Conversion Rate Optimization Minidegree — CXL Institute Review #3
Introduction to Product Messaging
Let’s start with a recap of what we learned about copywriting from the blog post/review #2. Product Messaging talks about copywriting but in a more detailed manner. The instructor Momoko Price explained copywriting by dividing the process into two steps —
- Finding your key messages
- Writing, editing, laying out the sales page
Recap — Have you ever wondered what does it mean to be a modern-era copywriter? What does a copywriter do? What role a copywriter and a copy can play in making or breaking your conversions?
Let me walk you through a scenario — you are browsing for products to shop online, and you come across a webpage with information so clearly drafted and defined that you felt as if the website could read your mind. It addresses the majority of the questions that you had and tells you everything about how that product is the best for your needs. That happens because of a talented copywriter and the intensive qualitative and quantitative research that goes behind creating the copy.
Two of the best descriptions of copywriters that I could find online was on the express writer’s website (here) —
Cop · y · writ · er (noun)*
1. A marketing magician.
A person so good at making a business’s marketing successful, it’s like they are performing magic.
“Wow! That new girl has only been here a month, and she has already written ads that cut our cost of conversion rate in half. Is she a magician?”
“No. She’s a copywriter.”
“Same thing.”
2. An individual who can outsell the best salesperson without ever even talking to a customer.
Someone whose writing stretches so far that they make sales without ever leaving the office — or perhaps even their bed.
“My sales team is incredible. But the PPC ads my copywriters created sold products to people all over the world in half the time.”
As I mentioned in my first two blog posts, in this series, I am going to talk about conversion rate optimization (CRO). This blog is part 3 of the 12 reviews that I would be publishing based on my learnings from the CXL Institute’s Conversion Rate Optimization Minidegree program. This post is all about Product Messaging & People and Psychology.
CXL Institute offers some of the best online courses, mini degrees, and certifications in the field of digital marketing, product analytics, conversion rate optimization, growth marketing, etc. I am a part of the Conversion Rate Optimization Minidegree program. Throughout the series, I would be discussing the content of the course as well as my learning and thoughts about the same.
Introduction to product messaging
What is product messaging? Courtney E O'Connell explained product messaging by saying —
Product messaging is really, really hard. Product, Marketing, and Design are all doing it to varying degrees, but no one really owns it holistically. So visibility into what each other is doing and staying aligned is tough.
But it’s incredibly important. These messages are the loose threads brands weave into customers’ minds and lives. That prompt an action or reaction — or worse, nothing. It’s relationship-building.
Yet usually isn’t given the love it deserves because it’s really hard.
The instructor Momoko Price broke down the course into 7 different steps:
- Lesson 1: How to conduct a copy teardown?
- Lesson 2: Introduction to message mining
- Lesson 3: Message mining from customers
- Lesson 4: Defining your best value proposition
- Lesson 5: Creating a messaging flow for the page
- Lesson 6: Creating the first draft of the page
- Formatting and laying out the landing page
How to conduct a copy teardown?
According to the instructor, the biggest problem with conventional page teardown is that they can be hugely opinion-based. People can rip the copy apart based on what they like and what they don’t. The instructor suggested performing a teardown based on the following three approaches —
a) MEClabs’s Conversion Sequence Heuristic suggests that the probability of conversion is dependent on the motivation of your customer to convert, the clarity of value proposition, the incentive that you are providing to the customer, and the ways by which you are reducing friction in their conversion process and eventually reducing any anxiety that they might have.
In a business scenario, customers/users go from website to website with a reason in mind. They have an expectation. We need to understand our prospect’s motivation and make sure that our product messaging is aligned with that.
b) Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (definitely a must-have in any marketer’s reading list). Cialdini’s research discusses 7 principles that are well-known today:
→ Social Proof: People are more inclined to trust other people’s opinions of things, especially if they’re coming from someone you’re familiar with. This principle suggests that it is always good to have customer reviews and ratings on your page.
→ Authority: People have a tendency to believe in what a person with higher authority has to say. Let’s consider an example of an influencer promoting a product. The audience who follow this influencer is more inclined towards buying the product. Hence, It is always good to have a 3rd party authorization statement on the webpage.
→ Likeability: you are liked more if you share things in common with your audience. Make your website more relatable by including profiles of your team. This is hard to measure but people say yes to things/people that they like.
→ Scarcity: People are more likely to convert if there is a sense of urgency/scarcity. We need to make sure that the scarcity badge is relevant. It doesn't make sense to have a scarcity badge on a pdf. It might affect your conversion negatively.
