Trying to make a better page for the PDC and ATC video - a little help please?

This page exists:   https://permaculture-design-course.com but it doesn't get much traffic.  The traffic that it does get, doesn't net too many sales.  Is there something we can do to make it better?

Is the name ok?  

Is "177 hours" a term which some people might see as a daunting task to approach and pay for?

Is there a term that might work better?

What can we do to make this more appealing in some way?

I think that webpage is pretty good already.  The 177 hours may be a bit daunting.  Maybe the initial emphasis could be something along the lines of:

Can't get away to take a PDC?  Get all the video from Wheaton Labs 2017 PDC and ATC to watch at your leisure.
Buy It Now

I think the Learn More button is a bit of a gimmick since it just scoots you down the page an inch.  But the Buy It Now button is great.

I think the price is fair and the videos of some of the content is great.

My guess is that unless you can get people from outside Permies to visit the page, your sales will be greatly limited.  It's like you're trying to sell Toyotas on the internal Toyota business intranet system.  You'll sell some but not nearly as many as if you advertise to the rest of the world.

Is the current site/page optimized so that it could appear on Google searches for: Cheap Online PDC, Remote PDC, affordable PDC, etc?

I just searched for Cheap Online PDC and this permies thread was one of the top returns: Best Online PDC.  There is the red ad for the PDC at the top of the screen when it pops up (so that's good).  It would be nice if the richsoil thread listed above was on the first page of Google returns though.  I'm not sure how hard it is to make that happen...

Craig, I hope you don't mind that i changed the subject line a little.  

but it doesn't get much traffic.  

Because we have only done a few tiny things to get traffic going to that page so far.  For now ...

The traffic that it does get, doesn't net too many sales.

THIS is the big question.  And to clarify, we have, so far, had ZERO sales on this page.  

Here is the page we have used so far.  160,000 views on that page and 7 sales.  So it does seem that conversion is our struggle.   Josiah has taken this issue on and created the new page.   91 page views so far and zero sales.  It does seem that we should get that up to 1000 views before we start to speculate on what is good or poor.  

Google tells me that 2% is an average conversion rate, and the very best sites have a 10% conversion rate.  GIMMIE GIMMIE GIMMIE!


Entering Mr. Rogers land of make believe ....    160,000 views ....   10% conversion ....  16,000 sales at about $100 each is 1.6 million dollars ....   wow, I can do a lot of projects with 1.6 million dollars.  


At the same time, an opportunity has popped up where there could be mention of these videos in print.  So it seems wise to have a very short url.  At the moment, we have come up with richsoil.com/177 but, as already pointed out, 177 hours seems a little daunting.   Although my counter to that is that we did really well during the kickstarter and we told folks that that would be 220 hours.  

I think the biggest question we desperately need help with is:


         how do we improve conversion on this page?

Over the next few days, we will start doing a bunch of little bits and bobs to direct more traffic to the page - for testing the conversion rates.   But I think we are not quite ready for that.  

For now, the big question is:  conversion.   Conversion is something that I know very little about.  And I think my instinct is that whenever the stuff about conversion comes up, my brain says "i don't care about that - here, let me activate some lovely thoughts about gardening instead."   Fortunately, Craig and Josiah appear to be determined to drag me, kicking and screaming into damn good conversion.  

For previous conversations about conversion, people have said that it cannot be done without a/b testing.  So josiah has that rigged up.  Of course, so far, all the reports are pretty dull:  each of the different options all feature a big, fat goose egg.  

I know that Josiah asked me, at one point, for this page, for testimony.  Anybody have some testimony for these videos?

Contractions are hell.
For instance I attempted to post this note with the contraction for "in my humble opinion" and the bot stopped it....
PDC and ATC were comprehensible to me only after several days of deliberate browsing. For driveby browsers they are as meaningless as military jargon
Nothing about that title piques curiosity, from the unlearned, and it warns from the outset that this is a money making effort not an educational free for all.
Perhaps a less pithy description, of the individual courses, and after the individual prices were announced a link to the collections would net more voracious browser.

Also the price may be reasonable....but for an apple to apple comparison Mother Earth News sells a flash drive with a compilation of 47 years worth of articles for $29.99....... no they are not videos, but they're relevant, homegrown, unpretentious, and effective. Over 20,000 articles mostly hands on, and how to.
Carla Emerys tome can be had for as little as  $15.00 used.
Mittleider's original publishing can be found for $5.00 on used book sites, his more modern disciples publish freely on the internet.

