How Netflix Maintains a Low Churn Rate by Keeping Customers Engaged & Watching

With over 90 million customers watching a combined 125 million hours of television and movies everyday, there’s no doubt that Netflix has changed the way we watch our favorite shows. It has also become a prime force in our daily lives — integrating into everything from mobile devices to our language and culture.

And with a relatively low 9% churn rate (lower than any other subscription streaming service), one has to wonder — how does a service like this continue to keep their customers engaged in both the short and long term? How do they succeed when others fall short? Let’s take a closer look and discover how they do it.

Why Engagement is So Crucial to Netflix

As a subscription service, each new month gives every Netflix users a chance to cancel the service.

Like all subscription companies, the best step Netflix can take to reduce churn is to create a great product that people are willing to pay for. They do this by having a large library of original and licensed content. As long as people keep watching, they’ll keep paying.

Let’s look at how Netflix achieves relatively low churn rates, when compared to their peers.

Reluctant to Switch

With more than a third of U.S. households subscribed to Netflix, it’s no secret they’re far ahead of their competitors (namely Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus) in the video streaming subscription race. Recent research by Parks Associates showed that only 4% of U.S. broadband households cancelled their Netflix service — representing almost 9% of Netflix’s subscriber base.

By comparison, 7% of users cancelled their Hulu Plus subscription within a year — but that figure represents approximately half of Hulu Plus’ current subscriber base.

(OTT refers to “Over the Top” – a term used in broadcasting to refer to internet-based transmission of media without an operator –as in cable or satellite — controlling or distributing the media).

What this tells us, is that not only are most households electing to keep their Netflix subscription and “test the waters” with other streaming services, but those same users keep coming back. But what is it that draws them back?

A Deeper Insight into User Preferences

Perhaps some of what makes Netflix so irresistible among its user base are its original shows. With fan favorites like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, Netflix has its finger on the pulse of what users are watching. And they’re not just skimming the surface, either. They look at things like:

• How many users watched a particular episode
• How many users watched an entire series
• How much of a gap was there between when the user watched one episode and the next?

And that’s not all. They’re also gathering data on:

• When you pause, rewind or fast-forward (or if you stop watching and never pick it back up again)
• What day you watch (most people watch TV shows over the week and movies on the weekend)
• What date and time you watch, as well as the zip code you’re watching from
• What device(s) you use to watch which media
• The ratings you give and the searches you conduct
• Your browsing and scrolling habits
• And even the data within the movies and shows themselves

Netflix knows when the credits roll – but it’s also speculated that they’re monitoring things like the volume, movie/show setting, colors and so on. All of this information is not just collected, but also acted upon.

Some might even say that Netflix took a huge gamble ($100 million to be exact) in purchasing the exclusive rights to House of Cards but they did so with a concrete hypothesis — that a large portion of its customers streamed “The Social Network”, directed by David Fincher from beginning to end. House of Cards is also directed by David Fincher. What’s more, they also noticed that films with Kevin Spacey tended to do well, as well as the original British version of House of Cards.

But Netflix didn’t just settle on one trailer to introduce users to House of Cards. Spacey fans saw trailers that exclusively featured him. Women who watched Thelma and Louise saw trailers featuring the female protagonists of House of Cards and big time film buffs saw trailers that reflected Mr. Fincher’s finest directing moments.

All of these points intersected in a way that practically lit up a path to customer engagement and retention. And all of them were made possible thanks to insights delivered by big data.

But this method only attracts users who happen to be watching other movies. What about when they’re not watching? Netflix has that covered, too.

Email: We Added a Show You Might Like

With the vast content library available, it would be overwhelming to not recommend shows to users. So Netflix doesn’t just collect data about the shows you watch — it acts on that data too, sending you emails when a show is added that you may like based on your existing viewing habits.

The email itself is simple and straightforward, and, this is the important part — you can play the episode right from within your mobile device, or add it to your watch list. So it’s not just notifying you that you might enjoy this show, but rather giving you an action to take that lets them better tweak suggestions according to your viewing habits.

Push and In-App Notification – New Season

Many people find push notifications bothersome and frustrating — but it all depends on where they come from. Things that affect users directly – like utilities (your water or electricity is scheduled to be off for a time) or transportation (there’s a car wreck near you that may slow your commute) are definitely wanted.

Movie or series suggestions don’t seem like they’d be high up on users’ priority lists, but Netflix has done a fine job of customizing and fine tuning what gets shown to each user. For example, if you followed season 1 of House of Cards, Netflix lets you know that Season 2 is now available:

What it doesn’t do is inundate you with notifications when every new season or every new movie is listed. Each push notification is carefully crafted again, based on the data from your viewing habits. This way, it’s not intrusive, but rather engaging.

Recommendations for You

Netflix is also famous for its recommendations. It knows it has just 90 seconds or less to convince you that there’s something worth watching that’s catered to your tastes, it looks at things such as the genre you watch and your ratings, but also what you don’t watch. There’s a very real problem of overwhelming the user — with so many choices, Netflix doesn’t want to get too personal.

And it doesn’t care so much about what you watch, but rather that you watch. When given the choice between calling a friend, reading a book or watching Netflix, they obviously want you to keep coming back.

And although Netflix does push its own original series up on its recommendation pages, it plays a flat fee to content providers, so there’s no reason for its recommendation algorithm to favor one series over another. Everything it recommends to you, it does not just because of your viewing habits today, but also historically.

All of these options filter in to create a uniquely personalized — but not too personal — list of recommendations specifically tailored to each user. An engaged user is a happy user, and Netflix is pulling out all the stops to keep them watching.

Interestingly enough, the personalization algorithm resets every 24 hours, making it more likely that users will keep discovering current titles of interest from Netflix’s ever-growing catalog.

