AT ALBION, WE DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY…

How do you know if the messaging on your website’s sign-up pages are optimised to generate the best results? How do you know if one image on your homepage layout converts more new supporters than an alternate image? And how would you know if reducing the fields in each sign-up form would produce more paying members than a large form with many fields to be filled in?

The answer to these questions is scientific A/B and multivariate testing and Conversion Rate Optimisation. This is a tried-and-tested method used by experienced CRO experts that allows them to increase subscriptions or sales for our clients, without the requirement to increase traffic. This proven approach to website design and copywriting has been shown to be one of the most powerful ways to increase leads from potential benefactors and activists on the web. Doubling your signups or sales can be achieved by doubling your website’s traffic (which is hard), but also by doubling your site’s conversion rate. Doing this is often the biggest opportunity many in the environmental and eco sector have yet to take advantage of.

Most marketing team members know exactly how their homepage looks and have a very good idea about the page’s wording. But how do you know if the list of causes you support has the most important ones at the top? How do you know which “pain-points” need to be fixed in order to tell your potential new subscribers or customers that, say, your staff are volunteers and all revenue will be used to help the cause, rather than pay for the board’s salary?

Questions like these are usually left to guess-work or answered using gut-feelings rather than facts and figures. However, CRO split-testing provides you with scientific facts about which wording and imagery or layouts generated the most results from a specific number of site visits. If you knew exactly which bullet points to add to your homepage to bring in the most donations, it would be hard to say no to the extra revenue it generates for your good cause. However, that is exactly the situation for countless well-meaning projects that are not aware of Conversion Rate Optimisation best practices and psychological marketing methods used by big businesses.

For example, you may not be aware that homepage slideshows are one of the worst conversion-killers (because they often hide critical messaging in slides nobody notices or even sees). Or that best results are gained by wording web page copy on the benefits to the user, rather than the features of your offering. Among website designers and copywriters who create eco-product or charity marketing messages very few are aware that adding a large “call-to-action” button at the top of every page generates more revenue than pages that include the button after the main message. Money being left on the table is a great shame, especially for environmentally-aware projects that would benefit from CRO best practices that Albion and other digital agencies swear by.

So, what are you waiting for? With increasing numbers of online users that want to help good causes or buy new eco-friendly products, now may be the right time to get a free CRO review and put-to-bed those in-house arguments about your homepage’s wording and imagery. It’s time to uncover for a fact which parts of your message and brand have been holding your organisation back from the online growth you deserve.