Once upon a time, I used to work as an air traffic controller.
As you might imagine, rapid technological advancement requires that controllers do a lot of reading to keep up with, and execute, procedural changes in their work.
As such, the first fifteen minutes of every shift was set aside to review new material in the ‘Read and Initial’ file, posted since your last day of work.
In addition to operational changes, the ‘Read and Initial’ contained administrative news on local, regional and national levels.
Some reviews would be easy. I’d read one short memo about an upcoming retirement party and then I’d be off to the coffee pot.
However, there were other days when an hour wouldn’t have been enough time to properly digest everything. But you were stuck with only fifteen minutes.
So, how did I make sure I fully understood all the information before sitting down to work on those ‘information overload’ days?
Well, fortunately for me, I had the best crew partner on the planet.
After quickly skimming the notes, he’d tell me all the nitty gritty details.
In the telling, we’d both learn and understand the changes better.
I often learned more from hearing him explain what he understood, than if I had read the company’s legalese a hundred times.
Why is that?
Because I learn best by first hearing information, THEN reading about it.
Knowing that, it surprises me that it took me so darned long to appreciate my friend Shaun’s suggestion that I put audio on my site.
Months after he told me how audio had boosted his conversions and how simple it was to do, I finally took half an hour to prepare a recording.
Incredible!
My sales skyrocketed by 33% overnight.
I’ve heard of conversion rate improvements of over 400 percent, simply by adding an audio snippet.
It makes sense.
Most of us are inherently lazy. Why read when you can listen instead?
Too, printed text isn’t capable of capturing and holding attention like a human voice.
Adding your picture and an ‘About Us’ section to your site goes a long way to fostering trust and credibility, but your voice will take it home.
In addition to increasing your conversion rate, audio may also help reduce your email and overall workload.
If you’ve been looking for an easy way to dramatically increase your site’s conversion rate, I highly recommend talking to your visitors.
Get the right tool for the job…
I use Jay Jenning’s Sonic Memo on my site, and after a review of all the other audio programs out there, I believe Jay’s is the best.
About Rosalind Gardner
Have you seen odiogo like on fringpansports.com? Seems like a really good audio widget to translate your posts into something people can listen to or download to their ipods.
I went to your sales page and listen to the audio. I guess a sincere voice also do help in the conversion!
Thanks for the tip. Although some say audio will lower the conversion, some say higher. The only way to find out is to test it yourself. And you got a very positive outcome.
Ahhhhh… Rosalind suffers from OBLD like me..
Obsessive Blog Layout Disorder!
Too freakin’ funny, Kit… and ABSOLUTELY true! LOVE tweakin’.
Definitely agree, I’ve been using audio for a while and it works great. I’ve never heard of SonicMemo, but I’ve used web audio plus and it does the job. I’ll check it out though, always looking for better ways to do things.
It’s a good way for prospects to get a better idea of who you really are, as your personality shines through in audio a lot more than text.
Sean
great work,well done
Yeah I need to do more videos and audio. Even video sites I surf until I hear something interesting then I “rewind
Rick
The post by you explains very well the factors and it will be a great one for every one to know about it. Going through all your post will definitely help me to become good enough.
Yeah I agreee with you. Listening gets the thing straight into your mind/memory where reading takes its time to get in to your mind. Extra work is required to understand through reading.
I heard some guy did research recently about gaining twitter following.
He found that by directing visitors to follow him rather than asking them increased followers by around 20%.
FYI the best phrase to use is “you should follow me on twitter” and the worst is “please follow me on twitter. Maybe something similar can be used to effect the behaviour of sales?
Hi, Rosalind, I took your advice and posted audio on my squeeze page. The audio doesn’t duplicate what’s on the page…well, just a little. I wonder if I should have kept all the duplicate content so that folks like you who would rather listen than read can follow along. As it is, folks who are reading/skimming can get confused. What are your thoughts?
Many thanks,
Tracey
Hi Tracey,
I would think that just highlighting the main points (with enthusiasm!) should be sufficient rather than duplicating what you’ve written on the page. Those who actually do read the page will definitely be looking for something more unique and personal.
Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Ros
Thanks, Ros. I just got a new article posted on EZineArticles.com, so I can check on the number of clickthroughs and signups vs. what I had before. Thanks for your help.
Tracey
My pleasure!
Hi Ros,
Was hoping you had the sonic memo pro button with your post here to demonstrate it… Would you provide a link to one of your pages where you are using this?
Thanks!
Donna
For me video is the king, with all those sites like youtube, metacafe, daily motion etc. it becomes obvious people are getting used to watching or listening to stuff, reading requires much more effort on your visitors part. Also I’ve noticed that some IM gurus use videos that do not allow you to rewind, pause etc. I don’t know if this is a conversion strategy, but it is something worth testing. If it really works I guess it takes advantage of the fact, that if you can’t pause the video you have to watch it all the way through, rather than pause it, wonder somewhere else and forget about it.