Conversion Rate Optimization: Find Funnel Bottlenecks and Improve What Matters

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast, where we work on getting better step by step, professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing the season of Building Better Foundations. We are Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. We are in part two of a conversation with Samir and we are going to, yes, I dropped his last name because I was like, it's very pronounceable, but I'm going to stumble over it. So we're just going to go with Samir and I think he'll, he'll be okay with that. If not, I apologize. But first should probably introduce myself. My name is Rob Broadhead, one of the founders of Develop-a-Nor, also the founder of RB Consulting, where we help you assess technology and build a roadmap for success. RB-SNS.com. Good news or good thing, bad thing. Good thing is I'm planning on a rather large vacation. And the good thing is, is that what AI does for you these days, as far as a travel agent, it is amazing how much detail and information I was able to get in like a sitting and I'm talking like a sitting of like, I don't know, 30 to 60 minutes, something like that. It was like, it wasn't that long and it was spitting out really awesome stuff. But this goes back to some of the conversations. We had that you've got to be able to understand how to do prompts and how to talk to AI and things like that. Along those lines, if you check out the rbsns.com site, there's going to be some links. We're playing around with a lot of little apps that are, they're like applets, ways for us to do AI and prompts and things like that better. And I think they're just great things. They're free. There's no, there's no cost. There's no something like that. The ones that you have to register for, it's really just so that we can keep your data, so that you can, you know, the stuff you put in there isn't getting mingled with everybody else's. We're not tracking anything else. So this is really just to try to help everybody do AI better because we really try to avoid like the Terminator situation where suddenly AI has taken over. We want to make sure that we all understand it good enough. And that would be the downside is if you are embracing AI like I do, and you're using it a lot, a lot of different ways. If you're starting to say like, Hey, there's some great stuff. Then probably like me, you're also finding situations where it just is driving you insane because you get into a loop or something like that. And while yes, I've been able to get some really cool stuff out of it. Yes. I've also had more than a couple of times where I've wasted my time basically trying to get it to do something that I should have spent the five minutes and done it myself. So choose your poison. I guess my poison I chose is my guest host, my cohost over here. And Michael is going to try not to poison you while he introduces himself. Hey everyone. My name is Michael Mosh. I'm one of the founders of developer Nerve, building better developers. I'm also the founder of Envision QA. If your software is holding you back, it's time for a change. Envision QA builds and tests reliable custom solutions. Let's fix what's not working. Check this out in EnvisionQA.com. Good thing, bad things. I guess good things. We're getting into the holiday season. We're going to have to, or I guess when this comes out, we'll be just out of the holiday season. But we're recording this before the holidays. So I'm going to actually hopefully have a little bit of downtime, get caught up on some games I got at my birthday a couple of months ago and start getting into the bad side of things, which is preparing and planning out where the business is going to be going into next year. More working on the business and in the business, but doing with some of the things that I really don't like playing around with too much like marketing and stuff. I'd rather be writing code. Well hopefully as we're talking into marketing, not so much branding, but definitely marketing. Hopefully something that you guys can learn a little bit and hopefully something that doesn't bother you too much. But we're going to dive right back into our conversation with Samir El Kamune. Spelling it is going to be a little bit of a challenge, but that's all right. We'll have links so you can connect with him. And here we go. Pencils up. Make notes. So I have a question for you. So with all of your years of experience and the different kind of hustles and companies and products you've been doing, can you give me an example of one that went very badly, that didn't work or kind of didn't exceed your expectations as to what you were trying to do? And then how did you handle that and how did you learn from that for your next hustle? Good question. Who do I want to throw under the bus? You know what? I think this is an interesting one. So we had this client for actually quite a while called MealEnders. And what it is, is it's a lozenger, kind of like a cough drop that you put in your mouth. And it is very minty or gives you kind of like this menthol type sensation and then it finishes really sweet. So you kind of cure like a sweet whatever or vice versa, one or the other. Sorry, can't remember. It's been a while. And so what this product is intended to do is sort of curb those like midnight cravings, right? Oh, I'm going to go for the potato chips or I'm going to go for the candy, whatever it is, right? And so that's what this product is intended to do. Really cool product, great marketing, real problem, right? All of the things that we were just talking about sort of check off the boxes. They went on Shark Tank. They didn't get a