We're changing ConversionBoost... "and you'll be shocked when you find out why!"

Did the faux clickbait title work for you? Or are you genuinely interested to know what we're changing about ConversionBoost? I'm hoping the latter.

If you didn't already know, ConversionBoost  is  was our productized service for ecommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO). We've decided that that isn't enough anymore though... specifically the productized bit.

Your ecommerce store is a special snowflake

No, not in the derogatory sense popularized by current political rhetoric, but in that it is unique. This uniqueness makes it impossible to provide maximum value to you as a merchant for a fixed-price off-the-shelf offering. So we've decided to change things up.

The way we see it, is that you get three types of offerings for this kind of thing:

1. A Product - you get what you pay for, no more, no less.
2. A Productized Service - you get a finite amount of value out of a fixed price.
3. A Service - you get exactly what you want or need.

The first two are both brilliant business model propositions for the agency since they're much more scalable. You get to define the parameters of the work, you bill the same amount each time and the quicker you get at fulfilling, the more profitable it becomes.

Unfortunately, for the merchant, we've found that it offers little in the way of flexibility.

What happens when your business needs something slightly different to what the productized offering provides?

Are you paying for portions of the product that you don't need because... well, that just is what it is?

Wouldn't you feel safer knowing that the solutions provided are specifically for your business and not just another notch in the agency's bedpost?

Are you getting value from day one?

When comparing ecommerce to bricks & mortar stores, a massively beneficial factor in the former is the speed to make changes to your store.

If you identify an issue, in some cases you can fix it the same day. Other tasks may take longer, but you want to start benefiting from your decisions and actions as soon as possible.

We've done enough audits over the years now to know that there is always something you can do in the first week or two of starting. Either your navigation could be improved, your site's load speed decreased or things moved around.

Why wait? If things objectively need to be changed and leaving it just causes more and more missed opportunities, just do it!

With a more all-encompassing service based approach, we're able to engage all necessary team members from day one and immediately start chipping away at the necessary improvements.

What comes after the productized service?

One of the most glaringly obvious flaws in the productized offering from our observation is what happens (or doesn't) once you're done. Things are never done, so that question itself is almost nonsensical. 

A recurring scenario for us has seen us conducting thorough audits, lists of needed improvements created and provided to the merchant... and then at worst we hear crickets chirping... or at best there are unnecessary delays in rallying the troops to implement the changes.

This isn't good enough. You deserve more, and we value efficiency such that we're completely restructuring how we offer these services.

Collaborative & concurrent efforts

Usually, a successful CRO engagement would include some or all of the items listed below. Some are collaborative tasks where we may need you to participate. Others will be concurrently executed tasks where there is no point in doing them in order and wasting time if we have more hands on deck.  

1. Discovery & Planning
   Getting the lay of the land. What your pain points are, what challenges you're facing, what you're already doing well, what state your online business is in and what we (all) should be doing about it.
2. Tracking
   Without measuring things, what's the point? Your Google suite of products (Analytics, Tag Manager etc.) is currently the industry standard and should be setup properly to be useful. Then, other tools like Hotjar will allow you to get all the insights we need to make good decisions.
3. Navigation & Content
   Some of these changes / additions can be real quick wins. Others require time and effort but this is an area where value can be experienced very early in an engagement. Fixing objectively poorly setup structure can drastically improve a store's user's experience. The bigger stuff like (re)writing copy and producing new images is also something that simply needs to start somewhere... and while a year ago is first prize, asap comes a close second.
4. Design & development
   Depending on what needs to be done, there will almost definitely be a need for some design work to produce consistent, on-brand and effective new bits of user interface. Since we're not working with cardboard cutouts of an ecommerce store, a developer will also need to convert the pretty pictures into functioning web technology. 
5. Speed optimization & decluttering
   We've found that speed issues usually go hand in hand with poor image sizing and what we call "technical debt". By poor image sizing I mean they're too big... we or you make them smaller, pretty simple. The technical debt is sometimes a bit more complicated. Do you have 50 apps installed in Shopify? That's probably the cause. These need to be cleaned up and then there is still more that can be done to ensure that your store is being optimally served up to the customer. 
6. Testing, improving & innovating
   Beyond the above, I've been forced to resort to naming this bullet point like it's a 2 bit mobile network. This is partly due to the fact that from here, the path is what you choose to make it. You can put your foot on the gas and accelerate away from your competitors with new features and promos. Maybe you'd prefer to ease off and squirrel away some nuts. It's your call entirely but with more players entering the game than ever before (thanks social distancing), it might be wise to constantly keep improving.

Those high level facets of the process are quite broadly stated and already came out more verbose than I'd hoped. They really do just scratch the surface of what each of them covers in terms of actionable tasks though.

With such a myriad of options available based on what your business needs, it doesn't make much sense trying to pigeon hole yourself into a product/productized service, so we're moving on from that model.

Where to from here then?

Similar to our store design & build projects, we'll now be entering into discussions with merchants around their specific needs.

This way you'll get a lot more out of the working relationship. We'll also be working with fewer stores which allows us to really hone in on and focus on your success. Clearly because of this, slots will unfortunately be limited.

Get the ball rolling

If what is explained above appeals to you, please complete this form so we can book a time to chat about your needs.