How to Increase Conversions And Sales Today with Justin Christianson

Co-Founder and President at Conversion Fanatics – Justin Christianson

Discover the step-by-step process to increase your conversions on your site. Conversion expert Justin Christianson from Conversion Fanatics walks us through EXACTLY what questions to ask and what to test first on your site and sales pages. Plus you’ll get a 24 point checklist to increase your conversions!

Register for my Webinar this wednesday – the 10K Map

Resources Mentioned in the Podcast:

• 24 Point Conversions Checklist From Justin
• Dane Maxwell – Copywriting Checklist
• CrazyEgg.com

Check out ConversionFanatics.com for more info!

This was the email I mentioned in the interview:

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript: Download

Jaime:	Thanks so much for listening everyone, and I want you to go sign up right now.  Right, even if you're running or walking or in the car.  Okay, maybe not.  Not in the car but if you go to eventualmillionaire.com/10K I want to invite you to my live webinar that I have this week.  It's all about how to achieve $10,000.00 per month in your business consistently.  Right because even those few that have hit it.  You know, a couple of times we want to see it consistently throughout the board.  So make sure you go sign up and if you're even not anywhere close may be your only making 500, 1000, 2000, 3000 a month that's cool too.  Because if you're making some sort of money.  We don't know that we can level that up so make sure you would join me live.  Go to eventualmillionaire.com/10K.

Jaime:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire.  I'm Jaime Tardy, and I am here today with Justin Christianson from Conversion Fanatics.  Thanks so much for having me in your office today.

Justin:	Thank you.

Jaime:	We tried to do this interview on Skype.  It was hilarious because the Internet connection was really bad.  Turns out he's ten minutes away from where I am, and so we rescheduled for an in-person interview, which is hilarious.

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	It's kinda crazy that it's only ten minutes away.

Jaime:	I know, Internet works from here to Australia, but ten minutes away doesn't work out so well.

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	Yeah, but thank you because now I'm here, and we have a whole lighting setup, and this is awesome.  

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	So what Justin does is he does conversions.  We've already gone into a whole bunch of stuff already, but why don't you tell them, now that they're joining us, what sort of conversion-tastic stuff you do.

Justin:	Okay, so what we do is we try to identify more with the users, the visitors, of a company, identify more with their audience and then basically give them what they want through split testing, find out what makes them tick and how they respond better to ultimately become leads and sales for the company.

Jaime:	So it's more than just red button, blue button: which one works better, right?

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	Okay.

Justin:	That's only a very small portion of it, but yeah, we really try to understand the users, what's holding them back, friction points, various things throughout the process, so then we can increase results for our clients.

Jaime:	Okay, so give us like a step by step because I care about this stuff like crazy mostly because my conversions aren't great, and I know they could be way the heck better.  So can you walk us through step by step what you do with your clients?  That way maybe we can maybe do it, too.

Justin:	Yeah, so we kinda follow a basic five-point process where we analyze existing conversion data, so we look at analytics, we may install heatmap clickmap software to see where the friction points are, what they're paying the most attention to, what they're not paying attention to.  Then we survey, analyze customers where we can because the best way is just to ask them how they think about -

Jaime:	Let's break that down as much as we can, right?

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	Heatmap: what software do you guys use?

Justin:	We use Crazy Egg.

Jaime:	Oh, you do?  Great.

Justin:	Yep, that's our go-to tool.  It gets us just amazing data no matter the size of the company even if you're just starting out and just have a few visitors versus working on a $200 million company.

Jaime:	Okay, so once you get that data, what do you look for on the heatmaps because we're just gonna break it down piece by piece?

Justin:	Just looking what they're paying attention to the most.  If they're clicking on videos, if they're not.  We've found that adding a video, sometimes they just don't click on it or watch it, so the video's making no difference or no impact.  Or maybe you have two or three different paths, and they're paying attention more importantly to one of them, but you're trying to push them down another path, so you just remove those bottlenecks and those friction points, and you just see exactly how they're behaving on your site.

Jaime:	And that's what already is on your site, so it's not as though you're like, "Oh, I have an idea.  Let's try this thing."  You're like, "Oh, what is working right now already?"

Justin:	Um-hum.

Jaime:	Oh, I love that.  Okay, so you get the data from the heatmaps, and then you survey, which I love.  Tell me about the survey process.

Justin:	We just go out, and we're available.  If they have an e-mail list or customer data, and they're communicating with their customers, we'll just ask them, "Why did you buy?"  "Why didn't you?"  "What made you choose us over somebody else?"

Jaime:	Okay.

Justin:	And why they bought, and they're gonna usually tell you good, bad and ugly.

Jaime:	Really?

Justin:	A lot of companies don't like to get some of that feedback.

Jaime:	They're like, "Don't say anything bad about us."

Justin:	Yeah, but it's valuable information.  

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	Sometimes the bad feedback is better than the good, so then you can change it and adapt accordingly.

Jaime:	Yeah, like we hate you.  No.

Justin:	Yeah.  Well, sometimes it comes through like that, but we don't always survey.  Sometimes we're not able to, but if we can, we always try to push for that.

Jaime:	What kind of survey software, what is it like how many questions, how do we break that down?

Justin:	It varies from client to client, but usually five to ten questions, something simple, and then if you can basically bribe them to take the survey, something of value in exchange, maybe a discount coupon or something like that to get them to actually get more feedback coming in the door.

Jaime:	Okay.  Yeah, so I've done a bunch of surveys, and usually when I've had clients do it, and a lot of times people are like, "Well, what do I ask?"  They're like randomly go, "Do I just make up a bunch of questions?  What am I trying to get at from them?"

Justin:	What problems they're facing.  Most products or services out there solve a pain or help somebody gain a pleasure, so you find out why that is.  Why did they come to your site in the first place?  What is causing them to seek an answer, and why did they choose you?  What they're looking for in a product, just any intel on the qualitative side that we can get, the better it's gonna be.

Jaime:	So I've done a bazillion surveys, and you know Ryan Levesque, too, right?