Split Testing

Not surprisingly, Netflix also does a great deal of split testing — a couple hundred tests each year to be exact. It randomly selects around 300,000 users from around the world and tests everything from images to font size.

Whenever major changes are made, such as a homepage redesign, users are understandably upset and backlash is imminent – it’s in our nature to tend to resist change. However, Netflix does a good job of easing them into the new design by explaining what has changed and why. According to Netflix’s vice president of product innovation, Chris Jaffe, however, less than half of their tests have a positive impact on metrics.

Conclusion

Even still, with so many options to keep users informed across nearly every type of device, Netflix is continuing to test, innovate and refine its algorithms to prevent churn and keep users watching — and those users are at its core in a quest for never-ending user experience growth.

What are your thoughts on Netflix’s methods to keep you hooked? Have you discovered new shows as a result of their recommendations? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today!

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Evaluating link quality, Google Combats Fake News & Seismic Shift In Top Companies – Weekly Forum Update

This week members asked tough questions about how to evaluate the quality of your links.

Google released features to help combat fake news and what this may mean for SEOs

Members also discussed to what degree Alphabet, Googles parent company, is a monopoly and how 5 out of the 10 biggest companies are now Internet or computer companies.

How do you find links to boost Google rankings?

Over on Webmasterworld, GoodROI asked about qualifying link opportunities with directory submissions and pagerank being long dead – this is something that many of us in the SEO world have wrestle with. Members joined in with a variety of interesting tactics.

Jestermagic recommended a content marketing approach but caveated it with that it works best for already established sites:

“For the most part I don’t do much to chase down links. What I do is provide useful content that sometimes gets linked to by major media outlets (and others). This approach works for a well establish site that is over a decade old.

It doesn’t work for newer sites that I have which don’t have the backlinks.”

EditoralGuy chimed in about leveraging online PR for link acquisition

“I suspect that public relations is more effective than trolling for links, assuming that you have the type of content that people want to cite as additional resources for whatever they’re writing about.”

On this front, Iamlost included thoughts on his homegrown onlinePR approach

“I also did outreach to niche journalists, initially local (in a great many localities but individually local) whenever there was a news story I could piggyback on. Journalists collect resources, I collect journalists.”

Iamlost also mentioned leveraging third parties to host content, link, and send referral traffic

“I only place 10-15% of slideshows and videos on third parties, i.e. SlideShare, YouTube.”

Can a single backlink affect an entire site?

This question from Halaspike, is definitely one many of us ask ourselves when trying to correlate our linkbuilding efforts to our traffic!

Keyplyr mentions the domain authority factor that can be affected by the links you’re getting

“Backlink juice is a page-by-page type of thing, but if the link if from an authoritative source, there *could* be a Trust factor benefit applied to the site.

On the down side, if the link is from a bad-neighborhood, there *could* be a negative impact to the site.”

Buckworks comments that its theoretically possible but don’t hold your breath

“It can’t be assumed that a link from “a very high quality website” will automatically confer a lot of SEO benefits. There will be some, of course, but the effects might vary a lot depending on what page the link is on. Even on an authoritative site, not every page is a strong page, SEO-wise, so not every link will be a strong one.”

Google talks about its latest search quality improvements

Both Google and Facebook are racing to figure out how to combat offensive and false in the midst of recent criticisms. Engine comments that many of the items mentioned are things that are already known in the SEO community, such as domain authority but Google will begin adding flags to featured rich snippets and user feedback mechanisms for autocomplete and featured rich snippets.

It will be interesting to watch how these changes affect opinion pieces and new publishers, as well as how Google will combat adversarial attempts to manipulate new feedback mechanisms.

Google PR Replacement

As measuring the value of acquired links has become increasingly challenging in recent years, member wygk looks for an alternative. Members state that there is no great alternative but suggest several subscription-based alternatives to provide some rough guidance, including Majestic Flowmetrics and Moz Domain Authority.

The post Evaluating link quality, Google Combats Fake News & Seismic Shift In Top Companies – Weekly Forum Update appeared first on Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog.

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3 Things Customers Expect from Your Videos for Customer Support

When’s the last time you actually read a “read-me” document or browsed a manual before using a product? For most of us, it’s rare.

Most customers share these sentiments and with the ubiquity of instant customer service options from live-chat to SMS, email, voice, and social, customers have been trained to expect things to just work and if they don’t, they want immediate, seamless support.

This is a tall order for customer support teams who are increasingly driven to craft self-help tools to offload the support volume. Many who try are finding that the best weapon to achieve this is self-help video.

Videos are powerful and necessary – according to research by Amazon, customers expect them. And Kayako, a video marketing agency, finds that they even prefer it: 68% of customers would rather watch a video than call support.

For those brands who plan to use them, here’s what your customers will expect:

 

The 3 things all customers expect from your videos for customer support:

 

1. Help fixing their immediate problem

First and foremost, your library of videos for customer support should intercept support issues before they reach an agent. Customers want quick, bite-sized video snippets organized by semantic keywords, which are how they would describe the problem in plain speak, such as:

• How do I reset my login?
• How do I replace the batteries?
• Why is my device set on the wrong language settings?

This requires a similar approach to creating an FAQ, and asking questions like: what problems do customers often run into? What’s the best way to demonstrate a solution? Where will they search for them?

And before you break out the camera equipment, take the time to truly evaluate the customer support journey. Conduct surveys, interviews, and ask support agents and salespeople – make sure that you’re answering useful questions before you invest your time.

Done well, these videos will deliver genuine value and teach customers that the answers to their questions lie in your self-help portal.

2. Help becoming more educated

Most of your videos should be focused on moving customers up the maturity curve, not just putting out fires, however. You want every customer to grow into an expert because they’ll be far happier when they’re more successful.