$29.99 - people buy out of curiosity, Even if the value received is marginal people don't mind the loss of less than $30.00
$49.99 + people expect returns.
$100.00 + its a wealthy person daydreaming of creating a personal utopia. or an already dedicated devotee.

Red Smith wrote:Contractions are hell.
For instance I attempted to post this note with the contraction for "in my humble opinion" and the bot stopped it....
PDC and ATC were comprehensible to me only after several days of deliberate browsing. For driveby browsers they are as meaningless as military jargon
Nothing about that title piques curiosity, from the unlearned, and it warns from the outset that this is a money making effort not an educational free for all.
Perhaps a less pithy description, of the individual courses, and after the individual prices were announced a link to the collections would net more voracious browser.

Also the price may be reasonable....but for an apple to apple comparison Mother Earth News sells a flash drive with a compilation of 47 years worth of articles for $29.99....... no they are not videos, but they're relevant, homegrown, unpretentious, and effective. Over 20,000 articles mostly hands on, and how to.
Carla Emerys tome can be had for as little as  $15.00 used.
Mittleider's original publishing can be found for $5.00 on used book sites, his more modern disciples publish freely on the internet.

$29.99 - people buy out of curiosity, Even if the value received is marginal people don't mind the loss of less than $30.00
$49.99 + people expect returns.
$100.00 + its a wealthy person daydreaming of creating a personal utopia. or an already dedicated devotee.

Well said. I agree with all of this. I do have one more thing to add--it may seem trivial, but I honestly think it would help to recognize (in print) the fact that 177 hours of video IS daunting to most people. The webpage presents the 177 hours as a selling point (and, of course, it is to anyone who really thinks about the value it represents) but, in a society like ours, where everything is measured in sound bytes and people have the attention spans of gnats, that number seems too high to be enjoyed. I think most people instinctively shy away from it believing, unreasonably, that they will HAVE TO sit there and watch all of it at once. Their rational minds know that they don't actually have to watch it all at once, but their primitive hind-brains believe it and say "no way". With that in mind, it might help to bring rational thought back to the forefront of their brains by adding an acknowledgment of the instinctive reaction, then offering a helpful tip to soothe the irrational fear. For example, what if you added a PS beneath the 2nd paragraph, where it says ...

"177 Hours of Premium Permaculture Education

Just how much content is contained within 177 hours? This exclusive video series provides you with all the lessons from two 14-day courses offered at Wheaton Labs: Permaculture Design and Appropriate Technology. " followed by ...

PS You don't have to watch it all at once! Think of this as your favorite TV show--watch one episode at a time or binge watch until you run out of popcorn. It's up to you. You will be so glad that this series has a super long run for you to enjoy.

Seeing what they unconsciously already know will help to settle it in their minds and allow them to get past it and on to the rest of the promotion. Just my 2 cents.

two quick notes about the prices:

1:  we sold a lot of this stuff during the kickstarter for roughly the same price.  So I think the price point is about right.

2:  I very much need to make the price higher than the kickstarter price to be respectful to the kickstarter folks.  After a year I am willing to lower the price, but I would prefer a path where I figure out how to not do that.

The general idea on the price is to maximize income.  For lots and lots of reasons.  The biggest one being is that if I spend $1000 on advertising, do I get $100 in sales or $2000 in sales?  If I can spend $1000 in advertising and get $1100 in sales, then I am golden - I am willing to flood all sorts of commercial advertising stuff with messages about permaculture.    But if I spend $1000 in advertising and get zero sales - then i will not do any advertising.  

The kickstarter is proof that this stuff does sell at these price points - it is a matter of conversion.  Clearly the kickstarter page is better.  

If we really want to talk about a lower price, I wish to point out the mountains of stuff I have available for free.   Of course, it is not particularly wise to pay for advertising of free stuff.   But the price of the content is definitely as low as it can possibly go.  

In another year or two I might be willing to try a much lower price point for this stuff.  But for now ...   I think we need to solve conversion stuff.  

I attempted to post this note with the contraction for "in my humble opinion" and the bot stopped it....  

I didn't know our system did that.  I found that "rule" and deleted it.