deal, but they got tons of traffic, obviously. Sales through the roof. And you could call it an overnight success if you wanted to. Now where is MealEnders today? I don't know. Their website exists anymore. But the problem was that they pretty much. Yep. So it looks like they're gone. So pretty much what happened is they never listened to their customer and they never listened to the market. So great idea. A couple of the products were OK, but most people weren't crazy about the flavors. They were asking for more flavors. Most people were kind of complaining about a couple of small components, like not difficult things to solve and come up with a version two or some new flavors or a limited run to test whatever it is. They had plenty of opportunity to test it. And because they never made any changes and they just sort of were on Shark Tank, we get all this traffic every time we are on Shark Tank. It doesn't work like that. The first time you air, you get tons of traffic. Every single time you air, you get less and less and less and less. I remember we would check Google Analytics while it would air. And sometimes we get like five people on the website. Wow. Because it's like the fiftieth time it's aired at this point. Right. And so the point I'm making is it's really important to listen to your customer, try to gain feedback from your customer and pay attention to reviews. And so now this is something that I religiously do across the board pretty much for anything, whether it's a client that's coming on board, whether I'm investing in a business, whether I'm trying to purchase a product like we all do this, right. We all Google like, oh, this product is really great. It's a thousand dollars. Oh, what are the reviews? And then if I find problems, OK, what are they doing to try to hedge this? And so often enough, I think they just don't really do anything. They're like, oh, the customer's wrong and blah, blah, blah. But a fast other example is we had a client that sells beauty products for older women and one of their products came and it like something wasn't working right. Like it was lipstick wasn't wasn't coming out correctly or something was wrong. And so they started getting a couple of bad reviews, immediately identified what it was, immediately improved the packaging of that product, reached out to every single customer that ever bought that product recently, even if they didn't leave a review, even if they didn't have any issues, said, hey, we found that there was an issue. We want to replace the product for free. We're going to send you this new product. And guess what happened? A bunch of incredible reviews, people raving about their product and service. And now you've got a bunch of testimonials and everything else coming your way. And so I'm not saying the customer's always right, but I think when you do take the Amazon approach and put the customer first, really interesting things happen. And you know, and you've got to be willing to iterate on your business or service or I don't care what it is like, software gets old, like everything gets old. Right. You've got to update it. You've got to make it more beautiful. You've got to update the packaging, whatever it is to stand out in the market. And so often I just see it's like, well, we're doing good. So why change anything? So I love those two examples. That's perfect. It's like innovate or die, but you have to listen to your customers. And if you're not getting good reviews or there's something wrong, you got to fix it. And then make sure that the customer understands that they are being valued as a customer, that their feedback is important. Those are two critical things. So of course, we live in a new age of AI. What are some of the changes you've had to make or that you see coming within your industry where you're having to either use AI or you've found ways to improve on finding those analytics that the performance get that customer feedback quicker than having to dig through all the different data models? I think there's probably two key areas. One, I obsess over split testing everything. I'm like, my brain just works like that now for better or for worse. So I think all of this enables us to split test just so much faster across everything. Or before, OK, maybe I had to hire a really expensive copywriter to come up with some new split tests on copy. Or I had to hire a big creative team in order to come up with 20 new hooks and new video variations for each one of those hooks or whatever it is. So I think on one hand, it allows us to just test so much faster, which I love if you're not testing things. Start testing things. You could be making a lot more money. But on the other hand, I think it also is sort of like this amazing great equalizer, which is so cool, where five years ago, 10 years ago or more, if you started your business, you were more pigeonholed or you didn't have as many tools or resources or opportunities at hand. To create an incredible video would have cost you $150,000. Now you can pretty much do it with practically no experience almost. And it's only getting faster and exponentially growing. And so I just feel like it creates immense opportunity. But the other thing is it can also create sort of shiny object syndrome sometimes. And we have to be a little careful of that. And so I think that's where I'd probably encourage everyone to just make sure they are being really calculated about about what they're going about testing and doing things like I'm all for testing as many tools as possible. But I'm very clear in my methodology of doing so of like, OK, which tools benefit what I'm doing on a daily basis the most. And then, OK, I can also on the weekend test these