The Sneaky Website Leaks That Lose Sales

In this week’s Manufacturing Ecommerce Success Series, our guest speaker was Reese Spykerman. Reese is the Principal and Creative Director at Design by Reese. Her company helps businesses increase their conversions by optimizing the designs of their websites.  Reese helps people eliminate sneaky website leaks that lose sales.

It is quite often that we don’t find website leaks that lose sales. This is usually because of the lack of attention to details or some other technical reason.

In this week’s Manufacturing Ecommerce Success Series, our guest speaker was Reese Spykerman. Reese is the Principal and Creative Director at Design by Reese. Her company helps businesses increase their conversions by optimizing the designs of their websites. Reese helps people eliminate sneaky website leaks that lose sales.

The conversation started with Reese sharing a bit about herself. She said that she went to journalism school, however, when she finished school, she wanted to do something different. This is when she kept designing and then got into her business.

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This is why she started her entrepreneurial journey. Later in around 2006, Reese started designing for websites. Later she got into consulting and then into conversion rate optimization.

Further, into the conversation, Reese talked about website leaks that lose sales. She said that often people ask her about how to get more traffic. However, the more important question is how to convert the already existing traffic.

After this, Reese shared her presentation with the audience. She started her conversation by giving an example of what are the website leaks that lose sales. According to her, these are the sneaky leaks that distract your customers from your products.

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Moreover, according to Reese, your target is always to eliminate these sneaky leaks. With this, she gave an example of 3 sneaky leaks that are the most common. The first leak according to Reese is the icons on the header and the footer of the website.

Reese said that these icons distract the customer and they click on those icons and leave your website. So what you can do is keep these icons of the same color and add little attention to this portion of the website.

After this, the second website leaks that lose sales according to Reese are too many calls for attention. Reese said that if you put, “place your order”, “sign up for the newsletter” and “the social media icons” all in the same position, it will cause too much clutter and confusion.

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This is where Reese said that we need to divide this clutter evenly on the website. Apart from this, the third sneaky leak according to Reese is that there are too many sneaky leaks on the website.

Therefore, when one website contains this much clutter, with so many font sizes and pop-up icons, it can easily distract the customer and they may leave the website. This is why putting the right detail in the right place is what’s important according to Reese.

The conversation ended with Curt and Damon thanking the guest for her presence.

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Exit Your Way® provides a structured process and skilled resources to grow business value and allow business owners to leave with 2X+ more money when they are ready.

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43:31

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

website, people, reese, kurt, e commerce, linkedin, squirrels, homepage, customers, clients, header, question, leads, top, dear friend, bigger, manufacturers, damon, product, allison

SPEAKERS

Damon Pistulka, Curt Anderson, Reese Spykerman

 

Damon Pistulka  00:00

Awesome. Well, we’re going to go live on LinkedIn and then we will get started here. So is this pause?

 

Curt Anderson  00:12

The awkward pause every

 

Damon Pistulka  00:13

Yeah, yeah, we’re laughing here on remote because as we go live on LinkedIn, everyone, we’re we we have to wait for the video to stop by LinkedIn. So welcome once again everyone to our manufacturing ecommerce Success Series with myself Damon Pistulka, the co host with me, Kurt Anderson, and I’m just happy to be here again on another Friday with a wonderful speaker dropping some great topics and information about e commerce. So Kurt, as we do, I’m gonna let you take it away.

 

Curt Anderson  00:46

Thanks, brother. So guys, so Damon Pistulka the hostess hosts with the most, and we have a great program today. So Kurt Anderson here I have my dear friend Reese. Spike Herman and Reese is an e commerce conversion expert. And Reese. Welcome. Thank you for stopping by and join us today. And how are you?

 

Reese Spykerman  01:08

I’m great. Kurt. I I got to tell you it. I’m so thrilled to be here. You guys have a lot of fun. You bring such great energy. So I’m excited for this talk today.

 

Curt Anderson  01:18

Well, so Damon, I need to do a couple things on the intro. First, we want to give a shout out to everybody, Dan bigger 132 on the button brother. So hey, Friday, and Dan and I might actually were talking about actually meeting in person for the first time. So Danny made my day today with that. So we’re trying to make that happen. So we’ve got candy up in Alaska, Kevin, our dear friend and Madison. Valerie. Jeffrey stern is with us today. Dan bigger, of course. So guys, Happy Friday.

So Reese, I want to tell you a little bit about restatement. So I met. There’s a podcast called entrepreneurs on fire. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s probably top five top 10 business podcasts. It’s john Lee Dumas. He started in 2012 guys just absolutely crushing it. And so I listened to it quite religiously on a regular basis. And one day I’m at the gym. I’m listening to this amazing, incredible podcast and the guest is Rhys, and she’s going through these steps for e commerce and I’m completely blown away.

So her and I connected on LinkedIn. I think this was back in like October. And so we’ve had numerous conversations. We booked this for April, so recently been waiting on this for months. And Risa has a fascinating background. She’s an e commerce conversion expert. I believe Reese, I believe you went to the University of Missouri journalism school, correct? Yeah, you got the you know, the journalism school of fame. So tell us a little bit about your background, how you got an e commerce and how you found yourself as a conversion expert.

 

Reese Spykerman  02:45

Yeah. And, Kurt, I also want to say I think one of the best things to come out of that podcast with entrepreneurs on fire was connecting with you. So I’m so pleased to be here with you today.

 

Damon Pistulka  02:54

Thank you.

 

02:55

Yeah, absolutely.

 

02:57

Appreciate that.

 

Reese Spykerman  02:58

Oh, I’ve been a marketing in about 15 years, as you mentioned, I went to journalism school, and I got out and I decided, you know, I don’t really want to go work in the media. And my heart was to be an entrepreneur. And I saw an opportunity around 2006 or seven, right? When blogging and the internet was kind of getting steam to start designing websites for companies and people it took off, I did really well. And I decided that I didn’t want to keep doing the hands on design work anymore. And I shifted to consulting.

And a few years ago, Kurt, it really became clear to me that e commerce is not only this, like hugely growing industry, where there’s a lot of demand for my services. But it also would really benefit from conversion rate optimization, whether we’re talking your website, even your email sequences, we’re talking about all levels. And so what I do today is I consult with product based businesses. And I help them with eliminating website leaks that lose sales throuth design & copy. And on a personal note, I live in northern Michigan, I lived in Malaysia for seven years, and I am a science fiction fanatic.

 

Curt Anderson  04:12

Nice. So and and I’m glad you mentioned because you’ve lived in multiple countries lived all over the world. And so how you know, do you feel that you bring a global perspective to your clients when you’re tackling these projects?

 

Reese Spykerman  04:24

Absolutely. And I want to be careful here to say that I certainly am not an expert at multiple cultures. But one of the things I did learn that’s very important is that what works or is a pattern or a point of persuasion in one culture may completely miss the mark in a different one. And so if you are an international brand, you have a lot more considerations on your hand with your branding, even with things like the words you choose to use and whether they resonate with one culture or the other.

 

04:56

Yeah, perfect. Go ahead, Damon.

 

Damon Pistulka  04:59

When And when you talk about the thing that I always like about conversion optimization, right is that you don’t need to drive more people to your website, you’re just getting those people that are there already to buy from you, or to see the benefit of what you’re doing so they will buy from you. It’s it’s conversion optimization. If you overlook it, you’re missing a huge opportunity, because you took all the time and effort to get people there. To get that last step is where you really can make the most money the sometimes the easiest.

 

Reese Spykerman  05:33

So glad you brought that up, Damon, because it is a common thing that I consistently see like in my facebook group, for example, people will say, How do I get more traffic? And I say, like, let’s not focus on traffic until you know how to convert the traffic you already have. The answer is not more traffic. Yes, you have zero visitors.

 

Curt Anderson  05:53

Right, right. No, that’s, that’s a great question. So tying in with that, I want to again, welcome everybody. My friend Don from Alaska just joined us. I rose here, john from Jersey just hopped in, guys, please feel free to drop your LinkedIn profile in the chat box. I’ve put Reese’s contact information her website, her LinkedIn profile, and she also she has a free masterclass coming up super exciting program that we’re going to be talking about. Now. Reese, did you happen to bring a presentation today?

 

Reese Spykerman  06:21

As a matter of fact, Kurt, I stored one in my back pocket, which I do on occasion. You are for times like games to Damon, how

 

Curt Anderson  06:29

good is she just you know, we just catch her walking through the virtual Street and she just happens to have a presentation. Rhys, why don’t we go people would love to see what we have going on. I think Jeffrey stern from voice Express is going to love this. So let’s go ahead and take a look at that presentation.

 

Reese Spykerman  06:42

Awesome. Okay, let me share my screen see if we can get this technology working.

 

Damon Pistulka  06:48

Well, we got some people on LinkedIn here while no one check in with your if you’re on LinkedIn check in where you’re listening from. Rob Vander Pol, I’m not sure what you’re trying to explain there. But if you could drop another comment, maybe I can understand it. But Michelle, thanks for being there on LinkedIn. Take it away, Reese.

 

Reese Spykerman  07:09

Give me a sec. I gotta hide this little thing. All right. All right. All right. So you can see my screen. Perfect. Yeah. Great. All right. You’re about to discover the greatest marketing secret that you have never been told. Now, if that has your feelers up, your spidey senses going. That’s a little lofty. That means you’re smart. And I like you, because my feelers will be up to. But what I’m going to share today can give you a distinct advantage against competitors, and even more importantly, help you connect with customers in a super respectful way.

