Note:Â How ironic! I always send out 20% of emails a day early for testing, and I forgot to update the button link, so it sent you to the Keystone webinar. Talk about avoiding confusion… If you received this email yesterday, the button works now!
Anyway, on to the email…
Last week, I was working with a language school, to increase the share of people who register and pay directly on their website.
While they already offered the option to sign up directly, few people did. Instead, they would usually reach out via WhatsApp first, leading to a large volume of messages.
I installed Microsoft Clarity on their website, a free tool that records anonymised videos of people interacting with your website.
Viewing some of the recordings, I identified a number of hurdles in the check-out.
- There was a “discount coupon” in the signup form even though the school didn’t use discounts in their marketing. Just a remnant from the past. It made people stop and go on the lookout for discounts, which they wouldn’t find.
- Price kept increasing during the checkout journey. The price listed on the course page didn’t include the (mandatory) textbook and VAT. At every page, the price kept going up.
- The main field asked people to fill a form AND make payment – making people likely to overlook one of the two actions.
My client managed to iron out these issues within a few days:
- Took out the discount coupon
- Showed the full price up front
- Added an extra page for payment
And while it’s too early to tell, I’m confident that they’re going to multiply the number of students who register directly.
Why am I sharing this?
While you may not have a direct checkout on your website, the same principle applies to any website and other form of marketing:
Don’t confuse people
If there’s confusion over price, process, criteria or anything else, people simply won’t move forward.
Best case, they’ll send an enquiry.
But in most cases, they’ll just leave your website.
Streamlining and drip-feeding information and making sure everything is crystal clear – in my eyes, that’s pretty much all a marketer does.
When you turn a confusing interaction into something that is intuitive and easy, you’ll immediately see your conversion rate go up.
What’s more, you’ll get far fewer questions – if you share what’s needed at the right moment, there’s no more need to ask!Want me to take a look at your website?
Now, while I have a hawk’s eye for spotting what’s missing on clients’ websites, I have to admit that I am not always entirely clear on what I offer myself.
So I’ve added a page with my audit offer. Whether you want me to take a quick look at your website to identify a number of quick wins or you want a thorough review – there is a package for that.
Let me know what you think!
