Conversion Optimization for Programmers

Programmers are great at building software, but often have a hard time understanding marketing and sales. I’m a software developer. I am lucky to have a wife who is the marketing ying to my programer yang. Over many years, she explained many things to me from the shadowy realm of marketing and sales. Most of these were at one time not interesting to me, seemed inconsequential, and I had no idea that they existed. I will share them with you now.

If you are building software and want people to use it, you need a process of getting users. Some people leave this process completely to chance, while others mold and nurture it. If you want to improve your chances of success, you will need to work on it, regardless whether you are selling your software or giving it away for free.

I’ll be using paid web based applications as an example. The ideas apply analogously to other cases as well.

Marketing: It’s Not All Spam And Ads

Have you ever asked yourself “Why haven’t I heard of this program earlier?” Or perhaps you were frustrated while looking for a tool or library to get a job done. You tried different search term permutations, but could not find what you were looking for. Why? Because the author could have done a better job marketing it!

We see ads and we moan. We get spam and we groan. This is what we think about when we think of marketing. Unfortunately, a lot of marketing is done in a way that annoys and distracts us. But, just like a piece of software can be written terribly, or be super sleek and usable, good marketing can be wonderful as well. When it is done well, you don’t even notice it! It does not get in your way. You get to do what you want to get done. It greases the way towards your goal.

Limited Resources

People have a limited amount of time and money. The process of obtaining your software will cost them one or the other (and often both). Conversion optimization is the process of making the process of becoming a user of your software easier for a person.

It is hard work to become a user of your software. First, I must find out about your software. I must go to your website and read about it. I must create and account. Now, being in a strange new land, I must get my bearings straight and figure out what I am doing. I need to learn about what your software does, and if it solves a need that I have. Finally, I need to actually pay for it.

There are many steps a user needs to take. At each step, some decide to continue, while others decide to use their time and money for other things. The steps are collectively called the customer acquisition funnel.

The Funnel

People need to go through many steps, from the moment they first hear about your product, before they get full paid access to your service. From 10,000 feet up, these steps are:

• Find out about your product (Advertising)
• Visit your website (Landing Page)
• Sign up for an account (Account Signup Form)
• Learn and decide if they like it (Onboarding Experience)
• Purchase or subscribe (Checkout)

At each step, some people decide not to continue. If you were to visualize 1,000 people doing step 1, you would see how at each step fewer and fewer people continue on. This is why it is called the customer acquisition funnel.

We could talk about each of these steps for hours. Books have been written about each of them. There are tons of details, best practices, and things to avoid. What is most important, is that at each step we:

• Entice & Educate
• Remove Roadblocks

Entice & Educate

At each step, you should give the user a good reason to proceed to the next one. Taking a step requires time and effort, and builds commitment. What you show to your users has to be appealing enough to entice them to put in the next bit of effort to get through the next step.

Sometimes, people already have a goal in mind which aligns ideally with what the see in front of them. They don’t need any convincing to continue to the next step. While this is ideal, it is not often the case.

Most often people have an idea of what they want. It may be clear, or it may be fuzzy. Your job is to offer information and content that allows a person to answer to themselves “Is this something that I want?”

Bad marketing does this crudely, forcefully, and sometimes through deceit. Good marketing does this in a way that seems natural, and is often invisible.

Make it very clear what you are offering. Educate people how your software can help them. Entice people by explaining how their life will improve if they use your software. Everyone is different. You may need to phrase the same things in different ways in different places. Give people a chance to decide.

Some people will never buy your product. You don’t want to waste their time. Some people have already decided, and are racing to the subscription form. Most are somewhere in the middle, and it is your job to help them decide whether they should buy something or not. You do this at each step.

Remove Roadblocks

Imagine someone that has signed up for a free trial of your software. She likes it, and is already imagining how she will use it. She is ready to hand over the cash. But how? There is no “Buy” or “Upgrade” button anywhere in sight. She finally find it, on a pricing page, where she stumbled upon by accident.

She fills in her credit card info. She types “5048 2342 4211 6543”. She fills out the rest of the form and submit it. An error shows that the credit card number is invalid because it contains non-numeric characters!

These are not contrived cases. I’ve personally experienced both, but luckily in separate products. Depending on how determined I was on trying out a product, each of these could have dissuaded me from buying. Sale lost. I’ve wasted my time. The developer wasted their effort and possibly money.

Road blocks can take on many different forms. As a developer, I’ve found that I am often blind to them! For me, the best way to discover them is to ask someone for their opinion. Alternatively, I find looking at something after some time passed and actively looking for road blocks can help as well. It’s often embarrassing how trivial they are.

Road blocks are very damaging. Ever hear the phrase “He ripped defeat out of the jaws of success?” That’s what road blocks do. They stop a person who has already decided to continue to the next stop in their tracks. The hard part of convincing the user to continue was already done. Yet somehow, the user got derailed and did not continue.

It’s All Common Sense, Really

None of this is rocket science. To some people, it comes naturally. I found that I need to work on it consciously. Luckily, the more aware I am of the rules and conventions, and the more often I force myself to look at the things I am building as an outsider, the easier it becomes. You can train yourself to see it as well. It will get easier with time. When you do, your marketing efforts will lead to greater sales.

Are you optimizing the account signup page for your web application? If you are, and find it repetitive and frustrating, have a look at Signupper.