Begin with a solid sequence of customer on-boarding videos. On-boarding is the key to retaining successful, long-term customers and videos are the best way to do it: According to Forrester, a one-minute video is worth as many as 1.8 million words.

Customers will want these video courses to be short, sweet, and easily digestible because as first-time users, they’re going to be eager to skip them and dive right into the product. And make sure that your introductions for each are short, which makes them easy to watch back to back.

Cengage, an education services platform and Vidyard customer, has done an excellent job of building out a very solid library of on-boarding videos. They’re organized by user-role and are each just a few minutes long:

Image Credit: Cengage

Once customers are stabilized and proficient, educate them into fully mastery. Create a knowledge base of videos and merge them with your regular written knowledge base. Having both the video and text together is important because customers won’t always have the luxury of listening to audio and they may want to easily scan or skip to certain portions.

3. To see something worth sharing

Delighted customers want to share their new-found knowledge, especially if it’s particularly useful. Fuel this basic human desire with embedded sharing buttons on customer support videos about tricks or “hacks” that make their lives easier, such as shortcuts, pro-tips, or insider knowledge.

TurboTax has done a great job of this. They’ve created a prolific number of tax-related self-help videos that show up in searches and are accompanied by prominent share buttons.

Image credit: TurboTax

Happy customers sharing content like this evangelizes your brand and spreads education to the wider community which helps it support itself.

Great videos for customer support can diffuse support calls, educate customers, and build community, if you make them simple, short, and engaging that is. Follow these simple tips and your customers will be watching their way to success in no time.

Have more ideas for videos for customer support? Share in the comments below!

The post 3 Things Customers Expect from Your Videos for Customer Support appeared first on Vidyard.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Showcases Canadian Innovation in Technology at Vidyard

Vidyard was honoured to welcome Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who visited to our headquarters to showcase Canadian innovation technology.

KITCHENER, Ontario Canada (April 25, 2017) – Vidyard, the leading video platform for business, welcomed Justin Trudeau to their offices for a tour of our space, a demo of our technology, and a fireside chat with our team.

Led by our CEO Michael Litt, the discussion started off light, asking whether Trudeau prefers Tim Horton’s or Starbucks (turns out he doesn’t even drink coffee!), but quickly got down to business covering topics like diversity in Canadian technology, and what’s needed to keep strong technical talent in Canada. The live stream brought in over 1,300 viewers from all over the globe, and you can watch the recording and check out our highlights below!

Prime Minister Trudeau discussed everything from hockey socks to softwood lumber, and here are a few of our favorite quotes from the day:

• “Great companies like Vidyard are what I get to point to when I’m travelling abroad and say Canada is exciting and doing great things!” (Tweet This)
• “Being able to interact and see a visual presence as well as hear a person’s voice in a video – I know it’s much more effective.” (Tweet This)
• “Canada has always been innovative – to make it through our winters, and long nights, we have to be!” (Tweet This)
• “We have a generation of entrepreneurs that realize innovation can be a driver to improve lives. That’s the story.” (Tweet This)
• “Ontario produces more STEM graduates than California – but we need to do more to encourage talent to stay in Canada.” (Tweet This)
• “I don’t want to force people to stay in Canada to build a business. I want people to choose to stay, and get the support they need to be successful.” (Tweet This)
• “Standing up for Canada’s interests is my job. Whether it’s softwood or software!” (Tweet This)
• “There is always going to be far more things that keep Canada and the United States working together than there are imposing barriers.” (Tweet This)
• “Let’s work together and create pathways to help people learn, contribute and succeed throughout their working life. Not just from K-12, but as the working world changes as well.” (Tweet This)

Showcasing Canadian Innovation in Technology

In addition to giving the Prime Minister a tour of our space, Devon Galloway showed Trudeau our video creation tool ViewedIt. After a quick demo, Trudeau even took the time to record his own – watch it here:

Documenting the Big Day

As well as inspiring some next-level excitement from the Vidyard team, the event drew in a huge crowd of media and local dignitaries. Visitors included the Mayor of Kitchener, Berry Vrbanovic, the Mayor of Waterloo, Dave Jaworsky, and representatives from Communitech and the local press.

Here’s a peek at how everyone captured the day!

PM @JustinTrudeau sitting down for tech demo with @vidyard #MakeItKitchener #DigitalKitchener http://pic.twitter.com/PYwZ07cFYC

— City of Kitchener (@CityKitchener) April 25, 2017

Plsd to join Team @Vidyard in @DTKitchener as PM @JustinTrudeau visits to talk #WRTech, #TOWRcorridor, #CDNinnovation & more! http://pic.twitter.com/8P85XLuZEi

— Berry Vrbanovic (@berryonline) April 25, 2017

“Great companies like @vidyard keeps Canada at forefront of new world we are building together” –@JustinTrudeau http://pic.twitter.com/uwmrO6qBjD

— Samantha Beattie (@Samantha_KB) April 25, 2017

.@michaellitt “pick one. Justin Trudeau or Justin Bieber.” @JustinTrudeau “…Timberlake.” @jtimberlake @vidyard http://pic.twitter.com/ngdiukNEiQ

— Gunjan Marwah (@Gunjan_Marwah) April 25, 2017

“Under your leadership, Canada has become a symbol of an open, diverse economy. It’s made our job easier @vidyard.” #KW http://pic.twitter.com/JAeO8MrPnD

— Gerald Butts (@gmbutts) April 25, 2017

PM @JustinTrudeau helps @vidyard ring the bell to celebrate the end of their fiscal year. http://pic.twitter.com/Sgi0oODBiu

— City of Kitchener (@CityKitchener) April 25, 2017

Had the honour of meeting @JustinTrudeau today while @vidyard #vidyard #dtk http://pic.twitter.com/zMukIIw3Xi

— Steph Plomp (@StephPlomp) April 25, 2017

The post Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Showcases Canadian Innovation in Technology at Vidyard appeared first on Vidyard.

