# About Name: Stupid Simple eCommerce Description: Every Saturday morning at 9 am EST you'll get my personal actionable tips to build a better eCommerce experience. URL: https://blog.92dream.com # Navigation Menu - Search: https://blog.92dream.com/search - Home: https://blog.92dream.com - Subscribe Here: https://blog.92dream.com/#leadgen-form # Blog Posts ## SSE #13: The 3 most common conversion roadblocks + how to fix Author: Unknown Published: 2023-03-16 Tags: The Basics, Qualitative Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-13-the-3-most-common-conversion-roadblocks-how-to-fix-clfbgdxta666321kql4351kh3b/ Hey šŸ‘‹šŸæ ā€“ Anthony here. Happy Saturday to you all. If my content resonates with you, please share this email orĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://sptr.eocampaign1.com/f/a/5_pfUcx_EXi2hBrQwIf22g~~/AAAHUQA~/RgRl7w50P0UgNWZlZmY2OTc0MDJjNGVhOTdiODk1NjU4ZmFkODE1MjBEhmh0dHBzOi8vOTJkcmVhbS5jYXJyZC5jbz91dG1fc291cmNlPWVtYWlsb2N0b3B1cyZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWVtYWlsJnV0bV9jYW1wYWlnbj1TU0UlMjAlMjMwMTMlMjAtJTIwMyUyMGNvbW1vbiUyMGNvbnZlcnNpb24lMjByb2FkYmxvY2tzVwVzcGNldUIKY_90iQxkc-s6WVITYW50aG9ueUA5MmRyZWFtLmNvbVgEAAAzHA~~)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here are a few tips on how to optimize conversion roadblocks on your website. Today's issue takes about 5 minutes to read. * * * **Peep the scenario** --------------------- ![Conversion roadblock](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/erik-mclean-7lyrkykidjy-unsplash-1678993097529-compressed.jpg) So a smart fellow by the name ofĀ [Jeremy Epperson](https://sptr.eocampaign1.com/f/a/kZvnp-UPFlC9qcE4KDudRQ~~/AAAHUQA~/RgRl7w50P0UgMzMzNzUyZWJjZjRiZmQ2MmUwNzM2YzkwOTNhZDJkYjZE5Gh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxpbmtlZGluLmNvbS9wb3N0cy9qZXJlbXllcHBlcnNvbl9wb3N0LXRlc3QtYW5hbHlzaXMtaXRlcmF0aXZlLXRlc3RpbmctYWN0aXZpdHktNzAzOTk4ODY2MDEwNDA0MDQ0OS1jekNtP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9c2hhcmUmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1tZW1iZXJfZGVza3RvcCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249U1NFJTIwJTIzMDEzJTIwLSUyMDMlMjBjb21tb24lMjBjb252ZXJzaW9uJTIwcm9hZGJsb2Nrc1cFc3BjZXVCCmP_dIkMZHPrOllSE2FudGhvbnlAOTJkcmVhbS5jb21YBAAAMxw~)Ā recently spoke about 'conversion roadblocks". This term caught my attention because "conversion roadblocks" is a term that one can instantly visualize without much thought. Jeremy's explanation of a conversion roadblock is "what are the things that are preventing people from learning?"Ā  EDIT: Jeremy recently added theĀ [following explanation for a conversion roadblock](https://sptr.eocampaign1.com/f/a/Xgnl8XqiET69FUrqGZv6ZA~~/AAAHUQA~/RgRl7w50P0UgMDQ1ODZmNDE2YWIyNThmMGE5ZjVkNWY2YWNlNGUwNDmEfwFodHRwczovL3d3dy5saW5rZWRpbi5jb20vZmVlZC91cGRhdGUvdXJuOmxpOmFjdGl2aXR5OjcwMzk5ODk2NjMxOTY5MzQxNDQ_Y29tbWVudFVybj11cm4lM0FsaSUzQWNvbW1lbnQlM0ElMjhhY3Rpdml0eSUzQTcwMzk5ODk2NjMxOTY5MzQxNDQlMkM3MDQwMDI1MTc0NTk4OTA1ODU2JTI5JmRhc2hDb21tZW50VXJuPXVybiUzQWxpJTNBZnNkX2NvbW1lbnQlM0ElMjg3MDQwMDI1MTc0NTk4OTA1ODU2JTJDdXJuJTNBbGklM0FhY3Rpdml0eSUzQTcwMzk5ODk2NjMxOTY5MzQxNDQlMjkmdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1lbWFpbG9jdG9wdXMmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249U1NFJTIwJTIzMDEzJTIwLSUyMDMlMjBjb21tb24lMjBjb252ZXJzaW9uJTIwcm9hZGJsb2Nrc1cFc3BjZXVCCmP_dIkMZHPrOllSE2FudGhvbnlAOTJkcmVhbS5jb21YBAAAMxw~)... "...A conversion roadblock is more something that prevents a personĀ from taking action, which will vary across verticals and businesses". In other words, conversion roadblocks are issues on a website that prevents people from reaching the end goal". This illustrious end goal is what we're all after, but it's the way that we go about getting people to this end goal that sets us apart from one another. When you look around at your competition, you start to think that the more polished brands have more money, bigger teams, or smarter people working for them. But a lot of the time that is not the case. Those brands still worry about the same things that you are worried about, except they have a process. For this email, we're going to talk about common conversion roadblocks and the best way to circumvent these roadblocks. But as you read through it all think about how you can add this to your own process. Do the work and continue to iterate on it. Remember, customer research is gold for any brand that is in growth mode. Alright, so let's get into it... **Here's 3 common conversion roadblocks with ways to break them down ** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ### šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ **Roadblock #1: Message Clarity & Value Perception**. Clarity is always a big issue for most websites no matter if it's eCommerce or otherwise.Ā  The reason why is that most of us aren't trained to be conversion copywriters. We mostly look at what the competition is doing and what they're saying to their customers, and we spin up a variation for ourselves. But all this does is put us into a "sea of sameness". What's worse is that your customers become instantly bored because the past 5 websites that they visited are all saying the same thing, and yours is one of them. But customers will stop at the first sign of a brand that's doing somethingĀ _different_. You want to ask yourself "does my customer see the value in making a purchase with my brand?". Or "Is my messaging clear and speaks to how we're different than the competition?". Here are a few ways to combat message clarity issues * Conduct a review mining matrix. This will help you understand a lot about your customers and you'll find patterns of words your customers use to describe your product(s) or brand. You canĀ [click here to understand how to mine reviews](https://sptr.eocampaign1.com/f/a/Up3ghs9Vj-E8ZZWNh-iDBw~~/AAAHUQA~/RgRl7w50P0UgYWEyZWMwZjM3NDgzNzlmNmYwZjdjNjA4NmE3MDkyOWJE5Gh0dHBzOi8vYmxvZy45MmRyZWFtLmNvbS9zc2UtMDAyLWhvdy10by1jcmVhdGUtYS12YWx1ZS1wcm9wb3NpdGlvbi1yZXZpZXctbWluaW5nLXRyYWluaW5nLWNsN25nemt6NTExMzkxNzFsbGk0MXV3M2syZS8_dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1lbWFpbG9jdG9wdXMmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249U1NFJTIwJTIzMDEzJTIwLSUyMDMlMjBjb21tb24lMjBjb252ZXJzaW9uJTIwcm9hZGJsb2Nrc1cFc3BjZXVCCmP_dIkMZHPrOllSE2FudGhvbnlAOTJkcmVhbS5jb21YBAAAMxw~). * Conduct customer interviews and surveys. For all of the same reasons to review mine, you should conduct interviews and surveys. This is the most powerful way to craft messaging that is simple and clear. Simply because you can use the same words that your customers are using. You canĀ [click here to understand how to conduct customer interviews](https://sptr.eocampaign1.com/f/a/88VCz-LZLA14EdIzV0gG1w~~/AAAHUQA~/RgRl7w50P0UgNGYwMDg0MGViODFlNGIyYmNhNmM4YjFjMTZiMmNjYzJE3Gh0dHBzOi8vYmxvZy45MmRyZWFtLmNvbS9zc2UtMDAxLWhvdy10by1jb25kdWN0LWN1c3RvbWVyLWludGVydmlld3MtdGhlLXJpZ2h0LXdheS1jbDduZzh5dHgxMTI5NTIxbGxpdWdpc21xcHcvP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9ZW1haWxvY3RvcHVzJnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPVNTRSUyMCUyMzAxMyUyMC0lMjAzJTIwY29tbW9uJTIwY29udmVyc2lvbiUyMHJvYWRibG9ja3NXBXNwY2V1Qgpj_3SJDGRz6zpZUhNhbnRob255QDkyZHJlYW0uY29tWAQAADMc), andĀ [click here to understand how to conduct a customer survey](https://sptr.eocampaign1.com/f/a/40cm03av3l_f_Is8As0VKA~~/AAAHUQA~/RgRl7w50P0UgYTYwMTY1MzEyODhmZTFlYTkwNDIzNTI2NGNjZjY1ZDhE1Wh0dHBzOi8vYmxvZy45MmRyZWFtLmNvbS9zc2UtMDA2LWhvdy10by1jb25kdWN0LWEtY3VzdG9tZXItc3VydmV5LWFuYWx5c2lzLWNsN25pYjM0dDExNjA3MjFsbGlzb2tza2hmcy8_dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1lbWFpbG9jdG9wdXMmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249U1NFJTIwJTIzMDEzJTIwLSUyMDMlMjBjb21tb24lMjBjb252ZXJzaW9uJTIwcm9hZGJsb2Nrc1cFc3BjZXVCCmP_dIkMZHPrOllSE2FudGhvbnlAOTJkcmVhbS5jb21YBAAAMxw~). ### šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ **Roadblock #2: Website Bugs** Sometimes we're adding so many plugins to the site, or creating new functionality for a marketing initiative, that we leave other parts of the website open for bugs. This happens a lot with brands that have small teams, or brands that don't interact with their customers often. Customers will usually tell you when something is wrong, but sometimes they won't. And you'll have a broken button, or a hidden link on a popular browser, and you will never know it exists. What's worse is that conversion will drop and bounce rates will rise, and again...you'll never know it exists. I deal with these problems all of the time with clients in my agency. The best part about bugs is that with the right process, you can find them quickly, squish them, and get your conversion rate and other metrics back up almost instantly. Here are a few ways to combat bugs on a website * Stay on top of your landing page report within your analytics platform. This will give you an indication that something is wrong on a specific page. * Hire a quality assurance team that will put together a checklist to go through after big changes are made to the website. * Put together a device and browser report in your analytics platform to see if any high-trafficked device type or the web browser is getting considerably less conversion than others. * Conduct a remote user test and see how people that have never been to your site use your site firsthand.Ā [Click here to learn how to conduct a remote user test](https://sptr.eocampaign1.com/f/a/5ltaz0TRZ774JQTgmRTtaw~~/AAAHUQA~/RgRl7w50P0UgZmM1NDg2NDg1YTZjYjA0NzY3ZmI0MmU1ZTk5ZmEzMzlE02h0dHBzOi8vYmxvZy45MmRyZWFtLmNvbS9zc2UtMDEwLWhvdy10by1ydW4tYS1yZW1vdGUtdXNlci10ZXN0LWVmZmVjdGl2ZWx5LWNsOHo5aWtnbDc5MTMxa3BxODY1Znp1azIvP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9ZW1haWxvY3RvcHVzJnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPVNTRSUyMCUyMzAxMyUyMC0lMjAzJTIwY29tbW9uJTIwY29udmVyc2lvbiUyMHJvYWRibG9ja3NXBXNwY2V1Qgpj_3SJDGRz6zpZUhNhbnRob255QDkyZHJlYW0uY29tWAQAADMc). ### šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ **Roadblock #3: Customer Objections** This looks easy enough to combat, but most of us are oblivious to objections that the majority of our customers may have. Why does it look so easy you ask? Because you're usually helping customers through live chat, email, a knowledge base, and other customer support avenues. "The shipping costs are too damn high." This is an example of a customer objection that most of us have dealt with at some point or another. So most of us generally have a good understanding of what the main objections are and how to best handle them. But what about the no-so-obvious objections? These can be complaints about color options, out-of-stock items, or very specific information that would put potential customers at ease. How do you figure out what your customers really want? Here are a few ways to combat customer objections and understand what they really want * Same as message clarity above ā˜šŸæ. Customer interviews, surveys, and review mining will give you all the keys to unlock those objections, except you're going to want to focus on shoppers that has shown interestĀ _but never purchased_. These people will spill the proverbial beans on all of the objections they made about your brand and/or product. * Utilize survey polls on your website. I like to add a poll to the product page or cart page with a simple question such as "what is stopping you from making a purchase today". This will give you instant information on their objections right away. Hopefully, this will help you gain a better understanding of conversion roadblocks and to utilize research to improve the user experience of your website šŸ‘šŸæ * * * See you again in 2 weeks. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: [Work directly with my team](https://sptr.eocampaign1.com/f/a/Rh2vG2wEW2Md9LOYMDxGyA~~/AAAHUQA~/RgRl7w50P0UgMTkyNmRmMjgwYzMwODUwODJiMzM2N2YwODZmYjk4NGFEjWh0dHBzOi8vOTJkcmVhbS5jb20vbmV3LXByb2plY3Q_dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1lbWFpbG9jdG9wdXMmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249U1NFJTIwJTIzMDEzJTIwLSUyMDMlMjBjb21tb24lMjBjb252ZXJzaW9uJTIwcm9hZGJsb2Nrc1cFc3BjZXVCCmP_dIkMZHPrOllSE2FudGhvbnlAOTJkcmVhbS5jb21YBAAAMxw~)Ā to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://sptr.eocampaign1.com/f/a/HaS3gnKn6bF1kDQBmZXcvg~~/AAAHUQA~/RgRl7w50P0UgNmM2MzJkN2UyMGFkNjg5Y2FiNmU0ODYwYTkzOThiYzJEkGh0dHBzOi8vM2RheS1icmVha3Rocm91Z2guY2FycmQuY28_dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1lbWFpbG9jdG9wdXMmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249U1NFJTIwJTIzMDEzJTIwLSUyMDMlMjBjb21tb24lMjBjb252ZXJzaW9uJTIwcm9hZGJsb2Nrc1cFc3BjZXVCCmP_dIkMZHPrOllSE2FudGhvbnlAOTJkcmVhbS5jb21YBAAAMxw~)Ā to further beef up your messaging. