When we first started our consulting in 1998 it was all “conversion based.” What we learned after a few years of that was that clients hit a conversion brick wall http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/03/09/hitting-the-landing-page-optimization-wall/. It was the reason we developed Persuasion Architecture. It focuses on helping people buy the way they want to buy and accomplish all the micro tasks from the click to click level they may need to along the way. Our classic case study which has been written up in MarketingSherpa and in Waiting For Your Cat to Bark is the case of Leo Schachter. Where we uncovered 5 personas and planned they content they needed to have the proper experience based on where they were in the buying cycle. The results they went from a 0.86% conversion rate to a 54.1% conversion rate to locate a jeweler. Focusing on conversion techniques only is like trying to practice your high pressure sales techniques; they used to work but the customer is in control today and the nature of the marketing relationship has evolved so how you “sell” must too.

Here is my story…..

Through survey responses we learned that people did not care about differences between our products. Yet that was the only comparison chart on the site (becuase it was a effective way to upsell, you see the missing check boxes in the cheaper product and you’ll probably buy the more expensive one).

Some gentle cajoling and “give them bread if they want bread” speeches later a comparison chart was produced that simply stated the difference between the version of the product this year vs last year. It was still feared that this would result in less revenue (lack of upselling), so we were able to beg a 30 day test.

The result at the end of 30 days was that conversion improved by 20% (it was 2.6% originally) revenue improved by gobs and customer satisfaction improved by 6 points (with 2 points being statistically significant) for people who were on the site to “Research” or “Purchase”.

Happiness reigned.

-Avinash.