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Meet the Team, Vidyard Style: Shikha Bindra

Meet the Team is our monthly chance to introduce you to the fabulous, quirky, talented people that work at Vidyard, using our favorite medium — video! For this episode, we heard from Shikha Bindra, Account Executive here at Vidyard. Learn who the biggest influence is on her professional life and why a bowl of pho is like a warm hug on a cold day in this new video:

What Didn’t Make the Cut

Shikha had way more to say than just why Iceland is the land of fire and ice, so let’s dive into some of her answers that we couldn’t fit into the video!

What brought you to Vidyard?

It’s a bit weird, because I was actually going into law school. I had a law school offer in one hand and I had Vidyard’s offer in my other hand at the same time, and it was very difficult to make a decision at first. Growing up, I had always wanted to be a lawyer, and now this awesome opportunity at a local startup had come up. But then I realized, who did I actually want to learn from, what did I want to learn, and who did I want to be?

It would be cool to go back to school again, learn the legal system, and become a lawyer, but at the same time, it’s great to learn from someone like Michael and Devon. Two people who started Vidyard in their garage, and built it into a 200 person company. Vidyard was more of an appealing offer, and I’ve learned so much more than I would have in law school so I don’t regret it!

What is your favorite video on the internet right now?

There’s this video that I go back to when I scroll through Facebook, and I have to stop and watch it to the end. It’s that drinking and driving commercial with this younger guy that bought a puppy – a golden retriever – and grew up with it. Once it’s older, the guy starts going out more with his friends:

He’s out drinking more often, and you see this dog looking out the window waiting for his owner to come back. And one of the lines is “Sometimes the owners never come back,” and it really hits home. Luckily this owner does come back, and I love seeing the dog excited and happy again.

It gets to me how significant and emotional of a deal it is to drink and drive. And putting a puppy in the room versus a family member was totally different, so it grabs my attention every time I watch the video.

What do you do in your free time?

I am a Netflix junkie! I watch a lot of Netflix – I even have an app on my phone that gives me a trigger any time a new episode of a show I am following is about to start. So that’s where I am after work. Whenever I’m driving anywhere, I’m a huge Serial or general true crime podcast listener as well. I’ll be driving back from Toronto at midnight and listening to the creepiest podcast and I’m terrified but it’s amazing to hear how gruesome and crazy people are all over the world.

I also do a lot of yoga and weightlifting so I’m either lifting heavy objects or trying to improve my flexibility and internal strength. When I’m not doing all those things, I love visiting new cafes, and trying new hot beverages. Chai Lattes are my jam.

What was your favorite volunteer experience?

I’m a huge advocate for people with special needs and disabilities. In high school I volunteered with the special education program, and so I would regularly spend time with the students in that department, helping them in their day-to-day. I worked with them on things like helping them walk up stairs, and improving how fast they can walk up stairs, and learning how to clean up after themselves.

There was one individual that I worked with that was completely paralyzed, non-verbal, and blind. Her favorite thing to do was have a blow dryer blown in her face. It was a sense of feeling that she didn’t get anywhere else, so being a part of that, and hearing her laugh, was amazing.

That’s influenced me to work with special needs people throughout work and university, and go through a degree in psychology to learn more about their lives. They are significant people, they’re very special people, and they teach you to love in a way that nobody else can.

The post Meet the Team, Vidyard Style: Shikha Bindra appeared first on Vidyard.

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Guide to the Top SEO Tools | SEOchat Edition

SEO is among one of the biggest concerns for anyone who is running an online business or website. While there are plenty of marketing techniques that are important, particularly content and social, search ranking is still a crucial element to netting yourself a strong audience. After all, not everyone is going to come across your social media account or blog, but a few targeted keywords could bring them straight to your Google result.

If you want to strengthen your search engine clout, the best thing you can do is get an arsenal of tools and begin building your strategy. Here are a few free tools from SEOchat.com to add to your arsenal!

PageSpeed Check

Your site shouldn’t just be optimized for search engines, it needs to be user friendly and speedy. A slow site never ranks as highly once the crawlers get to them. Do you know how fast your own website really is? This tool is quick and easy to use. Just put in your URL, and it will do a complete speed analysis.

Try this: You can select to run the analysis for one page or for two pages (!) Page speed comparison works great for better understanding the issues!

Further reading:

• Check this collection of resources to finally understand site speed better
• Bookmark this indepth guide on speeding up a WordPress site
• Read about Google’s efforts to make web faster
  

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Google /Bing / Youtube / Amazon Suggest

Google /Bing / Youtube / Amazon Suggest tool is an obvious must for anyone who wants to expand their keyword strategy and get insight into what people are searching in your niche. It will give you plenty of keyword data to work with. This is one of the most useful tools to use if you want to properly optimize your site and brainstorm.

Try this: Select base phrases that look good for you (based on content type and user intent you are targeting) and go to step 2 where you’ll see an even more extended data for each selected key phrase. Target more specific keyword sets to rank easier!

Related helpful tools to try:

• Suggestion Keyword Finder: This one works with Google Suggest and lets you dig even deeper to get the list of longer phrases.
• Keyword Density with Options: Get an idea of most frequently on-page words and phrases to generate your own list of suggestions
  

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Website Crawler and XML Sitemap Generator

This is a great tool that gives complete SEO data. It spiders website links and images, and organizes all information so you can quickly and easily tab through it, searching by common issues and other filters. You can see a quick summary of their error reports.

