About improving operational conversion rate (Part 1)

When users use a product, there are always two opposite forces that influence their behavior, one is motivation and the other is resistance. In order to improve the conversion rate , it is necessary to analyze the resistance and motivation of users in the purchasing process, analyze the specific resistance and motivation, and then reduce or lower the resistance as much as possible, continuously enhance and increase the motivation of users, and ultimately maximize the operation results.

Following "5 Steps to Significantly Improve Your Operational Conversion Rate", this article will analyze some specific details of the operation process to gain a deeper understanding of how to improve conversion rate.

User motivation and resistance analysis

When users use a product, there are always two opposite forces that influence their behavior, one is motivation and the other is resistance.

In order to improve the conversion rate, it is necessary to analyze the resistance and motivation of users in the purchasing process, analyze the specific resistance and motivation, and then reduce or lower the resistance as much as possible, continuously enhance and increase the motivation of users, and ultimately maximize the operation results.

After reading the entire article, you will find that improving conversion rate is nothing more than increasing motivation and reducing resistance.

Due to the ever-changing operation scenarios of different products , this article discussing the operation details may be a bit scattered in structure, but the focus is to help you think about the essence of operations through every detail.

Conversion rate of purchase page

Why start with the conversion rate of the purchase page? Because the conversion rate of the e-commerce purchase page is the most representative and it is also the scenario with the highest degree of conversion rate optimization.

I personally have not engaged in specific e-commerce operations, but I strongly encourage everyone to study and learn about the operations of the e-commerce and gaming industries. These are the two industries that focus most on conversion rates, because the results of work in these two industries are directly related to conversion rates. Internet products in other fields may have more important indicators, but if the e-commerce conversion rate is very low, it will be almost impossible to continue. There are many very mature operating methods and ideas in e-commerce that can be learned and applied to other fields.

Let’s look at a scenario where Xiao Ming opens a product introduction page. This article will analyze the various motivations and resistances that arise from the entire process from when he starts to understand the product to when he finally places an order to purchase it.

To help you understand, let me give you an example.

(This story is purely fictional. If there is any similarity, please hit me.)

Xiao Ming is an operations staff who graduated one year ago. He accidentally opened a website he had never seen before. It was selling a 400-page book called "Operation Control", which claimed to be "a treasure book that can effectively improve operations capabilities". The price was 400 yuan, but it only cost 99 yuan to buy it on the same day.

Let's take a look at Xiao Ming's motivation and resistance in this process:

• The pain point is that I have been working very hard in operations this year. Despite my efforts, I have not achieved much. Now I am confused and want to find a solution.
• The cool thing is "effectively improving operational capabilities";
• The additional value is "after the operational capability is improved, you will be promoted and get a raise to become the CEO, marry a beautiful and wealthy woman and reach the pinnacle of life";
• Positioning fit refers to whether the book’s positioning matches Xiao Ming’s “operation staff who graduated one year ago”. If it is written for inexperienced college students, Xiao Ming will probably not buy it.
• Impulse is a motivation that goes beyond rational judgment and is difficult even for the self to perceive after Xiao Ming is tempted by some of the previous factors, including “only 99 yuan for purchase on the same day”. This motivation plays a big role in many powerful products, but it will gradually decrease over time.
• Trust is the trust that users have in merchants. Only with trust will users believe in the authenticity of product introductions and proceed with transactions. Without trust, users will doubt, “Could this website, which they have never seen before, be a scam website?”
• The price is "99 yuan", Xiao Ming will think that selling a book for 99 yuan is a bit expensive;
• Product comprehension barriers refer to the fact that the book itself is a book with rich content and cases, with built-in QR code for watching videos, participating in online discussions, and viewing the latest cases, but the page uses the "latest 3D reading interactive experience mode", and users cannot understand this feature after reading it;
• Doubts about the product refer to the doubts that users have after reading the introduction, such as "Can I get a refund if it's not good?" or "Is there a reader exchange group?"
• The purchasing experience refers to comfortable reading, fast jumps, and convenient payment during the viewing process;
• Rationality is often the enemy of quickly completing a purchase and will greatly prolong the user's decision-making time.

Additional explanation:

There is a difference between "product comprehension barriers" and "doubts about purchase". One is that the product features cannot be described well enough for users to fully understand, and the other is that users themselves have doubts about purchase. For example, in the former, some users cannot understand "what is Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor", and in the latter, some users wonder "do I need to use Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor for daily use".