Justin:	Um-hum.

Jaime:	So everybody Ask, and he's been on the show before, and we talked about surveys there.  What do you do with the data afterwards because most people will be like, "Oh, I did a survey.  That was interesting.  Thanks."  And then they don't use any of it.

Justin:	We look for commonalities.  That's the basics of it.  We just look for common questions, and then we try to address that in the sales message, so it's just like having an FAQ on your site.  We just figure out exactly what the commonalities are because only one in a hundred are actually gonna speak up, but surveys allow you to flush that out.

Jaime:	So how much data do you need on that?  One person's like, "You guys suck, and this and this and this sucks," and then everybody else is like, "Well, in general it's pretty good."  How many people because when you're trying to do this on your own, you're looking at the data, and you're like, "Well, that's interesting."  Maybe you could pull a couple things that are similar, but you're like, "Is this statistically significant?"  Because if there's eight of them because we've only had a hundred people answer, is that significant or not?

Justin:	Not really, but it just gives us a little bit more ammo.

Jaime:	Okay, so we're just in the dark going, "Well, it's a little bit lighter, so I can see a little bit more."

Justin:	Yeah, just a little bit.

Jaime:	Okay.

Justin:	Sometimes you can get a lot of feedback.  It just really depends on the size of your audience.

Jaime:	Yeah, definitely, and yet how much you bribe them with because it depends on the bribe for me on how many people answer my stuff.

Justin:	Yeah, the ethical bribe.

Jaime:	I know, exactly, free t-shirts.  I've done that one before.  I've done books, I've done a whole bunch of stuff.  So once you take that data that you have, what sort of assumptions do you make?  What do you change based on that?

Justin:	We just try to come up with test hypothesis based on all of the information.

Jaime:	Okay.

Justin:	And then the step before that is actually we go for competitive analysis.

Jaime:	Ooh, okay.

Justin:	So we'll use various tools like SpyFu or Compete.com or ?

Jaime:	What's that?

Justin:	SpyFu?

Jaime:	Oh, yeah.

Justin:	It's basically a keyword ad spying tool, so it shows what sites rank for what, how much they're spending on average on ads.

Jaime:	Really?

Justin:	Yeah, what ads they're running, and then you can use things like Adbeat to see what they're using on display advertising, what banners they're using.

Jaime:	Does that cost money, SpyFu?

Justin:	Yeah, I think it's like $50.00, $60.00.

Jaime:	Oh, it's one of those.

Justin:	Yeah, yeah.

Jaime:	That's awesome.

Justin:	Or maybe it's $100.00, I don't know.

Jaime:	Yeah, but it's inexpensive.

Justin:	Yeah, it's not like an enterprise software or anything, but it gives you a lot of valuable information.

Jaime:	Yeah, okay.

Justin:	Another one we use is iSpionage.  It's pretty valuable.

Jaime:	Coolest names ever, right?  

Justin:	I know.

Jaime:	Geezo, we're just spying on people.  

Justin:	Yep.

Jaime:	That's what we're doing.

Justin:	Pretty much, but yeah, just allows us to give a lot more data back, and one time we actually were consulting with a very large brand.  I'm not gonna name them here, but if I would say the name, you would know who they were.  We found out that their nearest competitor had 40 times the impact on display advertising.

Jaime:	Wow.

Justin:	What happened was their nearest competitor happened to be a reseller partner of theirs, so they were giving up a majority of their profits, and they were wondering why their display advertising wasn't working.  We were able to say, "Here's what they're doing.  Here's why yours sucks basically."

Jaime:	Wow, so what would they do, though?  Be like, "No, you can't resell it," or were they like, "Oh, we need to step up on the ad side."

Justin:	They just stepped up on the ad side because they don't wanna lose their reseller partner.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	That might be coming in from other channels, but they can be more profitable on their display advertising by just taking even some leverage off of what they were using there.  We don't do competitive analysis to steal, but you just do it for leverage points to figure out what's working and what, more importantly, isn't working.

Jaime:	Yeah, I love that because as much data as you possibly can, people are already doing it.  Why can't we just learn as much as we possibly can from what they're doing?

Justin:	Right.

Jaime:	That's awesome.  So once you take that, that's probably a lot of data, though, too.  Do you make more assumptions based on what's working for other people?

Justin:	Yeah, it's all leading up to finding, basically, the leverage points within your own site and coming up with a test hypothesis.

Jaime:	Yep, what are your typical hypothesis because it seems like out of everything, a website is a website, so there's a lot of things that are probably similar, big brands, small brands, whatever, so what are some of those test hypothesis that really make a difference?

Justin:	The top ones usually come down to headline, subhead, benefits versus features.  A lot of companies drive with features, and nobody really cares about those.

Jaime:	Yep.

Justin:	So leading with benefits, strong calls to action, simplicity, so removing clutter, extra steps.  We just ran a test recently that boosted it something like 40 percent for demo requests, and they have three calls to action that took three separate paths on their site, so we cleaned it up, and it was the most basic page ever.

Jaime:	You can only do one thing, so therefore...

Justin:	Yep, and it boosted their demo requests on an enterprise level.  They were an enterprise very high-ticket product.

Jaime:	So they love you.

Justin:	Yeah, they do.

Jaime:	You're like, "Oh, I removed two buttons.  Tada."

Justin:	Pretty much.  It worked out extremely well for them and us.

Jaime:	Wow, but it makes sense because if you have a website, you should really be having people go down a path.  We should have a goal for each of our main pages, right?

Justin:	Um-hum.

Jaime:	So that way people go, "Okay, this is the goal we should go in."  It seems like, though, nowadays I need to do a website redesign.  Nobody look at my site right now.  I need to do a website redesign, I know I do, but it seems like nowadays people have a very certain look when they're creating new sites that?s very information-based, right.  Big picture of you, e-mail opt-in and then certain things.  Are you finding that that does work for those kinda brands, or are you guys tweaking those, too?

