Find Out How to Raise Conversions for Your College or University

No matter what kind of conversion you’re trying to get – a sale, a lead, a download, or something else – there’s no question that you can always be making improvements that will increase the amount of conversions you’re receiving.

When it comes to attracting potential students to a college or university, there’s no question that things are more competitive than ever. Accordingly, it’s in every educational institution’s best interest to occasionally re-evaluate their web marketing and conversion optimization strategies.

Recently, we gathered data from over 9,000 colleges and universities to get an idea of what they’re doing to attract prospective students, and how they’re converting them into full-fledged members of their community. If you want to take a look at what we’ve found, you can download the report for free. Take a look, and let us know what you think.

Conversion Quiz: How Confident Are You In Your Conversion Knowledge?

Test Your Knowledge of ConversionLead Generation, Segmentation, and Conversion make up 3 key elements of a thriving and growing business. But are you familiar enough with these terms and how they work together in your marketing strategy to see significant results? Let’s take a quick review, shall we?

The Blue Line of Conversion The Blue Line of Conversion

Get your visitors above the Blue Line.

The “blue line” is a metaphor we like to use that separates the number of people that have taken action on your website and the number of people that come to your website. You need to get your visitors above that line. You’ve done the ground work to get your leads in, but have you provided the tools necessary to get your visitors above that line?

Lead Generation is different from Selling Online
Lead Generation is different from Selling Online

Lead Generation is not ecommerce.

Lead generation is a consultative approach. Don’t try to convince your visitors but provide information to help them make a decision. What are you offering your audience to help them take action? Are you designing proper landing pages with offers like free reports, videos, or more information?

Test Your Knowledge of Conversion-SegmentationSegmentation in CRO

Have you become a victim of segment cancelling?

Let’s say you created a seemingly brilliant conversion strategy, but you don’t see any significant increase in revenue even after multiple tests. Is all hope lost? Not necessarily. Maybe you’ve seen some response in a few leads, but not in others. Segmentation focuses in on the specific characteristics of your audience like demographics and behavior that helps you target and optimize your offers for better conversions.

Now after reviewing these terms, are you feeling pretty confident about your conversion knowledge? Take the Unbounce Conversion Marketing Quiz and prove just how brilliant you are.

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3 Must Have Tools for Those Who Depend on Google Analytics [AUDIO]

What the chart said vs realitty

The staff was assembled, the stage was set. Representatives from every department plus some of the big brass were sitting around the long conference table.

I was about to present the data that showed how successful my marketing campaigns had been for the past month. This was important, because it had been like pulling teeth to get a more data-driven process in place.

IT had to be cajoled into setting up Google Analytics.

Sales had to be bullied into keeping good account of leads and sales.

Now, with the first full month of data in hand, I was going to point to some steady growth. My pitch was confident as I showed the increase in leads and correlated it with an increase in sales. I was going to be a star.

Until someone spoke up from sales.

“We didn’t get that many leads last month. Most of my sales came from affiliates.”

All eyes turned to me. What I would say next would either raise stature or destroy my credibility.

Was it my programs, or was it my analytics that caused this disconnect?

The right answer would have been, “I personally QA’d our analytics setup. These numbers are right.”

Could you have given that answer?

In my most recent Marketing Land article Is It The Site, Or Is It The Analytics? Debugging Google Analytics, I show you how to be certain that your Google Analytics setup is working as planned.

Whether you setup your own analytics or have your tech team do it, you need to know that the data you’re using is right.

Listen to the Article, Read by the Author

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Nine Articles to Advance Your Conversion Knowledge

Conversion Scourse

My book is designed to begin a journey. It’s a journey that ends with you being better online. This journey ends with more cred for you, more sales for your business and more sanity in general.

Some of our more advanced articles are over on The Conversion Scientist blog. There are over 200 articles there covering all aspects of conversion-focused marketing.

I’ve picked nine that I think you should read. And we’ve added an incentive to get you through these nine articles and make things a little fun. We even included several audio selections for your commute to work.

Each time you read or listen, you will collect points. Collect enough points and earn a badge.

Earn your Ph.D. in Conversion Awesomization, we’ll give you a special prize.

Three Levels of Learning

We have nine articles organized into three levels of learning. You can earn four badges you can earn.

The Student Badge is awarded when you sign up to start collecting points. You don’t want to stay at the Student level. It means you haven’t really done anything.
The Undergrad Badge signifies that you’ve completed the basic level of content (basic for a Rocket Scientist, maybe).

  • Copy that makes visitor stick.
  • Six email superstitions holding you back.
  • The four people who come to your site every day.
The Master Badge signifies that you’ve completed the basic level of content (basic for a Rocket Scientist, maybe).

  • Persuasive copy that converts.
  • The math of marketing.
  • Pushing past content marketing barriers.
The Ph.D. Badge signifies that you’ve injected all nine articles into your ever-swelling brain and you qualify for a free site review with a Conversion Scientist.

  • Writing test hypotheses.
  • Creating landing pages that convert.
  • Getting past the bouncers in our brains.

Now is the time to start. You will get your Student Badge and 100 points just for signing up. Within a few days, you will be a Ph.D. in Conversion Awesomization.

