#28 How To Quickly Increase Retention
Have you ever bought something just to be disappointed that it’s not what you expected?
Maybe you return it, maybe you write a bad review, maybe you tell a friend about your bad experience, maybe you share it with hundreds of followers on social media...
One thing is for sure: you probably don’t buy from that company again.
9/10 times the reason is not that the product is terrible, it’s that it didn’t live up to your expectations.
The biggest risk to your customer retention is that the perceived value of your product doesn’t = the experienced value of your product.
Your products need to live-up to expectations, and even surpass them, to retain and create repeat customers.
In a lot of organizations marketing, sales and product are at odds— unhappy with one another.
It’s because they have different goals. A marketer’s performance will be measured by leads and conversion to sales.
A product leader’s performance will be measured by customer satisfaction, retention and product led growth.
But the reality is that if anything is said to get people in the door and the experience doesn’t match up to their expectations then you’re dead in the water.
You’ll have higher refunds, low customer satisfaction and definitely no product-led growth.
This creates a bad reputation and then you’ll struggle with leads and conversion anyway.
It’s not that marketers are presenting sales page copy that is full of lies, it’s that they aren’t describing the realistic experience of using the product.
Onboarding Starts Earlier Than You Think
In Ramli’s book he talks about how onboarding starts before purchase at the first touchpoint with a prospect customer. This is when they become aware that your product even exists.
Onboarding is not just the product-tour or post-purchase email sequence we may think of. It starts their journey in value perception.
To think about this early-stage opportunity in your customer journey, let’s look at e-comm.
E-Commerce Brand Value Perception
E-commerce brands rely on repeat customers. Without them, it would be impossible to grow. But for someone to keep purchasing from the same brand the value experience has to be even better than the original perceived value.
E-commerce brands do this the best often leveraging affiliate marketing.
You’re more likely to buy a make-up product after watching someone you follow every day apply it to their own face, right?
You get to see the reality of the packaging, applicator and storage within the context of their home. That’s the closest thing to try before you buy.
I am all about saving time in anything beauty related… it’s just not my thing and so I do the bare minimum. When Glossier presented me with an ad of someone applying eye shadow with one swipe of the Lidstar cream I was sold.
When I tried it, it was better than I expected and so now I have been using it for years. This feeds the value flywheel:
What About Digital Products?
This entire concept has not caught up with digital products.
We talk about the challenges solved, the winning stories of testimonials and in most cases you’ll be lucky to get more than one or two screenshots of the product.
If all a prospect customer does is read a sales page that resonates with their pain points… what could they possibly be visualizing? How will we know if their value perception = their value experience?
How can you share the real behind-the-scenes experience of your digital products both on your sales page and in your content?
We can test conversion of a sales page but testing their perceived value isn’t as simple as a quantitative metric.
How To Test Your Sales Page For Perceived Value:
Set up 5 calls with prospect customers
Ask them to share their screen and send them the sales page
When they open it ask them to share their first impressions with you
Ask them what they think the sales page is for
Ask them if they purchased what they would expect to get / experience
Look at the themes from the 5 calls
Update sales page (or product)
Repeat the process until value perception = value experience
On the flip side, if a sales page is converting really well and you don’t want to change it, you can do this same exercise to make product updates.
If you don’t have the time or capacity to get on calls with customers then send them in an email or message instead and ask the same questions from step 2.
Calls are better because you can follow up asking why and understanding deeper meaning. You’re also more likely to get unfiltered thoughts because you can ask them to share their impressions live as their stream of consciousness.
When replying to an email or message they’ll give you their filtered thoughts.
Your Action List
If you have existing products go through this 5 step exercise with your sales pages
If you’re launching something new, test your sales page for perceived value before you launch. It only takes 5 quick conversations to grow your business.
Add sharing behind-the-scenes content of your digital products to your content strategy so that prospect customers can start to understand the real experience of being a member or customer.
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