PDC and ATC were comprehensible to me only after several days of deliberate browsing. For driveby browsers they are as meaningless as military jargon
Nothing about that title piques curiosity, from the unlearned, and it warns from the outset that this is a money making effort not an educational free for all.
Perhaps a less pithy description, of the individual courses,...

Suggestion?

177 hours of video IS daunting to most people.  

Maybe the phrasing should be something like "It is like getting 17 seasons of a permaculture show that you can binge, off and on, at your liesure!"

??

PS You don't have to watch it all at once! Think of this as your favorite TV show--watch one episode at a time or binge watch until you run out of popcorn. It's up to you. You will be so glad that this series has a super long run for you to enjoy.

 I should have read the whole post first.

I see how in craig's first post he asks for feedback on price.  Craig, I hope you don't mind that I edited that out of your post.

I have an opportunity to run a print ad for freaky cheap.   I set up a shortcut of richsoil.com/177 - nice and short for typing ease, and is not confused with richsoil.com/pdc which goes to our pdc page.  

What might be an alternative to "177"?   Or maybe "177" is good?

how about "course"?  or
"class"?  
"full-course"?
"binge"?

"mountain of info that you can spend all winter watching. Hurry, winter is almost over"?  Maybe that ones a little wordy.

paul wheaton wrote:I see how in craig's first post he asks for feedback on price.  Craig, I hope you don't mind that I edited that out of your post.

I don't mind at all.  

I have now called in the plotskateers!

I just had a look.  It's very informative and inviting.

Tiny thing, my dyslexic brain found it difficult to read the bit about Primary Instructor Tim Barker.  If there could be more contrast between the text and the background, it would be easier.  But I like the background part there.  I'm viewing on a tablet, so it might be easier to read on the PC.


At the end it says 'Interested in attending courses for 2018? More information can be found here.'

My instinct is to click the word 'here' but nothing happens.

for a quick blurb, how does this sound:

The full four weeks of courses, including the hands on projects
including a seven foot tall solar dehydrator, rocket hot water, solar
ovens, a rocket oven, a haybox cooker, an air well, cheap
refrigeration, and more.

It's like having 17 seasons of your favorite permaculture show waiting
for your binging pleasure.

??

paul wheaton wrote:I have an opportunity to run a print ad for freaky cheap.   I set up a shortcut of richsoil.com/177 - nice and short for typing ease, and is not confused with richsoil.com/pdc which goes to our pdc page.  

What might be an alternative to "177"?   Or maybe "177" is good?

How about /pdcvideos

or

/pdconline

Could you tie this sales info to your full page ad i saw in mother earth news mag?

I am assuming its still running  generating responses, and layout can be changed without $$.

r ranson wrote:I just had a look.  It's very informative and inviting.

Tiny thing, my dyslexic brain found it difficult to read the bit about Primary Instructor Tim Barker.  If there could be more contrast between the text and the background, it would be easier.  But I like the background part there.  I'm viewing on a tablet, so it might be easier to read on the PC.


At the end it says 'Interested in attending courses for 2018? More information can be found here.'

My instinct is to click the word 'here' but nothing happens.

Thank you for the feedback. I have darkened Tims bio text background and removed the 2018 line.

That makes it much easier to read!

I used to sell a product on forums. Way before kickstarter or youtube existed.

The term "groupbuy" was huge. Very huge. I could run a sale for my widget for $5 and get no increase in sales. I could run a "group buy". If 20 people commited to the group buy, they would all get the $5 discount. It did well.

Maybe it was a community thing. Not sure the emotional rationale for the difference.

I think kickstarter is todays groupbuy. Its a communal gathering where people team up to aid in a common goal/cause.

After absorbing this,  my only thought is run another kickstarter for the old content. Not sure how old marketing would conflict with new marketing but....

General kickstarter campaign:

We want 100 new people to help de-ickify the world. We have a full pdc course ($1200 value for those who attended) available for $100. This includes the full 177 hours of video filmed...... no certificate is offered. But no content is removed.

paul wheaton wrote:two quick notes about the prices:

1:  we sold a lot of this stuff during the kickstarter for roughly the same price.  So I think the price point is about right.

Maybe or maybe not. I don't pledge money on kickstarter to buy products, I do it to support projects. I get more value from the success of a campaign than from the rewards I receive.

