Tanner Larsson  0:01  

…

 

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Optimized Ecommerce Podcast. I’m Matt. No. I’m Tanner Larsson. He’s Matthew Stafford. And today, we’re going to cover the four basic optimization principles that will never change and form the backbone and the foundation for all stores that we optimize. We’re going to go through those with you. Actually, I’m going to interview Matt and let him spill the beans since he’s the one that really mapped out and solidify these four principles that have basically built the foundation of our practice, right, and R.O. when I say R.O. guys, I mean Revenue Optimization. So Matt, let me give you all four of them. And then, I’ll take Matt through them one by one. So the all four first one is Clarity Trumps Persuasion. The second principle is Strong Visual Hierarchy. The third one is Conserve Attention. And the fourth principle is to Present the Right Information at the Right Time. All right.

 

So Matt, let’s start with Clarity Trumps Persuasion. What does that mean? And give us some data. 

 

Matthew Stafford  1:05  

Okay, so Clarity Trumps Persuasion a lot of times you see people are trying to handle every single edge case of every customer support, every single potential that they’ve run into on their store. They’re trying to sell them. We, typically what we’ll tell the store owner is their store ends up looking like a flea market instead of an actually fine-tuned machine. And so we want to make sure that the message is clear. They’re not trying to be cutesy with their languaging or, like frilly fonts and things like that. So there’s a lot of different things. You want your message to be very clear. If I click on this button, I’m going here. If I click on this button, I know what I’m clicking on. If I enter this information, I know where it’s going to take me to. So that is much better and you’ll find that your store works. It’s a lot easier to look at your data. When the people aren’t tricked into clicks. You’ll know that they’re clicking it for a particular reason. 

 

Tanner Larsson  2:13  

Now, guys, I have to be totally transparent here. I’m a direct response marketer. I come from a sales page, long-form sales page, long copywriting background. So to hear clarity over persuasion really kind of hurts my heart a little bit. But the truth is in the numbers, guys. Every time we start trying to persuade someone, it backfires. Now, you can have a persuasive copy as long as it’s clear, and you can use persuasive messaging and things like that. As long as it’s clear. It’s when you start trying to get real cutesy that it gets problematic. Okay. Now, in terms of a Clarity Trumps Persuasion type thing, there’s one little thing that pops up on all these stores. We were looking at a bunch of top Shopify stores last week. Remember that proof element? That proof app? So let’s talk about that for a second. 

 

Matthew Stafford  2:59  

Yeah.

 

Tanner Larsson  2:59  

It’s a perfectly good example of how it’s not. 

 

Matthew Stafford  3:01  

Yeah,

 

Go ahead. 

 

Tanner Larsson  3:02  

Okay, so – 

 

Matthew Stafford  3:03  

To show the rest of the thing.

 

Tanner Larsson  3:04  

All right, well, the proof app, or is that as proof, there are multiple ones. But basically, we’re talking about the one that pops up a little social proof thing that says, so and so from Madison, Wisconsin just purchased XYZ product 32 seconds ago. And that pops up all the time. Now, that’s a persuasive social proof technique or function that’s designed for on an app to allow people to believe that this is a high demand product, lots of other people have bought it. Now, the thing about shopping is nobody wants to buy something that nobody else has bought before. They want to know that the road it’s not the road less traveled, it’s the road most traveled, okay? Because they want to feel confident in what they’re getting. So that app was designed to do that. And there’s a lot of apps that offer that functionality. But what’s actually happened with that, Matt. 

 

Matthew Stafford  3:49  

Well, nowadays, the majority of the traffic’s on mobile, and so another thing comes up, they actually lose a third of their screen. And so people, it’s actually causing an annoyance that people are clicking off. And we see it all the time, and — maps and recordings. It’s not helping the targeting. 

 

Tanner Larsson  4:07  

It’s also spoofed, half the time and your shoppers get smarter every day. And when that social proof app came out, it was honest, or those different ones that now you can put in false data or use old sales data and refresh the times of purchase. And so it’s not even accurate anymore, and the shoppers know it. They’ve seen on enough spammy AliExpress drop shipping sites to know when that pop up pops up. It causes a warning flag, not a trust indicator. 

 

Matthew Stafford  4:34  

Yeah, right. Exactly. They go, “Okay, this is 50-50 chance that it’s true. I would rather buy from someone that’s not trying to pressure me into buying.” 

 

Tanner Larsson  4:45  

So that’s Clarity Trumps Persuasion. The next principle is to have a Strong Visual Hierarchy. What does that mean? 

 

Matthew Stafford  4:52  

Don’t do it like Ling’s Auto. 

