A Mathematical Formula for Increasing Landing Page Conversion Rates
Last week at the SIPA event in Las Vegas, we heard from Jalali Hartman, Director of Strategy at MarketingExperiments.com who shared with us a formula for improving our landing page conversion rates.
In a presentation titled “5-Step Plan to Skyrocket Your Registration Funnel Conversion Rate”, Mr. Hartman shared with us the MEC Conversion Index, which is a mathematical formula for analyzing the probability of your landing page conversion rates.
Here it is:
Conversion Index (C)
C = 4m + 3v + 2(i-f) – 2(a)
C = probability of conversion
m = external motivation
v = clarity of value proposition
i = incentive to continue
f = friction element
a = anxiety
m = external motivation
To explain external motivation (m), Mr. Hartman told us about his next-door neighbor, an elderly woman on Social Security who owns maybe one piece of furniture but is always getting shipments from QVC. Once he asked her why she bought this stuff and she replied, “Well, they were only selling 100 of them in 24 hours and I got one!” The point? People need reasons to buy now or they’ll click away and forget about your site and product.
v = clarity of value proposition
Clarity of proposition (v) is pretty self explanatory: “We’ve helped X number of people improve ______ by X percent.” Remember to remind users of your value proposition throughout the order process.
i = incentive to continue
f = friction element
Incentive to continue (i) minus the friction element (f) is also relatively simple. An incentive to continue may be a monetary discount or a free book if they buy before a certain date. Hartman warns this does not mean only adding a large starburst to your landing page. The goal is not to make money from people who otherwise wouldn’t want the product. The goal is to close the sale for those who already see value in the product.
MEC tested this on one of their own offer pages and found that promoting the incentive at the bottom of the page and within the sign-up box worked best. This is a good example of offering an incentive to continue minus the friction element of hyped up copy or pressured sales.
a = anxiety
Finally, you want to remove any and all anxiety factors in your sign-up process. This could include simplifying your order forms to only request information you absolutely need, or reducing the number of steps in your subscription path.
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As with all marketing functions, landing page optimization is a constant work in progress. We don’t learn until we test and test again and sometimes it’s useful to have a mathematical formula assisting an otherwise creative process.
For more great landing page optimization tips, learn about our upcoming audio conference titled Creating Landing Pages that Sell.
