Conversations on Conversion interview with Roberta Rosenberg

Conversations on Conversion is an interview series featuring conversion optimization thought leaders. We started the podcast back in March of this year, and frequently release new interviews. You can download the podcast for free from iTunes.

If you are unable to download and listen to the podcast for whatever reason, we’ve decided to post the transcripts here in our blog for your reading pleasure—enjoy! This is the third conversation on conversion episode, a lively discussion with Roberta Rosenberg.

Anna:  Welcome back to Conversations on Conversion. I’m Anna Talerico and my guest today is Roberta Rosenberg. You probably know her as the Copywriter Maven from Copy Blogger. You can find her on Twitter @CopywriterMaven. Roberta actually is celebrating her 23^rd year with MGP Direct. She conducts the Landing Page makeovers at Copy Blogger and she knows Landing Page copy and content like the back of her hand. Roberta, welcome.

Roberta:  I’m very happy to be here. Thank you, Anna. 

Anna:  I really could talk to you all day, but I’m excited to get a couple of our burning questions out of the way. There’s just so much we know we could talk about with landing page copy. You’ve seen a lot of landing pages, done a lot of landing pages, changed a lot of landing pages. What do you think is wrong with most landing pages you come across in your Web travels?

Roberta: I think most of the time what I see as the biggest difficulty is that there’s a sort of a lack of focus on the part of the marketer or the client who is putting together that first pass at a Landing Page —that they’re trying to do too much with it. They’re not sure how it’s different than perhaps the Home Page or a web site or a blog. Without having that focus, they tend to try to put too many elements in, try to have it serve a lot of functions. And the more they litter it with little ornaments, the less focus it becomes for the visitor.

I mean your visitor has come there for a purpose. Usually something has generated their visit, a paper click ad, something in an e-mail, perhaps a link from somewhere else. And so they’re there for a particular purpose: to learn more, get something, do something, know something. And they come to a page that is just not on point for them and sometimes they can get confused. Sometimes they can get frustrated. Or worse, they don’t even know why they’re there. 

They disconnect between that original action and the Landing Page that they’re brought to. It confuses them. It doesn’t address that original product. So where you want a nice smooth transition from A to B, they go from A and wind up somewhere in X, Y, Z and they don’t know what’s going on. 

So I think lack of focus is certainly the number one. I think there is a quick number two behind that. And that is, even if some of those focus issues are addressed, the copy is not written to the visitor’s frame of mind. They come to a landing page with really one purpose. What do you have for me? How’s it going to benefit me? What do you want me to do? And/or how much is it going to cost? What’s in it for me? And how much? 

That’s basically the mindset of your visitor. It’s my mindset when I go to visit a landing page as a consumer, I’m sure it is for you as well. You know, that’s how we respond initially. Maybe the professional part of us kicks in a second later. But at first, I respond like anybody else. So I think that second part is, if it’s not focused on me as a prospective customer or a subscriber and it’s all about the company, well I don’t really care all that much about the company except how it benefits me.

Anna:  Right.

Roberta:  So I think that those are the twin things that I see with most landing pages as difficulties.

Anna:   So, with that lack of focus, it can be copy, it can be visual—how big of an influence is copy just as a stand alone item?

Roberta: Since my background is direct response marketing, I’m going to give you the typical direct response marketing answer, which is 80 percent of the effectiveness of your landing page is going to be based on relevant traffic and a relevant offer. Those are the two…the twin pillars. Relevant offer. Relevant traffic. About 20 percent after that 80 percent is covered is going to be creative. If I break down creative, I’m going to say it’s going to be about 75 percent of it is going to be copy and then about 25 percent is going to be design. Good design is supportive of the message. Good design helps the visitor move through the message. And this includes even using videos and more visual components. You’re still pulling your visitor through a a plane in space on a flat screen, until you have 3-D landing pages, which will then present a whole another set of issues and challenges. But for right now, it’s a 2-D element. And we’ve got to lead our visitor through that in a way that it’s intuitive, friendly, interesting, and you know get them to do something, which is click or link or give us a name and an address. 

So I really think number one, you’ve got to have the right eyeball. You can have the most on-point landing page, but if you don’t have the right eyeball, what am I here for.  It doesn’t relate to me.

Anna:  I love that 80 percent of the relevant traffic to the relevant offer quote because that’s one thing in landing page optimization that’s not talked about a lot. We all talk about copy. We talk about design. We talk about where the buttons are, where the eyes of the picture are pointing, but we need to be talking about is the right traffic coming to the right page with the right offer. And I’m glad that you pegged that at 80 percent because it is hugely overlooked for sure.