 

Tanner Larsson  4:54  

Ling’s Auto. You guys should Google Ling’s auto you want to have a visual seizure? That’s what will happen.

 

Matthew Stafford  5:01  

Yeah. So essentially, what you want to do is each page, like we talked about in Episode One has a specific use. And so say, for example, your homepage, you want to have one call to action. That’s the next most important action for that page. So like on, 

 

Tanner Larsson  5:20  

On the homepage, what’s the most important call to action on the homepage? 

 

Matthew Stafford  5:24  

It will be your categories or to learn more about what-  the menu items. So essentially, you want it to be very clear that the next most important action for there would be to select which category of products that you offer for them to filter down into.

 

Tanner Larsson  5:40  

Okay, so they keep going with it. 

 

Matthew Stafford  5:42  

And then we’ll say, go to the product page, like your Add To Cart, the goal of your product page is to get them to add the product to the cart. So that is your next most important action. So you want your strong visual hierarchy to be on your Add to Cart button. 

 

Tanner Larsson  5:57  

So let’s expand the visual aspect of that, okay, what happens when you go to Ling’s Cars? 

 

Matthew Stafford  6:05  

They have multiple things to do but – 

 

Tanner Larsson  6:07  

The colors and all the –

 

Matthew Stafford  6:08  

Colors, buttons, 

 

Tanner Larsson  6:10  

What happens to your eyes? 

 

Matthew Stafford  6:10  

Moving guests. Yeah, you have no idea where to look. So, and that’s actually a problem with a lot of Shopify stores too because everybody tries to plan their color with their theme with their buttons with their banner and with their header. And what happens is you have, I don’t know why I’m thinking pink, but say you have a pink theme for your clothing store, you end up having five things that are pink, and they don’t know which one is the next, which one is supposed to draw their eyes. If your Add to Cart button on a pink theme is green, then that green stands out and that’s the next most important action and what you’ll find is you’ll get a lot more Add To Cart. 

 

Tanner Larsson  6:53  

So make sure whatever that one action per screen is. That’s where the eye is naturally drawn. The second the page loads. Now, the way you can look at that is to have people go to the page and say, have them load the pages and what do you see? And what’s the first thing you see? And they’ll point or that you haven’t point. And if they don’t point to what’s your logo, or they don’t point to the button? You got a problem? So that’s a strong visual hierarchy. The next one is conserve attention, which kind of segues nicely from what we just talked about, right? You’ve already got them with one focus. But now we got to keep their attention.

 

Matthew Stafford  7:25  

So a lot of times people think more is better. That’s just not the case. The more options typically, if you think about it, if they see three or four options that they like, and they don’t have time to make a decision, or they’re just unsure, they’ll actually say, “Oh, I’ll just come back later.” While you’ve already paid to get him to your site. If you’ve already done some of the other things that we’ve talked about, found the one thing, focus on the 20% that gives you 80%. What you want to do is start narrowing down choices so that the people they don’t actually have so many different things going on that tire their brain out. So it’s called cognitive load. Or if you have too many choices, the Paradox of Choice so more is not better. You want better choices, not more choices. 

 

Tanner Larsson  8:15  

So that’s a very actual, cognitive overload is huge. But, Paradox of Choice is actually very hard for people to wrap their heads around sometimes, right? And so let’s, let’s break that down more.

 

Matthew Stafford  8:27  

Okay. So just, for example, say that you sell shower curtains, you’re going to have multiple colors, multiple designs. And so a lot of times people think, “Oh, I’m just gonna, the more that I put in there, the more options they have, the more I sell.”

 

Tanner Larsson  8:44  

And it’s more likely they’ll find something that they want. 

 

Matthew Stafford  8:47  

Which is just not the case. Every single time. We’ve tried it, we wanted to win because we want to sell more. Every single time that we add more options, more colors, the conversion rate goes down. And so we have to assume that Paradox of Choice makes it hard for them to pick –choose ice cream. 

 

Tanner Larsson  9:08  

So if I give you a choice in ice cream between vanilla or chocolate very easily, you can make the decision, vanilla or chocolate, right? But then I say, “Hey, Matt, let’s go to Baskin Robbins 31 flavors.” Now you have to walk around and you have to analyze every single flavor. You could eliminate a few because they’re gross. Like you’re

 

Matthew Stafford  9:27  

Do you want some sprinkles and cherries, fruits?

 

Tanner Larsson  9:30  

Exactly so many options, right? We actually one of our ROs, did some googling on it. And apparently there are 3 billion different combinations that you could possibly make. If you ordered at Baskin Robbins, you know, one of every combination, including this, the toppings and all that 3 billion combinations. All right now obviously most people don’t aren’t aware of that. But either way, let’s just say you’re only choosing ice cream. You have 31 flavors to choose from. What happens is most the time you can’t make up your mind, right, you start –

 

Matthew Stafford  10:00  

It takes a lot lot longer. 

