#191: 5 Ways to Reduce Friction in Your Marketing

Welcome back to another episode of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina, Onativia here to help you dive deep into strategies that will elevate your marketing game, streamline your processes, and ultimately help you build the online based business of your dreams. And today, I’m excited about this topic because it’s something I talk about all the time.

Reducing friction in your marketing process. Now what the heck is Gina talking about? What do you mean? Friction, Marketing. Friction. I got this off. I is any obstacle that makes it difficult for a customer or a student or a client to complete a desired action with you. Okay. Anything that is stopping your people from buying and putting down their credit card to enroll with you is friction.

And we don’t want any of it. And I’ve been seeing a few examples lately of some incredible friction. And actually this podcast was inspired by my search for a LinkedIn course. So I am looking because I’m always looking to improve myself for a course, to improve my LinkedIn presence. I really want to double down, especially in the new Year.

If you guys have any tips or if you’re listening right now, you’re like, I have a LinkedIn course, my bestie has a LinkedIn, DM me on LinkedIn and let me know. I was on Instagram shopping for a LinkedIn class and I clicked over to see how much it was and just get more details and there’s no price on the page.

You have to take an assessment first. So I don’t know if you guys have encountered this as well. So I click over to take the assessment. Okay, fine. I’ll answer a question or two, no problem. And it keeps going. The assessment again and again, I’m like, When am I going to get the price? I’m not even bought into this.

And I leave that friction. That’s an obstacle, because not only is this teacher or this person not telling me the price, but they’re forcing me. Even if I knew the price and I had to take this assessment, I would of abandon cart because I would have been so frustrated with the assessment. We want to make it a seamless as possible before our students and our clients and customers buy.

We want to make it awesome experience for them, otherwise they’re going to ditch like I did. And I was ready. I was depending on the price point, right? So I wasn’t educated enough to make a decision and then this person lost their business. So why does this seamlessness matter? Well, in this digital age, attention spans are short. Patience is even shorter.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m shopping, I know I want something on LinkedIn. I’ve made that decision. And now I just need to know the price and what I’m going to get and then I’m ready to buy. But if your marketing process is clunky or confusing, potential buyers will simply move on to something or someone else, right?

You guys have heard this A confused mind doesn’t buy. And I wasn’t confused. I think a confused or frustrated mind doesn’t buy. So I thought in this podcast we could break down some of the key areas where friction marketing, friction can creep in and how to get rid of it and talk through how to create that seamless process.

And by the way, this podcast is brought to you speaking of a seamless process by my done for you course creation process, and we do marketing as well. And if you want an experience coach like myself to help you get across the finish line with your course in your program, we’d love to be your person. Go to course creation boutique dot com slash course to learn more.

We usually take about one client a quarter. All right, let’s talk through a few of the ways or few of the areas I see friction and then what we can do about it. Okay. So first and foremost, one is something I’ve already mentioned and that’s hidden prices and unnecessary steps. So going back to my LinkedIn story, where you had to take an assessment, a quiz before even seeing the price, how long the checkout.

So we created unnecessary tension and huge hesitation for me. So here’s what not to do. Avoid making your person take quizzes, assessments or long surveys before reviewing your price and further details. And don’t surprise buyers with extra steps to get essential info like pricing. Transparency is key. Now, if I had taken that quiz and that assessment, I probably would have gotten a more personalized experience.

And that’s the trade off, right? Maybe this course creator thought, Well, I really want to make this custom. Or maybe there were tears and I would have gotten access to a certain tier based on my assessment results. Well, I just didn’t want to stick around to find out. So that’s not effective marketing. Right. And as a best practice offer a clear visible price or a transparent pricing structure upfront.

Now, this is for courses for services, like if you have a $10,000 package, then we have to have a discussion whether your services, your pricing should be on the website. I know people go back and forth on that and then save your quizzing or assessment for after they purchase. All right. A second area where I see a lot of marketing friction is missing or poorly placed call to action buttons.