Roberta:  Many times when I do conferences or workshops, I talk about if I have the right eyeballs, the right people, with the right offer, I can write my message in lipstick on toilet paper and get a decent response because I’ve got an offer that the right people are interested in. Now if you can get them at the right time, that’s golden. I mean that’s really golden.

Anna:  Yeah.

Roberta:  But, yes I think the offer idea gets a little bit lost in many of the conversations. And the offer simply is, you know, what does that visitor get in exchange for my name and my address or whatever it is you want me to do. What does your visitor get? And I think that’s the most important thing that we can do in our landing pages. Make that clear.

Anna:  So assuming you’ve got the relevant offer, relevant traffic, then the copy is key. What are some steps people can take to improve the copy and the content on their pages? Where do they start? Because I think a lot of people don’t have that background in copy or they think that they do and they end up writing things that are off. Where do you start and take the first step to getting good copy and content on the landing page?

Roberta:  I think the first thing that marketers need to do, if indeed they are not the prospect market or the core market for the product or service that they’re selling, then they really need to do the research and find out what that prospect really cares about. Understand the product or service that they’re offering and how that places in the mind of the prospect. 

You know, many times I read material…read landing pages, and it’s almost like the marketer doesn’t even quite understand how the prospect would use it or why would they care about it. It’s sort of like, I want to sell this thing to you so badly. You can feel the sweat and the frustration, and the market says to them, but we don’t want this. This is uninteresting to me. This is boring to me. This isn’t relevant to me. 

So if I were to say anything that marketers really need to focus on in looking at their landing pages is to really understand what is going to motivate the prospect to do something. And understanding that the product is not the product that they’re selling. They’re selling a promise of the product. 

 If I’m selling wrinkle cream, well, yes I’m buying a physical product. Your visitor will be buying a physical product. But what are you really selling? You’re selling that the prospect will feel more comfortable, look more youthful, feel more confident in re-entering the dating world, whatever it may be. But it’s an emotional response. So they may think they’re selling beauty cream, but what they’re selling is something else. So I think for marketers to really get and be able to do an in-depth profile, an outline of their prospects and address them accordingly. Don’t be in such a rush to sell them. You know, people don’t like to be sold. Help your visitor make a good decision with you.

Anna:  Do you use personas or how do you get into the mind of the prospect? What are some techniques you like to use?

Roberta:  I use personas a lot. I do a lot of my own research. And if a client comes to me with a product that I say, “Well, I’m not necessarily in a great market for, but I know people who are.” I’ll be the first one to get on the phone with friends or family and say, “Look, I’m doing this project. Here’s a product or service. What do you think about it? Would you use something like this? Does it speak to you? What would get you to say yes, I’ll take a free trial.” Or what would turn you off? You know, would you not use something like this at all? Does it make you laugh? Does it make you cry?” So I spend a lot of time in the research. I do this with all my marketing copy really, certainly for landing pages. 

A squeeze page you don’t have to get all that involved. But if you’re really looking to use that landing page as the jumping off point for a relationship that gets somebody from prospect to a customer, then I really think you need to know from the get go before you write one—what’s going to motivate that prospect. And it comes from some sort of research. Personas are very helpful, but even personas come from basic research.  You’ve got to do your own marketing and research and figure out why people buy what it is that they buy. For example, I’ve never understood people who open businesses who don’t really understand the product or service that they do.

Anna:  Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like that’s the first place to start, then try to improve the copy. But you mentioned long pages, and I’m glad you did because that is probably one of our most frequently asked questions, ‘should I go with a short page or a long page?’ I have my answer, but I’m dying to hear yours. What do you think in terms of the whole short page, long page debate?

Roberta:  Well, I’m going to give you the typical answer: It depends.

I think ..and again I don’t want to talk about a squeeze page because by it’s very nature a Squeeze Page is very short. I think a landing page can be short or shorter when you are: number one promoting to your own customers or your own in-house lists. They know you, they trust you. They have a relationship with you. You don’t have to spend a lot of time reenforcing your credibility with them. And so that’s number one. That’s sort of a plus on the short side. Another plus on the short side would be if the product or service is easy to understand. You don’t have to spend a lot of time explaining it or the benefit of it or how you would use it, or those kinds of things. A very simple example - he’s Coca Cola You don’t have to explain Coca Cola.

Anna:  Yeah.

Roberta:  I understand what it does. But I am going to be very interested perhaps if I can get five dollars off the case.

Anna:  Right.

