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Biggest Advertising Mistake

My Biggest Advertising Mistake

 

siggest advertising mistake and what I learned. It was all about my website’s messaging, and that mistake was so big that one of my best-ever business ideas almost ended up collapsing entirely. Here’s what happened.

I started a website called Kissmetrics in 2008, and it was an analytics business. It was an awesome website centered around helping users gain access to essential and actionable metrics surrounding user behavior. But the value prop was never clear. I spent years tinkering with that headline but had no success to show for it.

started going shorter with my headlines, working harder to find a way to make my main value properly stand out. I started using social proof and offering free trials to boost credibility. And guess what? I got almost an instantaneous 40% bump in conversions. And that means for three years I was losing out on 40% of my conversions.

Lesson number one,

What I learned, lesson number one, your value prop is everything. According to Peep Laja, the number one issue impacting a website’s growth is a failing value prop. Unclear, weak, and not reflective of what an audience wants. And if you’re not sure how to create an amazing value prop, what I recommend that you do is survey our audience. Use tools like SurveyMonkey or Crazy Egg or Hot Jarto to figure out what issues people have. Use a lot of those keywords within your messaging and give them a solution to their problem. Because if you’re using the keywords that they’re using you’re much more likely to resonate with them and drive more conversions.

Lesson two,

social proof is essential. According to Finances Online, 93% of potential buyers read reviews first before deciding to make a purchase. Now here’s the thing, if you don’t believe this, just look at how you purchase on Amazon. Whenever you look at a product or service, what are you looking at? You’re looking at the star ratings. If something has a thousand sales but only has two out of five stars are you going to purchase it? Probably not.

What you’re looking for are those products that have a four, four, and a half, if not a five-star rating on average. Five is a little bit hard. And then you’re looking at the reviews and see what people have to say that is both positive and negative to figure out if that purchase is right for you. So you really want to think about social proof and showing a lot of reviews out there.

Lesson three,

offers free trials. Slack converted 30% of their freemium users. Some companies with an opt-out free trial have even hit closer to 60%. Look, people don’t want to commit without trying stuff. Back in the day when I created a business, my first business, things were much more expensive to create versus now, right? With cloud computing and the way technology has shaped businesses, it’s a lot more affordable to just give people your product or service and let ’em try out a little sample before they have to buy. It’s a great way to build trust and boost conversions.

Lesson four,

build trust with your audience. This ties back into your value prop being clear, but your messaging has to be absolutely spot on.46% of consumers say that they would pay more to purchase from brands they trust. If someone doesn’t trust your brand, why would they purchase from you? You’re more likely to purchase from a trustworthy brand because you know you’re not going to get ripped off and you’re going to get what you pay for. Remember, time is money. People don’t like making mistakes ’cause that costs them time.

Lesson five,

understand that attention spans are short. I wanted my audience to get to know how great Kissmetrics was, but I didn’t understand that 80%of readers will never make it past the headline. Make your point and make it early. If you don’t, you’re going to end up losing a lot of people. And as I mentioned, your headline should solve people’s problems. If they can’t figure out what problem you’re solving through your headline, you’ve lost ’em. Even if they read further, chances are they’re not going to convert.