Now, you and I have both seen this. I was on again, it was on Instagram. I only I don’t only shop on Instagram, but I was on a sales page and I kept scrolling down because I was like, Oh, I wonder how much it is because I want to hit the button to see, to go to the checkout and see how much I need to scroll all the way to the bottom to a ton of content before I got to the button.

Okay guys, don’t bury your call to action. And when I say call to action, I mean your buy buttons, your enroll buttons at the end of a long page, or make it hard to find each scroll and click adds mental cost and can lead to again, me abandoning the page. So sprinkle them throughout. Or especially if your guys are teaching a webinar or you you during a talk and you get a direct call to action, have that right on the top of the page because they’re pretty much ready to buy.

If you’ve done your work and you’ve sold them, have you show them the value? So make sure that call to action is right there at the very tippy top. Know me at the tippy top. You know, we got your picture and a little bit of a benefit statement. And then you have your call to action. And by the way, here’s another pro-tip avoid generic CTA tax like submit or click here, you know, make it sound a little sexier in terms of what they’re getting like be one of the few to blank blank write in and it’s got to be short and your call to action.

But but make an enticing and I already said this but include your buttons throughout the page at natural points top middle and bottom so people can act when they’re ready. All right. Here’s another way that we create marketing. Friction. Number three is an overly complicated checkout process. And have you ever tried to purchase something online and you’ve been hit with the checkout that feels like filling out a tax form.

Multiple fields and steps can make your students think twice about buying from you. So again, don’t ask for excessive information at checkout, especially for something simple like a digital download. Yes, So. So good. Some digital downloads, some opt ins or freebies. I see. Have all these checkout options, right? Especially early for you corporate folk out there. Sorry, I’m calling you out.

Do you guys see that more corporate landing pages like, Oh, I want to download this industry report on X, Y, and Z? Well, there’s 20 fields to fill out. Like, come on, let’s make it easy for people. That’s marketing friction to even on a free offer. Let’s not make it difficult. We don’t need them to tell us their life story before we give them your download on ways to cut back time or make yourself more productive.

Right? For example, every extra field is a barrier. Just keep that in mind and then also make sure the navigation is clear. If your person has to backtrack or reload pages, they’ll abandon cart. And by the way, some of you might use the two part checkout, and if that works for you, great. So they give their name and maybe their email and then they continue on test.

Always test like I love three part because you can test the two step opt out are opt in in enrollment or you can do the single page. So do what works for you. But just again, make it straightforward. Third, have them only give essential details and then you collect the other information later on. And then here’s another Pro-tip Think about adding an abandoned cart email.

That’s very simple. All these places do it now. All these softwares like Thrive Cart. How’s wine Kajal be all the lady pages have one now where if somebody leaves you, they get an email. It’s like, Hey, are you sure that you didn’t want to buy? Let me entice you to come back. So I think some of the best brands that do this are like makeup brands and clothing brands to entice you back.

All right. The fourth way that I see marketing friction is lack of immediate support or fake news for last minute questions. Now, this is another obstacle for folks to check out your course and to actually buy. They’ve been doing the research. They’re interested, they’re engage. Now. They just want to know, is this right? For me, I have specific questions about me because guys, when it comes down to it, it’s all about us, right?

Like you have to make it about that. So don’t ignore potential questions at the critical point of purchase or don’t rely solely on lengthy RFQ pages. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good fake page, but they’re not always the fastest way to resolve immediate questions. And I don’t know about you, but I’ll go to the fact page and it’ll kind of answer my question.

But again, I just want my specific scenario answered. So what’s your tip here? Make sure you have a live chat too. I love Drift It’s free or a chat bot that can address common questions in real time. Okay, so you’re going to have your FAQs, but you’re also going to have something like Drift or a chat bot on your page.

Really easy to implement and people can get their questions answered in real time and you can schedule when you’re going to be available versus when they can just leave you a message. Okay. And then the fifth way that I see marketing friction, okay, we’re on to our fifth and final way is forced account creation for new purchases. So some websites have seen this require customers to sign up before they can even buy or see options.

Right. They see the tiers. So you want to buy it, but they’re like, here, go ahead and sign up. I know why you’re doing it so you can get my email, so you can send me an abandoned cart email so you could nurture me, right? