 1600% just by setting the content free: no registration forms. All they did was to highlight in their marketing emails that no registration is required to download content from their website.
So next time you have something interesting to say, just blog about it. Or publish an html on your website with free access without an idiotic sign up form. Also have an easy email signup box where people who are really interested can sign up for more information.
- If you liked this article, please help promote it by retweeting the link. Thank you.
Tags:email signup·usability·white paper
Nielsen regularly publishes a list of the top online retailers based on various parameters. It is interesting to see webstore conversion ratios of 25% and above.
Particularly since the average conversion ratio according to Forrester Research is 3% - “eCommerce conversion rates continue to hover at 3%, and retailers know that enormous business can be gained by improving that single metric.” (Trends 2009: U.S. Online Retail, Forrester Research, April 29, 2009)
July 2009, Top 10 Online Retailers Based on Conversion Rate, (Min 500K Unique Visitors)
Source: Nielsen Online, MegaView Online Retail
Note: To be considered, e-commerce sites must have had a minimum of 500K unique visitors during the month. Conversion-rate data is based on visitor conversion rates, not session conversion rates: i.e., No. of unique customers/No. of unique visitors.
Admittedly, consumers who are going to the Schwan’s website (food delivery service) or the Proflowers website (flower delivery) are there to execute on the purchasing decision they have already made. That would result in a very high conversion ratio for these sites.
But, the same case cannot be made for Vitacost.com, an online vitamin seller. I continue to argue that website design and user experience is a major factor towards boosting your webstore conversion ratio.
Here are a few articles I have written on how small business ecommerce merchants can improve their webstore conversion ratio.
- 15 Reasons Why Consumers May Leave Your eCommerce Site
- Tips to improve the webstore conversion ratio
- How to measure shopping cart abandonment rate?
- Why do customers abandon your shopping cart?
Tags:ecommerce·forrester·improve conversion ratio·nielsen·small business·usability·user experience·webstore conversion ratio
Recently, I linked to an article by Darpan Munjal on what causes customers to leave your ecommerce site thus lowering your webstore conversion ratio. Here is another article from Practical ecommerce that lists 10 tips to improve the webstore conversion ratio.
Having a clutter-free, user-friendly website is also important to improve the site’s conversion ratio. I have observed that small business ecommerce merchants often ignore the importance of the site aesthetics, and usability. User interviews I have performed have shown that many users bounce from the website because they are “turned off” by the graphics and the look and feel. In a few cases, the users were confused about how to proceed on the site, and left the site even though they came in with an intention to buy.
A great book addressing this topic, almost a must read for anyone interested in website usability is Steve Krug’s “Don’t make me think”. It is an easy read and I highly recommend that book to anyone interested in website usability.
Here is another example of King Arthur Flour where streamlining the checkout process improved the conversion ratio by 17%. The changes they made to their webstore are -
- Reduced the number of steps to complete checkout to three from four
- Deleted the requirement for shoppers to choose between registered user and guest
- Added instant confirmations of shipping address information, which uses pop-up windows to prompt customers to insert their correct ZIP codes.
- Checkout page now immediately applies the value of gift cards and promotions to orders, enabling shoppers to see the final purchase price.
- Inserted a “buy more, save more” message on the cart page, that lets shoppers know the dollar value of merchandise they need to add to their cart to qualify for special offers. This will entice customers to round-up their purchases to a higher dollar value.
The last idea is very similar to the minimum-free-shipping-threshold approach that I discussed in another article. First calculate the average order size, and then set a free shipping threshold at 10% above the average order size. That will encourage customers to buy a few more items thus increasing the average order size.
Tags:conversion ratio·ecommerce·usability·Webstore