

How can I A/B test my salon's website to increase real world traffic? - bdickason

My wife and I own a salon in NYC and we just relaunched our websites. We also, coincidentally, won a year of free service from Visual Website Optimizer (paraschopra's Wingify).<p>I'm a product manager by day at a local start and we A/B test everything but I can't seem to figure out a good way to test our site against real world traffic!<p>For example, if we were to change the headline on our site, we could verify using their analytics that more people were visiting the site, or clicking through to a sub-page, but most people just see our phone number and call!<p>Are there any examples or ideas of successful A/B tests for small brick and mortar businesses?
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hammock
Are you just looking for a way to measure? A couple ideas:

Printable coupons redeemable only in-store

Promo code that people say at the register

Reply cards that ask how did you hear about us

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bdickason
We measure based on source right now with a simple 'how did you hear about us'
but I'm wondering if there's a better way to get people who call in to
identify which version of the website they saw.

I don't really want to go the 'Mention coupon code AXJM3 when you call to get
10% off' route because it requires us to modify our salon software to match up
with the A/B testing software :(

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ippisl
simple ways : 1\. use different phone numbers , and measure calls.

2\. show the phone number/numbers only on a specific page , and measure
conversions to that page. this is a reasonable approximation for calls,

more complex: google "call tracking" , many providers offer tools.

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bdickason
I've been thinking about this for a ridiculous amount of time and didn't think
to show two different phone numbers. Brilliant!!

Will look into call tracking, thanks!

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18pfsmt
Here is a link to a pitch from NYC startup at TC Disrupt last year:
[http://www.livestream.com/disrupt/video?clipId=pla_b6fa3cc6-...](http://www.livestream.com/disrupt/video?clipId=pla_b6fa3cc6-b254-4084-832a-6ef9e780fbb8)

The company is called Yext, and from what I remember at that time, there was
concern about Yext placing phone numbers that they control across the web for
the local businesses that they service; the implication being that there is
some lock-in, and possibly some web juice being lost.

EDIT: I decided to actually check out the site and they assign only one
number, so no a/b testing. I searched, but found no pricing, so it looks like
they are discriminating based on the specific type of business.

It was interesting they made note that people tend to call local numbers more
regularly than 800 or out of state, so I guess that is a feature to look for.

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paraschopra
We have numerous case studies online: <http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/case-
studies.php>

I am sure some of them will be relevant to you.

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damoncali
Use different phone numbers / email accounts to track conversions. I'd be
shocked if you had enough traffic to do meaningful AB testing, however.

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bdickason
yeah, our traffic is very low :( We're doing 1200 uniques per month right now
so it will be a long road :D

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necenzurat
did you tried foursquare specials, hotpot and all of the online to offline
tools?