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://sptr.eocampaign1.com/f/a/xSQR0zikUcqcVhcpXL-x5Q~~/AAAHUQA~/RgRl7w50P0UgYmM1YjA3YjI5MjNhYTZiOWNkZThhMTkzNDI1MDJiNTREomh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxpbmtlZGluLmNvbS9pbi9hbnRob255LXdhbGxhY2UtOTJkcmVhbS8_dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1lbWFpbG9jdG9wdXMmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249U1NFJTIwJTIzMDEzJTIwLSUyMDMlMjBjb21tb24lMjBjb252ZXJzaW9uJTIwcm9hZGJsb2Nrc1cFc3BjZXVCCmP_dIkMZHPrOllSE2FudGhvbnlAOTJkcmVhbS5jb21YBAAAMxw~)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #012: The 3 elements that matter most on an eCommerce website Author: Unknown Published: 2023-03-07 Tags: The Basics, Qualitative Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-12-the-3-elements-matter-most/ Hey šŸ‘‹šŸæ ā€“ Anthony here. Happy Saturday to you all. If my content resonates with you, please share this email orĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here are a few tips on how to optimize your Shopify template. Today's issue takes about 5 minutes to read. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/jack-hunter-3u-y40qbg-unsplash-1678204126100-compressed.jpg) The words used on your website will indicate to your customer that they need to stick around for a while. Words are the most powerful tool in any form of marketing. It's how we transact with one another.Ā  It's a way to connect in its simplest form. An image can say 1,000 words, but it's those words that bind us to that particular image. The order those words are will keep the reader interested in reading more. When done right, it can transform the reader into another place in their mind. They can see your vision clearer, they can understand the landscape that you've created, and they're more invested in what you have to say. This is why I know that messaging, imagery and information hierarchy are the 3 most essential components of your eCommerce website. If you leave these 3 components to chance, then you're leaving money on the table and you will confuse or repel your customers. When I first came up with this idea to write about, I thought "everyone probably knows this already." But as I dug into it I realized that this is an important topic, and people need to either learn this or be reminded. So let's talk about these 3 components and the best ways to utilize or optimize them. ### Messaging & Imagery Messaging and imagery go hand-in-hand. In eCommerce, you most certainly cannot have one without the other. But let's think of imagery being messaging little brother.Ā  Imagery is essential, but if you can get messaging right, you're winning half the battle here. With these 2 components, you do want to focus on a few themes... Value - no matter what, your job as a marketer or founder is to deliver value at every turn. Why is your product so unique? What does it do that other competitors are not? Why should your customers buy from you and not your competitor? This sounds easy because you know that your product is so great, but how you can communicate that to your customers? It ain't easy lol! You have to dive into your customer's pain points. Break down what they're going through and how your product solves that pain point.Ā  And you should integrate your personal story and journey into your messaging. Not every product needs a personal story, but whenever possible, it should be used. [Click here to see how to create a dope value proposition](https://blog.92dream.com/sse-002-how-to-create-a-value-proposition-review-mining-training-cl7ngzkz51139171lli41uw3k2e) that resonates with your audience. Images ā€“ icons, illustrations, and photography ā€“ should enhance your messaging. They should add brightness and make your story come alive. It should feel "real" when it all comes together. Whichever emotion you're trying to convey, you're going to want your image to solidify it. The quality of your image should be top-notch. It should be clear, and easy to understand.Ā  If you've never done photography before, then you should leave it up to a professional. There are a lot of great companies that will give you top-notch photos at an affordable price.Ā  [Soona is one of my personal faves](https://soona.co/) and a good place to start (seriously, don't take photos on your own if you've never been professionally taught. It never goes well, and in the end, your customers can always tell the difference). ### Information Hierarchy The way you lay your pages out will tell your story. Image and messaging are very important the order of those elements is very powerful as well. This can be a very tricky component to understand because every company is different. Each eCommerce company can have different customers that are trying to solve a problem... That is in different buying stages... All by using just 1 design... As I said before...it ain't easy šŸ¤£ A great personalization strategy can definitely help with this, but you can't always rely on personalization. The site does need to be able to stand on its own and convert the majority of its visitors. I handle information hierarchy by delivering value, trust, and motivation in that order, on every page. Here's how I put together the foundation of a homepage for an eCommerce website \[NAVIGATION\] \[VALUE PROPOSITION\] \[TRUST FACTORS (think UGC, reviews, etc)\] \[FEATURED PRODUCT(S)\] \[PRODUCT/BRAND STORY\] \[PRODUCT DETAILS\] \[TRUST FACTORS\] \[FOOTER\] This is a great foundation and will help your customers understand who you are and why you're product is so great at solving their pain points! * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. [Work directly with me personally](https://92dream.com/new-project)Ā to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. 2. Take my free [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to further beef up your messaging. 3. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #011: How to optimize a Shopify template Author: Unknown Published: 2023-03-07 Tags: Shopify, Shopify Theme URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-011-how-to-optimize-a-shopify-template-cleydiwlu445181kvu0g6ta8r6/ Hey šŸ‘‹šŸæ ā€“ Anthony here. Happy Saturday to you all. If my content resonates with you, please share this email orĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to optimize your Shopify template. Today's issue takes about 5 minutes to read. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- Letā€™s talk about Shopify templates today. Thereā€™s a problem that people donā€™t like to talk about because itā€™s not sexyā€¦ But your Shopify theme probably sucks. My bad, I donā€™t mean to hurt your feelings, itā€™s really not your fault. Shopify theme designers and developers arenā€™t in the trenches building and growing eCommerce businesses. So they add features that they ā€œthinkā€ you need. And thus youā€™re pigeonholed into a design and functionality that was given to you. And no matter how many bandaids you add to it, the broken foundation of your website is still there. In this email, Iā€™m going to review 8 default Shopify functions and features that are adding unnecessary friction to your website. šŸ’”At the end Iā€™m going to give you an idea that I believe can increase your most important metrics in a meaningful way! Letā€™s first start with the first observation that I see on every Shopify themeā€¦ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ![Prestige theme image](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/slidercarousel-1678201195210-compressed.jpg) ### šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ **Hero carousel slider on the homepage** This is the main part of the most trafficked page on your website and you're not focusing on your value prop. Instead, you're giving your customers 2-4 different messages to focus on. **How to fix it?**Ā Use the voice of customer research to craft 1 message with 1 image that resonates with your target audience. We call this a value proposition andĀ [I've created the perfect tutorial on how to utilize this powerful tool in this article here](https://blog.92dream.com/sse-002-how-to-create-a-value-proposition-review-mining-training-cl7ngzkz51139171lli41uw3k2e/). Also, as a treat, I've come up with an idea for a new carousel that could possibly help you convert better than any other hero carousel available. Skip to the end if you're curious šŸ‘‡šŸæ ![Social share](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/socialshare-1678201155747-compressed.jpg) ### šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ **Useless social share functionality** This functionality has been on eCommerce themes since eCommerce themes have been created. Before Shopify even existed. And somehow, in 2023....it still exists! I'm my experience of customer research and experimentation, literally, NO ONE uses this functionality. **How to fix it?**Ā Just get rid of it. Use Shopify's customizer to remove this functionality from your website once and for all. ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/nolabelnavicons-1678201220385-compressed.jpg) ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Lack of clear labels for navigation icons** You MIGHT know what those icons above mean, but what if you didn't know that circle with the line protruding out was a magnifying glass? What if you didn't know that clicking on the magnifying glass opened up search functionality? You're leaving it up to the customer to figure this mystery out and you're assuming that everyone that enters your site understands what these icons mean. **How to fix it?**Ā Have a developer add labels underneath the icons. This is literally a $10-20 job for the most basic web developer. ![Le nouveau cartable brown](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/stickycontentimagescroll-1678201255235-compressed.jpg) ### šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ **Frustrating product image vertical scroll with sticky content** This one is a bit harder to explain, but essentially to consume any information below the fold the shopper has to scroll through each and every image. every. single. time. šŸ™„ I've personally interviewed customers and ran surveys with shoppers saying that they're continually frustrated with the type of functionality. It's just not useful. **How to fix it?**Ā This would have to be a custom fix or you'd have to switch your them to one that doesn't include this functionality. If you're having trouble removing this functionality justĀ [give me a shout](http://hello@92dream.com)Ā and I'll do my best to help you quickly fix it šŸ‘šŸæ ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/shopifyreviews-1678201274572-compressed.jpg) ### šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ **Maybe the worst out-the-box review system for such a big eCommerce platform** The default review system for Shopify is one of the worst. You figure this out a few weeks after debuting your new website to the world. Shoppers rarely add a review without being prompted to do so, and Shopify doesn't have any email or SMS message to reach out to your customers to buy. They also let pretty much anyone go to your website and submit a review. So there's no way to know if any of the reviews on a Shopify website is legit. There's also... * No image to show the face of the customer * No way to know if the reviews are verified * No user-generated content of customers using the product **How to fix it?**Ā Unfortunately, everyone must use a separate platform to create reviews. I personally likeĀ [Stamped.io](http://Stamped.io)Ā andĀ [Yotpo](https://www.yotpo.com/). They do everything you'd want and more! ![Buy now buttons](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/buynowbutton-1678201308894-compressed.jpg) ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Asking customers to buy too soon with Buy Now buttons** In my experience in eCommerce, certain types of friction are ingrained in most shoppers. Viewing a cart page or pop-up is how eCommerce sites work and what feels comfortable to most shoppers. When you try to force them to the checkout page it makes the customer feel uneasy about buying with you. Why is the website forcing me to buy? Why are they so eager to take my money? Are they going to steal my information? These are some of the questions that a shopper may go through when you implement the Buy Now buttons, but Shopify still uses this feature as a default and most brands keep it that way. **How to fix it?**Ā Use Shopify's customizer in the 'Themes' section of your Shopify admin to remove the Buy Now button from product pages. ![Quick shop](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/quickview-1678201335078-compressed.jpg) ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Default quick shop/quick buy** Unless you have a really huge product line, the Quick View functionality is most likely not for you. I haven't seen a great implementation of this on Shopify-based websites. If you have less than 20 products you should definitely remove this functionality immediately. The majority of your customers aren't using it. And if they are using it, they're not buying from it. If you do have a 20+ SKU brand, then be sure to A/B test the implementation of this functionality. **How to fix it?** Remove the quick view functionality in Shopify's theme customizer. Instead, try using 'Add to cart' functionality (this would be custom so be sure to ask your dev team to implement it). ![Mega menus](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/megamenu-1678201409486-compressed.png) ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Mega menus** Most brand owners don't know this, but super mega menus are not a great user experience. It stops the customer in their tracks and now you're making them think about what their next move should be. What you want is the shopper clicking and searching the site, not stopping and thinking. **How to fix it?**Ā Give customers only the top-level navigation (in the example above that would be hair styling, hair condition, system, and shampoo) and give them a robust filtering functionality on the collections page. This keeps the customer clicking and searching instead of stopping and thinking. BONUS: A new carousel system ---------------------------- As I was discussing the way homepage hero carousels are terrible for eCommerce websites, I thought about ways that a brand could actually utilize the carousel functionality in a more meaningful way. For context, here's my [LinkedIn post talking about the situation](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anthony-wallace-92dream_can-we-all-agree-that-sliders-at-the-top-activity-7019301266560315393-o063?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop). That gave me the following idea... A story-based hero carousel. The goal of every new brand is to tell a story that differentiates them from the pack. What if we used the carousel functionality to tell this story? Here are a few wireframes below to explain what I'm thinking... ![story based hero carousel idea for conversion](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/valuepropidea-1678201459901-compressed.jpg) I think it's super interesting and could be a way to get customers more interested in what you're selling as well as get them to understand the true value of your brand. This is an innovative way to bring more new customers into the fold. Also, I'm looking for brands to test this on. If you have a brand that is bringing in a ton of traffic each week (think 10k users per week) please give me a shout as I'd love to experiment on this with you ā¤ļø * * * When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. [Work directly with me personally](https://92dream.com/new-project)Ā to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. 2. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to further beef up your messaging. 3. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #010: How to run a remote user test effectively Author: Unknown Published: 2022-10-08 Tags: Qualitative Research, Conversion Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-010-how-to-run-a-remote-user-test-effectively-cl8z9ikgl79131kpq865fzuk2/ Hey šŸ‘‹šŸæ ā€“ Anthony here. Happy Saturday to all of my Stupid Simple eCommerce learners. If my content resonates with you, please share this email andĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to conduct a survey and the questions you need to ask. Today's issue takes about 5 minutes to read. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- You found out earlier this year that your conversion rates are dropping. You know a little CRO research (because of this email lol) and youā€™ve added HotJar to your website. While viewing some session recordings you notice that customers are dropping off at an incredible rate on the product page. You also notice that people are clicking on parts of the page that theyā€™re not supposed to click on. But why are they doing this? And how do you get them to stop? A remote user test would be great for this scenario. And without further adoā€¦ How to run a remote user test effectively -------------------------------------------- ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/image-1665194231985-compressed.png) Remote usability testing allows you to conduct user research with participants in their natural environment by using screen-sharing software or online remote usability vendor services.Ā  In general, tests should be about 15ā€“30 minutes long made up of about 3-5 tasks. When building out your test youā€™re going to want to include 3 things: The criteria for the test The scenario The tasks ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ First, before you get into any platform to start testing, youā€™re going to want to write out what tasks youā€™d like the customer to complete and the scenario. The scenario lets the tester know what frame of mind to be in while conducting the tasks. Hereā€™s an example of a scenario that weā€™ve used in the past: **_Scenario:_**Ā _You're looking for a bag for your next adventure and everyday use then you land on this site via Google search_. This is a great scenario because it shows the type of product the tester would be interested in. ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Next, youā€™re going to want to build out the criteria for your test.Ā  What type of testers do you want to take this test?Ā  For the testers, before they start the test theyā€™ll have to answer a question to make sure they got your criteria.Ā  Hereā€™s an example of a criteria: **_Criteria:_**Ā _Interested in purchasing multi-purpose backpacks_ Alright, we have the scenario and the criteriaā€¦ ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Next, itā€™s time to create the tasks that you want the tester to take on the website.Ā  This may seem like an easy task but thereā€™s some nuance to how you ask these questions.Ā  You donā€™t want to ask ā€œleadingā€ or ā€œloadedā€ questions.Ā  These types of questions will make the tester conduct your tasks with a lot of bias.Ā  We want to do our job to remove bias as much as possible (itā€™s never truly 100% non-biased answers smh).Ā  Hereā€™s an example of a loaded or leading questionā€¦ _Scroll down the page look at the 3rd section with the image of the boy and explain how you feel about this particular section_.Ā  Youā€™re pretty much directing that they should feel something about this section.Ā  If they donā€™t feel something then theyā€™re going to make something up, if they do feel something then theyā€™re probably going to embellish it because they KNOW that youā€™re expecting it.Ā  Instead, youā€™d want to create tasks that look like thisā€¦ _Find the ā€˜Featuredā€™ collections page and evaluate which backpack suits you the most. Choose the one you like more and add it to the cart._ With these types of tasks, the customer is in ā€œdiscovery modeā€. Theyā€™re hunting and looking for things and when something looks ā€œoffā€ then theyā€™re going to tell you (itā€™s their job).Ā  This is what you want from your tasks.Ā  Hereā€™s an example of a finished list of tasks plus a scenario and criteria that weā€™ve created recently for a client: **_Criteria:_**Ā _Interested in purchasing multi-purpose backpacks._ **_Scenario:_**Ā _You're looking for a backpack for adventure and everyday use then you land on this site via Google search._ **_Instruction:_**Ā _Kindly remember to speak out loud during the interview and mention anything that strikes you as odd or worrying. Thank you._ **_Tasks For Homepage_** _Task 1: What is this site about as far as you can tell? Why buy here and not some other site?_ _Task 2: Find the ā€˜Featuredā€™ collections page and evaluate which backpack suits you the most. Choose the one you like more and add it to the cart._Ā  _Task 3: What was the reason you chose this particular bag over the other?_ _Task 4: Find your way back to the ā€˜Featuredā€™ product list page and evaluate 2 accessories that you would like to add to your bag. Add both products to the cart._ _Task 5: What was the reason you chose those 2 accessories? Why did they resonate with you?_ _Task 6: Complete the checkout as far as possible (until you reach the credit card form). You may use made-up information to fill the form fields._ ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Next, we need to pick a platform to conduct these tests.Ā  There are a lot of great products likeĀ [Usertesting.com](http://Usertesting.com)Ā orĀ [Maze.co](http://Maze.co)Ā but I personally like to useĀ [TryMyUI.com](https://trymyui.com). It has everything that youā€™d ever need and itā€™s pretty inexpensive. Hereā€™s my trick: I buy the $399/mo plan with 10 tests, conduct the 10 tests, and after I get the results Iā€™ll remove the card so I donā€™t get hit with another $399. **_Here's another tip:_**Ā _Since there are 10 tests we split those tests up into 2. 5 for mobile testers and 5 for desktop testers. This way you're getting to see the site from the 2 devices that people use 99% of the time (no one ever uses tablets smh)._ We conduct remote user tests every 6 months so thereā€™s no need to pay monthly. All of these platforms are generally easy to set up, but if you have any problems feel free to reply to this email šŸ˜Š. ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Lastly, youā€™re going to want to take notes of EVERYTHING that these testers say. Create a document with each tester and their response along with your notes from each task that they take. This will help you understand what theyā€™re seeing and help you glean any insights from it. [Hereā€™s the document that we use at 92DREAM to take our notes](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L9EF6JPXsOLv9VhRThmZMuPr5loprdacJK63M0PYxgc/edit?usp=sharing). Aaaaand thatā€™s a wrap, folks! Hopefully, this will help you gather better research to improve the user experience of your website šŸ‘šŸæ * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: [Work directly with my team](https://92dream.com/new-project)Ā to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to further beef up your messaging. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #009: How to optimize your website with little traffic Author: Unknown Published: 2022-10-08 Tags: Qualitative Research, Conversion Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-009-how-to-optimize-your-website-with-little-traffic-cl8z9fhv977021kpqls4yyai4/ Hey šŸ‘‹šŸæ ā€“ Anthony here. Happy Saturday to all of my Stupid Simple eCommerce learners. If my content resonates with you, please share this email andĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to conduct a survey and the questions you need to ask. Today's issue takes about 5 minutes to read. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- You just spun up your new website, fresh from your design and development team. A few months go by and your start to realize that revenue isn't the same as it was when you started. A few more months go by and the revenue and conversions aren't auto-correcting themselves back to when you first started. When you first started, the numbers were great for a good 5 weeks. High conversions, customers are happy, and you gave your design and development team a raving review. But now 10 months later the site isn't performing like it used to. This is a scenario that a lot of brands go through in the beginning. I've talked to a bunch of companies at this stage of the game and then is when the real stress of owning an eCommerce DTC brand starts to come to life. Every day isn't the same. There are new fires to take care of, and the website starts to lag. What's worse is that because this is the beginning of the brand, there usually isn't a ton of traffic being run to the website. Definitely not enough to justify A/B testing with significant results. So what do you do? How does one optimize their website? My 3-part process to optimize your website with little to no traffic ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/image-1665194560175-compressed.png) ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ First, gather research to understand your customer and your problems better.Ā  This is key to anything you do with your online business. Before you start running ads, sending emails, or anything in between: you need to do some research. This is what most businesses do wrong. They think they know everything and they go all in with little to no research and expect big results. Growing a business isn't going to happen by running Facebook ads. That's just one part. To grow a real business you need people and processes. I can talk about this ad nauseam, but my point is: do the damn research lol. Things will go so much smoother when you're 10 months in. Here are some research approaches that can help you understand your customers better... **Customer interviews**Ā - This is a great way to understand your customers directly. In my opinion, there's no better research that you can get.