Justin:	It varies.  It varies really on what you're selling.  You can, with the days and age of all the themes out there, and you can cookie-cutter.  Even if you look at our site, our site was template-based, and then we customized it based on ads and testing and adding elements and figuring out what works better.

Jaime:	Ah, based on your evidence.

Justin:	But we just stick to the core elements of maximizing above the fold of the page, no movement, so sliders are a big thing.

Jaime:	Oh, my gosh, I tell everybody this.  Please no movement.  I'm so annoyed by those sliders.

Justin:	We find across the board every test we ran, 30 to 50 percent reduction in conversions.

Jaime:	Wow, see.  People think they're like, "Woo, look at me."

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	It's like, "No, one thing.  Let them read it."

Justin;	One clear objective with benefits and a call to action and a button above the fold of the page or video if you're gonna leverage that.

Jaime:	Okay, I know on my site, it's funny.  I got an e-mail from your people.  I told you this before.  Yesterday, so it was after we messed up our Internet connection, and then I got an e-mail from one of your team members that said, "Hey, do you want us to give you three..."  What was it?

Justin:	Three to five things to boost your conversions.

Jaime:	Yeah, which who says no to that, No. 1, but I thought it was hilarious because I was like, "Hey, I just talked to Justin yesterday, and I'm gonna see him tomorrow," and your people just sent it to me then.  Then we find out later that we're gonna talk about in a second that he had no idea because it's a system that he has running through.  But I e-mailed back, and I was like, "Who would say no to give me three to five?"  So what is the thing that you would give them, let's say?  I'm like, "Okay, yes, please, give me three to ten things that I could do on my site."

Justin:	It varies basically from just doing a basic phone consultation where once we get basically you responded saying yeah, I want that.

Jaime:	Yes.

Justin:	And then we schedule a call, and I get on the phone.

Jaime:	Smart sales call, smart.

Justin:	Yeah, well, it's consultative.

Jaime:	So smart.  I know, right?  I could say no.  It's not like I can't say no for that.

Justin:	Yeah, it is, and we have lots of people that say no after we give them five things to boost their conversion rates, and usually it's just picking apart, and it's a basic site critique.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	On another level, we might actually put together a slide deck.

Jaime:	Especially if they were a bigger client or something like that.

Justin:	Yeah, put together an actual presentation to walk them through and say, "Here's what we found.  Here's based on test results that we've seen in the past" and kinda showing what they can do even if they don't hire us and then if they wanna hire us, then we'll help them implement.

Jaime: 	I wanna ask you about the system that you used in a second, but what would you suggest?  I need a new website.  I know I do, but I care a lot about conversions.  Mine does not convert that great right now, but it's such a clunky theme that it's not worth it to me, so should I get a theme, see how it's working, get the data from it and then call you have you tweak it, or should I have a designer design what I think I want and then call you?  How does that work?  Because most designers don't know how to do conversion at all, just so you know.

Justin:	Yeah, well, we've got a couple on staff that actually do.

Jaime:	Oh, you do.  Oh, good to know.

Justin:	Yeah, but you just pick kinda based on those elements what's gonna work for you that gives you the look and feel.  At the end of the day it's your brand, but then you can always tweak from there once you gather some data.

Jaime:	Okay.

Justin:	But once you know the core elements, like I was talking about, headline, benefits, calls to action and then proof.  I didn't mention that's another big one.  We've seen upwards of 300 percent improvement by just incorporating proof.

Jaime:	Really?

Justin:	Yeah, so I was even looking at your site actually this morning.  

Jaime:	Yes, smart man.

Justin:	Even though you didn't want to mention, you didn't wanna say don't look at your site, but you have the "As Seen On" stuff.

Jaime:	Yep.

Justin:	You've got all of these great people that have been on your show.

Jaime:	Yep.

Justin:	It's leveraging what they have to say above the fold of the page.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	So you scroll down basically to the third page on your main page until you see your "As Seen On" and your proof elements.

Jaime:	Yeah, I used to have it up higher, and then I thought it was taking up too much, which is kinda funny the way that is.

Justin:	Just shrink it.

Jaime:	Yeah, I know, right.  Just make it super small, but it's so clunky, it's such a pain to shift things, and that's what so annoying.  Somebody told me the other day it looks like a modeling website.  They're like, "It doesn't even look like a business type site."  I was like, "Thanks, I know I need a new website.  That just digs it deeper."

Justin:	No.

Jaime:	But apparently your team does websites, too, then I'm assuming.

Justin:	Yeah, we kinda shy away from full complete site redesigns, but we do a lot of landing page redesigns.

Jaime:	Would it be worth it for me to have you guys look at my site and then tweak it based on what's already working, not tweak it, but design a new site based on that information, or no?

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	Okay.

Justin:	You've got a longstanding track record and plenty of visitors.

Jaime:	Yeah, interesting.

Justin:	So it would be beneficial to see what that data looks like to kinda see what they're paying attention to, and then you can help select a different process.

Jaime:	Well, and that's what I always thought was interesting because otherwise you get a new website.  Like I know Pat Flynn got a new website, and he was like, "This looks great, and we went based on assumptions that we thought might work," and then it didn't totally work exactly like they wanted it to.  It's like well, why didn't we take what was working from the old page and then tweak it from there because you have that data?  When you start with a brand new site, you have to wait and get new data again.

Justin:	Yep, and you can't assume anything's going to work ever.

Jaime:	Yeah, be like this please.

Justin:	You can't.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	So many times people assume that something's going to work, or they assume that this looks better, but their visitors have something totally different to say about it.

Jaime:	I know.

Justin:	It doesn't matter what I care about or what I think it looks like.

Jaime:	Does it convert?

Justin:	Yeah, at the end of the day does it get you leads and sales?

Jaime:	That's the thing.  That's why some of the ugliest websites that exist can convert really well, which doesn't make sense.  I was an art major, so to me going, "That is so ugly."  Who cares?  It converts, right?

Justin:	Yep.

Jaime:	But we can't predict it based on anything, really.  You have data, so you can definitely try and do that.

