Your product page receives many types of visitors. There are 2 I really care about.

People in the I’m ready bucket and people in the Let me sleep on it bucket:

For I’m ready visitors my singular focus is presenting them our product story. If you are curious to learn about product stories continue reading, we include a link to educational material about product stories in the RELATED ARTICLES section below.

But not everyone on your product page is here to buy today.

A 2017 Baymard Institute study found that 57% of visitors who abandon shopping carts do so because they are in research mode.

Don’t make the mistake of trying to force a sale. You will fail (personal experience).

Instead, do this: for visitors in research mode shift the focus to earning permission to keep in touch.

The best way to know if a shopper is here for research or to buy is to simply ask. But don’t make the question stand out too much. It should be blended into your product story. The best approach is to start the story and insert this question at the end of the first paragraph:

Are you here today to research or buy? {Research} {Buy}

Here {Research} and {Buy} are clickable buttons.

The case study below reveals how to use smart logic to present this question.

Case Study

We were working on optimizing the bestseller sales for BakingSteel.com.

One critical question was knowing if the visitor was here to buy or simply to research. Our strategy would have to change based on the bucket the visitor fell into.

So, at 2 strategic locations, we inserted a question. Notice how the questions are subtly woven into the product story. They don’t stand out and will only really be visible when readers’ eyes reach that section of the page. Notice the 2 red boxes + commentary in the screenshot below:

And this is what we showed when the user interacted with our question:

What best describes your visit today? {Research} {Buy}

For people who clicked {Buy}, we simply showed a Thanks for your feedback message for 2 seconds and got out of the way.

But for people who said {Research} we showed this offer:

The idea was simple: convince and convert shoppers in research mode via email.

But we didn’t add them to the client’s general mailing list. We added them to a new mailing list made specifically for people looking into this model.

Once they signed up we sent a series 3 highly targeted educational emails about this specific model. The emails didn’t talk about any other product on the site. The emails didn’t add fake urgency. They didn’t offer any discount. They just subtly talked about the many ways in which this model was magical.

Basically, we took the sales pitch on the product page and expanded it into a 3 part email series. We were careful not to rehash the product page pitch word for word. The copy was rewritten so the reader would find it new and interesting. And because the product page was broken into 3 emails it could go into more detail on each point of our sales pitch.

Another way of looking at it: when we found a shopper was in research mode we took the product description and brought it to their inbox.

This approach allowed us to both maximize conversions of buy mode visitors (46.42% improvement) AND generate thousands in email sales for people in research mode.

The test was so successful the product went out of stock. It’s still on backorder.

One important detail

In the screenshot above you would have noticed we repeated the question at 2 locations. The reason for this is that shoppers are highly distracted and only notice around 20% of what’s on a page.

But there is a problem. Say a visitor notices and interacts with the first instance of the question. Then, as they get lower on the page they notice the second instance, which is a repetition of the first question. Seeing the question twice can be annoying.

To minimize annoyance we added code logic. For visitors who interacted with the first question, all subsequent mentions would be hidden.

This minimizes annoyance while maximizing visibility. More details in the Related Articles section below.

RELATED ARTICLES

— The idea mentioned above about showing an element conditionally is part of a technique called Choreographed Experiences. You can learn more about it in this article.

— If you are interested in learning more about product stories read this post: How To Develop A Product Story

ABOUT FRICTIONLESS COMMERCE

Product pages matter because that’s where our prospects make the crucial buy / no-buy decision.

We specialize in Shopify product pages. Watch your bestseller convert 20% better in 90 days. Our process.

If you like doing the hard work yourself, our founder Rishi shares conversion ideas on LinkedIn every day. Connect with him here.

If you want to make your life easier and still increase conversions, jump on a call.