Isn’t “attached value” a “cool point”? Strictly speaking, yes. But the reason why it is singled out is that when operators summarize the "high points" of a product, they often only focus on the product itself and tend to ignore the added value. Customers who buy Maseratis are not primarily buying the "exciting" speed, but the "added value" sense of status.

Improved visual experience

The quality of the visual experience is related to the resistance of "product comprehension barrier", which greatly affects the purchase conversion rate.
Let me share a sentence with you: "Users have no obligation to look through your terrible page, work hard to find the highlights of your product and finally give you their money."

Is the introduction page user-friendly? Is the layout easy and simple to read? Does it look professional? Does it give people a sense of trust? Has the mobile reading experience been optimized accordingly? These will affect the user's conversion rate.

The knowledge of visual experience is very profound, so I won’t go into detail here. I will just give you an example of pure text typesetting so that you can understand it.

A picture is worth a thousand words. A graphical interface provides a better reading experience than pure text, and a video is more convincing than pictures and texts.

Be good at using the same color depth and font size to distinguish different levels of text, rather than just using different colors. Using more than 3 colors will make people lose the focus and the visual effect will become low.

I pay great attention to the layout and pictures in my articles because I hope that my users will not lower their judgment of my articles due to poor layout. Although I am a science student and lack artistic accomplishment, I still try my best to create articles that provide a better reading experience.

I would like to recommend a book called "A Design Book for Everyone". It is a design cultivation book written specifically for non-designers. If you master some of the design principles in it, you can at least have the ability to judge beauty and ugliness, and will be less likely to make some very low-level mistakes.

Of course, the visual design must be related to the target audience of the product. Magical websites like 58.com and Ganji.com seem to be stuck in the last century. Is it because they can’t afford good UI designers?

Definitely not! 58.com spent 1.6 billion USD to invest and acquire 14 companies 18 months after its listing. Could it be that it cannot afford a designer? Last year, I invited Chen Xiaohua, senior vice president of 58.com, to share his experience at Baidu. I was deeply impressed by the company. This team has a deep understanding of products and the market, and they are rational and restrained in their impulse to make major product changes.

Most of 58.com's users are from lower social classes. If the website is made too cool, it will hinder users' judgment. To take an extreme example, a construction team chose the Peony State Guest Room of the JW Marriott Hotel as its recruiting location. Would the migrant workers dare to go there after seeing the recruitment notice? Most people would probably wonder if this is a scam?

Dispelling user defenses

People are naturally defensive, and users will have many doubts when taking action:

Is this a lie? Is it really as described? What if there is a problem?

Being defensive and suspicious will inevitably hinder the conversion rate of many users, which is a very big obstacle.

Two major directions of eliminating user defenses:

1. Build trust: Build trust in the product
2. Resolving doubts: If there are doubts, corresponding safeguards can be taken to resolve them

Ways to build trust:

1. Customer testimonials showcase more successful cases among customers, with photos and reviews, which makes it easier for other users to trust them. When there are no customer cases in the early stage, in order to obtain more effective customer cases, you can reduce the price or offer free trial to allow some of them to use it first.
2. Explain the company's advantages. The user is not an employee of your company. If you don't tell him, he won't know the advantages of your company. You can actively demonstrate your team's advantages, financing situation, awards, licenses, and industry certifications.
3. You don’t have to ask a celebrity to endorse your product; well-known figures in a niche industry can also be hired. Startup companies often invite their investors to endorse their products. Xu Xiaoping and Kai-Fu Lee often endorse the products of the companies they invest in.

Ways to clear doubts:

1. Add Q&A (Frequently Asked Questions)

Write down the questions you anticipate users will have in the Q&A section. After this Q&A is written, it can be continuously iterated based on the interaction process with users to cover the users' common questions to the greatest extent possible.

2. Establish a safeguard system

Some customers have huge concerns, and it is difficult to allay their concerns simply by providing text answers. In this case, it is necessary to design a certain protection system to allay customers' concerns. A very successful case in history is the emergence of guaranteed payment for Alipay's withdrawal, which prevents users' money from being directly deposited into the merchant's account, giving users access to a security system, thereby greatly improving users' conversion rates on Taobao.

Another commonly used guarantee system is "full refund if not satisfied". This guarantee applies to almost all products and services, and brings great benefits to the company. It not only lowers the marketing threshold to allow more users to use your product, but also adds a highlight of user word-of-mouth communication, and raises the standards of the entire team in pursuing high-quality products. In business, it is a system that has far more advantages than disadvantages. The number of people who "maliciously take advantage of" is much smaller than imagined, so there is no need to worry about this part of the loss.

