Principles for optimising £1 to £2 through conversion rate optimisation (CRO)

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We often get stuck by focusing solely on designing a visually stunning and functional fundraising page, but this is just the beginning. 

To truly drive conversions, you need to build an experience for a user that identifies needs, empathises, understands and reacts to their motivations and validates thinking through a series of tests. This is when we see real change. 

Whilst we see our radical improvements to conversion rate take a systematic analysis to create a series of tests to validate with data - we have discovered some fundamental principles in creating highly converting landing pages that you can take forward immediately. 

We have developed five fundamental principles that craft highly converting landing pages – the DISCO approach: Distractions, Impact, Social, Choice, Opportunity and Reward.

Principle 1: Distractions - keep it clean and simple

We as humans get distracted - a lot. I certainly do. Especially when on a conversion landing page sent from a different platform, like Instagram, your attention may be thin. 

A clutter-free page is a highly converting page. Strip your landing page to eliminate distractions like irrelevant or busy imagery, multiple CTAs, and confusing navigation. Place your Call to Action (CTA) strategically above the fold for maximum impact.

Be clear in your desired action, and make it easy and unmissable.

Principle 2: Impact - make them feel the difference

The anticipated or experienced effort can be a barrier to directly counterbalance the motivation to give. 

Show the impact of what their action will do to make the motivation strong.

There are so many ways to show impact, and is often unique to each organisation. But think about demonstrating impact through compelling storytelling or visual elements eg. through progress bars and engaging project showcases. 

Whether through evidence, stories, or imagery, we want to create an experience that makes them feel that their action and contribution matters.

Principle 3: Social - people follow people

“Thinking is to humans as swimming is to cats; they can do it but prefer not to.” Daniel Kahneman

The anticipated or experienced effort is a big barrier to taking action. Offering shortcuts to thinking through and showing what others have done can be a powerful tool to accelerate decisions. A simple arrow to the ‘most popular option’ to let potential converters know who you are and what actions others have taken to follow.

It also has a motivational benefit. Through humanising your brand, you can showcase the actions of others and build a sense of community. 

Principle 4: Choice - nudging towards decisions 

Following from the same principle above, humans don’t like to make as many decisions as we may think we do. 

We can influence decision-making by providing choices where we want to give agency and shortcut decision-making by using default settings strategically. 

To accelerate the anticipated effort of making an action, use the power of defaults to your advantage to make users feel they can take an action quickly. This could be offering three choices, with the middle one pre-selected, to guide decision-making through anchoring.

However, sometimes, the choice is good and makes users feel they have agency, which accelerates the required effect. For example, I often get frustrated when I get to payment and ApplePay, or my favourite method isn’t an option. The effort needed to find my bank card will cause me to abandon my payment. Putting choice upfront to offering various payment options can incentivise taking action.

Principle 5: Opportunity & Reward - create a warm fuzzy feeling 

The biggest motivation for encouraging a conversion is understanding the opportunity and reward someone will get by taking the desired action. This is usually described as a feeling. We want someone to feel hope or a feeling of control, justice or progress, for example. Once you can describe the experience and feeling, it’s a lot easier to design. 

Showcase individual impact upfront. Include the user in the storytelling and use 'you' statements and visuals to instil self-efficacy. Express gratitude and make people feel rewarded from the start.

Are you interested in seeing how your conversion rates could radically improve? Let's talk! 

Discover these five principles and our conversion rate framework, the Theory of Change. 

Reach out to us to understand how we can help you make £1 into £2 by truly understanding and responding to your audience's needs.