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Brian Massey, Beyond the Lab Coat [AUDIO]

The original Conversion Scientist sat down with host of the Big Value Big Business podcast, James Lynch, to discuss everything from how he makes a terrible employee, to finding your own gimmick, to the inter-workings of a conversion scientist.

Some highlights from the interview include:

  • Brian spends a great deal of his time, helping businesses transform their websites through a “steady diet of visitor profiling, purposeful content, analytics and testing..”
  • Brian indulges his passion by speaking and writing about the art and science of conversion optimization. It is almost a sickness really.
  • What makes Brian tick? He thrives in the challenge of creating value, creating something new and helping businesses make more money on the traffic flowing through their website. “I mean who doesn’t want to get more money from the traffic that they’re getting on their website.”
  • Gain insight from his experiences in building a business in such a niche market, including why it is essential to create a “hook”, and of course, a “gimmick”. Sorry, the lab coat idea is taken.
  • Learn how converting more visitors into customer on your website is INDEED a science.

Brian Massey

 Grab your pen and paper, learn something new, and enjoy the latest edition of Big Value Big Business Podscast with James Lynch.

[pullquote position=”right”]“It takes a combination of experience, skill and neurosis to end up being a conversion scientist.” – Brian Massey[/pullquote]

 

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Read and download the Transcript

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Austin, Texas: The Conversion Capital of the World [SlideShare]

In case you have not heard, Austin announced themselves as “The Conversion Capital of the World” this past February. Much to the dismay of Vancouver and surprisingly, the mayor of Sochi, Anatoly Pakhomov, who flat out denies Austin’s existence altogether.

Who knew so many people would be up in arms over what is obviously a tried and true proclamation

I know, you are thinking, “Here they go again. A SlideShare? What could possibly be next? Podcast? Webinar? Oh no, an infograph!”

All great ideas that we will definitely take into consideration. Thank you.

Ok, so we are a little proud of our self proclamation, but who wouldn’t be?

In fact, Ryan Deiss of Digital Marketer, sums it up nicely with this statement: “The motto of Austin, Texas is “Keep Austin Weird,” and weird is exactly what you’ll need to be if you want to succeed at digital marketing.”

So, take a look at these 18 CRO weirdos…er…experts who reside in Austin and see what they have to say about The Conversion Capital of the World.

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What Is The One Thing That Keeps Searchers From Converting On Your Site?

There is an insidious voice speaking to your visitors from the moment they click through to your site. It camps in the back of their minds, setting up a tent and proceeding to talk your visitors out of taking action. While there are many angles this voice can work to fill visitors with doubt, there is likely one that is common to a large number of your visitors.

It’s “the thing.” Dun – dun – dun.

If you can discover and address “the thing” – the major concern shared by a significant number of your visitors that keeps them from converting – then you can make some major improvements in your conversion rates and revenue per click.

When testing, we have found that this thing will fall into one of five areas: risk reversal, value proposition/messaging, social proof, user interface/user experience, and credibility/authority. All of these nagging questions may be present to some degree, but one of them is more pressing than the others — and addressing it will give you wins early and often.

  1. Risk Reversal
  2. Value Proposition & Messaging
  3. Social Proof
  4. User Interface & User Experience
  5. Credibility & Authority

Read the rest of the article.

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Scientific Advertising by Founding Conversion Scientist Claude Hopkins

imageIs it possible that this book was written in 1923?

Is it possible that a book written before the depression is the foundational work for those of us optimizing our online businesses?

Yes, it is possible and true.

Before the Internet, there was Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. It’s a brief, clear and even motivating read. You will find Claude Hopkins Scientific Advertising free download in the Conversion Lab.

Claude definitely earned his lab coat in our opinion.

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Your Customer Creation Equation Gets Reviewed, And More!

It’s always great hearing from happy customers that are reaping the benefits of Your Customer Creation Equation. We’ve received emails, tweets, blog posts, and pictures from many colleagues, clients, customers and friends that are seeing tremendous results from the book. It warms our hearts!

However, we have something really special we want to share today. Kathryn Aragon (one of the biggest brains over at Crazy Egg) was kind enough to write an amazing review on Your Customer Creation Equation. She lays out the basic principles of the conversion, and gives a great overview of what it means for you and your business.

K aragon screenshot
Just a taste of Kathryn’s great review.

 

She makes Brian sound pretty darn smart. And let’s be honest; usually the lab coat does most of the work.

Please take a minute to check out her awesome review. We’re thrilled to have her support!

 

Which Video Game Character is Your Visitor Persona?

It’s pretty amazing to see how creative some people get with their posts. Yes, infographics are great, but what about the almost-lost art of just plain graphs? The brilliantly creative minds over at Orbit Media Studios came up with a pretty great graph to describe visitor personas…… using characters from classic 80’s video games.

Sneak peak

Video game personas

 

 

 

Well we can’t give them all the credit. As they point out in the bottom of the article “This article is based on a presentation given by Jenny Magic and Brian Massey at Content Marketing World. The original methodology is theirs. I just added some content types and the video game references. Brian’s got a book out called Customer Creation Equation. Check it out!”

The visitor personas are broken down into four categories – Mario, Galaga, Frogger, and Pac-Man. How does each character act? What are their characteristics?

To find out more, read the article HERE.