

How CRE made SEOmoz $1 million - bearwithclaws
http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/seomoz-case-study/

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mathewgj
The best thing about this post was the case-study description of the full,
'first principles', customer development-type approach to landing page
optimization including lessons learned from face to face selling, and a
handful of very specific surveys and customer conversations. Usually, these
kinds of case studies focus on either landing page opt. or customer
development, but don't put it all together.

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patio11
This is one of the best content-to-sleeze-ratio posts you will _ever_ see
about Internet marketing.

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kirse
My favorite part of the whole sale page (that this article did not point out),
was the cutesy little "Warning!" at the bottom that tells people they are
absolutely going to be _OVERWHELMED!_ by the amount of tools and features
they're going to get...

I actually first noticed this sales technique in one of those late-night fat-
loss commercials where the chick starts out by saying "WARNING: Hydroxycut (or
whatever) is only for people who need to lose a _serious_ amount of weight and
should _not_ be used by average dieters!"... absolutely brilliant.

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gstar
I initially missed it, but the page itself is at
<http://www.seomoz.org/pro_landing.php>

~~~
muhfuhkuh
What is it about these "clickbank"-type self-contained pages that purportedly
lure so many to part with their cash? Anyone that have one of these long-ass-
single-page-big-bold-font-with-testimonial-blurb pages explain the allure of
these things? What is the attraction? Is it the big bold typefaces? Is it the
shill-y feeling testimonials? I have to admit, it does stir something non-
negative in me to read on, but I just can't quantify or describe what it is
I'm feeling. It's kinda like an attractive revulsion to it. Weird.

There's a gotta be a study on the efficacy of these pages, I'm sure; but I bet
I'll have to pay $19.95 to read it.

~~~
petercooper
One of the biggest keys to the technique is the headlining. If you look at a
typical geek blog post or article, you'll get a title, then perhaps a few
subheads with paragraphs of text in between.

In these long sales letters, you get perhaps 10-30 different "headlines" all
the way through the piece that, on their own, attempt to sell the product.
These pieces are ridiculously easy to scan and use either positive, targeted
language, keep asking questions (a key tactic), or allude to interesting
things within the rest of the content or in the actual product.

Examples from the SEOMoz page:

 _"When eBay, Disney and Marriott need SEO help, here's what they do..."_ (you
want to know what that is now, right?)

 _Boost your website’s rankings within 30 days–Guaranteed_ (Hmm.. these guys
look legit and they're making that claim? They must have something serious
going on.)

 _We’ll give you the tools you need to quickly boost the website rankings for
any website – on demand._ (Speaks for itself. This is one helluva promise.)

 _Every month, ask your burning questions to our team – and get prompt expert
replies_ (So even if I don't understand the product, I can ask about it and
know these guys are keen to give me a response.)

 _Plus, get these 8 must-have SEOmoz PRO guides—worth over $250_ (A classic
_dirimens copulatio_. Learn more about this at
<http://www.copyblogger.com/but-wait-theres-more/> \- they've already
convinced you the product is cool but now they're piling up the perceived
value so they can gently hit you with the price..)

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msg
I appreciated the self-referential nature of the page.

1\. We created a web page long enough to tell the story

2\. We infused the headline with curiosity rather than overt "buy me" language

5\. We augmented the message with video

Et cetera.

If it works for SEOmoz and CRE...

Awesome marketing and meta-marketing.

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falsestprophet
And there is a negative option $1 trial, $79 monthly rebill: stay classy
SEOmoz.

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rarrrrrr
Did you read the article in detail? It's clearly and unambiguously
communicated as a $1, one month trial, as a way of offering a minimal risk
option to people who might like to try but are unwilling to risk the $80 they
charge upfront.

~~~
falsestprophet
Yes. The $1 one month trial is automatically followed (the negative option
part) by a monthly $79 charge (the rebill part) unless the user cancels by the
29th day of the trial.

A (usually large) proportion of customers will be confused and unintentionally
pay for at least one month of full priced service: perhaps they don't
understand they need to cancel before the 30th day, perhaps they forget to
cancel, perhaps they try to cancel and fail.

There is a more honest alternative. Amazon Prime requires user input after the
trial before their first $79 subscription charge is made. This is called
positive option billing.

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apowell
There is absolutely nothing dishonest about clearly communicating to the
customer what you're going to do, then doing it. You may run your business
differently and wish others did the same, but that doesn't make intro pricing
dishonest. This is doubly true when you're marketing to internet marketers.

~~~
_delirium
To me, if the intent and main effect are to basically trick people into paying
for something they don't really want, it's at least sleazy, if not outright
dishonest. There are legitimate uses for trial offers, so it's a bit of a
judgment case, and I think depends to a large extent on just how clearly the
terms are communicated. In particular, it should be very clear to customers of
average sophistication exactly what will be rebilled, and exactly what they
need to do to avoid the rebill if they'd like to cancel--- and the cancelling
should be easy.

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lena
I agree. If you genuinely feel that your product is worth the $80/month and
that your customer will feel the same way, why not send them a reminder a few
days before the trial stops to let them know? Maybe give them a freebie if
they continue the membership.

I used to have a subscription to a UK magazine where apparently automatic
subscriptions are not legal, so they have to sell you the magazine again,
every year. I thought this was great, as opposed to the situation in the
Netherlands where you have to cancel at the right time, or else you are stuck
with another year. (There are laws in progress to change this, so clearly many
people are annoyed by it)

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petercooper
_We of course knew that a $1 offer would boost subscriptions but the real goal
was to keep these users active beyond the trial period._

I suspect it didn't work. I just did a search and I got this e-mail back in
February 2009. If the $1 idea had worked, I'd expect them to still be running
it. (It'd tempt me to upgrade my account, I think. I've considered upgrading
to PRO but keep putting it off as $70/mo is a lot for something I might not
have the time to tinker with.. I think I need to get a better "live" feel of
it to be sold on the tools.)

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josefresco
I paid the $70/month and dumped it after a few months. I just wasn't using all
the tools to make the cost worth it (an issue of time mostly). And to make
matters worse a lot of the tools simply didn't apply to how I sell my
services/do my business.

I do know that given the time and investment I could get good value out of the
services but for now it's just too much to spend each month it goes under-
utilized.

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aresant
This article points out exactly why the "above the fold" debate is an absolute
MYTH when you're building a sales page with a specific function.

In my experience length wins out 99% of the time.

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mindaugas
I've always wondered why almost all(relatively speaking) affiliate marketers
use long pages - Sales pages. Now I know why.

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aresant
If you've got a site and want to test a long-page ad, here's a template that
works pretty well:

\- Here’s what I got: Just say what you have, don't sugar coat or spend a lot
of time dancing around.

\- Here’s what it will do for you: what problem are you trying to solve?

\- Here's what it did for other people like you: testimonials.

\- Here’s what to do next: Just come right out and ASK for the money, tell
people what to do. Don’t ruin the close.

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blasdel
You're implying that it's written in the first person, but you're missing the
gif of the entrepreneur character's signature at the bottom right above the
paypal button :)

~~~
aresant
LOL - spot on ;-).

What's interesting though is to observe a monster organization like Fool.com
leverage this exact same style - it scales, believe me!

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paraschopra
I have personally interacted with Conversion Rate Experts and they are a
fantastic team, solely dedicated to the art of conversion rate optimization.
They do their job excellently and as you can see from this post they write
great content too!

Really well done, Karl (from CRE) - if you are here on HN, that is.

