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For those of you who aren't SQUEEZING your prospects

by Eric Engel
14 replies
Squeeze page or sales page? Where do you send your first-time visitors?

I was watching a discussion on this topic at another forum and it made me think of one of the surveys we ran.

Consider this for a second.

In an online survey, we asked people to remember their first time making an online purchase.

Then, one of the questions we asked was:

"Did you make the purchase that day, or did you leave and come back to the website at another time?"

75% of the respondents (5% margin of error) left the website and came back later.

This makes capturing an email address (whether you're using a squeeze page or you're dealing with cart abandonment at a retail site) more important than ever.

Since so few people are ready to whip out their money and make a purchase when they first visit a site, you'd better have a way to develop some kind of relationship with them.

That could be an auto responder...or it could be a phone call.

On one of my sites that sell physical products, we were only selling to 2/3 of the people who created a store account. Then we started calling that other third. We'd wait about 24 hours after they had abandoned their carts and then give them a courtesy call to see if there was anything we could help them with.

Over half of the people we call end up buying.

If you don't have a way to reach the people who aren't buying from you, then create one. I can guarantee your sales will go up.
#prospects #squeezing
  • Profile picture of the author Chris Lockwood
    Maybe, maybe not.

    If people are coming from a good PPC ad, they may be ready to buy, not sign up for a list. So instead of a sale, you get nothing when they don't subscribe. Or they sign up as a way of delaying their decision to buy, and never do, despite the emails you send them (which they may not read).

    This is why we have testing. It's absurd to think one way is always better than the other.
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    • Profile picture of the author Eric Engel
      Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood View Post

      It's absurd to think one way is always better than the other.
      I didn't say it was better to get them to sign up for a list. I said it's better to try create a way to reach them.

      And your example is of ONE person who might be ready to buy. I'd like to know of an instance where this is true of the majority of site visitors.
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      • Profile picture of the author Chris Lockwood
        Originally Posted by Eric Engel View Post

        I didn't say it was better to get them to sign up for a list. I said it's better to try create a way to reach them.

        And your example is of ONE person who might be ready to buy. I'd like to know of an instance where this is true of the majority of site visitors.
        OK, what ways to reach them are there other than a list that you recommend?

        You've never heard of someone being in the mood to buy, doing a search, clicking on an ad, and buying right away?

        Who said the majority of site visitors will buy? Odds are the majority would not subscribe, either.

        And what about people who won't give you their info just to read your sales letter, and affiliates who won't send people to your squeeze page?
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris_Willow
    Thanks for pointing this out. I myself am one of those people who sometimes leave and buy a week later.

    Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author lakshaybehl
    The thing is that squeezey baby is not the meaty baby anymore with conversions like 50% being called neat. And you canm always have exit pop-ups with a freebie to entice them into opting in... more buyers equal leads and easier set up than a squeezepage.
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    • Profile picture of the author Clark
      Originally Posted by lakshaybehl View Post

      The thing is that squeezey baby is not the meaty baby anymore with conversions like 50% being called neat. And you canm always have exit pop-ups with a freebie to entice them into opting in... more buyers equal leads and easier set up than a squeezepage.
      What do you mean by more buyers equal leads?

      What I also want to know is your Opt-in rate success on the exit-pop strategy vs. lead page capture... is it more effective than the front-end lead capture or less?

      If less, then I assume you are basing your final judgement on the number of eyeballs that see the sales page (100%) and choose to make the impulse sale at THAT time rather than assessing the total time the customer is in the pre-selling phase (I.e. sequential autoresponder series).

      The difference I see in the quality of the exit-pop subscribers is that we know for sure that they are 100% bouncers from the sales page otherwise, they wouldn't see the exit-pop.

      I'm not sold on the quality (freebee seekers) of these folks versus the ones who are willing to show you that they are presold by giving up their email address to obtain more information about their desired solution. (that shows more committment).

      What are your conversion rates for bouncers in your follow-up system and after what time interval?

      Normally I would take a solid position but in this case, testing is in order to guage the effectiveness by niche because the results may vary dramically when implementing a system of lead capture on the front or back end.

      If you see it from a numbers perspective then the exit-pop is the way to go - 100% of traffic see the sales page and the more views on the page, the better but if you look at it from a position of wanting pre-qualified "confirmed hungry" traffic then squeeze 'em in where you can (I still want to test this though).
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      • Profile picture of the author lakshaybehl
        Here... Have a look at this thread I started recently and you will know exactly what I mean.

        http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...age-front.html

        Originally Posted by Clark View Post

        What do you mean by more buyers equal leads?

        What I also want to know is your Opt-in rate success on the exit-pop strategy vs. lead page capture... is it more effective than the front-end lead capture or less?

        If less, then I assume you are basing your final judgement on the number of eyeballs that see the sales page (100%) and choose to make the impulse sale at THAT time rather than assessing the total time the customer is in the pre-selling phase (I.e. sequential autoresponder series).

        The difference I see in the quality of the exit-pop subscribers is that we know for sure that they are 100% bouncers from the sales page otherwise, they wouldn't see the exit-pop.

        I'm not sold on the quality (freebee seekers) of these folks versus the ones who are willing to show you that they are presold by giving up their email address to obtain more information about their desired solution. (that shows more committment).

