Optimisation - 13 tips to increase your ROI

At the recent Marketing Sherpa B2B Summit, Dr Flint McGlaughlin of MECLABs ran through 14 useful tips for optimising the marketing conversion process. Tiny changes have an enormous effect and can substantially alter the ROI:

1.    Remember people don't buy from websites, they buy from people.
2.    Use quantitative statements to support your claims, rather than vague qualitative
       language that anyone can say.
3.    Keep paragraphs short, supported with quantitative evidence.
4.    People naturally read from top to bottom, so don't put obstacles in the way of the
       natural flow of the eye.
5.    Reserve the right-hand page for supporting information.
6.    If you make a claim in an ad (eg award winning), substantiate the claim on the
       landing page to follow the natural thought sequence.
7.    Forms that are separate from a landing page should emphasise the value
       proposition much as the landing page.
8.    Some landing pages need so much work that it's more efficient to just scrap it and
       start again.
9.    Remember the job of a headline is to engage someone sufficiently to read the first
       paragraph.
10.  The role of first paragraph is to answer the key questions in visitors' minds - Where a
       am I? What can I do here? Why should I do it?
11.  Keep the number of clicks that a user is required to do to a minimum - research
       indicates that every time you ask someone to click, you potentially lose 50% of 
       audience.
12.  Become a master at using the elements of the page that control eye
       movement: shape, position, size, colour.
13.  Remember to test variables such as the use of different words (eg does the word
       'Trial' convert better than 'Demo?)

The challenge for marketers is to guide users through a process, helping them overcome the 'FRICTION' that they meet along the way:

Further References
Slides from the B2B Marketing Sherpa Event

Article by Lawrence Mitchell (RBI-UK)