But that is only if you take the secret that I’m going to share and apply it to all your marketing, your emails, your ads, your website, knowing the secret is not enough. It is a philosophy. It is a practice. So if you are ready lated get close. Because here it is. People are like buffers. That’s the greatest secret of marketing. Now, who here has seen the animated movie up? Just like trapa? Yes, in the chat, if you’ve seen it, and I’m going to summarize what’s going on here in this GIF. This dog is named dog.

And he has the ability to talk with humans. He has a special color that lets him do that. And he is explaining this and how he can do this to another character. And in the middle of his monologue. He suddenly shows squirrel, he looks to the right, and he is off to the races off camera. So that’s what I mean, when I say that people are puppers because people are like dog, the dog. They are so easily distracted. everyday. There are 1000s of squirrels in our world that catch our attention. And why is this so important?

Because too many websites out there that I see are full of squirrels. Here’s what happens when your website is full of squirrels. The path is chaotic. The pupper the person is like Did someone say squirrel? Where’s the Facebook like, oh, there’s Instagram shiny object. I’m confused do I click on the button or the random graphic. But when you reduce or eliminate the squirrels on your website, here’s what you get. instead.

Someone comes to your homepage. They explore your products or services. They give you an email they send an inquiry sometimes they might even buy and then they buy from you. This is when the path is very clear for them. There are no squirrels or distractions in the way you need to give your customers One Direction a clear path to buy from you.

The squirrel These distractions are also known as sneaky leaks, and that’s what we’re going to refer to them as for the rest of this presentation. When it comes to marketing, and your squirrels, you got to watch out for these leaks. There’s literally hundreds of them, big and small. But Kurt said, Reese, you got to keep it snappy chop, chop. So today, I’m just going to share three. Okay. And then I’m also going to share my favorite tweet to help you boost your website conversion rate.

 

Damon Pistulka  10:32

Awesome.

 

Reese Spykerman  10:33

So here’s the first leak, you are sending them away, you’re sending them off your website, check out this template. It has got in the header in the top right corner there. social media icons. Now guys, the header of a website is the most important thing on a website. It is prime real estate. It is like the gold coast of California because they’re gold coast of California. Anyway, when you put social media icons up in that header, you’re sending people off your website. And you might think, well, then they’ll become a follower or they’ll follow me on Facebook. But you know what happens? We’ve got squirrels when this happens.

They go they hit Instagram, they might hit LinkedIn, they have forgotten about you. Because that shiny red notification button tells their subconscious mind. I wonder if so and so DM me, followers today, like they will forget about you. We want to keep them on your website as long as possible so that they can buy from you. But you know what the header, the header is not the only place that this is a problem. So we’ve got voice Express, I’m not sure if they’re with us today on this call. But I took a look at their website. And I looked this is the footer, right, the very bottom of the website in desktop mode.

And you know what’s happening here is this is a really elegant and lovely looking design approach they have, but Oh, social media. You guys notice they’re the most colorful thing on the footer. That’s catching our eye. And so is that recaptured button. And you know what that means? No one is like it’s very it’s noise that’s burying the opportunity to capture someone’s email address.

So what happens if we reimagine the way that this could look? What if we move those social media icons over to the left, we make them all the same color, we reduce their size, they’re there if people really want them, but they’re not screaming for attention. They’re not a squirrel anymore. They’re not a leak. And we emphasize the email signup area. And if you didn’t catch it, there’s another little tip I snuck in here for you, you are far more likely to get people to sign up for your email list.

If you offer them something free in return. This works so much better than sign up for our newsletter updates. And I saw on voice Express, they had an amazing podcast about how to create an emotional connection with customers. They could turn that into a free little guide or report. So that was sneaky leak one, you’re sending them away from your website. And I’m curious, Kurt, if there’s any questions that people have at this point before I get to the next two weeks.

 

Damon Pistulka  13:14

Yeah, Kurt Kurt’s having a little bit of technical issues but I’ll take over I think, you know, we got Dan bigger said yep, we screwed this up back to the drawing board. I’m thinking the same thing too. Because if you look at our new website, it’s down to the lower left they are all the same color they all are all small but maybe moving the social icons down into the footer only is a good thing. They’re not in the header anymore because we used to have like that on our old site, which now I realize how atrocious that is, but I like the end the the way you redid this with a guide, I think is awesome, because you’re there drawing the attention to the free guide.

 

Reese Spykerman  13:52

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It’s the most dominant thing in this area.

 

Damon Pistulka  13:57

Yeah, yeah. real good. real good. Let’s see what else we got. Yeah, and I was talking about the free guide being a lead magnet we got ravinder Paul on on LinkedIn saying the same thing too. You know, it’s it’s, you redesign this so you really can tell where you want someone’s focus to go.

 

14:17

Yeah, awesome.

 

Reese Spykerman  14:18

I’m glad it makes sense.

 

Damon Pistulka  14:19

Yeah, yeah, it is. It’s ringing through the chat and roll in here. So good. So good, good. Good. All right. Should

 

Reese Spykerman  14:25

it be should we should I reveal the sneaky leak the second one.

