My name is Travis Ketchum, I am an online marketer who runs a blog at TheCollegeStartup.com and I have a little project of my own called MyBigGive.com.
When it comes to marketing online or offline, the same basic goals are set to maximize the value of your business:
a) Increase Revenue
b) Decrease Cost
By aiming for both of these goals your business will be more profitable, give you more freedom and more leverage to accomplish what you want to do within your business. These goals seem simple, but as Jonathan Volk has tried to drive home, attaining these goals can involve a handful of techniques to maximize the potential.
Current Methods
When promoting an offer right now, you want to make sure that every visitor who lands on your website converts at the highest rate possible. By convert, we mean that they complete an action that you get paid for – from filling out a form, buying an item or sharing the information through Twitter, Facebook etc. Most people have a general idea as to what they think will convert at the highest rate, but the only way to capitalize on the “human factor” of consumers (read: the intangible purchasing influences) is to try as many variations on placement, colors, call to action, and product images as possible.
What other factors could influence a consumers decision to not only convert, but could influence a customer to buy a more premium version of your product? What kinds of incentives really pull the levers for people during their purchasing process? You might be surprised to see the results, and how easy it is to boost your outcome.
Cause Marketing
What is cause marketing? In a nutshell, cause marketing is a term used to describe a marketing or promotional effort that directly benefits a cause or non-profit as a result of the effort. For instance, if you have ever come across the (RED) initiative or product line you have experience first hand one of the many forms that cause marketing can take. So what can it mean for your business, and what are some real world numbers?
For our quick example we are going to use validated results from the Amazon Associate program. This affiliate program has been around for quite a while and has proven to be a successful platform for SEO traffic, and other content driven sites.
Mahalo.com
This site was founded by Jason Calacanis and is essentially a crowd sourced answer site that monetizes through advertisements and affiliate links. This site is primarily based out of organic search traffic.
Average unit price: ~$22
Jonathan Volk
You know this guy well, and while he admits that his level of involvement surrounding the Amazon Associate program has been limited, the traffic has primarily been organic search traffic.
Average unit price: ~$30
MyBigGive.com
This is one of my current projects where we allow users to pick their favorite cause before starting their shopping experience to donate 70% of the commission.
Average unit price: ~$40
So what kind of return do we realize by offering a charitable incentive for shopping through MyBigGive? The charitable factor influenced the average unit price for shoppers up 33%-81%.
While we are still tweaking the experience at MyBigGive to try and enhance these figures as much as possible, it is evident that customers are more willing to up-sell themselves when they know that a cause they truly care about is able to benefit from the transaction. You could easily integrate this model into tiered package pricing in order to up-sell customers on a more comprehensive package. Having a hard time getting buyers to convert on the 20% more expensive package? Try offering a 5% contribution to their favorite charity ONLY when they buy the larger offering. These incentives work because customers do care about giving back, and often use it to justify their own upgrades in life.
So next time you are going through the process of A/B testing your web product, landing page etc make sure you take into account the potential that cause marketing has to drive your revenue, margins, and success.
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