Digital success made easy? The conversion thing

According to conversionSUMMIT, all you have to do is look closely and don’t suck.

Big result with a small budget: That’s what growth hacking promises, one of the hottest marketing philosophies these days. Especially in the digital world quick growth is enticing - an old promise of new media. Just take a few easy steps for the online shop, website or app and watch the conversion work its magic. Who wouldn’t love that?

Indeed, it is true that a lot of small improvements in content and user friendliness can lead to a considerable increase of conversions. Even after having realized numerous optimization projects ourselves, we are always surprised when a simple change in text produces a three digit growth of the conversion rate.

The exciting topic of optimization was also discussed at the yearly conversionSUMMIT, which recently took place in Frankfurt. Here, where user experience designers, web analysts and data scientist come together, everyone agrees that “User centricity is key”. But what does that really mean within this big data rush? Avinash Kaushik, one of the stars in the scene, has a pretty clear picture of it. With a bold speech he sets against this data fetish: Great Marketing starts with not sucking.

More precisely, he recommends the following approach:

1. Surf the net and use your website like any other user.
2. Identify areas where user experience is worst.
3. Cry.
4. Eliminate bad user experience.

This somehow reminded me of the movie “Big Short”. Change of scenery: Wall Street in the year 2008. The stubborn hedge fund manager Michael Burry realizes that numerous U.S. real estate loans are bad. He predicts the global economy crash resulting from it, which will leave millions of people homeless and unemployed. His industry thinks he’s an idiot. The following scene is representative: The lady in charge of a rating agency asks Burry what his thesis is based on. “I have looked at the loans, individually and in order”, he replies. Her patronizing response: “Nobody has ever done that.” Not to mention that with this realization Burry became rich in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis. Very rich. This article is not about hedge funds, though, but digital growth.

Michael Burry and Avinash Kaushik have been a welcome reminder not to forget the end consumer (usually people) behind thousands of layers of abstraction through mechanics and data. In the end, unfortunately, it’s not as easy as simply “taking a closer look and becoming rich”, but it’s still worth to remember classic advertising psychology in the midst of an explosion of digital possibilities. Digital success is not made with reports but with user surfaces, text and images - and by enticing, leading and convincing people. With growth hacks like this, the conversion will really shoot through the roof.