Most of the time, based on the answers I hear from customers, I can pin-point the biggest problem with their sales funnel inability to convert almost immediately.
But this one had me a little befuddled…
First of all, these guys are totally legit. They’re among the biggest traffic drivers in the online supplement business today, and have built a multi-million dollar empire with their offers.
And they know their numbers. I mean, KNOW THEM inside and out. So when they quoted their metrics to me, I could see that they were poised to make some serious money with this offer.
But there was only one problem–it wasn’t converting. And everyone was scratching their heads as to why.
So we went to work creating a new offer. We hired one of the best copywriters on the planet and a designer that can put together winning campaigns in their sleep.
Here’s a snippet of our first attempt…
As you can see, we initially went with a video sales letter approach, thinking that would be our best shot at a straight sale offer with this audience. But even with all the elements optimized for conversion, it actually did poorly. Strike one.
So we went back to the drawing board and came up with this offer:
This time, we ditched the VSL and went with a more modern sales letter approach, with an emphasis on graphics, color, and a look and feel that would translate well to men over 40. The copy was tweaked and we were excited about the possibilities.
The results? Conversions rates were better than the VSL, but we still couldn’t turn a profit. Strike two.
Down but not out, we put our heads together yet again and retooled the entire page, coming up with this offer:
“Going back to basics” was the theme here, as we tried the tried-and-true classic sales letter strategy with headers, subheads, and a scroll-down-the-page-to-the-offer design. Worked for Caples, Schwartz, and Ogilvy, right? Should be a slam dunk for us as well.
But alas, “the best laid plans” and all that. Conversions didn’t budge much, and were still a ways off from getting my clients into the black.
Strike three.
Were we out? Maybe in baseball, but not in business. We kept at it, and came up with this page:
With this take, we totally repositioned the offer and made the entire funnel more responsive, which resulted in a significant bump in conversions.
Did we have a winner? Not quite. Even though we were almost to a break-even ROI with just the ad spend, we were still in the hole after product, fulfillment, and staff expenses.
I gotta admit–things weren’t looking good. No matter how hard we tried, we just couldn’t get this offer over the hump.
Then, something occurred to me. Actually TWO things
- There wasn’t any significant value to the prospect presented in the letter
- The offers wasn’t mobile optimized
These two factors are VITAL to any campaign. In this day and age when there’s so many things trying to grab your prospect’s attention, you’ve got to deliver substantial value or risk losing them altogether.
And of course, since more and more people are using mobile devices for web surfing, then it’s only fitting that the offer is optimized for smart phones and tablets.
So back to work we went with those two goals in mind. We set up this article-based landing page in front of the offer to give them something of value first…
..then we optimized the page so it looked great on mobile screens. The result?
FINALLY we had a winner! Our ROI went from barely break-even to 2:1 on the very same day we made those changes, and then shot up to 3:1 after more tweaking and optimization.
So what turned everything around? The most important piece of the puzzle was the landing page…
We took a total detour from the typical direct response approach and went with a full blown blog structure, featuring article based pages and design, and implemented plenty of calls-to-action throughout.
So the reader didn’t see a sale message when the page loaded. They saw helpful, relevant content that’s targeted to their wants/needs/desires/problems. Now they’re in a more open, relaxed frame of mind, rather than a defensive, what-are-you-trying-to-sell-me state.
Needless to say, my client was elated and we’ve duplicated this same method in other markets with similar success. But here’s what you need to takeaway from this case study:
–If you feel like you’ve got a great offer, don’t give up on it. Keep trying until you strike gold.
–Think about what you’ve seen work (and not work) in other marketing campaigns, and learn from those. Your experiences can be invaluable to the future of your business.
–Always offer value to your prospects. Value can help make the know/like/trust factor for you and your products shoot sky high (and hopefully your conversions as well).
Want to get a 2nd set of eyes on your sales funnel? Schedule a Sales Funnel Audit and we help you optimize your offer.