It’s free and web-based (no need to download anything) and surprisingly fast! Use it to diagnose various issues (from duplicate title tags to broken images and links).

Try this: I use it a lot as a broken link checker. Having a broken link can cause serious issues for you. Not only does it limit traffic and look unprofessional, but it can cause your website to lose ranking position. Your entire reputation can begin to plummet. You can get an emailed copy of that report for your records or later use.

Related helpful tools to try:

• External Link Crawler and Title Tag Extractor Tool: Find who you are linking to and which anchor text you are using (and if any of those links are broken)
• Title Tag and Meta Description Data for Multiple URLs (free tool): Copy-paste multiple URLs here and get the meta tag for each URL on the list!
  

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Web Page SEO Analysis Tool

Give your page a quick SEO checkup and find some most glaring issues. All fixes will be presented as important or semi-important fixes to be made, with a list of everything that passed the check.

Try this: You can choose to improve your score by running through each suggested change and improving the SEO on your page as a whole, bit by bit.

Related helpful tools to try:

• Meta Tag Analyzer
• Free XML Sitemap Validator
  

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SERPs Keyword Rank Comparison

Provide your major keyword, put your (or your competitor’s domain name) and see how it ranks in the chose search engine results. Furthermore, see how the two SERPs are different.

Try this: This is a great reputation management tool! Run a search for your brand name and see how well your brand SERPs are controlled by your owned / controlled / approved media!

Smart URL List Cleaner Tool

We are dealing with the overwhelming amount of link lists nowadays: Exports from all kinds of backlink tracking tools with variations of the same URLs to clean up. Don’t get me started on sitewide links that all come as hundreds of different URLs in your backlink reports. This tool is there for the rescue…

Filter your link lists by domain keeping the longest / shortest ones, filter links to keep only unique ones (regardless of domain) and much more!

Try this: Use a document import feature to merge and then sort out multiple lists from different sources!

Don’t let your SEO suffer. Use these ten tools to get your website properly optimized, and start climbing the ranking ladder.

Have any additional tools to share? Let us know in the comments!

The post Guide to the Top SEO Tools | SEOchat Edition appeared first on Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog.

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How to Leverage Your Creativity to Convert Leads

Creativity (cre·a·tiv·i·ty)
krēāˈtivədē
noun

1. the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.

Creativity may not immediately seem incredibly relevant to CRO. After all, CRO is often thought of as a study in best practices and procedural experimentation.

Today, I’d like to challenge you to look a little deeper.

Following best practices does matter of course. You should absolutely continue to optimize your pages with A/B testing, focusing on message-match and ensure your CTA’s are clear and concise.

But there are a number of interesting and entirely useful ways that you can “shake the trees” so to speak.

Let’s take a closer look at how you can flex your creative muscle to increase conversions.

Remind Me Why We Have to Do This?

One word. Oversaturation.

Users are increasingly “blind” to traditional forms of advertising. Just take a look at banner ads.

Users are essentially numb to them, and have been for a long time. In fact, studies show that users generally don’t even give site siderails a single consideration. I know I don’t, and I bet you don’t either.

This study showed that across all mediums and placements, CTR on banners lands somewhere around .05%. Yikes.

Same goes for spam emails, banners, popups… the list goes on.

I’m not saying these tactics don’t work, remarkably some of them still do. Banners are still valuable to expose new audiences to your brand identity even if they don’t garner clicks. Popups can still gather leads when implemented appropriately.

My point is, they’re no longer “fresh” enough to grab someone’s attention and create a memorable experience.

This is why leveraging creativity matters now more than ever. Without further ado, here are three wacky ways to do just that.

1. Be Original. Be Memorable.

“Just be yourself.”

I know, I know. This sounds like the advice Mom gave you before you went to summer camp. How’d it work out for you then? Stolen lunch money? Teasing?

While there are some potential downsides to being unique, particularly when surrounded by kids or teenagers, the perks can be pretty fantastic as well.

I’d go so far as to say that in the business world, being memorable is worth its weight in gold.

Many customers make buying decisions based off emotional responses to brands. Whether it be to an ad, an email, or maybe a customer review they saw on YouTube.

The brands that tell compelling and memorable stories are the ones that land the most sales.

By being memorable and evoking a positive response from leads, you too can capitalize on this. A few ways to accomplish this…

• Curate a quirky imagery style that you feature on ads, social platforms and your website. Moz does a fantastic job of this, check out their ad portfolio on MOAT.
• Come up with a memorable and unusual catch phrase, then shout it to the world. When I think about slogans, my mind always races to Redbull. “Redbull gives you wings” is to this day, one of the most impactful, concise, and informative slogans I can think of.
• Be disruptive with your advertising (screw the norms). Facebook canvas ads are a fantastic way to get creative with your approach. Check out this example by tieks.

Sticking out like a sore thumb is a good thing when it comes to converting leads. Making a lasting impression and being personable will endear your brand to leads.

Remember, you always want to view your digital funnel from the eyes of the visitor.

Discerning visitors have an inherent sense of authenticity. If you’re genuine with your approach to your product or service, that will come across loud and clear, and in turn builds trust.

The icing on the cake? The more a lead trusts you, the more likely they are to convert.

TLDR: Developing your brand’s unique voice and “personality” encourages consumer trust, which in turns produces sales.

2. Email Nurturing with Authenticity

We all know that email is massively effective when it comes to converting leads. It’s safe to assume each and everyone of you reading this tracks email signups as “goals” in your analytics platform of choice.

Hell, at RankPay we even have a tradition of lining up for high-fives when our MailChimp subscription level increases.

Here’s the problem with emailing nowadays: Email users, aka the vast majority of people, are increasingly savvy as to what constitutes something of value in their inbox. You can’t just send an email with any old subject header and expect a double-digit open rate.

