Today I’d like to talk about how a common (and very understandable) assumption is hurting people’s businesses… maybe even yours.
You see, it’s only natural to assume a higher opt rate should translate into more customers, more profits, and more dollars per web visitor. After all, you’re already paying for the visitors, why wouldn’t you want to get more of them to sign up for your lists so you can engage in a relationship with them and convert them over the long run?
And aren’t I, Glenn Livingston, the king of relationship building with follow up content online? Don’t I want the absolute highest opt in rates for my systems I can get?
No, not necessarily, and here’s why…
Increasing your opt in percentage ALWAYS has the potential to decrease not only your front end sales percentage, but your overall value per visitor on back end products and services.
In fact, there’s a natural tension between opt in and sales rates, because in order to attract more opt ins, you’ve got to convince more ambivalent people to give you their information, right? I mean, the most motivated prospects will fill out your forms if you just put up a page that says “Great Free Stuff – Email Here”. So in order to convince MORE people to trust you with their private info, you’ve gotta make bolder and more specific claims.
So when you push the envelope, you’re going after the fence sitters, and here’s the thing… you always run the risk of slanting your system too far in the direction of fence sitters, and away from your most hyper-responsive customers. So it’s entirely possible, and in fact even likely to increase your opt in rate at the expense of your business overall.
Now, I’m not saying you should keep your opt in rates low. Higher opt in rates have the potential to attract more hyper-responsive customers too.
What I AM saying is that you need VISIBILITY into two things to make sure a fanatical focus on increased opt ins and list building doesn’t harm your business as a whole:
- VISIBILITY INTO THE SALE: Put simply, you’ve gotta track your lead source all the way to the SALE, and ideally to the lifetime value of your customers. In AdWords, this means you need to know which adgroups convert to how many dollars at what percent. I KNOW it’s difficult to track this in some systems, but you’ve gotta get with your techie and figure out how to get it done because I guarantee you, whatever money and time you spend of putting the system in place is a lot less than what you’re losing by not knowing.
- KNOWLEDGE OF POINT OF DIFFERENCE BENEFITS: Point of Difference benefits are the things which distinguish you from competitors in the market place. They’re the reasons people will open up their wallets for, as compared to “price of entry” benefits which are the things every vendor has to have just to be in the running. You’ve gotta know what the point of difference benefits are in your market so you can FOCUS on these when working to improve your opt in rate. Then you’re more likely to get more people into your systems actually wiling to spend money!
If you’d like to learn more, please join the hyper-responsive club today.
Be well,
Dr. G 
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