47% More Sales From This One Tiny Tweak… Why Your “Good Deal” Isn’t Good Enough
If I offered you a small, reddish-brown, sulphur-smelling lump of chemicals – would you eat it?
If I offered you a multivitamin – would you take it?
If I offered you a pill to help you enjoy more energy, better health, and a longer life – would you want it?
The way a question is framed makes all the difference.
And the frame you set when asking a customer to make a purchasing decision can be the difference between a “Hell Yes!” and a “No way!”
Are you asking your customers to “Buy Now”?
Or are you asking them to “Add to Cart”?
You could potentially ask them to “Get Immediate Access”, “Download Your Free Trial”, “Download The Report”, “Order Now”, “Lock In Your Discount”, “Get Fast and Free Shipping”, “Trial This Product Under Our 100% Money Back Guarantee” – or any one of a thousand different variations of the same theme.
Some of these questions are going to be easier for customers to say “Yes” to.
Others are going to require higher levels of buy-in, or commitment to the sale, from a customer – and it’s obvious to see how they are likely to diminish sales.
But even subtle changes can make a huge difference to the performance of your offer.
In my Codex of past test results, you’ll find a series of tests around conversion buttons.
In one case, a change as subtle as reframing an action-focussed “Order An Information Pack” button to an outcome-focussed “Get An Information Pack” led to a 14.79% increase in leads.
It seems irrational – because the underlying offer stayed the same…
…And we like to imagine that, as rational human beings, we carefully and logically consider the underlying offer to determine whether something is a good fit for us…
…But the word “Get”, instead of “Order”, made all the difference to customers and their motivation to take action.
Test Yourself: Which One of These Four Buttons Won?
If you’re running a business, there could be any number of reasons why people buy from you – rather than your competitors.
And this means there could be several ways you frame your offer to potential customers in order to increase sales.
This was certainly true for a recent client – whose ecommerce site sells several million dollars worth of hobby products per year.
Among a range of tweaks and improvements, we tested four variations of the “Buy” buttons on their ecommerce storefront, as part of the framing of their offer:
Add To Cart
Add To Cart: 30-Day No-Questions-Asked 100% Money-Back Guarantee
Add To Cart: Buy Now, Pay Later, ZipPay Finance Available
Add To Cart: Fast and Free Shipping
Which button do you think performed the best?
A 47% Improvement From One Tiny Tweak…
Over our test period, several of these buttons increased baseline sales.
But one of these buttons massively outperformed the other three – leading to a 47% increase in sales.
For the statistics nerds out there: 47% improvement, and a 98% confidence interval.
The winner was option number three – offering finance to prospective purchasers.
It’s becoming increasingly popular, with a heap of one-click online shopping finance providers popping up in recent years – and research by Hitachi Capital in the UK suggested 80% of customers had been influenced to buy from a particular retailer because of finance terms available, and 48% had spent more than they would have in a single purchase because of finance.
For a client doing several million dollars per year worth of hobby product sales, a 47% increase stands to add 7-figures to their bottom line.
Now, keep in mind that there a large portion of this 47% increase in buyers
They continue to offer free shipping, a money-back guarantee, great prices, and the convenience of ordering online – but even when customers don’t choose to finance their purchase it’s the finance option that seals the deal.
The lesson here is that having a good offer is good. But how you frame your offer can make a huge difference.
WARNING: Please DO NOT rely on my client’s results to try and improve your own business’s ecommerce sales performance without testing!
What worked well for this client might not work well for you – with your unique customers, in your unique market, with your unique offering. The best and most valuable frame for your offering could be something completely different.
If you’d like to work with me, and uncover the specific tweaks you can make to increase the number of Leads and Sales you generate online without spending more on ads or traffic – let me know here.