 

14:30

You’re hurt. Hey,

 

Curt Anderson  14:33

what is the Friday

 

Reese Spykerman  14:40

Fridays well, Meanwhile, back for those of us who don’t have a case of the Friday’s sneaky week. Number two is you’re competing with yourself. Let’s take a look at what I mean. This author’s website in my opinion has Too much calling for attention all in the same area. So we’ve got one choice is order the book, immediately underneath it is a sign up, but we aren’t even really sure what we’re signing up for.

And then to the right are our friends, those social media icons. Now this is right near the top of the website. And what happens is when we put too many dominant decisions by each other at once, it leads to a confused mind and a confused mind. And indecision leads to No, they won’t pick any of them. Because they’re overwhelmed by the choices. That’s number two. I should hold on I’m going back. So yeah,

 

Damon Pistulka  15:40

I think this is a great point. Because like, if you look at your above the fold part of your website, just making sure that there’s there’s only one decision there, even like this, I I’m I’m beginning to think from what you’re saying, Do you even want to have the menu choices up there? Because now you see some of the websites or the menu choices to the left or the right or something like that? Because it might draw attention, but certainly not like this, where you’ve got two competing choices and the social media icons all at once. Right away?

 

Reese Spykerman  16:13

Yeah, you know, I actually, I wanted to give an idea about how this could be reproach in case it helps someone listening. So if she were my client, I would say what if we do this? What if at the top like in the above fold area, like you mentioned, we have? Get a free chapter of my new book. When you enter your email, like the wording needs help, but you get the idea. Yeah, then what you do is you send them the free chapter, you put them into a funnel, and you encourage them to then go buy the book. Right. So first, you capture that lead, and then go encourage them to buy that book.

 

Damon Pistulka  16:49

Yeah. That’s a good point. Because the the simple call to action there the less commitment on their side. It’s that’s probably above the fold is the right place to get that first initial call to action, isn’t it?

 

Reese Spykerman  17:05

Yeah. And what a juicy thing to offer someone a free chapter. I mean, I think a lot of people would really find that to be, especially if they’re a fan of hers valuable. Now, there’s context that matters here guys. Like, if they are fans, they might very well go order the book. But I like to assume that we have a fair amount of people who are new to us coming to the site. We connect with them. Yeah.

 

Curt Anderson  17:28

Yeah, it’s in our dear friend IRA makes a good point. He says less is more, right. Yep. And man, Allison’s in the house demon. So today, Happy Friday. Welcome.

 

Damon Pistulka  17:39

Yes. Yes. And then I like to I like what Dan talked, he is why didn’t our web designer point this stuff out? And, and and then who is it? JOHN, he said, the web team gets paid to make it all function not execute for your business. And this is so so so. So true. I think it’s almost like you have to have two different parties that are working on your website.

And this is why it’s this part of the reason why e commerce is so complex, because a really good web developer may not understand the customer journey well enough or or simplification like you’re talking about here, to make it easy to capture these leads or make it people easier not to capture leads, but get them so they can find what they want easier. I guess I’m not explaining that well, but simple.

 

Curt Anderson  18:30

You’re making a great point, Damon, that’s what we talked about last last week, we had a nice case study Rhys, we had a ecommerce firm in the actual client came on, and we’re talking about how important it is from that, you know, almost bridging that gap playing interpreter for the tech side of what’s possible to like the functionality side, especially for manufacturers because there’s so many, you know, pun intended moving parts, you know, so they’re, you’re manufacturing, you’re creating something where like, you know, for just redistributing, or a retailer, we’re just buying a part and just selling it, it’s a lot easier.

But for manufacturers, it’s a lot more complex. So recent, man, I apologize. I had to cut out for a minute. I’m not sure I had low tech issue, but I’m sorry, if you shared this already. What are some of the most common Do you have like common culprits that you see on a very regular consistent basis with the sneaky leaks?

 

Reese Spykerman  19:20

Um, well, I I’m going to share like in the third one a few more than perfect Dawson.

 

Curt Anderson  19:25

Right? We’re jumping ahead.

 

Damon Pistulka  19:27

Let’s go. It’s

 

Reese Spykerman  19:28

fine. We’re good. And what you might have missed is the first one was someone help me remember here. What was the first one?

 

Damon Pistulka  19:38

The social icons at the top of your web? Right? Yeah,

 

Reese Spykerman  19:41

you’re sending people away from your website?

 

19:44

Yeah.

 

Curt Anderson  19:46

Thanks. I was got social social icons in the header. Very

 

Reese Spykerman  19:50

awesome. I was on top of it. I love it.

 

Damon Pistulka  19:52

Yep. back.