Ā [We spoke about how to conduct customer interviews in a past email](https://blog.92dream.com/sse-001-how-to-conduct-customer-interviews-the-right-way-cl7ng8ytx1129521lliugismqpw). **Conduct a customer survey**Ā - If you have enough customers, a customer survey could be very insightful. It's another way to get amazing information about your customers and we love it for our voice-of-customer research. If you want toĀ [learn how to conduct a customer survey click here](https://blog.92dream.com/sse-006-how-to-conduct-a-customer-survey-analysis-cl7nib34t1160721llisokskhfs). **Remote user tests**Ā - To get a better understanding of how your customers are engaging with your website, you're going to want to run a remote user test. We love to useĀ [the service TryMyUI](https://www.trymyui.com)Ā because they're quick, reliable, and valuable. We'll be learning about how to conduct a remote user test in our next email! **Run HotJar on your website**Ā - If you want to know where people are clicking, scrolling, and generally using your website, then you're going to wantĀ [HotJar](https://www.hotjar.com/)Ā (or a HotJar equivalent app) installed. It's our go-to usability app and it integrates nicely with Google Analytics and Google Optimize. You canĀ [click here to read more about how to run HotJar on your website](https://blog.92dream.com/sse-003-how-to-use-hotjar-to-understand-customer-behavior-cl7nh9eap1143791lli4cwfeq76). **Customer Journey Map**Ā - This is how you can gather everyone on your team and talk about where the gaps lie in the user experience of the website. I would do this last after you've conducted all of your research. I talked aboutĀ [how to create a customer journey map](https://blog.92dream.com/sse-004-how-to-create-a-customer-journey-map-cl7nhm5sh1150961llin8ezfzan)Ā in a past email. ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Next, you're going to want to create a prioritization framework just like in SSE #008. Convert all of your learnings into tasks for your team, and prioritize each of those tasks based on theĀ [PXL framework by CXL](https://cxl.com/blog/better-way-prioritize-ab-tests/). ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Lastly, it's time to be like Nike and Just Do It. Everyone should be working through your prioritization list efficiently and diligently to get the work done. Because you've done all of the research you can confident that the changes you make will have a positive impact. While the team is in 'Nike' mode, it's best to pick a day to implement new code to the website, and to make annotations in your analytics app about the features that you've implemented. We like to do code updates on Tuesdays because if anything goes wrong we have 3 more days to make the fix before the weekend. Aaaand thatā€™s a wrap, folks! * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: [Work directly with my team](https://92dream.com/new-project)Ā to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to further beef up your messaging. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #008: How to copy your competition's website the right way Author: Unknown Published: 2022-10-08 Tags: Qualitative Research, Conversion Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-008-how-to-copy-your-competitions-website-the-right-way-cl8z8dvka72141kpq4oxzuqtu/ Hey šŸ‘‹šŸæ ā€“Ā Anthony here. Happy Saturday to all my Stupid Simple eCommerce learners. If my content resonates with you, please share this email and [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co) šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to conduct a survey and the questions you need to ask. Today's issue takes about 5 minutes to read. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- Your website has been live for over a year now. Your team has added every idea that they could think of to boost conversions and revenue, but nothing seems to be working. You keep looking at your nearest competitorsā€¦ Their website looks so buttoned up. Just look at the imagery, the way they use their words, and their style. Then you look back at your site and you see the cracks in your user experience. You know that you're close but the competition is BLOWING you away. Theyā€™re getting more magazine ads and even television commercials. They just seem to do everything right. So in a last-ditch effort, you decide to copy what your competition has on their website. But you know you canā€™t copy them verbatim, and the cost and time of a full redesign would be futile. But you want all of those bells & whistles. How do you do it? You A/B test all of the features that you want on the website. Thatā€™s how. This is a big problem in the design industry as a whole. Itā€™s something that Iā€™ve done as a UX/UI designer in the past before I started my CRO journey. You do some research on your competition and you take the things that you ā€œthinkā€ are working on the website and you use it for your website. Now you look just like the competition and it makes it even harder to differentiate yourself from the rest. What makes matters worse is that you donā€™t know the economic impact that these changes have on your bottom line. Sometimes we think ā€œhey if our much bigger competition is using it, then we MUST have itā€. Not knowing that the competition is spaghetti testing their website too. So you never want to copy anyone verbatim. You should do this insteadā€¦ My 3 part process for copying the competition ------------------------------------------------ ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/image-1665230452815-compressed.png) ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ First, you should create a SWOT analysis of yourself and 3 other companies. Conduct this analysis with 2 or more people so you get more than just 1 opinion. [If youā€™re looking for a great example of a SWOT analysis click here](https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/12/20/swot-analysis). Also, [here's a great framework for how to conduct an internal SWOT analysis](https://community.cxl.com/t/conduct-an-internal-swot-analysis/476). What you should do is look for the strengths and weaknesses of your business compared to yours. This will give you an accurate view of what is missing from your website and you can now ā€œstealā€ the strengths of your competitors. You will also know your competitor's weaknesses and youā€™ll have a better understanding of what not to include on your website. ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Next, create a prioritization framework that helps you understand what needs to be worked on first. The first things you should work on are the bigger changes. The bigger change, the bigger the risk, but also the bigger the payout. These big changes can help you change the trajectory of your website so youā€™re going to want to work on those first. I love to use [the PXL Prioritization framework by CXL](https://cxl.com/blog/better-way-prioritize-ab-tests/). Itā€™s very easy to use and itā€™s a great way to list and prioritize your work. ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Finally, A/B test everything. We like to use Google Optimize for most of our clients because itā€™s free and it connects to your Google Analytics account seamlessly. You may not be able to A/B test every single feature but you should be able to test most changes. If you donā€™t have a meaningful amount of traffic and conversions then you can just implement the new features and changes directly on the website. Youā€™re going to want to annotate your Google Analytics account with the features youā€™re implementing (you should be doing this even if you are A/B testing) and take note of the changes that happen after your change. We like to implement new features on Monday and give it the full 7 days to see if thereā€™s an immediate change. After 14-30 days you can either leave the feature alone or remove it if itā€™s not performing well. Hopefully, this will help you all with updating the user experience of your website. Hopefully, this stops you all from making simple mistakes on your website. If you find that you need help implementing any of this please feel free to reply to this email. Aaaand thatā€™s a wrap, folks! * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: [Work directly with my team](https://92dream.com/new-project) to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. Take my free [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co) to further beef up your messaging. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/) to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #007: What to do after a website redesign Author: Unknown Published: 2022-09-04 URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-007-what-to-do-after-a-website-redesign-cl7nihntd1164941lliqh994kcq/ If my content resonates with you, please share this article andĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to conduct a survey and the questions you need to ask. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- Your web team just finished designing your brand new website and it looks AMAZING! Itā€™s your dream website and on top of the good looks, your customers are even converting higher than the original design.Ā  šŸ‘šŸæšŸ‘šŸæšŸ‘šŸæ Great job... Now what? This is where a lot of eCommerce brands get stuck.Ā  Thereā€™s still a set-it-and-forget-it mentality that many people in this industry have and I'm here to clean it up šŸ§¹ Hereā€™s what to do after you redesign your website ------------------------------------------------- ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/image-1662307043695-compressed.png) ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ First,Ā [install HotJar](https://www.hotjar.com/)Ā onto your website. ā€‹ It's an inexpensive and powerful tool to gather data on what people are doing on your website. We spoke about [HotJar in this our 3rd episode of Stupid Simple eCommerce](https://blog.92dream.com/sse-003-how-to-use-hotjar-to-understand-customer-behavior-cl7nh9eap1143791lli4cwfeq76). Once HotJar is installed, create a website survey on your product page and ask customers if they feel like things are missing.Ā  I like adding these surveys to product pages because people have more intent to buy on these pages than on the homepage or collections pages.Ā  After 30 days of the website being live with HotJar installed you now have enough data to look at session recordings and heat maps. Start with heat maps and see where people are clicking and scrolling.Ā  If you see that people are not clicking or scrolling in an area that you want them to, confirm your findings by combing through a few session recordings.Ā  Remember to take copious amounts of notes about everything you see and bring that to your design and development team to fix.Ā  ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Next, within the first 30 days of your site being life you should conduct a minimum of 10 customer interviews.Ā  You want to ask them questions such as... * What was going on in your life that made you choose our website and product? * Did you have problems finding the information you were looking for? * If you found us on Google, which keywords did you use? Asking questions like this will help you understand what needs to change on your website, especially the messaging.Ā  Weā€™ve discussed Customer Interviews in earlier emails.Ā  [Click here to view it as there are swipe files with questions you can use in your interviews.](https://eocampaign1.com/web-version?p=54cca6bb-ff78-11ec-9258-0241b9615763&pt=campaign&t=1657371606&s=6e63f710d7d49e2debfc8f91209cb0052ae60ede6fa4e7e3b7b6f5aaa13f06e4)Ā  Again, take copious amounts of notes and review them with your team. ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Finally, conduct a remote user test on the new design.Ā  A remote user test is going to show you all of the bugs and confusion that a potential customer may go through.Ā  Remote user tests will give you access to insights that you can't get from interviews or heatmaps. It will show you how your customers tend to think when parsing through your website, and it will show where customers are potentially having problems. When done right, it's the best way to understand where the gaps lie in your new design. We're going to talk about remote user tests next week, but if you'd like to try it yourself I recommend usingĀ [TryMyUI](https://www.trymyui.com/). This is a much shorter email than my usual emails, but it will give you a start on how to understand what's going on with your website. What I'd like to see in the future is more brands actively putting more effort into seeing their website grow, instead of just building a new website and believing the website is fine. Aaaand thatā€™s a wrap folks. * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. [Work directly with my team](https://92dream.com/new-project) to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. 2. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to further beef up your messaging. 3. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #006: How to conduct a customer survey analysis Author: Unknown Published: 2022-09-04 Tags: Qualitative Research, Conversion Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-006-how-to-conduct-a-customer-survey-analysis-cl7nib34t1160721llisokskhfs/ If my content resonates with you, please share this article andĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to conduct a survey and the questions you need to ask. Today's issue takes about 6Ā minutes to read. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- Your website isnā€™t where itā€™s supposed to be as far as conversions go. So you decide to do some customer research to get further information about your customers and what they do. You find that conducting a survey is a must-have tool in your qualitative toolbox. And you'd be right. Customer surveys give you a ton of valuable information about your customers, the pains theyā€™re going through, and almost any other piece of information that you feel would be important to know. Quantitative info is going to tell you what, where, and how much. Which is great. But customer surveys (qualitative info) are going to give you the 'why'. This information can be vital to boosting conversions, revenue, repurchase rate, and honestly, any other metric that you're trying to improve. Be prepared to have your socks blown off. ![](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1660394418597-15332e44-07ec-4785-9cf5-34dddd046b81_text.gif) My stupid simple process for conducting a customer survey analysis --------------------------------------------------------------------- ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/image-1662307308679-compressed.png) ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ First, to get started, you're going to need to understand what questions you'd like to ask your customers. To make this stupid simple for you I'm going to give you the template of questions that I like to use for most of my projects. This is just a template and you should make changes based on your target audience. Also, these questions are more geared towards traditional eCommerce. If you're in B2C or Saas you're going to want to switch up these questions a bit. Here are the questions that I like to use for my surveys... 1. How did you first hear about Company X? 1. A friend told me about it 2. Google Search 3. Heard it suggested in a comment/forum 4. I saw an ad and clicked it 5. Other 3. What is ONE problem that you think Company X eliminates or lessens for you? 4. What is ONE benefit that Company X gave you and you value the most? 5. What 3 adjectives would you use to describe Company X 6. How many brands did you look at before buying from us? Which ones? 7. What made you choose our site? 8. How did you choose which products to buy? What matters to you? 9. What kind of doubts and hesitations did you have before completing this purchase? 10. What questions did you have that you couldn't find answers to? 11. What was the hardest part about finding the right product to buy on our site? 12. What's the #1 thing you'd mention to a friend if you wanted to convince them to give us a try? These 11 questions will give you a tremendous amount of information about your customers. You'll know the pains they went through, the benefits your products give, your competitors, and the words they use to describe your business/product. Great stuff! ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Now that you have your questions, you're going to want to put these questions into a form for your customers to fill out. At 92DREAM we like to useĀ [Typeform](https://typeform.grsm.io/59ndvl85chiv)Ā because of its beautiful aesthetic and user experience. But you can also use Survey Monkey, Google Forms, or any other form platform that best suits you. ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Next, you're going to need a way to reach out to your customers to get them to fill out this survey. Most eCommerce businesses are using Klaviyo for email, but you can use whichever email platform you're already using for marketing. To get people to fill out these 11 questions, you're going to want to incentivize them. If you just send this email out without giving something to your customer then you will find that it's really hard to get enough people to fill out your form, and it'll be hard to get the right information. To make this stupid simple for you I've created a template that you can use to send to your customers. [Click here to check that out](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eYtoz4N1Hvp2o8biezUn_W55dG3vFmoNhMBiCBISBMI/edit?usp=sharing). This is the same email template that 92DREAM uses for customer surveys. As a first batch, I like to try and find a pool of customers with the following segmentation (using Klaviyo or whichever email platform you're using)... * 500-1,000 customers * Customers that recently bought within the last 30-90 days. If you have to go past 90 days, then it's going to be hard for the customer to give you accurate information about why they bought and the real pain they went through before purchasing. We try to look for 300-500 responses. We find that amount gives us enough of a sample size to glean real user insights... I like to start by sending the email to 1,000 customers and from there we'll send another 500 to try and get to the number of responses that we're looking for. If you can't make it to 300, I still feel that it's ok. You can still find great information in that survey. You'll just have to understand that you don't have enough of a sample size to be 100% confident with your results. ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ Last, it's time to look through all of that data. In Typeform and Google Forms, you can export your results to a Google Sheet. This is ideal because once you're done you can easily share the results with the rest of your team instead of sending a downloaded CSV. Now, traversing through all of this data can be cumbersome but once you're into it, it becomes really easy. What you're going to do is go through each response and find the patterns. I want to stress the importance of reading each response because if you start to skip just 1, you run the risk of losing valuable information. Don't be lazy! The patterns will help you understand what 80% of your customers are thinking and feeling (think of the 80/20 rule here). Going through this information is usually mind-blowing for everyone involved as it shows information that you have never seen or heard of before. To make this step stupid simple for you I already have a video where I go through the process of how to find these patterns. In this video, I'm talking about review mining (which was episode #002 of our Stupid Simple eCommerce newsletter), but if you fast forward to 2:05 you'll find the section where I talk about how to find the patterns. [Click here to view the video (fast forward to 2:05).](https://seller.alibaba.com/buildup/how_to_use_your_customer_voice_to_boost_ecommerce_conversions?spm=a27aq.25753022.0.0.KPRF2r) At the time of writing this email, it is now August 2022. This is the perfect time to start to understand your customers better as Q4 is approaching fast. You're going to want to have this research part done so that you can be prepared for the big sales months of November and December. Aaaaand that's a wrap folks! * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. [Work directly with my team](https://92dream.com/new-project) to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. 2. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to learn how to mine reviews and further beef up your messaging. 3. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #005: The foundation of an eCommerce website Author: Unknown Published: 2022-09-04 Tags: Qualitative Research, Conversion Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-005-the-foundation-of-an-ecommerce-website-cl7nhvucd1153741lli9vzyvzt4/ If my content resonates with you, please share this article andĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to create the foundation of a conversion-optimized eCommerce website. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- Alright, so you're about to spin up a brand new website for your new dog treat product. You've hired a junior web designer and developer to build this out. They know how to build a website but haven't had enough experience to know what to add to your website. Where do you start? What features do you need for this website? What is going to be the messaging? I'm going to cover all of that and more below. Follow along as I list (in no particular order) the elements and features necessary to create a conversion-optimized website. > __WARNING: Understand that these are just my suggestions from 10 years of being in eCommerce. There's no guarantee that your customers are 100% going to convert at a high rate if you use all of my suggestions. Please A/B test when necessary.__ Now that we have that out the way, let's get to it šŸ‘‡šŸæ Here's my process for creating the foundation of an eCommerce website --------------------------------------------------------------------- ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/sse005-blog-img-1662306303553-compressed.jpg) ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Messaging / Value Proposition** The very first thing that I would create is the messaging for the website. Specifically, my headline, supporting text, and call-to-action. I love to use the reviews of my competitor's customers to craft a great headline that I know will resonate with most of my audience. If you're looking for ways to create your value proposition, I have an entireĀ [tutorial on how to do that from our second email](https://eocampaign1.com/web-version?p=7890525e-04f4-11ed-9258-0241b9615763&pt=campaign&t=1657976446&s=a078ac3e37fa3c9a62523d1ad7b486e34ade0e99e743a48e26ad8bd9da481de9). ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Micro Conversions** These are the pieces of value that you offer to your customers that helps embed trust with your brand. Micro conversions aren't big factors in helping with conversions, but they do stick with your customer and this can add to the motivation for them to buy from you. To start you can use micro-conversions such as... * Free Shipping * 5-year warranty * Save with auto-ship I like to add micro-conversion right below the 'Shop Now' button in my value proposition as well as right below the 'Add to cart' button on the product page. ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæCross Sell & Post Purchase Upsell** Amazon has perfected the cross-sell game and it's for a good reason. It just works! Here's a great example of an upsell from the brand Lora DiCarlo... ![](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1659787956952-lora-dicarlo-pairs-with.png) You're going to want to implement this right below the Add To Cart button on your product page. Post-purchase upsells work fantastically as well. It's a great way to get more money from your customers on the back-end of their purchase. This works well when you have a few key products that most people buy as you can easily upsell them on the other products that enhance that product. I like to useĀ [the app Reconvert](https://www.reconvert.io/)Ā if you're on the Shopify platform. ### šŸ‘‰šŸæ **Cart Popup** I almost didn't put this one on the list, because it's not always necessary. Sometimes it's better to forward people to the cart page rather than having a cart pop up. But I've done plenty of A/B tests where the cart pop-up won tremendously when implemented correctly. To implement a cart popup you should have the following... * A rewards system is placed at the top. For example, "Add $10 more and get a free doggy bone!" * Big and clear product imagery and clear pricing * Only a checkout button and a continue shopping button. The checkout button should direct to the checkout and not the cart page. * Upsell app with add-to-cart buttons that automatically adds the product to the cart instantly I've implemented a cart pop-up like this a ton of times and it's worked tremendously well in most cases. If you're on Shopify I've usedĀ [this Sticky Cart app](https://apps.shopify.com/swatches-popup-cart)Ā tons of times, and it always works beautifully. [The brand Kettle & Fire](https://www.kettleandfire.com/)Ā has an amazing example of a beautifully implemented cart popup. You should try and mimic what they're doing especially if you're in the consumables space. ### šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ **Top Products on the Homepage** This is something that is featured on almost every single eCommerce website and it's because it just works. On the homepage, you want to tell a story, and the story can't be told without showing the products. It's best to include your top products as close to the top of the page as possible. I like to include it right below the hero image (but usually I'll have reviews in between both the hero image and top products...more on that below). Be sure to give your top products a great headline too. "A few of our favorites" works a lot better than "Best Sellers". ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ High-Resolution Imagery** I think this should go without saying, but because imagery plays a major part in conversion in eCommerce I have to make sure that it's pointed out. Don't use stock photography if you can. Customers can smell that a mile away. You want to have great lifestyle imagery no matter what type of product you're selling. What does your product look like in the wild? How is it used best? Try to answer these questions using a model facing the camera and smiling. For your product pictures, you're going to want these to be so detailed that it looks like you can pick them up off of the screen. Go look at the products on Louis Vuitton or Gucci's website. They take very care of the photo density of their products, and they look magnificent because of it. Great imagery also helps with trust and most definitely motivation for the customer to buy. ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Frequently Asked Questions or FAQ** It's hard to figure out the right questions that customers are asking, but to figure out how to build a proper FAQ you're going to need to do some research and have a lot of empathy. I would first start with theĀ [competitor review mining](https://eocampaign1.com/web-version?p=7890525e-04f4-11ed-9258-0241b9615763&pt=campaign&t=1657976446&s=a078ac3e37fa3c9a62523d1ad7b486e34ade0e99e743a48e26ad8bd9da481de9)Ā as we discussed earlier. That's going to give you a lot of insight into what your customer is looking for when purchasing your product. Next, I would close my eyes and try to become your customer persona. What do they do when they wake up and go every morning? What type of food do they eat? What type of games do they like to play? I mean try to become your target customer. Then go through your website and try to figure out what types of questions your customers would have as they browse. You probably already have a few in mind, but I would take the time to conduct these 2 exercises to figure them out. ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Reviews & Other UGC** Reviews are like gold for eCommerce websites when implemented correctly. It's also one of the most abused forms of content on eCommerce websites, especially because most only show 4 or 5-star reviews. When it comes to reviews you want to be like Amazon. Show the 1 through 5-star reviews. Show everything! If it's a damaging review, then I would suggest removing it, but you want to make sure that your site looks real. Do not imitate brands likeĀ [Fashion Nova and have to fork up $4.2 million](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/01/fashion-nova-will-pay-42-million-part-settlement-ftc-allegations-it-blocked-negative-reviews)Ā because you didn't pay attention to how you collect reviews. Also, don't place your reviews at the bottom of your homepage. This is what you want people to see right away, and I like to place reviews right below the hero image and right above my top products. You're going to want review stars next to every product on the collections page (if clicked, they should link directly to the reviews section of the product page). And you're going to want review stars at the top of your product pages. Do try to place UGC content from your social media sites on your homepage and product pages. This adds an extra layer of trust and engagement to the site, especially when used on the product page. I like shoppable UGC as well. Meaning the customer can click and view the image as well as add the product to their cart from that screen. It's a beautiful thing when done right. ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Engaging email popup w/ SMS** Email popups are another abused form of content on eCommerce websites. Nowadays the second you reach a website you're hit with a popup immediately. This is bad news, as most of the people that will sign up will only want to sign up for the discount or to just remove the pop-up (I've seen this happen in remote user tests a million times). This means that you will have disengaged subscribers and your open rates will be a mess. Instead, show your pop-up to customers when they're engaged with your website. Either as they scrolled down the page, or clicked into another page. Make it intent-focused. Also, please be sure to use a great headline here. "Never miss another sale" works a lot better than "Get 10% off your first purchase". ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Add to cart button on collection products** So this is a missed opportunity with most websites. If you have over 10 products then you should include an add-to-cart button on your collections page products that adds that particular product to the cart instantly. This helps customers that have been on the website before and know what they want. This is important for consumable products because they tend to get a lot of repeat customers. This is also something that I would consider A/B testing to be sure it's the right thing to do, but I would still implement it right away as most times it's the right decision. ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Live Chat** Some companies are short-staffed and don't want to deal with the problems that come with implementing live chat. I get it. Customer service can take away from doing other tasks that are important to the business. But in my eyes, there isn't anything more important than your customers. You want to make sure that you put them first at all times, and if they're confused you want to be there to help. I would suggest keeping the live chat feature on for 2-4 hours a day in the beginning until you can hire someone to take over. The reason I love a live chat so much is that it's a great way to get right in front of your customer as they're browsing your website. You can get soooo much information from them about why they're there and what problems they're going through. It can help you make more sales as well as help with your messaging as your actively doing voice-of-customer research. Live chat can be powerful when implemented and used correctly. ### **šŸ‘‰šŸæ Save for later** This can be a game changer especially if you're in the consumables business or if you have high-priced items. But every site should implement some form of this feature. Right now, there's a trend that marketers are starting to realize and they're calling it "carting". It's where customers add items to their cart and leave it there only to come back later to purchase. Whatever you want to call it, it's been happening for years (I know because my wife is a professional at this game lol). Amazon has only added fuel to that fire by adding the 'Save for later feature which I think works phenomenally well. To add this feature to your site, I've usedĀ [this app on Shopify](https://apps.shopify.com/cartoo)Ā and it works well. Here'sĀ [an app that works well with BigCommerce](https://www.bigcommerce.com/apps/wishlist-plus/)Ā too. If you need help implementing any of the features that I spoke about above or if you have questions, please feel free to reply to this email šŸ˜Š Boom! That's all folks. * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. [Work directly with my team](https://92dream.com/new-project)Ā to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. 2. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to further beef up your headlines and messaging. 3. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #004: How to create a customer journey map Author: Unknown Published: 2022-09-04 Tags: Qualitative Research, Conversion Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-004-how-to-create-a-customer-journey-map-cl7nhm5sh1150961llin8ezfzan/ If my content resonates with you, please share this article andĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to create a customer journey map for all of your research. Today's issue takes about 6 minutes to read. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- You've done all of your research and you're ecstatic about how your colleagues will perceive your work and, most importantly, perceive you. You put all of your research in a beautiful PDF and you bring everyone together to go over it. Great meeting. Everyone seemed happy, but afterward, no one ever looks at that PDF again. It becomes a relic. The reason is that no one had any say in the information that was gathered. They weren't a part of the process. This is where a Customer Journey Map should come into play. A customer journey map is a visual display of the journey that a customer goes through when they experience your website and product. It ties in all of the research that you've been doing AND it's a great way to get buy-in from everyone involved with the website. Ready to learn how to put one together? Let's go... How to build a customer journey map ----------------------------------- ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/image-1662305647395-compressed.png) ### **1) You need to build a customer persona first** To build a great journey map, first, you need to build a customer persona. A customer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on customer research. So what you're going to do is put together a great customer persona with the following information: * Name * Image * Location * Quote * Bio * Behaviors * Goals * Pain Points * Myers Briggs Personality Trait * Motivations * Brands the customer use When researching to gather this information, you're going to ask the customer a lot of questions about their personal life. As well as their technical background, employment, and professional questions. šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ [Here's a video that explains customer personas in greater detail](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u44pBnAn7cM&list=PLm5WBgyM8HvA7Qd4BW4j57UIljMfjfg1d&index=2) šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ [Here's a customer persona template from Smaply](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qq0U3FBQdURJQsMUGy94dUdWHcj03_cv/view?usp=sharing) ### **2) Customer Journey Map Workshop** To build your Customer Journey Map you'll need to workshop the map with all of the key people that are helping build, maintain and grow the website. The people that should be present in this meeting are: * The founder or Director * Marketing team * Customer service team * Product team * Anyone else that you feel should be there The workshop usually lasts a long while. You're probably going to want to break it up into two 2-hour sprints. Some groups can do one 4-hour sprint, but you should gauge your team to see what works best for the group. Before the meeting starts you should prepare the following... 1. Identify the primary persona that you're going to use 2. Have a whiteboard ready. If you're going to be digital I like toĀ [use Miro to conduct the meeting](https://miro.com/) 3. Make sure everyone has Post-its and writing utensils if you're doing this in person. 4. Create a grid on the whiteboard with the customer stages going across and the different lanes going down (we're going to touch more on these topics below). At the top of this grid, you will list the customer stages. For eCommerce I like to use: Awareness/Offline | Search | Comparison | Buying | Delivery | Post Purchase These are usually the stages that eCommerce customers go through, but please use your research to get this right. When your finished creating your stages stop and ask yourself: * Is the beginning really the beginning? * Is the end really the end? * Did I miss anything in the middle? Having everyone workshop this with you will help and make sure that nothing is missing here. Below the stages, you will have different lanes. The lanes give us information on what the customer is going through at that particular stage. Here's an example of the lanes that I like to use for eCommerce: * Pains * Storyboard images * Touchpoints * Channels * Feeling * Data * Research * Customer thoughts * Risks Now that you have your stages and lanes set up, you and your team can now start to fill in the blanks. Everyone will put their ideas and notes on the grid with the Post-it and now this becomes a collaborative project. Remember, you're always going to want to look at every one of these stages and lanes from the lens of your customer. NOT the business. This workshop is all about empathy for your customer and trying to understand what they're going through. When I start this exercise I ask everyone to read the persona, close their eyes and try to imagine living the life of that persona. Once you've meditated on that persona for 3-5 minutes, open your eyes and start digging in. It helps to get everyone on the same page. šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ [Here's a video that explains customer journey maps in greater detail](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7iXcP-wIkk&list=PLm5WBgyM8HvA7Qd4BW4j57UIljMfjfg1d&index=3) šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ [Here's a template of a customer journey map from Smaply](https://drive.google.com/file/d/19MEuLPSNPs91XIsen6mc1phy0fSFkikJ/view?usp=sharing) **3) How to use this information** After the workshop is over it's best to take pictures and recreate the map in a PDF-friendly format. If you don't refer back to the customer journey map on a weekly or monthly basis then it just becomes useless. So I like to update this every month of every quarter depending on the client and what we're focusing on. It's good to update your customer persona every year as you don't want those to become stale over time. Have every team in the business have a printed copy posted on their wall close by so everyone understands what the customer is going through. Even the accounting team should have a copy posted up. And that's a wrap, folks! * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. [Work directly with my team](https://92dream.com/new-project)Ā to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. 2. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to further beef up your messaging. 3. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #003: How to use HotJar to understand customer behavior Author: Unknown Published: 2022-09-04 Tags: Qualitative Research, Conversion Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-003-how-to-use-hotjar-to-understand-customer-behavior-cl7nh9eap1143791lli4cwfeq76/ If my content resonates with you, please share this article andĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to use HotJar to understand your customer's behavior. Today's issue takes about 7 minutes to read. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- You've finally spun up your brand-new website, and now you're ready to start collecting data on your traffic. To collect data, of course, you're going to add your analytics platform of choice. For most people that will be Google Analytics. Google Analytics is great for collecting metrics (Average time on site, bounce rate, revenue, etc). This is called quantitative data. But there's often another platform that gets overlooked for data collection. And that's HotJar, which is a qualitative tool. An easy way to define qualitative data is this is: the "human side" of data collection. Most of what you'll be learning with me at Stupid Simple eCommerce is qualitative research because it's the data to speaks most to what your customers are going through. And to me, that is what is most important. HotJar is one of the most important tools that you can use to gain qualitative data insights. With HotJar you can determine if your customers are: * Reaching the important content of your website * Using and able to find the right buttons or links throughout your website * Experiencing friction from bugs or crappy user experience It's a pretty awesome tool that has gotten better over time. One thing to note is that HotJar is a 'What' tool. It will not tell you why something is happening on your website but instead will tell you what is happening and where it's happening. It's important to understand this because you don't want to use HotJar with the thought that you're going to understand why customers are behaving the way they do on your website. So before we get started, please do me a favor andĀ [sign up for HotJar](https://www.hotjar.com/?utm_source=92DREAM+LLC&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=agency-partner)Ā and install it on your website. Once installed, be sure that Session Capture is enabled in your websites settings If you need help please reply to this email and I'll do my best to help you get HotJar installed. We're going to go over 3 different tools that HotJar offers and ways you can use them to collect amazing data on your customers. Let's get right to it... Here's my explanation of the tools I like to use in HotJar ---------------------------------------------------------- ### **Tool #1 - Heatmaps** We've all heard of heatmaps, but seriously, what do you do with them? And why are they so important? Let me help answer these questions for you... First, a heatmap is going to help you understand what your customers are doing on your website. There are 3 different types of heatmaps that HotJar offers: 1. Click maps - this is going to show you where people are clicking 2. Move map - this shows where people's mouse is hovering (this is one of the most unused tools for me as it doesn't show a lot of value) 3. Scroll map - this shows where people are scrolling on the page and how far they're scrolling Here's a great example of all 3 (click map on the left, move map in the middle, and scroll map to the right) ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1658579546683-heatmap.png](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1658579546683-heatmap.png) You're going to want to answer the following questions when looking through your heatmap data: 1. Are they clicking on the most important links/buttons? 2. Are they clicking on things that aren't clickable? 3. Are they seeing the important information that I have on this page? 4. Are they scrolling down to the bottom of the page? This is why heatmaps (and HotJar as a whole) are so damn important. They give you the data necessary to make informed decisions on the design and functionality of your website. Now HotJar has a great feature called continuous maps. This means that HotJar will continuously collect heatmap data (and other data) on your website. This is a great feature because it means that you won't miss any of the big problems that can happen suddenly on your website. Picture this: your dev team created a brand new homepage for your website, but people are now converting less because of the website. Most people would just remove the new design and put the old one back, but you just spent a ton of time and money on the website. You don't want to do remove that new design so hastily. With continuous heatmaps, you'll be able to check what people were clicking on and where they're scrolling at the exact time that you updated the website with the new design. It's a great feature and one of the reasons why you want 'Session Capture' enabled. ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1658579469479-session_capture.png](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1658579469479-session_capture.png) Now there are 3 things you want to avoid when looking through your heatmaps... 1. Be sure that you have enough data - DO NOT look through your HotJar data unless you have a big enough dataset to make an informed decision. Usually, this means you want around 1,000 views before you start to determine what you want to do with your website 2. Using heatmaps by themselves to make design decisions - is another no-no. Heatmaps are a great tool, but you want to use more research and more data to prove the heatmap data is accurate (session replays are great for this. You're going to learn about that next). 3. Using move maps in your data. I'm still not sure who uses a move map, or why you would want to, but for 98% of cases, you won't have much value using the move map feature. ### **Tool #2 - Session Replays** Session replays are a badass tool that many people could view as "sketchy" because you're going to look at how people are using your website. Sketchiness aside, this tool as a business owner is extremely valuable. Here are a few reasons why you'll want to use Session Replays... * You can see friction on your website right away * Once you see the friction for one person, you can check if others are experiencing the same friction * You can confirm the data that you're seeing in your heatmaps * You can confirm problems that are coming from customer service issues Session replays are a very powerful tool, and I love to use them as my confirmation tool. I can confirm any piece of data or issues that I receive from customer service, the marketing team, or the founder and show in detail how customers are behaving on the website. It's great when you can go back to your boss/client and say here is an example of a customer performing an action that we don't want them to take. There are no more rebuttals or disputes after that. You just have to fix it. While session replays give you a lot of information, there are some things that a session replay can't capture for legal and privacy reasons... 1. Live video chats 2. Streaming sessions 3. Users filling out forms or typing 4. Users recording their screens 5. Any sensitive or private data such as emails or credit cards Once you've turned on the Session Capture setting in Hotjar you'll start recording sessions right away. ### **Tool #3 - Survey Polls** I love survey polls so much because they give you data right from the customer's mouth. This is another great tool to find the voice of your customer, and use that messaging for your audience. > _FYI: We spoke about the voice-of-customer in SSE #002._Ā [Go check that out to understand more about conducting the proper research and use it for your value proposition](https://blog.92dream.com/sse-002-how-to-create-a-value-proposition-review-mining-training-cl7ngzkz51139171lli41uw3k2e/) It's a pretty simple setup that can generate meaningful insights from your visitors. Here's an example of what the survey poll looks like... ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1658579579248-session-poll-1.png](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1658579579248-session-poll-1.png) You can also create a survey poll that asks simple questions like this one... ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1658579604908-session-poll-2.png](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1658579604908-session-poll-2.png) There are a few reasons why you would want to include a survey poll on your website: 1. Understand how the customer heard about your business 2. Understand why the customer isn't buying 3. Understand what is missing on a certain page 4. Understand why a customer is bouncing off of a page 5. Understand if you have the right price for your product or service There are so many other reasons why you would want to add one, but these points above are some of the fundamental reasons. Now, when implementing your survey poll you're going to want to make sure that you have it triggered on the right page at the right time. Some great places to add a survey poll are... * Homepage * Product page * Service page * Check out page * Right before the customer leaves (this is called 'exit intent') You have to use your intuition and the data that you've collected previously to understand when and where to use a Hotjar poll. If you ever have any questions you can always shoot me an email atĀ [hello@92dream.com](mailto:anthony@92dream.com)Ā and I'll do my best to help out. Now let's talk about my simple process for analyzing this data. Here's my stupid simple process for understanding customer behavior using HotJar -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For heatmaps and session replays, the process of analyzing the data is very simple... 1. Collect the data. You're going to want more than 1,000 users in your dataset 2. Grab a pen and paper or use a notepad app 3. Be sure to look at both mobile and desktop data 4. Write down every 'interesting' point that you see while going through the data An interesting point could be something like "Customers are clicking on the 'About Us' page a lot on the homepage and collections pages. This could mean that they want more information about the story of the brand". Now from those insights, you can compare it to the rest of your research and data to come up with an amazing hypothesis to test. Awesome! For survey polls, it takes a little bit more time to unpack that data. šŸ‘‰šŸæ First, you'll still need 200-1,000 answers in your dataset before analyzing. I say 200 for smaller sites, but you want to be over 500 (the more the merrier). šŸ‘‰šŸæ Second, you're going to want to download all of your data into a CSV and open it up in Google Sheets, Numbers, or Excel. šŸ‘‰šŸæ Third, take a look atĀ [this video that I created about review mining](https://youtu.be/Iu4_9wP2PJs?t=125)Ā and use the same process for your survey poll data. Use thisĀ [Google sheet as a template](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BVLRhwz6G9uk3yIgVH9W7cEOyGnqKnXueX3nydRtKmM/edit?usp=sharing)Ā for compiling that data. You're going to go through every answer and find the patterns. Once you've found the patterns then you can add up which patterns show up the most. This will give you great insight into what people are looking for based on the question(s) you asked them. And that's a wrap, folks! * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. [Work directly with my team](https://92dream.com/new-project)Ā to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. 2. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to further beef up your messaging. 3. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #002: How to create a value proposition + review mining training Author: Unknown Published: 2022-09-04 Tags: Qualitative Research, Conversion Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-002-how-to-create-a-value-proposition-review-mining-training-cl7ngzkz51139171lli41uw3k2e/ If my content resonates with you, please share this article andĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to create a meaningful value proposition that converts. Today's issue takes aboutĀ 5 minutes to read. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- Ok, so imagine you've done some amazing research on your website. In this amazing research, your remote user test analysis shows that customers don't understand what you're selling when they first reach your website (we're going to learn about remote user tests in a future lesson). You can confirm this by looking at the low conversion percentage for new customers in Google Analytics. How do you fix this? Value props...that's how. The value proposition is usually placed in the "hero section" of your website. This is where your main image and headline live on your homepage. The blog ConversionXL (or CXL if you're fancy), has a great definition of what a value proposition is: "In a nutshell, a value proposition is a clear statement that offers three things: Relevancy, Value & Differentiation." Differentiation is šŸ”‘ It sets you apart from the competition and gives you the upper hand right away. To create a badass value proposition you're going to need the following elements: 1. A compelling headline. This draws the customer in and makes the customer feel at home right away. 2. Supporting text.Ā This should further tie into the headline above it. 3. Call-to-action button.Ā This button should be bold and contrast with any other color on the page. 4. A compelling image.Ā Depending on what you're selling, you're either going to want a great lifestyle photo here or a lifestyle product photo. 5. Micro-conversions.Ā These short bits of text help build trust and motivation with the customer. Here's an example of a value proposition that my team worked on recently with our client Controlled Chaos Hair... ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657969186072-image.png](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657969186072-image.png) Now wouldn't it be great to be able to put one of these together? Here's my stupid simple process for creating a value proposition ---------------------------------------------------------------- A good value proposition needs research. You wouldn't go to your dentist and tell her to start pulling teeth out. No. You'd be a civilized person and have that dentist do a thorough checkup before making recommendations. That's exactly what we're going to do here. Creating a value proposition from start to finish is going to take 5-10 business days. Although I've made doing this research simple. It still takes work. What's awesome, is that you're getting all of this game for 100% free. It's a great way to get started with research right now. Today. Here's how you get started... šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ [First, you're going to want to go through SSE #001: How to conduct a customer interview](https://eocampaign1.com/web-version?p=54cca6bb-ff78-11ec-9258-0241b9615763&pt=campaign&t=1657371606&s=6e63f710d7d49e2debfc8f91209cb0052ae60ede6fa4e7e3b7b6f5aaa13f06e4). Customer interviews are going to give you direct feedback from your customer. There's no better way to get this data and it's a great way to start doing research. šŸ‘‰šŸæĀ [Second, take my 3-day conversion breakthrough challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co). Once you sign up you'll receive a series of emails that will take you through understanding how to mine reviews. The challenge will also show you how to create a value proposition with the information that you've found. šŸ‘‰šŸæ Third, use the information from customer interviews and review mining to create the most badass value proposition the world has ever seen! ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657969204550-Image+20220716+061211.jpeg](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657969204550-Image+20220716+061211.jpeg) Youā€™re probably not gonna take over the world, but you will come close. Now your website will be the one that people are copying from. Your competitors will start to copy you and will never do it better because you have the gold...research. Here are some examples to give you inspiration ---------------------------------------------- When you look through these examples call out to yourself where the value proposition elements are. Pay special attention to their headlines. Ask yourself questions likeā€¦ ā€œWhy would they use that language here?ā€ ā€œWould this resonate with me if I was a customer?ā€ ā€œDoes the image suck you in?ā€ Is the call to action button nice and contrasty?ā€ Yeah, I just made up the word 'contrasty' but you can catch my drift. Here are the examplesā€¦ ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657968654691-image01.png](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657968654691-image01.png) ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657968684638-image02.png](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657968684638-image02.png) ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657968733021-image04.png](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657968733021-image04.png) ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657968714899-image03.png](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657968714899-image03.png) ![ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657968614630-image05.png](https://gallery.eocampaign1.com/ed3566e7-fd5e-11ec-9258-0241b9615763%2F1657968614630-image05.png) Please remember that itā€™s always best to use a designer and developer to put this together for you. In theĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā challenge, I put together a value proposition without a designer or developer because I want you to be able to do this no matter the circumstances. But a designer and developer are the way to go. If youā€™re looking for a team that can do this cheaply see the links below šŸ‘‡šŸæ [Full Stack HQ](https://fullstackhq.com/)Ā - This is a great development and design team based out in the Philippines. Iā€™ve personally used them. [FreeUp](https://freeup.net/blog/business-tips/shopify-web-developer-rates/)Ā - You can find both developers and designers here. Iā€™ve personally used their platform as well. I hope that this newsletter helps you conduct the research to really understand your customers better and create a better user experience for your customers or your client's customers. Aaaaand thatā€™s a wrap, folks. * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. [Work directly with my team](https://92dream.com/new-project)Ā to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. 2. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to further beef up your messaging. 3. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. --- ## SSE #001: How to conduct customer interviews the right way Author: Unknown Published: 2022-09-04 Tags: Qualitative Research, Conversion Research URL: https://blog.92dream.com/sse-001-how-to-conduct-customer-interviews-the-right-way-cl7ng8ytx1129521lliugismqpw/ If my content resonates with you, please share this article andĀ [send this link for folks to join](https://92dream.carrd.co)Ā šŸ˜Š. Here's one tip on how to enhance the customer experience of your website. * * * Peep the scenario ----------------- Ok, so a customer asks you for information that is clearly on the website. "Why didn't they see that information that we added to the site?" you ask yourself. This is a scenario that I'm sure many of you have gone through, or something similar. And if you haven't, the information below will ensure you never will. When customers are confused about or can't find information on your website, then you have a messaging problem. It could be that you have the information in front of the customer, but the customer isn't reading it because... 1. The information is very vague or... 2. The information is too long and hard to read or... 3. The information is too generic and sounds like everyone else. There are a lot of other reasons why your messaging isn't resonating with your customers, but those 3 are the most common in my experience when I work with eCommerce brands. The best way to combat those messaging issues is to conduct customer interviews. Customer interviews are great for... 1. Creating badass headlines that grab your audience's attention right away. 2. Improving click through rates, ROAS (return on ad spend), CAC (customer acquisition cost), conversion rates, and eventually revenue. 3. Accelerating your customers through your eCommerce funnel faster. Here's my stupid simple process for conducting customer interviews ------------------------------------------------------------------ ![](https://prod.superblogcdn.com/site_cuid_cl6f5ua7681451kry9durw1pg/images/image-1662303687679-compressed.png) šŸ‘‰šŸæ Ā First, you need to define a goal. Since we're looking at these interviews from a messaging perspective I like to use the PAS formula (Pain, Agitation, Solution). Specifically, you're going to look for... 1. What pain or problem did they have before visiting the website? 2. How that pain is agitating AF. 3. How your solution is solving it for them? šŸ‘‰šŸæ Ā Second, you're going to need people to talk to.Ā  Find 20 of your most VIP customers, email them an incentive and request to schedule a call with you to ask them questions. An incentive can be a $20 discount off their next purchase or a $20 gift card to Amazon.Ā  Your VIP customers will be able to give you the most detail about why they're excited about your product and the way your products change their life or make their life different, etc. šŸ‘‰šŸæ Ā Third,Ā [use this swipe file as a template](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n3IvvzPuUr8mSnS7bU6H5vIC0LDYvlMT8pdqIFJhQs8/edit?usp=sharing)Ā for your email. This is the same template that we use to send to our client's VIP customers. In it, you will offer either a $25 company card or an Amazon, Starbucks, etc gift card worth $25. You will also need to set up a 30-minute Calendly (or whichever calendar software you use) link for these calls. šŸ‘‰šŸæ Ā Fourth, useĀ [this swipe file as your base](https://docs.google.com/document/d/17BuVPHS9DKeJv8WFNMS0CmLOU3cACPY-lFC24iT0TAg/edit?usp=sharing)Ā of questions to ask. These are essentially the same questions that we use as a foundation for our client's customers. Usually, we remove questions that may not make sense or add some questions that help us further dig into the answers we need. You can tailor these questions however you like to fit the needs of your audience. šŸ‘‰šŸæ Ā Fifth, record all of your conversations. I use an app called TapeACall Pro for iPhone to record my conversations. Be sure to let the customer know that they're being recorded. You are legally required to do this in the United States. I usually say something like "If you don't mind, I'm going to record this call so that my team and I can have a proper review of all of your awesome answers. Please let me know if that will be a problem". I've only had 1 person in the 1,000+ customer interviews that I've conducted have an issue with my recording. But they still did it, so you shouldn't have much to worry about. šŸ‘‰šŸæ Ā Sixth, start reaching out. Don't dilly daddle. Don't stall and don't wait. Just put your list together, send those emails out, and get the conversations started. A few things to watch out for when conducting these interviews -------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Don't ask "Why". Instead, ask "What". When you ask why you put people on the defensive. They will usually start with "Because..." and now they're stuck on defending their answer and you will get biased feedback. 2. Don't ask loaded questions. Here's an example of a loaded question: "Which of the design improvements was your favorite?" Loaded questions harshly lead the interviewee into an answer. I hope that this newsletter helps you start a dialogue with your customers to really understand them and create a fantastic user experience. If you have any questions about this newsletter please reply. I try to get a reply back within 48 hours. And that's a wrap! * * * See you again next week. When you're ready there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. [Work directly with my team](https://92dream.com/new-project) to help transform your business into a high-growth brand. 2. Take my freeĀ [3-Day Conversion Breakthrough Challenge](https://3day-breakthrough.carrd.co)Ā to further beef up your messaging. 3. [Follow me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-wallace-92dream/)Ā to hear me ramble about all things eCommerce. --- This blog is powered by Superblog. Visit https://superblog.ai to know more. ---