 

Tanner Larsson  10:01  

Or that’s the other thing, the longer it takes, the more that you’re out of your subconscious in your into your conscious. And then you start having that self-talk. I was really trying to lose a little bit of weight. I don’t really need that ice cream, maybe I shouldn’t have it. But that flavors, oh, I don’t know. So you start having that same self-talk that happens when you’re shopping online.

 

Matthew Stafford  10:19  

If you look at people shopping times, a lot of shopping is done while they’re at work. So the longer they’re on a site, the last chance of actually completing a purchase because someone will walk up or they get distracted or the boss walks by, or whatever. So all of that stuff matters. And for you, the one goal should be when they come to your site you make it very easy for them to get all the way through to the sale as quickly as possible.

 

Tanner Larsson  10:43  

And actually guys, not too long ago, we actually, we talked about this all the time. And despite the fact that we teach this to our business accelerator members, we do this on our amplified partner stores. We speak about it at our conferences and my book, like all the time, doesn’t mean anybody actually does it. You know, usually, we have to have to hear about 30 or 40 times and then they finally go, “Maybe I’ll try that.” In that case in our business accelerator program, he comes inside or one of our members, Mark.

 

Matthew Stafford  11:08  

We should do a case study of that.

 

Tanner Larsson  11:09  

We’re gonna do another episode. Okay, so he just did it. And we’ll actually do an episode where we show you how he actually followed the Paradox of Choice, removed some stuff and had a massive lift in his conversions. 

 

Matthew Stafford  11:22  

200% 

 

Tanner Larsson  11:22  

Yeah

 

Matthew Stafford  11:23  

300%  

 

Tanner Larsson  11:23  

That’s not big or anything, right? So we’ll definitely do that. Alright, so that’s a wrap up three there. Let’s go into the fourth and final of the four basic principles of optimization and that is the Right Information at the Right Time. So what does that mean? 

 

Matthew Stafford  11:37  

That means don’t say Buy Now on your homepage. And don’t say Add To Cart on your category page. Again, just take the time to think about your store, where the customer is at on your store. Not from the perspective of you being the owner trying to sell them something, but from them being the customer in your store, what information they need in order to make a decision to go to the next step. So right information at the right time would be an Add to Cart button on your product page, or more options button on your category page, or category buttons on your homepage, or a special that you’re running that maybe is your unique value proposition at the time on your homepage. So each page should have the proper information at the right time. So you wouldn’t put your shipping details on your homepage, because they don’t need to know, they’re not ready. They don’t even know what product they’re going to buy.

 

Tanner Larsson  12:41  

They want to buy.

 

Matthew Stafford  12:42  

Right. So they’re not looking for that. So when you clutter all these pages with information, that’s not the right information at the right time. What you’re doing is you’re creating more of that cognitive load, you’re getting rid of the clarity, you’re losing your visual hierarchy. So this is super important. It’s basically The correlation of all the other principles put together. Now, if you follow the other ones, it makes it very easy to give them the right information at the right

 

Tanner Larsson  13:08  

And the opposite of that the wrong information at the wrong time or even the right information at the wrong time can really screw your store up, badly.

 

Matthew Stafford  13:17  

It makes it confusing. And we always say that there are two reasons why a customer doesn’t buy; one price or shipping. And then number two is they have a question that’s unanswered. I mean, they came to your site, knowing what you saw nine times out of ten and in were interested in looking for something so they need to have the right information at the right time to make it easy for them to buy.

 

Tanner Larsson  13:42  

So guys, what we need to do right now is we’re wrapping this episode up. If you’re on iTunes, click this subscribe button. If you’re on YouTube, click the subscribe button there. And then if you’re on YouTube, go to iTunes or go to iTunes. If you’re on iTunes, go to YouTube and subscribe because we do video episodes so that we can share our screens and show you case studies and show you actually what we’re doing. If you need direct links to either one of those go to https://buildgrowscale.com/podcast. You can also get the link to our blog and see the show notes and all of that stuff there as well.

 

Matthew Stafford  14:11  

The other thing, guys, leave a comment and a review. 

 

Tanner Larsson  14:15  

We love reviews.  

 

Matthew Stafford  14:16  

And so if you do that, we’ll go through and read those comments, and then we’ll use that to tailor the next episodes. 

 

Tanner Larsson  14:22  

With that, guys, thank you for listening and we’ll see you in the next episode.