 

Reese Spykerman  19:55

So we got number three. Okay, wait, you’re giving them too many squirrels. So what do we mean by too many squirrels? Right? The dog just doesn’t know what to do. The popper, too many different thoughts is an example. Right? It’s like, it’s noise, it’s distraction, too many different colors. A lot of businesses, someone mentioned, Why didn’t my website designer Tell me if any of this, there’s two issues why this happens, the website designer wants to make it pretty, and the business owner wants to make it pop.

So they have ideas on what things they think will make it pop. And those things distract the customer from buying from you. So that’s like too many colors, too many fonts, emphasizing everything, I want this bigger, but I want this bigger too. And it’s like, well, nothing’s bigger than anymore.

And when you do this, the people the puppers, run around. And they just don’t have that clear path that we said they need in order to make a buying decision or to even just get on your email list. So that’s basically the third league is you’ve got too many squirrels. And I would love to share with you something that I think could really boost your sales. But I also want to make sure if people have some questions about this, that we answer them.

 

Damon Pistulka  21:11

Yeah. Awesome.

 

Curt Anderson  21:15

Yeah. And in, in our dear friend Gail is in the house gal is up in Canada. So welcome, Happy Friday gal. And she was talking about form versus function. So and that’s, that’s great. So basically, you know, simpler, less is more simpler, concise call to actions. What like, if you have How do you tactfully tell a client that maybe there’s a lot of squirrels going on, or there’s a little too busy, you know, worried about hurting somebody’s feelings? How Reese How do you tactfully just or just you just tell him like, dude, you just like, it’s like, bad fashion, you know, like, like me wearing my, my fashion just doesn’t match, right?

 

Reese Spykerman  21:52

Yeah, I’ve had to develop my diplomatic muscle for the years. And, you know, Kurt, what works really well. Is, is showing them some case studies. Like if I have, for example, there’s a great place that I go to a lot called the baymard Institute. And they do a lot of user testing. And so they’ll enter for e commerce, I will often go and site something there and say, you know, Will people actually said that when this happens, they’re less likely to buy and use you know, it’s hard to argue with math.

 

Curt Anderson  22:26

Right. And in a lot of time in our dear friend Allison’s on, you know, a lot of times what I’m finding this this a great conversation I had this past week, a company is trying like they’ve elevated their game where they’re selling to a higher end clientele with a problem is and we’re just talking different brands, you can talk cars, makeup, you know, whatever, you know, we started using, like the Walmart nordstroms, they were up in Seattle.

So we started using a wall, Walmart nordstroms example, their website is really kind of like blocked in Walmart, but they’re trying to be nordstroms. So the problem is their customer service and our sales team are frustrated, because they’re receiving a lot of bad leads, and they can’t figure it out. And they’re getting frustrated, these new customers are frustrated. But there’s there’s just a total brand confusion there on trying to attract too many customers, you know, and so juice Do you find that frequently reached with your clients?

 

Reese Spykerman  23:19

Yes, I love that you brought this up, because there is a difference between the number of leads and the quality of your lead, right? You want a higher quality lead? And that comes into play with what is how are you approaching your branding and you need before you even approach your branding. So how you look the word you use, you need to understand your customer and who they are, what not just their demographics, but what is really important to them, what do they desire when it comes to your product? And only then and only then, can you give them the kind of words and visuals that need them otherwise you’re gonna be attracting someone else?

 

Curt Anderson  24:01

So So we do have a question. So my dear friend, I’m just gonna I’m just gonna bring up Dan and candy our friends up in Alaska. In downsizing noise. How do you make How do you make decision on what to keep? Great question guy. That is? That’s

 

Damon Pistulka  24:14

a great question.

 

Reese Spykerman  24:16

I love this question. And I think Don, I’m going to be showing you an example that I hope will answer that question, but if it doesn’t, let’s dig in a little deeper. Would that be okay?

 

Damon Pistulka  24:29

Absolutely. Okay.

 

Reese Spykerman  24:33

Great. Any others right now before I show them I’m so excited to show them like this tweak to boost leads or sales.

 

Damon Pistulka  24:42

Yeah. Oh, I got you always have to laugh at Allison stuff. Oh, God. That was great. The website is nothing more than an amplifier if the substance sucks or is missing entirely doesn’t really matter how pretty the site is.

 

Reese Spykerman  24:58

Can I swear not resist like the teacher?

 

Damon Pistulka  25:02

I do. I do. And I don’t even realize it. So yes.

 

Reese Spykerman  25:05

Yeah, so my husband likes to say he’s an artist shit in shit out.

 

Damon Pistulka  25:09

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

 

Reese Spykerman  25:12

Yeah. That’s basically the concise way of what Alison just says.

 

Curt Anderson  25:15

Yep, exactly. And Nelson responds hell yes.

 

25:19

Awesome. I,

 

Damon Pistulka  25:21

yeah. Hey, okay.

 

Curt Anderson  25:27

Go right, hit Reese. If you want to move forward with your slide. That’s

 

Damon Pistulka  25:31

awesome.

 

25:32

Let’s do this.