3. Facilitate user communication

Customers will always have some questions that you cannot think of in advance. There are also some customers who are worried about the answers and need to confirm with you again. At this time, it is very important to have a smooth user communication mechanism, which can include "consultation pop-up windows", "consultation phone calls", "QQ consultation", "message reply", "call back" and other methods.

Check if the consultation button is prominent? Is the consultation method convenient enough? Is the cost low enough for users? If you just leave an email address, it will be inconvenient for users to communicate and most of them will give up directly.

A few tips :

1. During the consultation process, "response speed" and "professionalism" are the main factors affecting conversion rate.
2. Try to leave as many ways of interaction as possible. Users have different preferences. Some users like to communicate directly by phone, while some users do not want to leave their mobile phone numbers and choose text consultation. Telephone communication is costly, while text consultation can be multi-threaded and highly efficient.
3. Voice communication has a higher conversion rate: From the perspective of a single user, it is easier to convert users. Voice can better convey the customer service's attitude towards the customer. The customer can feel the customer service's sincerity and enthusiasm, as well as their care for him. In this case, it is easier to close a deal. Especially for products with higher average order value, voice communication is more effective.
4. Active pop-up windows are also a very effective method in some product scenarios, because most potential users are not so proactive. Whether to use a pop-up window depends on the balance between conversion rate cost and user experience.
5. Of course, the customer experience and time cost must be rebalanced at different product stages. The customer service consultation telephone numbers on the Alibaba and Tencent websites are difficult to dial successfully, which is similar to 12306. Because of the huge number of users, the cost of building a corresponding telephone customer service center is too high.
6. During the consultation process, ask the user more questions about their situation. Don’t directly tell the user “You are a perfect match for our product.” Instead, ask and confirm the user’s situation, then slowly guide the user to understand your product. Finally, let the user come to a conclusion: This product is quite suitable for me.

Enhance pain points and pleasure points

Pain points and pleasure points are two aspects of user needs, representing the pain that the product can solve and the happiness it can bring to users.

Pain points and pleasure points are the basis for determining whether users download or purchase products. Any operation that is divorced from user needs is empty.

Pain points and pleasure points cannot be defined by oneself, they must be recognized by users, which requires a full understanding of users during product design and operation.

Product positioning should be focused. Don’t try to cover all groups of people when the product is first launched, and don’t launch a platform with large and comprehensive functions from the beginning. The correct approach should be to focus on a small segmented group of people and maximize the experience of this part of users first.

Ways to increase pain points and pleasure points:

1. Description of the image

Use more words that users can visualize to describe the pain, for example, "the embarrassment of being late for work" and "it seems like the whole company stopped and watched you breathlessly walk through the seven rows of desks." The latter is more vivid.

2. Suffering consequences

The bad results will be derived, and one bad result will be deduced to a series of bad results, making people feel the more serious consequences.
Psychologically, pain points are more likely to make users take action than pleasure points.

example:

• If there is a one in ten thousand chance of death in a clinical trial of a new drug, how much money would you be willing to participate in this experiment if you were given the chance?
  (Satire point: How much money can you make at the cost of a one in ten thousand mortality rate)
• Now you are infected with a virus and there is a one in ten thousand chance that you will die. There is a very expensive medicine that can guarantee a cure. How much are you willing to spend? (Pain point: How much are you willing to spend to reduce the mortality rate to one in ten thousand?)

You will find that the answer to the first question is far less than the answer to the second question. People are more afraid of losing than gaining.

So the inspiration we get is that we should put more operational resources into making users feel their pain points. Losing represents pain points, gaining represents pleasure points. Even if it is the same functional point, try to express it in the form of pain points.

For example, for a health app, it would be more influential to talk about how much troublesome disease pain can be reduced rather than how much health can be gained.

As another example, suppose you, as an operations staff, want users to sign up for a 7-day trial membership.

• Copywriting 1: Register in just 3 steps to easily obtain 7-day membership of a certain website and enjoy the distinguished experience!
• Copywriting 2: Congratulations, you have obtained a 7-day membership of a certain website and enjoy the distinguished experience! Click to register to reserve your eligibility

Which copywriting feels better? Copy 2 will obviously make users more willing to register.

The next article will continue to talk about conversion rate from the perspectives of product color, traffic source, product quality standards, usage threshold, bounce rate, etc.