little cool random things that aren't going to benefit my life. But I just want to test it out and see how it works and what it does. Right. And so at the end of the day, I think if you're not educating yourself on it, you're going to get left. You're already being left at the station. And so no matter what, you just got to be spending some time learning this stuff and obsessing over it and figuring out where it fits into either your role, your department, your company, whatever it is, and just making sure that you are being. Yeah, just pushing things forward, because I think that's at the end of the day, all of us are really looking for. So do you have a since you obsess over it, do you have a methodology or sort of a standard approach you take in your evolution of split testing as far as like you said, you can. That's I think sometimes the problem is that there's so many things that you can tweak here and adjust there. Is there if there is, is there sort of a method to your madness that you can take as sort of a rule of thumb? Yeah, I love data. I think we're all data guys here. Right. At the end of the day, data is everything to me. So I always try to look at the data and find where where those bottlenecks are. And so I think of I probably two very specific examples so that people can have like action steps here would be one just map out every step of your customer journey. Just map it out on a piece of paper, whatever it is. Right. So say, OK, first, first point, maybe maybe a friend referred them. That's one referral. And maybe there was an ad, maybe there was a cold email, maybe there was a phone call, maybe there's a LinkedIn message, whatever. That front end thing is OK. Then they came to this landing page. OK, what do I want? What action do I want them to take here and what percentage of people are doing it? Right. So, OK, I want them to go to this web page. I want them to stay for more than a minute. I want them to go to the next page. OK, great. Five percent of people do that. OK, great. Mark that down. Then, you know, how many people are booking a demo or doing that next step and just understand what the what the percentages are in between each one. And then where's the lowest percentage? That's the place to start. Right. And and then what I would do, a very easy solution is putting heat mapping on your site. Everybody's got a website at this point or a software solution of some kind, and you can put Microsoft Clarity on. It's free. There's other tools like HotJar, HotJar and Crazy Egg. And there's other tools out there. But, you know, I always just tell people to Microsoft Clarity because it's free and it's pretty darn good in comparison to the other tools out there. And and then just let that put on the put that on the website and let it sit there for a little while, a few days, a few weeks, depending how much traffic you have. And then go look at the screen recordings and look at the heat maps. You will you'll start to understand what's going on really quickly because you can sort of creepily see what people are doing on the recordings on your site, where are they scrolling past, where are they stopping, what are they reading, where are they clicking? And the heat maps will really showcase where they're clicking and where they're not going. So that teeny little section at the bottom of the website that you've been split testing like 100 times and you're like, nothing's happening, but no one scrolls that far. OK, split testing that probably doesn't make any difference whatsoever. But that second section that all of a sudden everyone's been looking at because it's below the video, it has the call to action button and everyone is clicking on that. And it's the hot, you know, the biggest concentration of clicks. OK, maybe we split test a different call to action or a different title above it or something and see if that has any kind of positive impact. And again, use data to do it. There's like a B split testing tools and different things that you could do so you could see statistically if that is a winning sort of observation or not. Those are usually some of the easiest things to do. You could certainly get a lot more advanced with it, you know, with with with user testing and lots of other really intricate things. But that's definitely like, you know, you probably hire an agency to do that because they could probably do it more efficiently and faster and reporting better and all those kinds of things. And I think that's just the size you're at. Right. If you're a really big company and you're doing seven, eight figures. Probably reach out to really good agencies, do your due diligence, ask lots of questions, try to make sure that they'll kind of educate you along the way instead of like, oh, trust us. You know, every you know, we kind of do we take care of it. We're the experts. You don't worry about it. But if you're just starting out or you're solo pro newer or you know, you're doing six figures or less like, OK, then you got to run some of this yourself and test it out yourself. And and I think that that's where it's really easy to get overwhelmed by, you know, how many things are always are to do. And I totally understand and I sympathize. We've all been there. But just, you know, starting out with a couple small things to say, OK, hey, you know, what would have the biggest impact on my business and just start on that? Hey, I need more demos. OK, why am I not getting more demos? I get a lot of traffic, but they're not booking a demo. OK, then that's the problem that I need to solve. Or I don't have a lot of traffic. OK, that's probably why no one's booking demos. OK, what do I do to get more traffic? Right. And so just trying to find what the biggest problem is sort of and then kind of applying sort of, you know, the Pareto's principle, like 80 20 rule. Right. So I love the whole A B testing. I'm a tester, tester, developer by nature. I love that. One of the things that I do find interesting and challenging for a lot of people when trying to. To kind of build these funnels, build these testing is how do you know when your message is too big, like too broad or you're too niche? It's like how do you distinguish or how do you identify when you're kind of. On one end of the spectrum or too far on the other end of the spectrum, how do you kind of narrow that back down to that sweet spot? Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm obsessing over exactly that right now with with the company capital logics that I'm consulting for, because it's like a very in-depth trait, sophisticated trading platform that sort of like any high net worth individual could could utilize. And they don't need to be a technical trader. But then it can also be sort of like a fund in a box for people who like are very technical traders. OK, and I bring this up because I think it's a prime example of making sure sort of a couple of different things. So one, you really want to make sure. So, yeah, I don't like super broad. I hate super broad. I don't want super broad. I want to land on your website in two seconds. I want to know what you do. I can't stand when it's like that really we innovate technology and produce solutions to advance humanity. What? Right. Like, OK, no. Right. If I got to go spend another five minutes on your website to figure out what you do, there's a massive problem now. So I like to be as specific as possible. Now, if I start talking about how I hedge strategy, you know, hedge risk with advanced strategies for alpha generation. And now you're like, what? Right. Like, what's alpha generation? What are you talking about? OK, now that sentence makes perfect sense to a trader. And if all I'm trying to do is is get in front of traders, then it's going to be good. It's going to be a good message. And that's going to be a great way to go about it. But if I can also get in front of other people who aren't traders and then that gets a little too technical, then maybe I can like bubble it up a little bit more, just like one layer up to just be a little bit not broad, but maybe a little bit more generic. So it's not just like industry specific. I see this on LinkedIn all the time. People messaging me and they're like, oh, do you, you know, and they're just sending me all these analogies. And I literally have no idea what you're saying to me. You're clearly I'm either not in your industry or you got to come up with some better messages. Right. And so, you know, and that is where you can make like really big impacts actually in a lot of your messaging and how you're going about talking about your business, because you're you're being, you know, as you want to be as specific to your end customer as humanly possible. And so the more information you know about them, demographics, where they live, their pains are, what their fears are, whatever it is, the more specific you can get the messaging, you know, the better it's going to resonate with them. And so, you know, I try to avoid being broad at all costs. And, you know, and sometimes like, I think brands try to shy away from humor and cheekiness and other things, too, because they want to be professional. And and I think sometimes actually just putting a little humor in there and adding a little bit of, you know, human touch, I think sometimes also makes a massive impact, too. You know, like one of my favorite marketing agencies, as an example, like literally, I think all the call to actions on their website are click the damn button. You know, it's great. It's great. Well, I want to thank you so much for your time as we're starting to sort of hit the the limit here. But you've given us a lot of information. So for all of those that are out there that may be saying, you know what, I think I would like to spend more time and see where you can help. Maybe you could help me out a little bit. What would be some great ways for them to get the best ways for them to get a hold of you? Well, I'm the only Samir Al-Kamuni in the world, so it's pretty easy to find me. You know, LinkedIn is usually probably the best place professionally. Pretty active there and whatnot. So, yeah, please shoot me a message. Got nothing to sell anybody. Just want everybody to succeed at the end of the day. And I want us all to win and everybody to make more money. And if I can give you one teeny tiny little thing to help you do that. Amazing. Yeah. If you want to send me your website, I can give you a little feedback on it really fast. Just what I see in two seconds. You know, if if I understand what you do or not and if I'm not your target fit, then that's OK. We just talked about, right. But I can still kind of understand if it fits the needs or not. And yeah, I appreciate the time, guys. It's been fun. All right. Well, thanks so much. We will we'll wrap this one up and let you get back to your busy day. Again, appreciate your time and hanging out with us. And we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Rob. And then vision to a.com. Thanks for tuning in to the development podcast, where we're all about building better developers and better careers. I'd love to hear your thoughts, your feedback. So drop a note to info at the developer.com. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube or every U.S. And remember, a little bit of effort every day adds up to a great success. Keep learning, keep growing, and we'll see you in the next episode.