 

Reese Spykerman  25:34

Alright, here’s the super tweet. All right, is one main call to action per page. Now, this gets a little bit complicated in e commerce. And we can talk that out in a second if you want. But I will show you visual what I mean? Well, let’s talk first, what do we mean by a call to action. It’s basically it tells your customers what they should be doing next. Once they land on your website, it should be clear and concise, it should use a verb, I frankly, think it needs to have a button, a text link has been shown statistically to not work as well, it’s got to look different.

If you have other calls to action on your page, it’s got to be more emphasized. That’s what I mean by a main one. And you need to minimize those other ones visually, you can also add more emphasis by giving some space around it. So let me show you this awesome before and after I’ve got a couple of them. And I think they’re going to drive the point home.

 

Damon Pistulka  26:33

Great. Great.

 

Reese Spykerman  26:34

So this is my client, Cindy. She’s in the service space industry. And right before on purpose, this is just her homepage, we didn’t even go through the rest of the site, this was a quick project just on home. All her call to action buttons look the same. You see how they’re all big this red looking button. In the visitors mind, this makes them all equally important. Even though you don’t see them all. And they show up as you scroll. It’s kind of like which one do I choose. So in the main call to action at the top, that red button is really hard to see against the black because the contrast isn’t very high. Check this out.

The tweak I made increased her leads to her email list by 52.9% in a month. And it’s this we make the call to action button out of that black box. We make it bigger, stronger, more emphasis. But you notice how all the other links below are de emphasized. We turn them into text links. This helps make it clear subconsciously to the visitor that top thing is the most important thing that I want you to do. And I’ll show you side by side, because it’s even easier to see when you look at it that way.

 

Damon Pistulka  27:51

Yeah,

 

Curt Anderson  27:53

that’s cool. A 52% conversion. And you said 52.9

 

Reese Spykerman  27:58

she her lips grew like from the month prior she had 52.9% more leads after making this change.

 

Curt Anderson  28:05

Phenomenal. absolutely phenomenal. JOHN says running. Yeah. Great, great example. And that’s that boy, and I know I’ve been guilty of this, you try to be everything to everybody. You know, it’s you’re trying to put everything out there, you know, tell the entire story. And so what you’ve done is you, you you at some point in time, you have to pick a cause. And what you’ve done is you pick this is our main cause this is where we’re trying to drive that traffic, that engagement and you’re seeing dramatic results. Boy, kudos. Great job rings.

 

Reese Spykerman  28:37

Yeah. Let’s look at an e commerce example, though. Because you make such a great point. Kurt was like, What do you choose? And when we’re talking about a product based business, it’s even harder than it was for my clients Cindy with a service based business. So I want to show you Faulconer electronics, I think you know, these guys,

 

Curt Anderson  28:54

I do know these guys.

 

Reese Spykerman  28:56

So let’s analyze what’s going on with their site real quickly. What’s happening is we’ve got no single primary call to action, we have three buttons going across the top that say learn more, which is not very descriptive, either. They’re competing with that free shipping graphic. We’ve got a lot of color in the header. It’s kind of like where does the AI go in so what happens if we reimagine this and we make it so that we minimize all that color so that you emphasize the first call to action now, I don’t know much about falters business, but I went out on a limb and guess that maybe the ground straps might be their biggest mover.

So I decided let’s emphasize that on the homepage as the thing we want them to shop and you know what I changed the language from learn more to shop brown straps. Um, that doesn’t mean people won’t go look at your wire harnesses or your other things all right, it’s just going to help steer them first your ground strap feel like the ground straps, do the wire harnesses. But we’ve streamlined everything in the header. So it’s not competing with that call to action for attention.

And it makes it a lot easier for people to navigate. And the other thing I did, you might notice, again, I don’t know their market very well. But I kind of rifted that I did some copy that you’re keeping you and your customers out of harm’s way since 1985. It gets a customer benefit. And it’s a bit of their value proposition in here. But Papa yes in the chat if you would like me to come in again at another time and do a presentation on the magic words to use on your website that stop customers in their tracks?

Because if you do, I’m going to make you a deal. Kurt mentioned I have a free masterclass coming up. And I would love to drive more signups so more people can get the expert advice in that masterclass. If you sign up and tell at least two of your friends in e commerce about it and I have 100 more signups by May 1. I will come back and I will give you the magic words presentation. And you can find that here at the commerce collab calm. Yeah.

 

Curt Anderson  31:05

Nice Reese. That’s quite an offer. So let’s Alright, so first, man, tons on pack there. My goodness,

 

Damon Pistulka  31:11

I just, I’m just going back and I’m thinking about what you said about the designer, the owner all want to make this website pop. And what you did was 180 degrees from that, but you made the thing. You highlighted the important money making part of the website because from a designer standpoint, the website’s boring from the art standpoint, or the executive the website looks boring, but from a sales standpoint, that’s what the hell you want to do.