Roberta:  So in that case, a landing page can be short and on point because you don’t have to explain it. You don’t have to do this deep analysis of your core market. They already know you and love you. They just want to know if they’re going to get a discount. So in that case, you can go short. 

On the other hand, the case for a longer page is, you have a long and involved product or service that does need a lot of explanation, lots of examples, lots of bullets of benefits and features and how they turn into benefits and testimonials and all this other stuff that you really need to have those offer sweeteners that challenge over comers. So that’s, you know, the checkmark to promote the long. 

You don’t have a relationship with these people. They don’t know you. They don’t know you from Adam. You have to build a sense of credibility with these folks and you just can’t say, “We’re the best in town.” That is not a credibility booster. It may be so, but that’s not enough for somebody who doesn’t know you. 

So, more of a relationship. Easier to understand the product or service. Test short. You don’t have a relationship. It’s a long and involved complex to understand product or service. Test long. But test. 

Anna:  Yeah.

Roberta:  There’s going to be a sweet spot somewhere for everybody out there who is sort of testing these things. But I always let the numbers tell the story. I don’t fall in love with my own ideas. Let the numbers tell the tale. Your mileage may vary depending upon what you’re selling and to whom you’re selling it to.

Anna:  The testing is so important. That’s why it’s funny when you get a question like, “Should my page be long or short?” I think, “Well, test it.” You know, “Should my buttons be blue or green?” Who cares? Just test it.

Roberta:  Start somewhere.  I’ve seen this in a recent discussion on a makeover I just did with Copy Blogger —there’s a lot of, “Well, they need more traffic so they need to focus on more traffic. No they need to focus over here. No they need…” They think they have to do it all. But just get it out. Fire the big gun. Finesse later.

Anna:  Yep. Exactly.

Roberta:  Because we’re always testing. As our product develops, as our market develops, our customer relationship develops, we should always be testing everything all the time.

Anna:  Yeah. Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Well, you know, already just talking to you the last ten or fifteen minutes, I am inspired to go put myself in my prospect’s shoes more. So, I’ve already got my action items from talking to you today. But before we wrap up, I have to ask because, of course, this is what everybody’s dying to know. 

If someone could make just one change to their landing page today, what do you think that one thing should be? What should somebody walk away and go, “I’m going to at least this today.” You know, “I’m going to at least get this out the door.”

Roberta:  If they only do one thing, one thing only, they should test their headlines. Their headline sets everything else up. The headline is that opening credit to a movie. The headline is that first volley. It’s the warm-up pitch. And based on what you say in the headline, everything else that follows is going to follow the lead of that headline. So if you’re not testing your headlines, you’re missing an opportunity to really figure out the nuances that get somebody from a one percent conversion to a one point five percent conversion or, you know loads better. 

Test the headlines. It’s easy to do. It doesn’t involve creating new water or anything like that. Test the headlines. You’re going to get the maximum bang for the buck.

Anna:  What makes a great headline? I’ve got to ask. What’s a good formula for a headline, not that there’s any formula, but you know what I mean.

Roberta:  A great headline will offer a sense of promise. A sense of promise that is directed to some unspoken or it could be spoken, but some basic need of the prospect. Something of that prospect’s life needs to be changed in some way, changed for the better ultimately. So, you know, the headline sets up that we recognize a little bit of the pain or the reason that they’re there.  But ideally, the best headlines in the world are only designed to get somebody to keep reading.

Anna:  Yeah.

Roberta:  So the main job of a great headline is to get them to read, then believe, and then get them to read the bullets, and get them to read, you know, everything else that’s on your page, and then they skip around, as they do that. A great headline stops you cold and makes you want to say, “Oh, I want to know more about that.” 

Anna:  Well, Roberta, I can’t thank you enough for doing this. Thank you so much.

Roberta:  Oh, my pleasure as always, Anna.

Anna:  I just want to remind everybody that the easiest way to find you is probably on Twitter @CopywriterMaven, but there’s also tons of great stuff on CopyBlogger.com where Roberta does her very famous landing page makeovers.

Roberta:  You’ll find a whole bunch of my landing pages, the makeovers, and other material under the Landing Pages section on CopyBlogger.

Anna:  Perfect. Thank you because it’s fantastic stuff. And then, of course, MGP Direct, your direct marketing consultancy, as well. So, Roberta, thank you. I hope you’ll come back and do this with us again because I know there’s more. 

Roberta:  I’d love to anytime.

Don’t forget you can download can download all of the podcast episodes for free from iTunes.

So far we’ve spoken to amazing conversion thought leaders like Anne Holland, Chris Goward, Bryan Eisenberg, Jonathan Mendez, Lance Loveday, and more! Stay tuned.