It’s time again to bust out our creativity and buck the trend.

In short, we want to be the unforgettable brand that’s unique but not bizarre enough to be off-putting.

For instance, I recently landed an opportunity by breaking all of the rules. Even the ones deliberately laid out in the denial letter I first received.

With this in mind, start by taking a closer look at your own lead nurturing email campaigns. Are the subject lines innovative, quirky or unique? Do they have any personality?

Have some fun and try A/B testing novel subject lines where you let your personality shine through. Note that it’s OK if you hear your brain protesting…

“Play it safe! What are you doing? Best practices are established. You can’t go rogue like this!”

But do it. Click send. That quirky but endearing email subject line might be just what the doctor ordered.

When you have fun, your audience will recognize this intuitively. Smiles are infectious. Positive brand associations mean more conversions.

3. Write Marketing Copy to Appeal to Emotions

Every chance you have to put words in front of your leads, is a chance to sell them on your solution. But without appealing to a lead’s emotions, we’re wasting these opportunities.

It’s understandable that us marketers occasionally struggle with this part. We become intimately familiar with our products and services, and it can become difficult to see the forest for the trees. That is to say that we lose sight of what a customer journey looks like from the prospect’s point of view.

Image Source

One negative outcome of this lack of perspective can be uninspired copywriting. No need to be hard on yourself, it happens to all of us! Present company included.

Just the other day I caught myself writing a headline for a lead-nurturing email as follows: “The Best SEO Service for Small Businesses”. That’s all well and good. It’s a fairly standard headline in that it clearly highlights our company’s service and our target audience. But it’s not memorable and I’m not sure it will truly “connect” with readers.

Luckily I realized it, and took a step back to brainstorm. In the end, I decided to go with “The easy, affordable way to earn higher rankings.” This version has a lot going for it.

• It’s punchy
• It’s catchy
• It connects with the problems this reader faces (budget and difficulty)
• It conveys authority
• It explains what we do

And again, I’d point out that being memorable matters. Generic = forgettable. Unique = memorable.

Let’s take a look at a few places you can put this to work for your business.

Company motto or slogan

Day in and day out I see brands without a good catch phrase.

Look at it this way: every single person is inundated with brand exposures from the moment they wake up. Some studies show individuals being exposed to literally thousands of ads each day.

Yankelovich, a market research firm, estimates that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 today. – New York Times

The thing is, there’s only so much room in our brains to remember all of these brand impressions. It’s thus critical that we aim to be one of the few brands that leaves a truly lasting impression.

When I’m helping clients develop these “quick pitches”, my process looks like this:

• Brainstorm as many ideas as I can (25-100)
• Pick the best 10-15
• Iterate and improve
• Get third-party feedback
• Finalize 3-5 versions
• A/B test for resonance

It’s so simple it hurts. But at the end of the day, it works.

Headlines

When it comes to being creative with your headlines, start by asking yourself a few key questions.

• Does this convey our solution’s value to the customer?
• Is it punchy and concise?
• Does it appeal to emotions?
• Is it consistent with our overall “story”?

These questions should get your gears turning and the creative juices flowing.

Remember, we want to craft a memorable message that our leads will not forget. We also want to make sure that we evoke an emotional response and appeal to the potential customer’s needs or desires.

Check out this killer example…

It’s got everything going for it. It’s punchy and unique. The wording matches the imagery. The use of the word savor as a verb is particularly great because it elicits a clearly emotional response from the audience. Who wouldn’t want to eat whatever they’re serving at this place?

Calls to action

You’ve probably already spent a lot of time optimizing the button size, color and placement. If not, be sure to check this guide on how to improve the efficacy of your CTAs in general.

Regarding the wording however, it’s important to take the chance to put something personal in the actual text. Instead of using a button that says “Submit” try something like “Start My Trial” or “Boost My Rankings”.

Copyblogger clearly showed data that corroborates using “first-person” CTA text will increase conversions. Cool right?

Last but not least, remember to be unique. Don’t be afraid to let personality shine through. Here’s an example of both a CTA and a form that I immediately loved.

Remember, Being Weird Isn’t So Bad

If you’ve watched Freaks and Geeks, you probably already believe this statement. If you’re more of the Biff type, there’s nothing wrong with you either. We love everyone here.

But I hope you’ll take the time to consider the advice above, as it can really work wonders on your conversion rate.

The key takeaways are to embrace personality, be genuine, and appeal to your customers emotions. The more a customer trusts your brand and remembers your message, the more likely they are to buy.

Write interesting copy, be weird with your subject lines, and be memorable! Let your freak flag fly!

About the Author: Sam Warren is the Manager of Marketing and Partnerships at RankPay.

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Justin Trudeau Talks Innovation in Canadian Technology at Vidyard

Today, Vidyard was honoured to welcome Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to our office for a tour of our space, a demo of our technology, and a fireside chat with our team. Led by our CEO Michael Litt, the discussion started off light, asking whether Trudeau prefers Tim Horton’s or Starbucks (turns out he doesn’t even drink coffee!), but quickly got down to business covering topics like diversity in Canadian technology, and what’s needed to keep strong technical talent in Canada. The live stream brought in over 1,300 viewers from all over the globe, and you can watch the recording and check out our highlights below!

