In Part 1 of the “Front-Door Factor”, we covered how this is the first of the 8 Profit Levers, which is also the first of your “core funnel metrics” that make up your prospect’s conversion story.
Plain and simple, it’s your optin rate. And it represents whether your prospect chooses to come inside of your world.
We also saw how in a pure and properly built marketing model, small lifts in your optin rate can result in massive improvements to your returns and profitability.
So the question becomes…
What are the steps you can take to boost your optin rate?
First, I want to point out one critical thing for you. Our goal should always be to increase optin rate, of course, given that what we’re presenting at the front-door to get them in the store is congruent with what’s inside.
Let me explain… if you have an optin page that promises visitors on the next page they will be given access to a $1,000 in cash prizes just for opting in… and then once they do optin, what they find on that page is not congruent with that promise, that’s a major problem.
So when we talk about boosting your optin rates, we are going test, optimize and push the envelope while remaining true and congruent to what they will find on the other side.
(Of course it is worth mentioning that if you come up with an irresistible hook to get them in your front door that isn’t congruent with what’s inside, you may need to step back and ask yourself if you should actually change what’s inside the store!)
It’s also worth noting that we are focusing here on optimizing your front-door, while leaving the people coming to the front-door constant (aka your traffic). You definitely want and need to experiment with the audiences and traffic you are targeting, but that is a separate topic from this one for another post.
Now when it comes to boosting your opt-in rate there is a hierarchy of testing you will want to work through. You don’t want to test all willy-nilly. There is an order and logic to efficiently optimizing your optin page. It goes like this:
#1: Your Main Headline Message
The number one factor that will have the greatest impact on your optin rate is your main message or headline. This is where you will want to begin testing.
Don’t just make little word-smithing tweaks, test different angles and hooks. Try phrasing your message as a positive (How you can accomplish X) and then test rephrasing your message as a negative (How to stop experiencing Y)…
Take the time to really get inside your prospect’s head. What are their desires? Their fears? Their greatest hopes?
Visit the forums and places they hang out online and “listen in” to the types of questions they have, the types of solutions they’re looking for and the top frustrations they are experiencing with everything else that is being offered on the market.
Don’t move on to the testing the other components of your optin above until you have really thoroughly exhausted and tested all the different possible messages.
How do you know when enough is enough?
Well, when you’re flat out of ideas.
You can’t think up or come up with anything different.
Of course, you are probably going to want to ask, “Well what’s a good optin rate?”
This is extremely difficult to answer as every market and niche is different.
But I will give you a ballpark, anyhow, as you may find it useful.
It has been my experience in a variety of different niches, that if you have identified a solid message for your optin page if you can get a 15-20% optin rate from cold traffic, or possibly better.
Now this is just a ballpark. I will tell you this, if all you are asking for is an email address and you can’t even get is less than a 10% optin rate, something is wrong.
But this is only the starting point. Once you have thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly tested your main message, it’s time to move on to your core image.
#2: Your Main Image
Your prospects pay attention to pictures as much if not more than words.
So you will want to test the main image on your page. Whether it is testing a variety of background images or there is an actual image of something they are getting on the next page (a free report or download image).
Test, test, test your image.
I generally like to test images from a couple different aspects.
I will try something serious. I will try something fun. I will try something very real – like using regular pictures I’ve personally taken instead of stock photos (this works well as a pattern interrupt because your prospects can get so used to clean, stock images they start ignoring them). And I will also try a graphic design/cartoon or animation.
I always look to identify those winners that can get you a 20% improvement. Remember this does not mean going from 20% to 40%. When your optin rate is 20%, improving it by 20% means just increasing to 24%.
Super realistic. Not so hard. And it will have a massive impact for you.
This brings us to the last and final place you need to test and optimize.
#3: Your Call-To-Action (CTA)
On most optin pages this will be the language above the field where they enter their name and email and the language on the submit button.
I have run countless tests and it never ceases to amaze me how adding a simple word like “Free” and for example saying “Get Your Report” vs “Get Your FREE Report” can generate a 20%+ bump in performance.
And remember, all else equal, that 20% bump is not just a higher number you can boast about to your other nerdy online marketing friends, if you are doing things right it should result in +20% profitability of that marketing funnel or campaign!
So there you have it. The first of the 8 Profit Levers inside all of marketing funnels and campaigns.
Remember for all the Profit Levers we’ll be talking about together it all starts with knowing where that lever is at and then having the ability to do something about it.
ConverisonFly has been engineered to give you the answers you need when it comes to each of these profit levers, and more importantly the ability to do something about it.
So if you need help more accurately and consistently knowing your optin rates and the ability to run continuous split tests, even optimizing by each of your different traffic sources, watch our instant demo for ConversionFly today and see what the buzz is about.
Our team would love to help you get your hands on those profit levers and begin generating higher optin rates, more leads and greater profitability today.
