On many ecommerce websites one of the first things that is discussed is the design and 'feel' of the site. Phrases such as 'I want the site to look clean' and 'slick' are a frequent occurrence.
Yet it is important to note that a balance has to be struck between being representative of the brand, heritage, look / feel, and actually selling stuff (luxury brands tend to be the exception to this rule).
Offline stores maintain the design and look that you want, with your sales assistants being the ones that can step outside of the 'design', be human and actually do the selling.
Online your website has to achieve this to ensure that you end up with a website that converts as well as looking pretty.
To test the impact that sales messaging alone can have, we looked at a client's website whose site was designed to their specifications to be 'clean' and minimalistic looking. Yet we found on looking into the analytics and by conducting some user testing that customers just didn't feel the need to click through and look at the products as they didn't find it interesting enough/ there was nothing to 'sell' it to them.
We took a look at the category level pages which had a lack of call to action/ sales message:
As you can see there is a reduction on price shown, but no call to action to encourage a click through to the product details page and push customers through the sales funnel.
Including a call to action (as shown below) to let visitors know that it was their last chance to buy these items and increasing urgency resulted in a 1% increase in click through to the product details page and an increase in conversions:
The sales message above, although increasing click through rates to product details pages and conversions through urgency, still didn't include a clear call to action. So a secondary A/B test to introduce a 'Last Chance! Click to buy!" message (Also in red to ensure that the message stands out) resulted in a further increase in click through to product details pages and more customers converting.
Lesson to be learned:
Ensure that your website contains calls to actions on core sales funnel pages. Make sure your customer understands the value propositions at each stage of the funnel, and highlight the sales action you want them to take at every stage, whether that be 'click to buy', 'Add to Basket', 'Checkout Now' etc. Think your conversion funnel messaging through.
By Jill Robb
Jill Robb is the Smart Insights Expert commentator advising on more effective Ecommerce approaches. Jill is the CMO of Origin Digital, a Creative Digital Agency based in Belfast. Jill is also an Associate Lecturer at Ulster University on Digital Marketing and Communications. With a vast array of experience in retail, both online and offline, Jill's approach to online marketing is both refreshingly energetic and commercially astute. Jill is a regular speaker on topics such as search engine marketing and ecommerce and a contributor to business magazines both in the UK and Ireland. Connect with Jill on Twitter or LinkedIn.
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