Justin:	Well, we've got some best practices and a Rolodex of ?

Jaime:	Ooh, what are your best practices then?

Justin:	Well, kinda like the same thing.  We look at those kinda five or six elements to make sure they're in place first and making sure there's congruency throughout the message, that they're continuing to sell the same message throughout the entire process, even things like abandoned cart rate.  Somebody will land on your checkout page, but they bail, and you don't get a customer, but what do you do?  You look at their page, and they're like, "Okay, all it has is a credit card form, and it says, 'Buy now.'"  Well, you're not continuing to sell on that process.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	So you give them more information on that site, highlight the benefits, the guarantee, the proof.

Jaime:	You still want this.

Justin:	Yes, remember why you clicked over here in the first place, yeah.

Jaime:	That makes perfect sense, and it's funny how simple this all sounds, but a lot of people in general shy away from website stuff.  I'm a geek, so to me it's not that big of a deal, not that I'm gonna change my own stuff because again, clunky website, don't wanna go in there.

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	Right, but in general people stay away from this stuff because it just seems so tacky.

Justin:	It is.  It is tacky, and it's design driven, and there's a lot of things that go into it, and that's why I'm in business I guess.

Jaime:	Well, exactly right, okay, but let's just say okay, hire Justin if you can.  But if you can't, right, what does somebody do because we've got all the information, which is awesome.  I just wanna make sure that the people that can't afford to hire you, if you can call Justin, whatever, that's fine.  That's what I wanna do.  It's way easier, but if you can't, what do you suggest for people to make that process a little bit easier even if they did go through and survey?  They started getting some assumptions, they're like, "Okay, I think I have a good idea."  Now what?

Justin:	Start running some split test software.

Jaime:	Okay.

Justin:	Our go-to tool is Optimizely.

Jaime:	You do?

Justin:	Yeah, we're in the process of going through their full-blown certification program and doing all of that.

Jaime:	Nice.

Justin:	But they don't make it exactly the easiest to get into their partner program even though we've used it for years.

Jaime:	Huh, it's good, though.

Justin:	And we have a lot of data, but yeah, that just makes it super easy.  Then you don't necessarily have to be a techie, so if you wanted to go in and change a button color within there, all you have to do is go into Optimizely and say new variation, I wanna change this button, and you import the new image, and it rotates them, and you don't have to change anything on your site until you have a winner.

Jaime:	See, which I love.  I used to use a visual website optimizer quite a bit, and it is pretty darn simple.  So you don't have to be a super, super techie, but then I would get results, and I would go, "Okay, what is this?"  Because I tried doing this two or three years ago on my own because I was like, "This is really interesting."

Justin:	Yep.

Jaime:	And then I'd go into it and be like, "Okay, I don't know if that split test really gave me any much statistic difference."  It was close.  I'm like, "Okay, well, that's not really what I want," and then I'd randomly be picking.  "Okay, well, I'm gonna change this."  The one that I did do that I noticed the difference was going from name and e-mail to just e-mail, that worked, which was good, but that was the only thing, and it was a pain.  It took me forever to go through it all.  Do you have any tips on getting better at that?

Justin:	Not really.

Jaime:	No, I don't.

Justin:	Just fail fast.  That's the thing: try to screw some stuff up.  If you really don't think you know what you're doing, just run it on a percentage of your traffic just to see what kinda results you get back, but if you're getting similar results, so maybe you're only getting like a 0.5 or a 1 percent improvement, you're not really seeing the significance come through, scrap it.  

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	Start something else.

Jaime:	I just kept getting annoyed because all my assumptions were like, "Oh, it was point whatever."  I'm like, "Great, that's not worth it."

Justin:	And it would be if it ran to significance, and you had a bunch of conversion on it, and you have millions of visitors.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	Half a percent or 1 percent, we consulted with a company that spent $35 million a year on advertising.

Jaime:	Hmm, half a percent's pretty darn good.

Justin:	Yeah, anything there is just a dramatic improvement in their results.

Jaime:	Yeah, and most of the people listening probably won't have that problem, but that's okay.

Justin:	Yeah, but even if you have a small amount of traffic, just test a couple of your basic assumptions.  I recommend split testing may not be the right thing when you don't have a lot of traffic because it can be ?

Jaime:	How much do you need, yeah?

Justin:	Yeah, we typically run it out to minimum of 25 conversions per variation before we even peek at the data.

Jaime:	Oh, okay, yeah.

Justin:	So just think how many sales you get.  If you're not getting 25 sales a week, it might be tough to test.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	So just use those other steps to kinda guide the process first, so you kind of assume a little bit based on the data, but you just really have to follow it basically.

Jaime:	So Goal 1 would probably be like, "Okay, I am getting 25 people on my e-mail list every week, so therefore I should be looking at that piece first."

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	And then going down the rabbit hole maybe in sales.

Justin:	Yep, so if you're getting 25 leads a week, it might take you a couple weeks to get some kind of data.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	It might take you a month to get some data, but it?s if you're constantly ?

Jaime:	But you might as well be running it because it's not gonna hurt.

Justin:	Yeah, and especially if you're paying for traffic.

Jaime:	Yeah, yes.

Justin:	And you're not testing, you're losing money.

Jaime:	Yeah, so let's talk about landing pages and stuff like that, too.  Are those the same proof things like the five pieces, same exact thing for a landing page?

Justin:	Yep.

Jaime:	I've been running a lot of traffic to landing pages, and I hired an agency, and we're working with them.  I'm like, "I don't know what else to test.  I feel like we have all the pieces in there."  I don't know what else there is, you know what I mean?

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	What do you give for advice on landing pages?

Justin:	It just comes down to, again, the data, so you follow the click data and heat data and then make sure that you have simplicity and that you have all the elements.  Sometimes we can come in and just simply change a headline and see a 40 percent bump.

Jaime:	Wow.

Justin:	So it's pretty amazing what ten words will do to conversions, and we've seen it time and time and time again.

Jaime:	They talk about that, but geez, really?