        What are your conversion rates for bouncers in your follow-up system and after what time interval?

        Normally I would take a solid position but in this case, testing is in order to guage the effectiveness by niche because the results may vary dramically when implementing a system of lead capture on the front or back end.

        If you see it from a numbers perspective then the exit-pop is the way to go - 100% of traffic see the sales page and the more views on the page, the better but if you look at it from a position of wanting pre-qualified "confirmed hungry" traffic then squeeze 'em in where you can (I still want to test this though).
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        • Profile picture of the author Clark
          Originally Posted by lakshaybehl View Post

          Here... Have a look at this thread I started recently and you will know exactly what I mean.

          http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...age-front.html

          The answers are not there specific to the questions that I asked in this thread.

          My questions were framed around your experiences assuming that you've imlpemented both systems and found that the exit-pop was the way to go.... or are you basing your opinion on theoretical conclusions?

          If you speak in absolutes then expect someone to ask you to validate your claim. I do care most about sales conversions over anything else so if what you are saying, in that exit-pop's over squeeze pages will convert more people with the same amount of traffic then you will be the biggest star this forum has ever had.

          If you drive 1000 visitors to the sales page directly and it converts @ 1% (10 sales) then you have 10 buyers in your list and an exit-pop may only convert 10-15% at best so let's say 150 freebie seeking prospects (because you stated to entice them with a freebe on the exit-pop).

          Exit pop: 10 buyers & 150 in the leads funnel.
          Vs.
          Squeeze: 5 buyers & 495 "pre-qualified" sales leads.

          If I pre-sell/qualify 50% of that traffic through my squeeze page then I have 495 people in my prospects follow-up system who are NOT freebie seekers rather, they have given up their email address to allow me to SELL to them which will drive the conversion rate higher than the 99% who bounced off the sales page the first visit given the assumed 1% sales page conversion rate for both examples.

          On the surface (first visit to sales page), exit-pop's win the conversion test but I'm not interested in the surface 'cause I know it's not about where you start, it's about where you finish with your hot leads.

          If your results are vastly different then please do share.
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  • Profile picture of the author Eric Engel
    And you canm always have exit pop-ups with a freebie to entice them into opting in
    Exactly...whatever you can do that works. The BIG point is to keep in contact with them. The better you can achieve this, the more sales you will end up making.

    Squeeze pages are one way...for some sites, they're the best way.

    But if you can find something else, then do it. Because every person you DON'T talk to, is a part of the statistical bunch who WON'T come back to make the purchase.
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  • Profile picture of the author Eric Engel
    Odds are the majority would not subscribe, either.
    That all depends on the product. Sometimes (like if you're selling a physical product that wouldn't be sold through a sales letter) then you're right. But most of the gurus will tell you that if you need a salesletter to sell it, then a squeeze page is going to work better for you.

    But again...I'm not specifically saying a squeeze page is right.

    What if a pop up said

    "Get a 30% discount on your blank CD purchase!"

    and simply had a form asking for email?

    There are other ways...but the point is to try and recapture lost traffic...sometimes capturing them before they're ready to buy will work, sometimes not.
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  • Profile picture of the author lakshaybehl
    What it ultimately boils down to is knowing the value of subscribers...

    If you know what a subscriber's worth is for you in the long run, and have ways to monetize your leads then you have to take that ionto account and not just the front end. If you know what your conversions are at the front end, upsell and backend along with downsell... then you wioll be at a position to decide what is the best option for you.

    So do not generalize anything... That's not the way to go about it.

    -Lakshay
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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    • Profile picture of the author Eric Engel
      Originally Posted by alexa_s View Post

      Couldn't you also argue this the other way round: that those 75% who came back later and bought must necessarily include some who don't like filling in a squeeze page and will be lost permanently if you hit them with a squeeze-page rather than a sales-page? I'm just asking.
      It's a good point. In retrospect, I wish I could have gone on to question whether they came back on their own or if they came back because of follow up emails or phone calls.

      This wasn't the kind of information I was looking for at the time, so who knows...maybe for the next survey.

      But I can say that one of the other questions was WHY they didn't make the purchase right away.

      50% wanted more time to 'think' about it. 40% wanted more time to research that specific product or company.

      I don't have definitive answers on how much an auto-responder would have helped, but I think the mounds of data already offered by gurus all over would show us that follow-ups increase sales.

      I was mainly pointing out the data to just kind of back up what we've always known. And to show WHY follow-ups are so effective....because people usually aren't ready to spend money on first contact.
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  • Profile picture of the author TrafficSqueezer
    Results will be different and will depend on:
    • the product you sell.
    • The freebie you offer to "bribe" your visitors in exchange for your email.
    Nevertheless I think that having your prospects sent to your sales page, with an exit pop up to "bribe" them so they give their email has several important advantages over sending them to a squeeze page.

    • Visitors know right from the beginning what do you have to offer them.
    • When they try to exit and they are shown an exit pop up, if they have some interest in your product, they will want to know if they can get some discount or some related freebie.
    • You can keep your page fully oriented to show the benefits of your product, without anything distracting your visitor attention.

    So, my first choice would be Sales Page + Exit popup.
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