Testing the idea....Moving from phase 1 to phase 2

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Hi All

Just sharing my current project status with you, for anyone who isn't this far yet in testing their idea. I've briefly summarized the steps I've followed below and where I'm up to......Bear in mind my experience in web design and online marketing is extremely basic so if I can get this far then no doubt you can to. It's been slightly time consuming having to learn some of the basics but

Test Method – Phase 1

1) Set up a landing page consisting of 2 simple pages.

a. Page 1 was the index page containing sales copy of the test product including simple images of product which I had created on fiverr for around £8. The index page displayed the price ($39.99) and a “buy now” button underneath the price.

b. The “buy now” button took user to page 2 a “sorry for the inconvenience” page explaining that our payment system is down and to try again in 24 hours.

2) Google Analytics

a. The site is linked to a Google Analytics account. Here a sales funnel is created to track the user movement from the landing page through to “buy now”. Very simple set up!

3) Advertising Method

a. Located several members’ forums relating to the niche and created 2 accounts on each forum. Spent some time, not loads, in the forums and became involved in some conversations to make the forum accounts look legitimate amongst it’s users.

b. After this, I created 1 post asking for information on a particular topic within the niche, a topic my potential product covers. I then posted a reply using the second account giving some advice throwing in the name of my website and the product it offers. It’s important that this post didn't come across as an advert so the reply post contained several recommendations, a bit of a story but really highlighted my product as a good option to go for. This created a small amount of highly targeted traffic.

c. Further to this, I set up a Google Adwords account and ran this until I spent around £37.00 (Never used Adwords before so due to the low CTR and the low quality score I paused the campaign so I can learn more about adwords possibilities)

4) The results so far – This is from 20th Jan to 8th Feb 2017

a. From the 2 forum posts alone the site has had 57 new visitors 2 visits of which have clicked through to buy now – Approximately 3.5% Conversion

b. From the Adwords campaign it’s worked out at 16 new visits and 0 clicked through to buy now – Total of 0% conversion.

c. Overall 73 new visitors, 2 conversions giving me a conversion rate of approximately 2.7%.

Summary – Conversion rate! Meh......I was hoping for a minimum of 5% so although it’s been great to see two potential customers seemingly willing to pay the $39.99 the site has asked for. It doesn’t fill me with confidence just yet about progressing to the creation stage of the idea.

Some other challenges I’ve faced is the bounce rate of the site has been sky high 79.4% to date.....However, with that said I don’t know if that’s because the site is basically 1 page. The average time on the site is around 1.5 to 2 minutes. So, at least, some of the content is being read and must be relevant to it's reader. This leads me to conclude that some tweaks are needed to the site and further testing are required.

Test Method - Phase 2

1) Website – I’ve made several small amendments to the website, these include:

a. A second page which includes further information.

b. Scrapped displaying the price immediately on the landing page. The page pretty much looks the same accept the “buy now” button is a “find out more” button leading to a more info page.

c. Data capture – In the footer of the landing page and more info page. There is now a call to action in order to sign up to a free newsletter offering tips on the niche subject.

d. On page popup data capture form – When the user now clicks the “find out more” button on the landing page. The user is taken to the next page where a pop up appears asking for a name and email in order to free tips on XYZ.......(all the data capture stuff and web forms cost me about $10 on fiverr with thanks to a guy called Abdus from Karachi.....what a guy!)

e. Price! This is going to be the riskiest change to them all but I am now going to test an increase in price. This will go from $39.99 to $79.00.

2) Advertising Campaign

a. I’ve got around £40 credit left on adwords which I’ll use for the rest of the test phase. However, I’ve got some digging to do in order to improve the quality of adverts........Note to self – Clear diary tomorrow night to watch nothing but youtube! (F*ck me we live in a good time, if only other people knew it!!!)

b. I’m going to enquire about advertising on some of the forums which I’ve made posts on. Majority of traffic and conversions came from them so it clearly makes sense to advertise there. However, my budget for this is tighter than a mouse’s waist coat so the price has to be right....even if it’s a banner ad for a few hours.

c. Bing & linkedin are both offering free credit advertising which I’ll look into and take advantage of if possible.

d. More forum posts over the next few days (I’ll get the Mrs to help me out, she’s on maternity leave at the moment so possibly could help out while I’m working the slowlane)

e. I haven’t got a facebook page yet? I don’t even know if that would be worth but will set one up anyway and look in to advertising options.

3) Email / newsletter Campaign

a. Create some email templates to send to new subscribers with strong call to action. Will need to look in to mail chimp or some other mailing list management service.

b. Use a small portion of the email addresses submitted to get some customer feedback.

Goal

Ideally the goal now is to reach a 5% conversion in the second phase and utilise email contacts to 1) increase conversion rate & 2) send surveys to shape the product......Hopefully the next post will be to confirm that I’m about to immerse myself in product creation!

So that's where I am, pretty exciting over the next few weeks......I appreciate this may be remedial stuff to a fully fledged entrepreneur but if you are like me it can be pretty daunting if you have an idea but don't know what to do next.......if you are stuck feel free to give me a shout and i'll be happy to share some of the resources I've used to get this far!

Thanks!

 

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