Justin:	If you're gonna test anything, test headline.

Jaime:	Really?

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	So do you remember any of the ones that you've done like before and after and what the copy was because most people aren?t great, amazing copywriters.  You guys must be.

Justin:	You really don't have to as long as it's benefit driven.

Jaime:	Huh.

Justin:	On our site I have a basic formula that we've posted on our blog, which I can give you.

Jaime:	Ooh, what's the formula?

Justin:	Well, I just showed how to do X and get X, and it's pretty simple when it comes down to that.  I think we've got one running for a client right now that's like "Maximize ROI by Doing X," and then the other one is, "Pick Such-and-Such and Get X Result."  It's shown to be ?

Jaime:	Like all I want is results.  Give me results, people.

Justin:	Yeah, it's just benefits.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	That's all it is.  As long as you're leading with that.

Jaime:	My go-to is because Dane Maxwell came on the show, and he's like, "This is my formula," and it's how to get whatever it is in this much time without whatever the objection is.  We use that all the time.

Justin:	So do we.

Jaime:	Everybody use that.  That totally works.

Justin:	Yep, as long as you're benefit driven, and you make it sound as simple as possible.

Jaime:	Yep.

Justin:	The example of a headline that I go back to is Dan Kennedy.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	He said one time that a company before the days of the Internet had a music product, and they were running newspaper ads.  Their headline said, "Put music into your life," and they screwed up one day and changed it to "Puts music into your life."  One s tripled their response rate because one thing conveys that there's work involved.  The other one says that the work's gonna be done for you.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	So the simplicity of what your product is going to do them.  That's why the benefits are so crucial over the features because nobody cares that I got 16 GB of RAM in my laptop.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	I don't care about that.

Jaime:	Woohoo.

Justin:	Some people do, and when you're gonna go buy one, but you back it up with benefits.

Jaime:	Yeah, the only reason why we want 16 GB is because you want it to be faster or whatever the benefit is anyway.  You don't care about what it does to do it.

Justin:	Yeah, I'm talking about Apple products, so that's pretty much a cult in and of itself.

Jaime:	Yes, you do have an Apple, right?  Okay, good, good.

Justin:	The desk behind us is all Apple.

Jaime:	Phew, we don't have to fight.  There we go.  No.  So let's go to the process that we were talking about before.  So I get this e-mail, and I was like, "How perfect.  Maybe he told her to e-mail me or something like that."  He was like, "Yeah, no, I had no idea."  I was like, "That's crazy that that sort of came about just now."  Then you were like, "Yeah, well, that's ?"  So please tell me the process.  That was an automated response, but it was really good, so I really thought it was her, by the way.  It wasn't spammy or anything like that.

Justin:	So basically we do a lot of research on the business development side to figure out our target audience.

Jaime:	Smart.

Justin:	Who could we benefit from, and then we gather their information and just like the big companies out there that they have huge sales departments, we basically took a piece out of their playbook is essentially what we did.  We just go out and e-mail people a personal e-mail after we've done research to make sure we can them.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	Occasionally somebody slips through the cracks that isn't gonna make it, and then we just follow up with them with something of benefit that's of personal nature, so it comes from our business development manager, and then it just automatically follows up.  Once you respond, then it takes you into a next step, which gets scheduled with me and then further follow up from there.

Jaime:	Okay, so let's walk through what that process is because you gave me some cool stuff beforehand.  So how would you explain to someone if they wanted to set this up, too?

Justin:	So we use a tool called SalesLoft.  It's kind of expensive, but ?

Jaime:	How much is kind of expensive?

Justin:	$600.00 a month.

Jaime:	Oh, okay, but it's your Salesforce pretty much, so.

Justin:	Yeah, so we get about 1,500 to 2,000 leads a month based on that.

Jaime:	Really?

Justin:	Yeah, and it allows us to search.

Jaime:	That's really cheap leads compared to my $4.00 or $5.00 Facebook leads that I was running by you.

Justin:	Yeah, but these aren't opt-in leads, that's the only difference there, too.

Jaime:	Yes, correct, but they are targeted.

Justin:	Yeah, they are targeted because we go through and look.  It's a time-consuming process.  We've got two people full-time that do nothing but research leads.

Jaime:	Mm, okay.

Justin:	So we go out and find them, and then it gives us basically their office phone and the best chance of getting an e-mail, and it ranks them from green, orange and grey.

Jaime:	Oh, nice.

Justin:	So greens have a 95 percent chance of being the correct contact.

Jaime:	Huh.

Justin:	And there's a lot of bad stigma around this technique, too, with the CAN-SPAM.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	And we give always, we don't constantly just try to sell them and beat them up and constantly filling their inbox, and we give them a way to not receive information from us.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	And then we just gather the information and then send a series of e-mails, short, just trying to get the attention of the person who you're intending to get the attention of.

Jaime:	Yeah, so tell me about the auto ? so you have people there looking for good leads.  What makes a good lead for you guys specifically, and what should everybody be looking for in general?  I know it's different to the business.

Justin:	Just what's your target market?  You gotta find out, so we're looking for software-as-a-service companies, we're looking for information marketing companies, supplement companies, e-commerce stores of certain size and certain value.  Then we go back and research how much are they spending on advertising, and then that becomes a lead.

Jaime:	Oh, you saw that I was spending a whole bunch of money on advertising.  No, I'm just really impressed that I got that it worked out so clearly.  It's kind of crazy because I have Josh Turner on the show with LinkedIn, and he was telling us different ways that they do it, and it's really interesting to see what the processes are.

Justin:	Yeah, and I'm sure you've seen your inbox get filled with solicitation e-mails and InMail.

Jaime:	From LinkedIn, it's crazy.  I won't even go look in my LinkedIn box or whatever it is because it's just that.

Justin:	And we basically take that and make it more personal is essentially what we do.

Jaime:	Yeah, I thought your girl e-mailed me.

Justin:	Yeah, she did.

