Experiment Your Way Out of Recession

Welcome, Anastasia from Conversionista!

Anastasia Dvorova:

Hey, and, thank you for having me as a speaker today. And thank you everyone for joining this webinar.

D:

Yeah. And before we start with the actual discussion, I want to let attendees know that you too can participate in this discussion. Go to Webinar does not allow me to switch on your cameras, but I can switch on your mics. So do share your thoughts on the questions being discussed. Send me a request using the chat or the questions box from the control panel, and I will be happy to unmute you. Anastasia, please take it away.

AD:

Yeah. So thank you so much for this opportunity. And today, we are talking about the recession and, how you can productively use this uncertain time to actually make your business grow. And, let me introduce, myself first. So my name is Anastasia, and, I have 6 years of background in business analysis. And, I hold a master’s degree in high-tech management and project management. And currently, I’m at Conversionista and, work with, web analytics and, CRO. So this is our short agenda for today. I shortly introduce you Conversionista and our way of work.

And then we will talk about the recession that’s driving the way of work and, CRO. And, also we’ll have some examples of how you can get, valuable insights from your users. And, as I already mentioned, I work at Conversionista and Conversionista is a part of the ARC Consulting family. And, this is the biggest Scandinavian consultancy in the whole circle from product development to both, physical and digital to strategizing and, performing marketing activities.

So, Conversionista in this case, focuses on, conversion optimization, user research insights, and, data-driven design and improvements of your user experience. We are number 1 currently in growth and experimentation here in Scandinavia with more than 10 years of experience and, more than 1000 client cases. And we are currently in, four locations headquarter in Stockholm. Also offices in Oslo, Gattenburg, and Malma. And, we have an excellent selection of names in our client portfolio. So our clients come to us with, different challenges based on, where they want to optimize the CRO journey, the current state, and the desirable goals.

And we help to overcome these challenges in different areas from, analytics, data quality experimentation, experience and behavior, and, and towards advisory support. But, for this presentation, we are currently focusing on experimentation and, how the experimentation works in, this uncertain time of recession. And, of course, recession is a hot topic right now, but, it is not a new black. Everyone read the definition of recession at least, I guess, several times in the past few months in different sources. as well as, we can observe some of the critical things like a significant decrease in economic activity, layoffs here and there, and, a decrease in sales.

But, what is important here is that recession is a natural and, sadly unavoidable part of the business circle. So let’s keep a little bit with this. so there’s always expansion there is always a peak followed by recession. But on the bright side, there is, always a recovery phase after that. And, to be able to overcome the recession and get ready for the recovery phase. That information comes on the front line. So in time of uncertainty businesses tend to slow down and cut off, marketing or the growth program, but, what is really going on here is a decrease in marketing and, growth activities followed by losing in marketing shares. Since, there are, every time some brave and ambitious companies in the market, who focus on gaining more market shares and, increasing their marketing efforts. While others find themselves in a negative ROI. And, what we are really cutting on when we stop experimentation programs is actually data and insights.

And why, because it’s simply by definition, the A/B tests and the experimentation is the closest thing to your real users. You test your hypothesis on your real website with your real visitors and they are not aware of it. So their behavior is, natural. So in this case, that becomes your power in hands certainty times. And, how you can use it in your for your business.

So it helps you to tailor your strategy better and, mitigate the risk of some launches, that get some negative results. It supports the decision making and it eliminates so-called guess work. And also, you get a chance to predict, further changes in your user behavior to some extent. So user behavior will be on the front line to change in a recession context. But how can you understand what is this change about and, what this change leads to?

So to make it, you should be as close to your real users as possible. And, you can do this through experimentation. Of course, you can use the old way and, simply ask, for feedback But ask yourself, how often are you 100% honest when you give feedback? Or you can go some new way by conducting experiments and getting a clear view of your users’ current goals and wishes. So in Conversionista, we believe that conversion happened when your and your visitors, both meet.

And, you will ask me. I know my customers. I know my users, pretty well. Why it’s so important to base website improvements on data? I can do this.