 

Curt Anderson  31:39

Right? So Alright, so a few things we want to cover real quick. And Gail says I need to watch today’s session again, man just we need to repeat on this race. So I dropped Teresa’s LinkedIn, her website and her masterclass box, please connect with Rhys on LinkedIn, stop by her website, you want to check it out. And then most importantly, you want to check out her masterclass. It’s coming up at the end of May. So Reese, let’s talk about and thank you for doing this. For me. This was great how you did this.

Now what let’s talk about a couple of different things because we have marketers on the program are trying to drive traffic to specific websites, or specific landing pages with either pay per click SEO or social strategy. You know, on that homepage, again, man, we’re trying to be everything you know, we’re at the low end, we’re trying to you know, we’re trying to be everything to everybody on that homepage.

So now what you’ve done is you’ve just really simplified so when you have that retailer, the e commerce you know, website, done, my friend sells fish. He has this incredible fishing lure up in Alaska, my friend candy up in Alaska, we have voice Express Jeffrey Stern, so everybody’s selling different parts and different products. How do you encourage that client on that homepage and maybe prioritize? Or what is the How do you pick that top priority, as you did here with the ground strap example?

 

Reese Spykerman  33:03

Great question. I love this. Let me ask first is can I switch off my screen here? Is that cool? Yep. All right. Give me a sec here. So I can actually, as I talk. Alright.

 

Damon Pistulka  33:16

There we go.

 

Curt Anderson  33:18

We’re done. Damon and I are like the two demons you watch them up. It’s when you’re a kid growing up. Remember the two old guys in the balcony? You know, that’s a demon. So we’re adopting. So that’s what you’re missing?

 

Reese Spykerman  33:30

Yeah. Okay, like the Muppets. Um, there are two approaches the icy to the homepage. And it depends in my opinion on your product up on your catalog size. If you have a ton of skews, then I like to use this top area to promote a sale or like a promotion or a new product offer. If you have a smaller catalog or you are a newer brand. I like to use it more as what I call like the value proposition area. And so then what it becomes is maybe that top like main CTA is just directing to the main shop category page. Does that make sense? So it’s really contextual, really depends on the size of your business.

And so again, with a larger business, I would have a sale or promotion that might switch out quite frequently. And then as you go down page, you will want to do things like your product categories. Then you want to maybe put some info a little blurbs of information in bullets about your point of difference and then you want to have things like a bestsellers and you don’t want to have 80 million product photos on there. You got to keep it lean in me go look at Rei calm they are you know like outdoor manufactured clothing and stuff. They have a big catalog and they have a pretty darn tight homepage there’s not a lot going on.

 

Curt Anderson  34:52

Alright, re so let me let me throw a little challenge at you and this wasn’t a prepared question. But since my dear buddy Dan bigger is on the program and we target manufacturers, we have a lot of manufacturers that do not have a proprietary product. Okay?

So when I say that, you know, they have proprietary processes, they’re, you know, basically service providers, they fabricate something, they bend metal, they cut steel, they do plastic injection molding, that type of thing. See, they have a kind of a broad menu, they do multiple different things, again, kind of a broad question, but how would you help approach a custom manufacturer has multiple different services? And how would you kind of like attack that homepage? Or challenger for you? How about that.

 

Reese Spykerman  35:38

In that case, what I might do is treat that top air First, you want it before you even start with this top area, your navigation needs to be categories well, and onpoint. And organized well, but for that top area that we’re talking about underneath the header, in the case you’re talking about, as for a manufacturer, what I might experiment is with changing it out on a week to week basis.

So on week one, you know, this retooling thing. Or you might decide to do it on a quarterly calendar, it doesn’t really matter, you might in fact, look and see, do you have sales spikes, like on a seasonal? Or is there a trend, and then maybe you ride the trends or there’s another way to skin the cat, maybe you have a really high season that no matter what you know, you’re going to sell this particular type of manufacturing service.

So then you want to try and move one of your slower mover services up and that becomes the feature on the top. Like it’s so contextual, Curt, but that’s kind of like I really think it’s very different from one manufacturer to the next like from one business to the next. Does that make sense?

 

Curt Anderson  36:47

You know what I would I break it if I drop it, but I’m trying I’m gonna drop my mic. How’s that? That was I put you on the spot with that question. That was absolutely fantastic. A couple of comments here our dear buddy I you got to connect with IRA Thank you, too, would really hit it off. The answer to the question is found who you target and how you best serve. I’d like to come back to that Allison, who we love dearly with all our hearts. She wants to connect with you. So in she’s one of the funniest, funniest folks on the planet.

She’s a brilliant marketer for manufacturers. My dear friend candy says if a company will have a DTC on their website, but they also this boy, that’s a great question candy. Oh, boy. And they also want to have wholesale b2b? Would it be good to have the first page of the website?