Prime Minister Trudeau discussed everything from hockey socks to softwood lumber, and here are a few of our favorite quotes from the day:

• “Great companies like Vidyard are what I get to point to when I’m travelling abroad and say Canada is exciting and doing great things!” (Tweet This)
• “Being able to interact and see a visual presence as well as hear a person’s voice in a video – I know it’s much more effective.” (Tweet This)
• “Canada has always been innovative – to make it through our winters, and long nights, we have to be!” (Tweet This)
• “We have a generation of entrepreneurs that realize innovation can be a driver to improve lives. That’s the story.” (Tweet This)
• “Ontario produces more STEM graduates than California – but we need to do more to encourage talent to stay in Canada.” (Tweet This)
• “I don’t want to force people to stay in Canada to build a business. I want people to choose to stay, and get the support they need to be successful.” (Tweet This)
• “Standing up for Canada’s interests is my job. Whether it’s softwood or software!” (Tweet This)
• “There is always going to be far more things that keep Canada and the United States working together than there are imposing barriers.” (Tweet This)
• “Let’s work together and create pathways to help people learn, contribute and succeed throughout their working life. Not just from K-12, but as the working world changes as well.” (Tweet This)

Showcasing Canadian Innovation in Technology

In addition to giving the Prime Minister a tour of our space, Devon Galloway showed Trudeau our video creation tool ViewedIt. After a quick demo, Trudeau even took the time to record his own – watch it here:

Documenting the Big Day

As well as inspiring some next-level excitement from the Vidyard team, the event drew in a huge crowd of media and local dignitaries. Visitors included the Mayor of Kitchener, Berry Vbranovic, the Mayor of Waterloo, Dave Jaworsky, and representatives from Communitech and the local press.

Here’s a peek at how everyone captured the day!

PM @JustinTrudeau sitting down for tech demo with @vidyard #MakeItKitchener #DigitalKitchener http://pic.twitter.com/PYwZ07cFYC

— City of Kitchener (@CityKitchener) April 25, 2017

Plsd to join Team @Vidyard in @DTKitchener as PM @JustinTrudeau visits to talk #WRTech, #TOWRcorridor, #CDNinnovation & more! http://pic.twitter.com/8P85XLuZEi

— Berry Vrbanovic (@berryonline) April 25, 2017

“Great companies like @vidyard keeps Canada at forefront of new world we are building together” –@JustinTrudeau http://pic.twitter.com/uwmrO6qBjD

— Samantha Beattie (@Samantha_KB) April 25, 2017

.@michaellitt “pick one. Justin Trudeau or Justin Bieber.” @JustinTrudeau “…Timberlake.” @jtimberlake @vidyard http://pic.twitter.com/ngdiukNEiQ

— Gunjan Marwah (@Gunjan_Marwah) April 25, 2017

“Under your leadership, Canada has become a symbol of an open, diverse economy. It’s made our job easier @vidyard.” #KW http://pic.twitter.com/JAeO8MrPnD

— Gerald Butts (@gmbutts) April 25, 2017

PM @JustinTrudeau helps @vidyard ring the bell to celebrate the end of their fiscal year. http://pic.twitter.com/Sgi0oODBiu

— City of Kitchener (@CityKitchener) April 25, 2017

Had the honour of meeting @JustinTrudeau today while @vidyard #vidyard #dtk http://pic.twitter.com/zMukIIw3Xi

— Steph Plomp (@StephPlomp) April 25, 2017

The post Justin Trudeau Talks Innovation in Canadian Technology at Vidyard appeared first on Vidyard.

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3 Copywriting Mistakes That Could Be Hurting Your Free Trial Engagement (And How to Fix Them Right Now)

Find a box with a CD-ROM in it, buy it, then learn how to use it.

That’s how I bought software as a kid. So when I first started working, I assumed that if I wanted to start using work-related software, I would have to pay for it the same way: upfront — site unseen! — just like the software of my youth.

I worried that I would have to justify the cost with only the specs, reviews, and sales guy’s word to make my case. (And if I was wrong, it would be my butt on the line.)

So I’m not exaggerating when I say that discovering I could try software for free actually improved my job performance and reduced new-on-the-job anxiety by ~62%.

Using a tool BEFORE I had to recommend it to my colleagues and pull out the corporate credit card gave me a chance to see which tools actually did what we wanted them to do.

All of a sudden, the risk that we’d pay for something that didn’t have a key feature or turned out to be a user-unfriendly nightmare shrank to almost zero.

What’s the Point of a Free Trial, Anyway?

Your serious prospects approach their free trials of your software with a mindset similar to mine circa 2000-something: they want to reduce the likelihood of buying something that doesn’t work.

They’ve got a problem to solve, they’ve discovered that your app might solve it for them, but they’re not yet certain that your app will be quite right. The free trial is a chance for new users to see for themselves what it’s like to use your app.

But. It’s not up to your free trial users to figure out how your SaaS app actually works. It’s not your new users’ job to figure out how your app will turn them into a better version of themselves.

It’s yours.

Too many SaaS apps lose free trial users with erratic, boring, or vague lifecycle emails.

If you run a SaaS app in pretty much any niche, you have an enormous opportunity to outmaneuver your competitors during the free trial process.

I sign up for free trials all the time to see how they onboard new users, and most don’t do a good job. Most onboarding emails don’t make it easy to understand what to do next. Most apps leave it up to me (the brand new user) to figure out how to get started.

Why is this a problem?

Because every time you make your new readers pause and try to figure out what to do next, you create an opportunity for them to give up and just do nothing instead.

What should you say to new free trial users?

Alas, there is no single hard and set rule. Every SaaS app is unique. What you say in your free trial, how you say it, and when you deliver your message will be specific to your app.

But if your biggest problem is that you’re sending triggered emails to new free trial users but they still aren’t signing back in after the first 10 minutes of using your app, there’s a strong chance that the copy in your emails is to blame.

To fix it, pull up your emails and see if they’re are suffering from one of these 3 engagement-killing mistakes.

Mistake 1: Your emails ask people to do too much.

When you offer more choices, you inspire less action.

The famous jam paper that explained the paradox of choice (and the TED talk that made it famous) showed us how we may be unintentionally taxing our prospects’ decision-making resources by offering too many choices.