Jaime:	Exactly, I feel kind of cool that I didn't notice.  I thought it was a personal e-mail, and that's really impressive because I'm usually pretty good about that, and that was really freaking impressive.

Justin:	The thing is it's coming from Gmail.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	It's coming out of our inbox.  It's not like we're loading your stuff up to get response, and we're blasting you or something like that.

Jaime:	Yeah, I couldn't tell.  It wasn't like I scrolled down, and you're like, "Oh, my gosh, what did they do?"

Justin:	Yeah, no, it's very personal in nature, and we do a lot of research and a lot of setup before we push send.

Jaime:	So I replied back because I was like, "Whoa," right?

Justin;	Um-hum.

Jaime:	Yes, I would like this.  Tips, you can give them to me on Friday when I see you.

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	No, but being able to not respond back, what's your auto-responder sort of sequence look like?

Justin:	It varies for who we're targeting, but usually five to seven to eight maybe over a period of it could be three weeks, could be all the way up to a couple months.

Jaime:	Oh, okay.

Justin:	The timing sometimes, depending on your target market, obviously, and we're talking primarily here business-to-business sales.  

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	I don't recommend this at all for business-consumer because that is spam.

Jaime:	Yeah, hello, hello, hello.  Oh, wait, that's illegal.

Justin:	Yes, that's illegal, but yeah, we just follow up, and then once you respond, it actually triggers that you responded, and we get the stats back on who responded, who clicked in e-mails if we've got links in it, and then we just kinda tweak accordingly.  We're constantly optimizing that auto-respond process.

Jaime:	So that's the thing.  I love templates.  I love knowing how many days out, and I know it's different for you, and it's gonna be a little bit for everyone else, but everyone wants a start, right.

Justin:	Um-hum.

Jaime:	So you do one e-mail, and then how many days later do you wait because I've gotten people that are like they send me ? and this was a personal e-mail from this person.  They just didn't know what they were doing, poor guy.  Sent me an e-mail, followed up the next day, was like, "Hey, I don't know that you got this," and my inbox is really crazy, so I didn't look at it.

Justin:	Yep.

Jaime:	And then followed up again the next day, "Hey, just checking in."  I'm like, "Are you kidding me?  I haven't even looked at half the e-mails in my inbox for three days."

Justin:	Yeah, some companies go there even out of the playbook of Salesforce.  They, obviously, massive company, they do a seven by seven, so seven e-mails, seven days.

Jaime:	What?  Wow.

Justin:	Other companies do the same thing.  Sometimes we're that aggressive.  It really depends on who, but usually we wait about three days.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	And then we try to ingrain some form of value like basing it on a case study.  "Did you get this?"  Maybe a video.

Jaime:	So you're giving first.

Justin:	Yeah, some other way to get them to respond, but also provide some value and be different instead of just piling them over the head saying, "Hey, did you get this?  You haven't responded yet."

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	Which there's a little bit of that, and then the last e-mail adds a little bit comedy into it.

Jaime:	Really?

Justin:	It's like, "Were you eaten by an alligator, or are you just swamped?"  

Jaime:	Oh, my gosh.

Justin:	That's what it is, and then it asks, "I haven't heard back from you because of X, Y, Z."

Jaime:	Yeah, and someone's like har, har, har.

Justin:	And then, "If you did get eaten by an alligator, please send your address so I can send flowers" type thing.

Jaime:	That's actually really cute.

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	I think we need more of that in business e-mail because my goodness.

Justin:	Yeah, I don't know, we've done a lot of research on this, but one person did, "I hope you're not being chased by a hippo," and he had a picture of a guy being chased by a hippo in his e-mail, and that was his last one.  We actually just switched it up.

Jaime:	Well, I'm just doing research on the breakup e-mail and what the breakup e-mail should look like and, "Hey," because you don't wanna piss anyone off.  You don't want your brand to look bad or anything like that.

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	So you really need to make sure that you're doing it right.

Justin:	Yeah, we're big about our reputation.  We're not out there trying to spam people.  

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	We're out there trying to help them, and we do get some "go aways," and "stop" just like anything else.

Jaime:	Yep.

Justin:	It doesn't matter if somebody double ops into your e-mail.

Jaime:	I do, too.  I know, exactly.  I do, too.  I've had somebody be like, "Stop sending me these."  I'm like, "You opted in twice."  Like you double opted in for this, I don't understand.  Unsubscribe yourself, okay.

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	You don't have to get mad.

Justin:	Yeah, and that's what we do every time we change it up, too, and there's an unsubscribe link in all the e-mails, too.

Jaime:	Oh, I didn't even look.  Do I have to scroll down a little?

Justin:	Yeah, it's right down by the signature.

Jaime:	Yeah, hmm.  What was the software again?  Was it just that one piece of software because I wanna make sure people can follow that process in case they want to because that would save so much time for people, and leads that are well qualified because that's what everybody wants is well qualified leads.

Justin:	Yeah, SalesLoft, and we're also actually starting this week with ProLeads, which is very similar in nature but allows a little more flexibility.

Jaime:	Okay, is it about the same price like $600.00 a month?

Justin:	Well, they have a yearly option for an enterprise, but I think it's a $200.00 starting trial where you get just a small amount of leads.

Jaime:	Oh, cool.

Justin:	It's not a ton, but we're just testing it out.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	And then we use a tool called QuickMail.io.

Jaime:	Ooh, okay.

Justin:	That's the actual e-mail platform.  It's a plugin to Gmail.

Jaime:	Gmail, ah.

Justin:	Yeah, and we use Google Apps, so we pay for it.  We pay for Google, so it can come from our own domain.

Jaime:	Yep, I like that.

Justin:	And then there's other tools.  HubSpot's got one that's like the e-mail solution.  There's Boomerang, there's Yesware, there's a lot of them out there.

Jaime:	Oh, yeah, I used Boomerang, but for a different purpose.

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	Huh.  Okay, cool.  So that's the thing like getting new leads, how do you rank them?  Do you know what I mean?  Because I know you're not the guy doing it, so do you get a monthly report of these are all the leads?  These are the ones that responded, and can you give us your numbers on like okay, we've contacted this many people?  This many people got back to us sorta thing.

