

Ask HN: Can a "How It Works" button/page decrease conversion? - markhall

Our startup hasn't launched yet and we are about to begin beta testing. Our product is very simple and our funnel is basic and can be accomplished in 3 clicks. However, prior launching in beta, I wanted to ask the HN community if any1 has noticed a decrease in registrations/conversions after adding a "How It Works" video or page.
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briandoll
We (New Relic) added a high-level "How It Works" video to our site during a
recent redesign. Anecdotally, I know that many of our newer customers did
watch the video and found it helpful in understanding our product.

We also use Olark chat on our site, which besides giving us the ability to
chat with our customers easily online, we can see what pages the customers are
visiting in real-time, during our chat. I've chatted with scores of customers
this way, and it's typical for most every user to jump all around the site to
get a good feel for 'how it works', 'what it does' and 'how much does it
cost'. It's helpful if you have an obvious "sign up" link incorporated on
every single page of your website, so no matter where on your site a customer
decides they want in, they can do so easily.

I can say that adding that video did not hurt conversion, but it also didn't
substantially increase conversions either. I do still think it's an important
aspect of any new online service, regardless of your implementation (video,
graphical, text).

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markhall
Thanks Brian on the tips. I have used Olark in the past and we are definitely
considered using it on this project. I visited the New Relic website and must
say that it is really well designed. I wish you best of luck and thanks for
the comment.

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pbreit
I think it's fine to ask the question here but I cannot overemphasize that
something like this should be tested. Hopefully you are able to generate
enough traffic to get meaningful metrics. You can even try different
variations of the copy, videos, call to actions, etc.

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markhall
I completely agree. I am a huge fan of the Lean Startup methodology and we are
definitely trying to practice it. We are trying to test all assumptions.
Thanks for the comment!

