Conversion Rate Optimisation

Mes amis,

I promise by the end of this edition you will have a practical method to apply Conversion (Rate) Optimisation (CRO) to your life. First though, let's set the groundwork, let's define CRO, highlight how it's used by businesses and swing back to how you can utilise this concept.

Sound good? Let's dive in

What's CRO?

CRO is just that. It's optimising the number of sales (or another goal) for a business.

CRO is typically done using A/B testing (otherwise known as split testing). A/B testing involves introducing a change to an environment (in this case a website) that only a select group are exposed to.

For example, I could email half of you one subject line and the other would receive another subject line. If one does better than the other then I can use a variation of that subject line again in the next newsletter.

Businesses do this with their web pages (which is why they want you to give them permission to use cookies to track your behaviour) where they'll keep the page the same to a group of visitors (aka the control group) and the other half would see the experiment (aka the test group).

Every business should use CRO to optimise their sales, achieve a metric, or an action they want their customers to perform, e.g, download a lead magnet, subscribe to their newsletter (*cough* share this newsletter *cough*), give feedback or anything else.

There's a lot there, so let's unpack it.

"What's the big deal if not all businesses are not using CRO?"

Firstly, I need to get paid but removing myself from the equation, CRO should be used by all businesses because it allows businesses to understand their customers more and serve them better.

By becoming user-centric, businesses maximise customer satisfaction.

What separates the chumps from the champs in this game is their approach to dealing with their customers.

The champs understand that CRO is not a one-off activity in which you flick a switch and "Voila! Profits forever!" No.

CRO is ongoing. Like anything else that sees success in business, CRO requires a team effort.

The CRO team includes, but isn't limited to, UX designers, the customer service team, and copywriters. This A-Team is led by the head CRO specialist who works with everyone within and outside the team to put together hypotheses and test them one at a time.

This is all in an effort to reduce friction in the customer journey and plug any leaks in their funnel, e.g., if there's a drop-off rate after customers add items to their basket this would be investigated and an element would be changed (A/B testing) and monitored throughout the duration of the experiment to see its effect.

The customer service team helps build the customer avatar highlighting the customer's desires, pain points, behaviours and language.

The copywriter comes along working alongside the customer service team (or by themselves depending on the growth stage of the business) and they craft the persuasive text to compel customers to take action.

The UX designers make the journey smoother and/or add a design to elicit a desired response from the customer.

Finally, the CRO head will create a library of tests and will typically rank them using the ICE method which stands for Impact, Confidence & Ease.

Tests are standardised using the scores from each category. The test with the highest score is tested first.

So you see great businesses such as Amazon have been doing CRO for years. They've pioneered a lot of features we don't think twice about yet we always look to shop with them first because of the seamless customer journey they've built.

Google is another pioneer of testing and experimentation. Their focus, and the focus of businesses like them, is to turn visitors into customers and to turn customers into loyal customers.

How I see it: if you’re using CRO to make money then there's a great risk your customers won't be satisfied.

If you’re using CRO to maximise customer satisfaction then there’s a greater chance you will satisfy your customers and make more money

"Okay Kennedy, that's how businesses use CRO but how does that benefit me?"

I gotchu

While doing research for this newsletter I listened to a podcast which had AJ Davis, a CRO specialist and Founder of Experiment Zone, I liked her mindset and approach to CRO.

She said that CRO should be adopted from the approach of doing a string of experiments where there are no L’s only lessons and a win is a win. All are celebrated.

However, that doesn't mean you can be sloppy, absentminded or malicious when creating these experiments.

They must be intentional.

Sometimes you knock things out of the park, the next time the results are not what you hoped, and there are times when the result answers a question you didn't think was related.

Ultimately, you should experiment.

Form your hypotheses based on the evidence you have access to:

Make sure you do pre-testing, i.e, you have enough data for you to do A/B testing on your LinkedIn profile (in this case the amount of profile visits you get).

If you're looking for a new job you'll want recruiters to eye up your profile and persuade them to contact you about any job opportunities they have.

A step-by-step approach for this would be:

• To scout the best performing profiles in your field (bottom of the pyramid)

• To do some user research into recruiters

• Check what has been proven to do well (Data & Science)

• Pick one thing to change

That one thing could be as simple as changing your headline and observing how that performs for a period of time.

If you're Tweeter, then I have a lovely tool you can use which performs A/B testing on your profile that you can check out here.

But you should still think bigger

What in your life, in your week ahead, in your day tomorrow do you want to optimise and convert better results in?

For me, I want greater engagement on my social media posts.

I'm curious to know yours...

Reply to this email with what yours will be for the week and I will check in with you next week to see how you got on.

Until next Sunday, where we'll be looking at branding

May your week be productive and full of helpful experiments 🫡