Justin:	Within QuickNumbers, there's a dashboard, so we've actually split test sequences.

Jaime:	Of course you do.  Of course you do.

Justin:	So we just see what messages, and then after gathering that data, we see okay, Message 3 got 8 percent response rate, and Message 3 in Sequence A got 2 percent response rate, so we'll just mix and match and piece it all together until we get it.  

Jaime:	Oh, so you continually split test even your auto-responders, of course.

Justin:	Yeah, have to.

Jaime:	Well, exactly, right, but what's so interesting is when you start going through.  You could split test everything, apparently, which is great.

Justin:	Yes, everything.

Jaime:	Yeah, you like to split test everything.  Everybody else is like, "Just tell me what to write and make it work."

Justin:	Yep.

Jaime:	Right, because everybody's, no offense, but we're busy people, and trying to split test every single e-mail that we have, especially knowing what assumptions to make is difficult.  What have you found in e-mail marketing that are some typical assumptions that work?

Justin:	Compelling headlines.

Jaime:	Again?

Justin:	Headlines, back to that?

Jaime:	Again?

Justin:	I think I read a statistic  something like 200 billion e-mails or something were sent a day last month or something.  It's just something crazy, and you just said your inbox is crazy.

Jaime:	Yeah.  Well, what are some subject lines that work because to me headlines on a lead page is different than an e-mail subject line, so I would go, "How to bla bla bla" because it's be too long.

Justin:	Try to make it personal.

Jaime:	Like what?  "Hey, you."

Justin:	Yeah, exactly, and what are you most likely to open?

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	If I put, "Hey, Jaime" in the subject line, are you gonna open that over "Six Tips to Something, Something, Something?"

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	What are you most likely to open?  We try to think they communicate in the office.  How do they go back and forth, and we've seen some of their correspondence accidentally through Reply All, or they try to do that, and we see some of the banter back and forth.

Jaime:	Do you?

Justin:	Yeah, and we've gotten some where they fake fight at us because they're bored, but we start out with some quick question and ask a question.  

Jaime:	Oh, yeah.

Justin:	I think that's probably the one you got.

Jaime:	Because it's like if I'm gonna write an e-mail to somebody, it might say, "Checking in, quick question."

Justin:	Yep.  We kinda shy away from "checking in" or ?

Jaime:	I know, I've heard that one's not good.

Justin:	"It's been a while" and things like that.

Jaime:	Yeah, it's been a while, that's a little cheesy.  What if we do "intro?"  I send e-mails that say "intro" constantly.

Justin:	Yep, we find that.  It's like because that's part of our message is can you make an intro to the person that's in charge of this that would want to hear this information.

Jaime:	Oh, so they click and open it because you open intros, especially if it could be a good lead or something like that for you.

Justin:	Yeah, and we're trying to bring it as personal as possible and create a warm relationship as quickly as possible.  That's our whole goal.

Jaime:	Yeah, and your e-mail that you sent me, super short, really to the point, which was good.  "Hey, do you want this?"  

Justin:	Yep.

Jaime:	This is our website.

Justin:	Three short paragraphs.  What people tend to do is they just vomit their message.

Jaime:	I know, right.  Oh, my gosh, I don't wanna read.

Justin:	I never read it, and I've got one brand partner that send me e-mails all the time, and he doesn't use line breaks.

Jaime:	Oh, my gosh.

Justin:	It's like a paragraph this long, and I'm like, "Click, I no longer need this."

Jaime:	You're like, "Delete."  

Justin:	I don't wanna read this, but I just kinda skim it.  Luckily my speed-reading skills have paid off, but we just skip through a lot of the stuff that needs to, but we've tested a lot.  We've tried when we first started it, we had the long e-mail.  It's like, "We've done it for this person and this, and here's the reason why, and here's why you need to talk to us," and nobody has time for that.

Jaime:	Yeah, so simplicity wins out overall.  I replied.  You got me.  I totally replied back.  I know you, too, so that's helpful.

Justin:	Yeah, it's three short paragraphs.  That's all it is.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	And the next one's even shorter.

Jaime:	What should people give?  So for you, it makes sense.  You're targeting people very specific avatars, and you're like, "Do you want conversion tips?" which people are either they're yay or nay.

Justin:	Yep.

Jaime:	Either they do care, or they don't care.  What are some other ideas for other kinda companies?  Do you have any examples of what they can give?  I could be like, "Oh, it's not working in your business," but that seems a little cheesy, too.  Yours seemed so succinct that it works out really well, but some people that are going, "I need to write this e-mail, and I don't know what to talk to people or what to give them that's gonna be sticky that they're gonna write back on."

Justin:	Well, what's your biggest benefit?  That's it.  What's the biggest benefit, or what are the biggest results they can get out, and how can you piece that down?  Audits analysis, e-book tips, whatever they can.  It doesn't matter if ? just think about what you give in exchange for your opt-in.

Jaime:	Yep.

Justin:	It's just the same thing, something of value that you could legitimately charge for.

Jaime:	Okay, so for yours, though, you're trying to go for the sales appointment first on that first e-mail.

Justin:	Yep, in that series.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	We get a decent appointment book rate out of that, but then we actually back it down.  We give them a lot of value, something that they could actually boost their conversion rates 10 to 50 percent.

Jaime:	Do you ask them, "Hey, do you want this?"  Then they reply, and you give it to them, or are you just like, "Oh, here's an e-book.  This might be helpful if you don't have time to hop on the phone with us."  How do you...?

Justin:	In our business we always push for the call, and then we give them the value, and then we'll back it up with other resources if needed.

Jaime:	Oh, okay.

Justin:	Like e-books or case studies and things.

Jaime:	Okay, interesting.  I'm just trying to think of other people like a web designer, or we have a ton of social media consultants.  I have a lot of offline businesses, too, but I'm thinking this'll work probably better, so let's say they're a digital marketing consultant or something like that, and they wanna do the same thing.  They wanna go through and send this e-mail.  What would you suggest for them?

