How To Remove Noise For Better Performance

In this newsletter I am going to show you what you can remove to improve your ecommerce conversion rates.

Higher conversion rates makes everything better. From

• lower cost of acquisition,
• making your ads budget going further,
• to more sales reducing fixed costs per order,
• gaining market share from competitors

and on and on.

Now the problem is that our Ecommerce programs and tech stacks get bloated. Here’s why.

When we are rushing forward there is little time to look back.

I am a full believer in action action action! But I do have a weakness to not stop and take stock. I don’t appreciate how far we have come. Some other reasons things get bloated are:

1. Poor communication. Two or more “Chefs” adding more ingredients when working on the same goal.
2. Lack of maintenance. Sometimes development is set and forget. Most times not.
3. Not managing and measuring work. Work can't be complete to high standards if you work beyond your capacity.
4. Technology debt. If you think your legacy systems are doing a good enough job.

So let's try to apply solutions to these areas to improve your conversion rate.

Here's how, step by step:

Step 1: Be Clear On Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

Your USP is the tip of the spear. Everything aligns in behind it.

Be clear on the reason that someone should buy from you instead of your competition. You are wasting money communicating unclear messages.

As an example I once wrote for a friend's residential building business. “We show families how to find sanctuary in eco homes that breathe, even if they don’t have big budgets.”

This defines & is relevant to the target customer. The message shows what the benefits are to them and overcomes a major objection.

Remove communication that is not aligned with or supporting your USP.

Step 2: Work The Funnel

It is tempting to start optimising your advertising or site home page first. The better audiences are down in the cart and checkout. They have not yet converted.

If you can make small improvements here you will get results much faster.

So look at eliminating things like:

• fear,
• doubt,
• confusion,
• frustration or
• unwanted surprises.

These are the matters that kill conversions.

Try these suggestions.

• Add social proof showing to your cart how many people have bought this product before.
• Show a “iron clad” guarantee in your checkout.
• Show easy returns & fast policies,
• Add snippets of your best 5 star reviews.
• Show your shipping costs as early in the checkout process as possible.

Start at the bottom of the funnel before moving up to the top.

Assign owners to assets and schedule monthly reviews into your calendar. This is your CRO testing plan.

• 2 ads - advertising split tests - remove losers, write new challengers
• 2 landing pages - remove failing elements, create new layouts.
• 2 welcome series - optimise subjects first, then timing, then content.
• 2 sales pages - as per landing pages but pay attention to structure. Headline, Intro, Problem, Solution, Proof, Offer, Call To Action, The PS reminder.
• 2 checkouts - remove redundant fields, limit the amount of information per screen and psychological barriers.

Step 3: Order Your Portfolio

Lots of businesses have many segments to serve. The goals of the customers in each are different.

Make your sales funnels hyper relevant to one audience, before moving onto the next.

Get rid of irrelevant customer segments and marketing collateral.

Let me summarise this Japanese style.

I started work as an apprentice fitter and turner in the Port Kembla Steelworks. Later as an Mechanical Engineer, I loved the Toyota manufacturing methods & quality control processes.

One favourite was the 5S method of:

1. Seri - sort through items and remove what is unnecessary.
2. Seiton - organise what's left in a logical efficient order.
3. Seiso - maintain an area to keep it free of waste.
4. Seiketsu - write standards on how to do the above steps.
5. Shisuke - train people on the standards and schedule checks on performance to them.

I hope that this post gives you both a process to follow and some inspiration to take action.

Please let me know what area of your ecommerce program you are going to look at and what you remove.

Thanks

Ant

PS If you would like more help then there are 4 easy ways to get started when you are ready.

1. Join my?LinkedIn Newsletter?for 1 actionable ecommerce tip a week.
2. Message me on?linkedin?or?twitter.
3. Look at my “Ecommerce Garage” services on?my start page here.
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