Here is an excerpt from the book CA$HVERTISING:

Ad-Agency Secret #3: Put Your Biggest Benefit in Your Headline
Talk about information overload! Estimates say we’re exposed to anywhere from 247 ads per day (Consumer Reports) to more than 3,000 (Newspaper Association of America). If we’re to stand any chance of convincing, persuading, motivating, selling, we must, must, MUST cut through the clutter! The easiest way to do this is to always—without exception—put your biggest benefit in your headline.

Unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money. —David Ogilvy

Did you know that 60 percent of all people who read ads typically read headlines and no more? They skim until they “stub their eyeballs” on something that interests them. That means that about 60 percent of those that see your ad read only the first few words. Yikes! Solution: Put the one thing that’s most important to them in the place where they’re most likely to see it: your headline.

When I look at that landing page I see features and no benefits. The actual copy is below the fold!

A feature is a factual statement about a product or service. Factual statements aren't why customers buy; benefits are.
Benefits sell. Benefits clearly answer the customer questions "What's in it for me?" or "What results will I get that will improve my current situation?" or "Will it make me healthier, wealthier or wiser?"
-- https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/234200

I studied marketing out of curiosity because I'm interested in psychology and influence. I'm not a marketer and I don't really know what I'm talking about. My usual disclaimer :)

Ad-Agency Secret #3: Put Your Biggest Benefit in Your Headline
Talk about information overload! Estimates say we’re exposed to anywhere from 247 ads per day (Consumer Reports) to more than 3,000 (Newspaper Association of America). If we’re to stand any chance of convincing, persuading, motivating, selling, we must, must, MUST cut through the clutter! The easiest way to do this is to always—without exception—put your biggest benefit in your headline.

Unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money. —David Ogilvy

Did you know that 60 percent of all people who read ads typically read headlines and no more? They skim until they “stub their eyeballs” on something that interests them. That means that about 60 percent of those that see your ad read only the first few words. Yikes! Solution: Put the one thing that’s most important to them in the place where they’re most likely to see it: your headline.

A feature is a factual statement about a product or service. Factual statements aren't why customers buy; benefits are.
Benefits sell. Benefits clearly answer the customer questions "What's in it for me?" or "What results will I get that will improve my current situation?" or "Will it make me healthier, wealthier or wiser?"
-- https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/234200

Both of these bits of business wisdom, if true, suggest to me that what the new page needs most is a new headline. I'm thinking 5 words like ...

Live Your Dream of Sustainability!

Try putting that right up there at the top, then launch into the how, why, where and what.

The A/B testing sites are complete. There are 16 variations to permaculture-design-course.com. Refreshing the page will show you different versions.
If anybody has ideas, please post them.

What would the best page for you look like? I would like to build 4 or 5 variations based on what you think would make the best page.

I will build those based on the feedback you provide.

We have been working very hard on getting the conversion correct for this site but have fallen flat and I am hoping you can save the day.

Of the 16 variations, I have created none are panning out. I can adjust what % of traffic goes to each variation. I will build the page you suggest and then bump up your page a great deal. The others have already had their chance.

Paul,

I think the page is looking good and the A/B testing should give good results assuming you get enough traffic to make the results significant. Speaking of traffic I think at this point what will really make the most difference is the type of traffic the page gets - not the amount of traffic. I think you should be able to at least get 10% conversion rates if you send the right traffic to the site.

When I say type of traffic I'm referring to these categories of traffic:

- Cold Traffic
- Warm Traffic
- Hot Traffic

Cold traffic is traffic from Google, Bing, etc. These are people who come to your site with no real connection to you or the product you are selling. This is the single largest group of traffic you can get but also will likely have the lowest conversion rates. The old page on permies that got 160,000 views was likely getting mostly this type of traffic.

Warm Traffic would be people who have some sort of connection to you or the product you are selling. These people are likely getting the Dailyish email, have watched one of your YouTube videos, are familiar with permies or your blog articles, etc. But these people have likely never bought one of your products and are likely not engaging with permies on a daily basis. They also have likely never supported one of your kickstarters. This group should  have much better conversion rates than the cold traffic group.

Hot Traffic are the people who have a strong connection to you or the product you are selling. I would expect these people to have bought at least one of your products before, or they have supported your kickstarter campaign(s), may be podcast listeners, and may be Patreon supporters. This would be the smallest group but would have the highest conversion rates.