Top have one box to click for the public and one for wholesalers going to a different website for that purpose? Or is there a better way to split that up? So the question if I’m understanding correctly, DTC direct to consumer in candy has this amazing, incredible product that she’s invented. My dear friend He’s invented, done up to Alaska entrepreneurs that have invented their own products. So b2b versus that DTC conversation? How would you take that Reese?

 

Reese Spykerman  38:02

If it were my business? Yep, I would look at my numbers. Now, if it were not a 5050 situation, and one more a bigger mover than the other, then I would honor that traffic and those numbers and those metrics and emphasize that, but make it really clear in the main navigation menu, like, maybe there’s a like, say, for example, in this example, that the DTC D to C is the bigger pie of the business piece of the pie.

So I would make sure in the main navigation that you have a primary link, like a parrot top link that says something like wholesale or like wholesale orders or wholesale opportunities, that’s how I would approach that now, if it’s a 5050. situation. This one is challenging, I could see an argument to be made for having the top area have your value proposition, lead to the product page or the shop page. So we’re, but make it clear on that next page, that there still could be like wholesale opportunities or, you know, you see how, again, is very contextual.

 

39:15

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it

 

Curt Anderson  39:17

depends on number of products and what have you. And again, God, we could be here all day. And now, you know, I’ve got like, I’ve one last question that I want to keep this one brief. You talked earlier about the persona. And a lot of our clients are either, you know, we deal with a lot of manufacturers, they, you know, they’re great at making widgets. They’ve just never even really thought or even heard of going through that persona concept. You know, going through the persona exercise. Our dear friend Allison, just she’s phenomenal at that you do it with your clients. How would you approach that persona exercise or creating that persona? How do you attack that with your clients?

 

Reese Spykerman  39:57

I have a fairly extensive question. Hear that I have them fill out. A lot of people get stuck on this, they hate this work. Hey, I’ll tell you I want to tell you two things. Sometimes the golden what people care about is found in things like your customer reviews or what they tell you on phone calls, you want to listen closely to their language. The second thing is if you are struggling with this, this is part of why I am pushing this the commerce collab.

Because on this season, I am having a guest named Monica, whose entire expertise is around, how do you get your customers to spill the beans and tell you the stories you need to hear so that you understand how to market to them. And it’s such it’s probably one of my favorite interviews of the whole season. So that’s why I’m just so passionate about promoting that.

 

Damon Pistulka  40:48

Yeah. Wow, man,

 

40:50

spill the beans. How

 

40:52

do you? Boy,

 

Curt Anderson  40:52

we could perfect that. Get your customers spill the beans? Wow. Yeah, well, I will do what I want to do is Reese, we could be here all day. I want to be mindful and respectful of everyone’s time, because I would like to get back to the tables because I’m sure there’s number of people that would really like to talk to you. I’d like you to have an opportunity to chat with folks at the tables. Reese so our dear I’m sorry, I keep giving a shout out to Allison. She likes to talk to her customers about how do you make a hero out of their customer? How do you make your customers their hero of your story?

 

Reese Spykerman  41:23

You’re asking me this.

 

Curt Anderson  41:24

I am asking you Yep. How do you make your customers the hero of your story?

 

Reese Spykerman  41:29

There’s, it’s a, it’s a deep question, but I’m going to give a simple answer. There’s so much power in the word you. You need to not talk about you and your products and your business. Instead, you need to paint the picture for your customer about how it will change her life or benefit her.

 

41:49

Thank you Alison.

 

41:52

I love this woman. So guys,

 

41:54

I want to so Reese.

 

41:55

Thank you I

 

Curt Anderson  41:56

had you I You had me on Entrepreneur on Fire when we met on your path on that podcast, guys. breece connect with Reese on LinkedIn, catch her workshop at the end of May. I can’t thank you enough for joining us today and just dropping naps of bombshells tremendous value, huge strategy, ecommerce strategies and tips for us. So everyone, thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Happy Friday. wish everyone a great weekend. Reese. Thank you for joining us today.

 

Reese Spykerman  42:25

Thank you guys. Oh my gosh, it was my pleasure. I was it was an honor to be here. Thank you.

 

Damon Pistulka  42:32

Brother. Well, I apologize to people on LinkedIn because I was looking up the two old guys on the Muppets it is Statler and Waldorf. We just had to figure out who is who. Yeah, we’ll figure that out. I was actually gonna try to try to try to share the image but I realized as soon as I really didn’t feed so sorry about that. But it was incredible. I mean, the chat going on crazy like this, the stuff that we you were you’re dropping the knowledge and nuggets.

It was it was incredible. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks everyone. We are going to drop off of LinkedIn live now. And then we are going to go back to the tables for the networking at the on remote here. So if you’re on LinkedIn, you know you can join us here every week, you can just come to Remo and you can talk to the speakers, you can talk to the other guests. So remember that we’re dropping off the LinkedIn and going back to the tables. Have a great day, everyone.

 

Curt Anderson  43:27

Thanks, guys.

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