So let me just give you an example. So what is the one thing that, all organizations have? They have tons of ideas. And the idea is a great thing. So, basically, it’s something that, gives you a step forward for development.

I mean, you probably have a source for this idea. So there’s a creative genius who comes up with ideas, keys, and them. So this will be your current process. You have a creative genius who creates tons of ideas, and, you get, this big launch supported by the highest-paid personal opinion. And what’s wrong with this process and, what kind of risk is associated with this process?

That when your creative genius, creates the ideas, they don’t, actually base that on data. So these ideas, are not tailored to the user’s needs. And, they don’t know what kind of issue you are trying to solve with these launches. And, your launches become either hit or miss. And the main thing is that it’s not repeatable.

So every single idea comes from, like, the different steps and, gets some different approaches. So, in a long timeline, you will have a lot of launches with, plus or minus zero effects. But if you will, look at this a little bit closer, you will see that actually, you have some positive launches. You have some neutral or insignificant ones, and, you have some negative. And the question is, should these negative changes have been launched? So by optimization, we actually can remove the negative launches and, focus on positive ones. The one that brings us the desirable outcome and then how to reach it in Conversionista is that we use the optimization wheel for this purpose. So we based our work on data both quantitative and qualitative. We create our hypothesis based on data. We prioritize them and then run experiments and collect more data and insights from these experiments so we can use it, in the next circle. So it’s like the circle of things and a repeatable process.

But, how we can implement it, during the recession time? As I already mentioned, is not a new black. It’s a normal part of the economic circle. And, we are currently in recession, but, we have, time to act and to get ready for a recovery phase. So in Conversionista, we want to see it more as an opportunity for businesses to build for the future, because the challenge is something that makes business so exciting. So overcoming these challenges, you can drop your business and strengthen it. You can focus on the long term and, you can invest now to scheme the cream later. And, there is a great analogy with the market shares. So you’re buying, you know, market shares when how, like, you’re buying your stocks when there is a dip in the market.

So you can gain in additional income further on. So this applies also in business. So you can invest right now and, understand your user better and improve your website to get the desirable outcome later on. And it’s simply as it is. You just do what you are good at but, a little bit differently, and adjusted it to the current user needs.

So to reach it, you are you need to follow your users. And, as an order set, it is an important part because, when you hear your users, you can, work on decreasing the churn. You can align your brand with, customer’s new values, you can increase loyalty to the brand, and you can increase customer retention. And this is the most crucial part because, of course, we all want to, increase retention.

Loyal customers are on average nine times more likely to convert than new ones. And, move that getting existing customers back is more valuable and cost-effective than acquiring new ones. And, one of the research made by, Harvard business school shows that a small adjustment in the 5% in retention can, generate up to 25 more in profitability. So this sounds, pretty awesome. And, for this, we have a great example recent example, from, the Norwegian market.

And, it is let me call it, an offline example. So Kiwi is, in the region, a grocery chain, and a little bit, of a background So all the Norwegian grocery chains are just the prices, two times a year in February in July in reply to the changes and prices of their suppliers. But, what Kiwi did, this season? They decided not to increase the prices based on the current economic situation and their customers’ needs. And by doing this, the store chain got 600,000 more customers in the 1st week after, the turn of the month. And also, they managed to gain additional market shares. So this sounds pretty cool that they actually decided to overcome this, risk of, getting some loss by not adjusting prices, and they gain much more by getting, like, a significant increase in customers. So this is, only one inspiring example from, this February. And, what we can learn from this is that we already know that user behavior will change anyways.

And, the question is, to what extent and in which direction it will change? And to answer this question, you can gain valuable insights from the different data sources, both quantitative and, qualitative. and also by conducting experimentation. And you can actually build your strategy accordingly built for the future. And now we have, for this, one more interesting example, from, our client, like a long-time client, Norges Energy, which is the power provider here in Norway. And, we had been working with this client for a long time and, a little bit of background in Norway, there was a major, increase in electricity, prices for electricity in 2021.