What I would suggest is that you or someone else write a blog post (post to richsoil?) about the benefits of a PDC and include in it real value by sharing something they would learn in a PDC that would help them right now. Then also include a call to action where they can sign up and receive a package of even more awesome stuff that they would learn at the PDC that could help them right now. I would not have any adsense ads, etc. on this page and instead have a couple ads for your PDC/ATC video sales page. I would also include some calls to action in the blog text that would take people directly to the PDC/ATC video sales page. You could also include a call to action in the text to drive people to your full PDC/ATC - likely small number of sales but you may not need a lot. Just be careful because too many different calls to action can result in people just choosing to not do any of them. Main goal would be to get emails at this point.

I would also suggest writing a companion blog post to the PDC one that would instead focus on the ATC. Same type of page with the same types of call to action but all focused on the ATC. The two blog posts should link to each other and could essentially be a two part series.

The point of these blog pages is that this is where you can send all the cold traffic. The cold traffic will then learn about the PDC and ATC and get some stuff of value from you. This will build trust and familiarity between them and you. You might get a few sales directly from the blog posts but the main goal would be to generate an email list of people that are specifically interested in the PDC/ATC content. This list would be your warm traffic. I would send all traffic you can to these blog pages and not directly to the sales page - let the blog posts do the marketing for you and drive people to the sales page.

Then I would suggest taking a clip from the PDC videos and a clip from the ATC videos that fully covers a specific topic to give away. Create two basic landing pages - one for the PDC and one for the ATC - that would contain the video and a summary of the content. These pages would also have a call to action asking people to buy the full product and link to the other basic landing page (PDC to ADC, ADC to PDC). The email list you generated from the first two blog posts would be sent an email encouraging them to go to these landing pages to get the freebie. This would give people more value and would continue to build more trust and familiarity and make the traffic warmer. You should also get some sales at this point.

Finally, I would then follow up with one final email that would include one more item of value (another video clip, or something) and a final call to action asking people to buy the full product. This email list could then be added to your regular weeklyish email list.

The result of all this is a marketing funnel that drives people to your product while making them like and trust you throughout it by giving them valuable freebies. In summary this is what the proposed funnel would look like:

1st: Cold traffic to blog post(s) - PDC and ATC - Focus on the benefits of taking a PDC / ATC and share something of real value. People sign up to receive additional value and give you their email address. Include a couple adds for the PDC/ATC videos and in text call to actions. Main goal is to generate the email list - secondary goal is sales (cold audience so very low sales conversion rate)

2nd: Warm traffic (email list from 1st) to basic PDC / ATC landing pages - share a video clip from the product that gives real value (30 min to 1 hour long video) - provide good text summary of the information. Call to action is purchasing the full product (take people to the page you already have made). Main goal is sales - gives people a real sneak peak of what they will get if they purchase the full thing.

3rd: Warmer traffic gets final email with final push to buy and the final video or other item of value. Main goal is sales - offer a bonus item (perhaps the course notes? I got them by supporting the kickstarter and I think people would be interested in getting them and they are of course related to the product being sold) that normally costs $$ but is now free if they buy now (also send this bonus item to anyone that already purchased earlier in the funnel as a surprise bonus to generate more goodwill and trust - don't tell them they are getting it ahead of time).

The 1st group should have the most people but the least sales. The 2nd group should be a smaller group of traffic but more sales and the 3rd group should be the smallest but have the most sales. You will likely still get cold traffic to the sales page through google and people sharing it but the funnel should increase your sales a fair bit.

In addition the people who purchase this product become your future hot traffic for other related products. You could market your full PDC / ATC to the people who bought the videos and potentially offer them a discount to help drive sales (I would also include another freebie item of value at this point). This way your PDC/ATC video funnel also serves to ultimately funnel people to your in person PDC/ATC.

I would also suggest that you make permies companion pages that help drive traffic to the blog posts since permies gets so much traffic.

This is all just a suggestion and I don't know if it makes sense for you in terms of available time, etc. but I do think it could help increase sales. For my business I'm hoping to use a similar funnel setup to drive sales to products that I'm an affiliate for including these videos.

Hope that helps - my main point is to not only focus on improving the page and the volume of traffic but also focus on the type of traffic and how you can get warm instead of cold traffic to your page.