Justin:	I would shy away from find out where you're losing profits, things like that because ?

Jaime:	That's what I mean like everything becomes like neh.  For me, it was like how to make more money.

Justin:	Everybody wants that.

Jaime:	Exactly.

Justin:	That's no secret, but everybody is doing the same thing in this market.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	They're like, "Oh, find out how you can improve this or why you're bleeding money in your digital marketing efforts" or something.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	One thing that we found good for ? that's crazy making noise, something in the background ? but they have the digital audit, so if you're, say, an advertising agency, find out where there's a Google statistic that says 80 percent of advertisers aren't getting the most out of their Google AdWords account, so you lead with that.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	We'll give you a free audit to help cut your acquisition costs by X.

Jaime:	Yeah.

Justin:	Something that sets you apart.  Of the thousands of designers out there, what makes you different?

Jaime:	Yep.

Justin:	Is your site the recent one that I saw a lot of, and the early guys that jumped on it benefited big time was the HTML5 Google change with mobile responsive.

Jaime:	Ooh.

Justin:	So Google made the change that said, "We're gonna weigh sites that are mobile ready higher than sites that aren't," so everybody was scrambling.

Jaime:	Yep.

Justin:	The designers that jumped on that made some bank.

Jaime:	Because everyone was like, "Yes, please, help me."

Justin:	Yep.

Jaime:	Huh, that makes a lot of sense, too, like I have an effectiveness evaluation, so I go through a business, and it's like a checklist.  You go, "This sucks, this sucks, this is good, this sucks," you know what I mean?

Justin:	Um-hum.

Jaime:	Then they're pained, and they're like, "Crap, I suck."

Justin:	Yep, yep.

Jaime:	That's how I used to do it offline.  I haven't done it online yet.  I need to listen to more Ryan Levesque on his survey at the Upfront.  Do you use any of the survey funnel stuff, too?

Justin:	I have.  It just depends on the client.  We've used it multiple different niches.

Jaime:	Really?

Justin:	Yeah, we use it in the car business, the nationwide car service sales company, we've used it in the dating nice.

Jaime:	Really.

Justin:	Fitness, same thing, just ?

Jaime:	How do you determine whether you wanna use it or not?

Justin:	Is there a decision to be made?  We use it in e-commerce, too, a lot, so what's causing them to choose?  You find out through that heatmap and clickmap data.  You might have, say, in the car buying, you might have a finance path, and you might have an inventory path.

Jaime:	Huh.

Justin:	So what are you looking for?

Jaime:	Yep.

Justin:	Take the survey, and then you go through and ask questions, kinda get an idea and take them to exactly what they're looking for rather than just assuming they're gonna go where you want them to.

Jaime:	Yeah, and then they get lost, and then they leave, and then they never come back.  You're like, "Why isn't my site working?"

Justin:	Yeah, in fitness, you could ask, "Are you male or female?"

Jaime:	Yep.

Justin:	"What's your fitness goals?"  Are you looking to build muscle, are you looking to lose fat, are you looking to tone up?  Just find out what that pain point is and then lead them to the product that you want them to get.

Jaime:	And tag them all like heck on the way through.  Hmm, I think that's really awesome and a lot to do, though.

Justin:	It is.

Jaime:	So this wraps into my final question, but I want specific things if we can.  So what's one action, now that you went over everything, and it's gonna take a little while to implement, right?

Justin:	You can still do it.

Jaime:	What's one action listeners can take this week to move forward towards their goal of a million?

Justin:	Find out the key pain point of your visitor.  That's the biggest thing, so find out why they're coming to your site.

Jaime:	Isn't that funny that most people don't know that?

Justin:	Yeah.

Jaime:	Or they think they know it, and it's not clear?

Justin:	They think they know it, yeah.

Jaime:	Even big companies like you work with tons and tons of people, and it's not clear, either.

Justin:	Sometimes no.  I would say probably more than 50 percent of the time, it's not 100 percent clear.  We had one company recently that was advertising to the UK thinking their audience was there, and they weren't.  We were falling flat on our face no matter what we tried, so we just cut it and diverted budget to what was working.

Jaime:	So if they were to find out what that biggest pain point is, how would they do that in as simple terms as humanly possible?

Justin:	Competitive analysis.  Go look at the other, depending on your niche, but go look at some of the other marketplaces out there like JVZoo or ClickBank or something and find out what the categories are and how their marketing message is portrayed.

Jaime:	Ah, I like that.

Justin:	Just do a Google search for a keyword term that could possibly pull up and look at the top five rankings and see how they're conveying their message.

Jaime:	Ah, I love that.  Thank you so much for giving us super tactical advice, too, so everybody that's listening, pick at least one thing, or I shouldn't say at least.  Pick one thing.

Justin:	Yeah, no at least.

Jaime:	Just one because you're not gonna do it if you don't that Justin said, and it will make a difference.  The funny thing is is that in business, those small tweaks really add up after a while.  So thank you so much.  Where can everyone find out more about you and the company and all that?

Justin:	ConversionFanatics.com.

Jaime:	You guys have a lot of information and stuff like that there, too.

Justin:	Yeah, we're pushing out a lot of content recently.

Jaime:	Don't get overloaded with content, but if you need some conversion stuff, this is your guy.  Thanks so much for coming on the show and having me in your office.  I appreciate it.

Justin:	Yeah, thank you for having me.

Jaime: [OUTRO]  I hope you enjoyed that interview a ton.  Now if you haven?t gone to sign up for webinar because you were driving or wait a little bit.  So go, remember this.  It?s eventualmillionaire.com/10K.  Put a reminder in your phone if you?re not able to do it right now and go sign up because I?d love to see you there live.

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Tags: Beta Testing, Business Growth, Conversion Expert, Justin Christianson, millionaire interview, Sales Conversion, Sales Funnel

Categories: All, Business, Business Model, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Millionaire Interviews

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