So before this, when I’m not getting conducted any research to find out more information about the customers, they actually found out that, very few were interested in downloading and using apps, and my page was, not so interesting. And in general, people know that the final bill will be more or less the same. And if it’s not the same, then there are some issues with, some, of their own population, and they need to contact the company. But, with an increase in, prices, Norges, and that we find out that people become more and more interested in, my page option, they, see a significant increase in, my page views. like, right now estimated 74% of all the page views, of the whole website. And, people become more interested in an app, and, their needs change. They want now to check the application mostly every day to find out the lowest, the time slot with the lowest prices to, for example, charge the electric car or simply make laundry. And, also which, gives the greater operation for Norges Energy, is the customer’s demand for additional features So, that’s, for example, the forecast option and, prediction of the prices were tested and further implemented as well as, some other features, such as the current prices and real-time reports. So this is one of the ways how you can share a customer and, how you can adjust your product to the customer’s needs.

And then another example, also from our customer. It’s Norwegian Airlines, but they, run a great, experience, by highlighting the unique offer of a full refund in 24 hours. And that the main goal was, to decrease the drop off on, the final steps and also motivate users to, continue, but, it was a very tricky, experiment because, the hypothesis in this case because, what it can give you in terms of refund, a number of refunds significantly, can you be loaded with this in a support team, for example. So, to make this change or before making this the test was run and, we got a great result of, of uplift, in 3% in terms of conversion rates and, also almost no negative effect on the number of refunds.

So this is also the way how you can, hear your customer and, adjust your product better for their needs and, give them trust, for example, to make the final step of purchase with a small message with this unique offer of, a refund, full refund. So to sum it all up, in, times of uncertainty, data become your power. And experimentation is one of the ways to get insights from your real customers. And, of course, you can follow the copycat approach. And, you should ask yourself just, will it work?

Just think about it a little bit differently that your business is, anyways unique and your website and customers are unique as well. And the unique experimentation to validate the hypothesis you come up with and, deal your product based on these insights to remain unique. And, that following your competitors won’t bring you a desirable result of remaining unique for your customers. So that was it for this time. And, I am more than open to your questions.

D:

Thank you for a great, great presentation as last year. And, personally, one of the greatest takeaways from this presentation is actually to figure out the process for experimentation and to structure it all. But, yeah, let’s ask attendees. If they’ve got any questions, they’d like to, ask Anastasia. She’s there.

AD:

Also, if you have any questions, so if you think that you need time to rethink or restructure the question, you can contact me on LinkedIn or It’s email and, yeah, I will try to answer as soon as possible or either refer it to any experts in our team.

D:

Yeah. Definitely, the credentials are available. encourage if there are any questions, do let us know. Otherwise, we’ll be happy to host you again as well. Okay.

So Ryan’s got a question. and, do you mind if I unmute you and you can take it to yourself? Just to find the. And I’ve unmuted you. You can go ahead with your question.

Ryan:

Yeah. Thanks very much, both. just wondered Anastasia when you’re testing or doing CRO testing, do you tend to go for small incremental changes and test kind of each little change, or would you ever do a kind of big bang change where you change your whole page? And then see how that did compare to your original, or does it kind of depend on what you’re looking to test? Thanks.

AD:

Yeah. It’s, of course, it depends. And, you should just understand that small changes, it’s, very hard to, detect any changes when you do, like, the teeny tiny, change. And, with a big change, of course, you will yeah, you will get, faster the result in, like, for example, commercial rate on, in other metrics that you predefined. And, it will depend on the, of course, customer and, their program and their desirable goal, what they want to achieve if they want to change the whole layout of the page, or they want to, make some improvements and tackle that particular issue with, particular metric.

R:

Brilliant. That makes sense. Thanks very much.

D:

That was a great question. And, I think there are no more questions. Thank you, guys, for attending this webinar. Do reach out to Anastasia for, going forward this conversation or reach out to us in case you want to expand your experimentation capabilities. We’re more than happy to host you. Thank you again, Anastasia, and, see you soon.

AD:

Thank you so much. And, thank, thanks to every attendant of this webinar. And, yeah, hope to see you soon with the other webinars. Yeah.

Definitely. 

D:

Bye. Have a great day!