How Highlighting Our Customers Increased Conversion

As an internet based business (and an entrepreneurial one at that) we are constantly testing new things. We are always trying to figure out ways to increase conversion and help people better (and more quickly) understand our product. A few months ago we did an A/B test that increased conversion about 0.3%. That’s a lot! We thought it might be interesting (and fun) to share a bit more insight into this test. Who knows, maybe it can help you as well!

We used to only have 3 tabs on our main page, Home – How It Works & Features – Pricing & Signup. We did an A/B test where we sent half of the traffic to our current setup at the time (3 tabs) and the other half to a home page that had a 4th tab called “Happy Customers.”

The result? Visitors who hit the 4 tab page with the Happy Customers converted .3% higher than those who hit the original version.

Why it Worked

It’s not sales-y

When most people click on this page they are probably expecting to see a slew of testimonials. Joe Smith from XYZ Company (a company you have probably never heard of) says Grasshopper changed his business —> [Insert very broad, general compliment about how Grasshopper helps your business]. The problem with this is, it’s very sales focused and doesn’t add any value to the end user. By definition a testimonial is going to be both positive, and biased. We decided to be different and to just highlight as many of our cool, passionate, and happy customers as we could! Instead of asking them about Grasshopper, we gave them a soapbox to stand on and a valuable link back to their site. Not only does it make happy customers even happier, but it is great social proof!

People like to be able to relate

One of the biggest reasons a page like this affected our conversion rate is due to what I mentioned above, social proof. People feel more comfortable doing something they know other people are doing. For instance, how often do you see someone at a restaurant order something and then you order the same thing? It’s the same reason that girls feel more comfortable talking to a guy who has other friends that are girls around him. Clearly if other girls choose to hang out with him, he can’t be that bad right? Well the same logic applies to buying products & services. It’s why so many people ask for recommendations via Twitter/Facebook.

So what this page does is give prospective customers a lot of different people to relate themselves to. “Oh look, this 5 person design shop is using Grasshopper – maybe this will work for me too”. Odds are some business on that page is very similar to your company in profession, size, or location. So instead of telling people how awesome Grasshopper is, we are simply trying to make them feel more comfortable joining our community.

It both fits & emphasizes our brand story

Just like with anything you do marketing related, you need to make sure it aligns with the look and feel of your brand. For us this was a direct hit! For the past 2 or 3 years we have spent a lot of time & effort focusing on ways we can help our customers completely outside of the product/service we offer. For instance our Tell Us Your Story Program – which is solely designed to help get our customers featured in the press! Even our mission, since Grasshopper was founded, is to “Empower Entrepreneurs to Succeed”. So for us finding another way to feature our customers just felt right.

At the end of the day its really simple, treat your customers like stakeholders in your company. If you give them a soapbox to stand on, who knows they just might yell about you.