But that’s not the whole story.

A 2015 meta-analysis of the research found that the total quantity of options is just one of many factors that can contribute to decision fatigue.

Another factor is the way that options are presented to us. When the presentation of options makes it hard to determine what choice is right for us, we’re likely to defer making a decision.

So if you’re sending your free trial users emails that look like this one, then there’s a strong chance you’re causing some serious decision-deferring choice overload.

It would probably take all afternoon to do everything this email mentions, and I might not get any closer to my goal.

This message tosses out 9 links (including one that’s hidden by my redaction) without a clear messaging hierarchy to help me figure out what order I should click on them.

This email provides login info, asks me to read help articles, watch help videos on 3 separate channels, ask for help via email, read interviews, or read a blog that might be helpful–all under the umbrella of “important information”.

But for your trial users, the real important information is the information that helps them decide what to do next.

The Fix: Write each email for the sole purpose of getting your users to complete a single action–and remove text and links that don’t support that action.

This particular message might be rewritten to focus on getting a single reader to respond to the important request hiding at the bottom of that email:

In the now-famous experiment, sending a welcome-why-are-you-here email helped Groove get response rates of 41% while also providing juicy voice of customer data to power future messaging development and laying the foundation for more personal relationships with new users.

Whether you’re following Groove’s lead or not, your free trial emails should all follow the Rule of One for best results: get one reader to take you up on one offer.

One email, one action. That’s it.

Mistake 2: Your emails don’t ask readers to do something specific and measurable.

When you rewrite your emails so that they’re focused on a single action, make sure that action is a discrete, clearly defined task on the user’s path to activation.

Your reader should be able to complete the task you’ve asked them to complete–and they should be able to tell that they’ve completed it.

Unfortunately, lots of emails offer vague and nonspecific CTAs. Some of them even sound exciting — especially CTAs that use the word “explore”. Exploring is fun! It’s adventurous! Brave souls explore!

Just because it sounds fun doesn’t mean it is.

All true of actual exploring. But your SaaS app is not the Louisiana Purchase.

When you ask someone to “explore” something — anything, really — you put the onus on the reader to figure out what to do.

And because exploring doesn’t have a clearly defined end, it’s impossible for your reader to figure out exactly what to do next–and when they’ve actually completed the thing you’ve asked them to do.

The Fix: Reduce cognitive overwhelm with a CTA that calls for readers to complete a clearly defined single task.

Zapier does this well. This app helps you connect what feels like an infinite number of apps to do all sorts of cool things (including powering the technical logistics behind managing your lead nurturing messaging).

With so many options, it would be easy for free trial users to get overwhelmed. They could explore their options, but then decide not to do anything.

So instead of leaving it up to new users to decide what to do next, Zapier’s first email removes some of the cognitive drain of “Shoot, how will I choose?” and offers a CTA tightly bound around completing a single task.

I love this email, and if I was going to rewrite it I would try other CTAs that don’t sound like they’re asking your reader to do work.

You already know what steps a new free trial user needs to complete to get to the point where your app suddenly becomes a can’t-live-without-it tool. You might even know the different steps different populations take to get to the point of activation.

Use your knowledge to guide your free trial users along the steps of that path.

Mistake 3: Your emails don’t connect the CTA to the outcome your free trial users want.

If you’ve rewritten your emails to get users to complete one and only specific and measurable action, that’s a great start.

Unfortunately, one of the most common grade-F CTAs I see in onboarding emails are the ones that don’t connect completing the action to solving a problem.

They make a call to action (the CTA “sign in” and its synonyms appear with devastating frequency), but they don’t make a call to value–so readers have no reason to expect that anything good will happen after they log back in.

Did logging into anything ever solve anyone’s problems? Of course not.

It’s what happens after you log back in that makes the difference.

The Fix: If your email’s CTA could easily appear in the free trial email sequence of another app outside of your category, change it.

If you’ve conducted your jobs-to-be-done research, you also know why your readers are using your app–and the outcome they hope to achieve.

Instead of “Log in to Your Account” or “Sign Back In Now”, your free trial email CTAs should make it clear that someone who clicks on this link will be moving closer to the goal they want to achieve with your app.

Buffer does a great job of sending an email that connects my click to what happens after the click.

After I signed up for a trial but didn’t finish setup, I got an email asking me to connect my accounts that also had some background info on what accounts, exactly, we’re talking about here. (In case I forgot what Buffer is.)

This email shows me everything I can connect to Buffer and makes it abundantly clear what I need to click to move forward.

Buffer could have sent an email that said “log back in” or even “connect a profile”. But “login” = boring and “connect a profile” = kind of vague.

Instead, this email makes it abundantly clear what to do with this email (click on the link that says “click here”) and the meaningful reason why you should take that next step (because it’s what you need to do to connect your social profiles).

Are You Making it Easy for Free Trial Users to Disappear?

When I first learned about free trials for software, I was over the moon. “Look at all this stuff I get to try!” “Look at all these opinions I get to form!” “Look at how few people I have to talk to before I make my decision!”

But what are all these thoughts really about?

What are your new free trial users really thinking when they sign up for your app?

My hypothesis is this: free trial users are really thinking some version of: “Look how little risk there is to trying this software. Let’s see if it works.”

The free trial reduces the risk of having to buy before you try. Your free trial messaging is what helps your prospect understand for themselves if your software will solve a problem.

What can you do to help free trial users understand that yes, your product can change their life?

Make it easier for free trial users to evaluate your app with focused, specific, and meaningful lifecycle emails.

About the Author: Alli Blum helps SaaS apps build messages that get customers. Click to get her copywriting checklist for high-converting SaaS onboarding emails.

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