→ Reciprocity: the idea that we are built to return favors, so it’s important to offer free things, guides, blogs, and learnings.
→ Commitment/Consistency: The idea is to get your prospect to do a small act. This will increase the likelihood that they will say yes to a bigger ask later.
→ Unity (Us vs Them): people will be more attracted to those who are similar in behavior and way of thinking. Make your customers feel like a part of a group if they end up performing the key action.
c) Claude Hopkin’s Scientific Advertising
“We cannot go after thousands of men until we learn how to win one” — Claude Hopkin
Claude suggests us to be more specific. He suggested that “generalities roll off the human understanding like water from a duck’s back”. They have no impressions whatsoever
Introduction to message mining from customers
The process of scouring the internet (or other sources, if available) for instances of your target customer voicing what they care most about when it comes to your product/solution is call message mining.
Message mining is good for two things —
- Identifying key messaged that you want on your page
- Swiping memorable copy
The goal here is to look for exactly how real people are describing our product. What kind of benefits and points of value are they talking about? Anything that they absolutely love about your product/services? Specific things that they didn’t like? Interesting analogies etc.
Another way to capture important information regarding your product is via surveys. Creating surveys with strategic questions will eventually help build up sales/copy narratives. Focus on questions that help you understand their motivation, the benefits they see/they are looking for, and their anxieties.
Crafting effective unique value propositions
Referring back to blog#2: A value proposition is the main thing that determines whether people will bother to read more about your product or hit the back button. Ramona Sukhraj in one of her blogs mentioned that “ you know what you do. Your employees know what you do. Your mom knows what you do (usually), but do your website visitors know what you do? ” Let’s define the value proposition for the people in the back -
The value proposition is an innovation, service, or feature intended to make a company or product attractive to customers.
In a nutshell, a value proposition is a clear statement that:
- Explains how your product solves customers problems or helps improve their situation
- Delivers specific benefits
- Communicate the reasons why an ideal customer should buy from you and not your competitor (unique differentiator)
Momoko Price recommends thinking of your customer as Ron Swanson! Yes, Ron Swanson, from Parks and Rec. Try to get someone like that excited. That’s what your value proposition should be doing for you.
Below are a few points to keep in mind in order to create a unique value proposition-
- List the key product features
- Highlight the unique features from the list
- List pain points associated with the features (your solution)
- Rate the severity and the frequency of the pain points
- Rank the unique features based on the highest severity and frequency
Message Hierarchies
Step 1: Identify your visitor’s awareness
Step 2: Pinpoint your unique value proposition
Step 3: Mine your surveys, transcripts, poll, user tests for top motivation/values/anxiety messages
A story is critical to selling, human thoughts tend to arrange themselves in a story. Therefore synchronizing your copy to the visitor’s thought sequence requires a strong storytelling framework.
Create the first draft of sales copy
In this lesson, the author Momoko talks about creating a customer-informed, data-driven first draft of your sales page. Throughout the course, she shares several incredibly useful templates, together with a detailed explanation about how to connect all of her different methods in order to find the best way to write and organize your sales messaging
Editing and punching up your copy
Once you are done creating the first draft of your sales copy, spend some time editing it. Momoko shared 7 simple rules of effective sales copy-editing:
- Be clear
- Match readers mindset
- Blow them away with value
- Use quantifiable proof
- Don’t just ask, paint a picture
- Show and tell generously
- Cut anything that isn’t doing real work
Review —
I find the CXL CRO Minidegree very insightful. The instructors are champions in their fields and they know exactly what they are talking about. Being an experimentation analyst, I understand the importance of experiments (A/B testing) and I have seen numerous examples where the outcome of the test was contradictory to public opinion. The emphasis on testing and learning from it is something that I admire the most about the course.
The material that I went through for the third week helped me understand the basics of copywriting, the best practices one should follow to gain maximum profit out of the process. Momoko Price’s course was one of the most informative courses I have ever taken. This course made me more excited about copywriting and supporting the research with data was the cherry on the cake.
The concept of message mining is explained in so many details. It is hard to put it in one blog. I can write 5 more blogs just on message mining. Take customer and/or user-generated copy and compile it into a spreadsheet. Use pivot tables to organize the data. From there you can see the frequency of the categories and understand what customers said about each category. Everything about the course is so descriptive. Something, that can be easily implied in real-world scenarios/ and business problems.
The detailed walkthrough of performing user experience research and quantifying the results into actionable insights. I am eager to learn more about social proof, and people and psychology during my week #4.
That’s all folks. See you next week!
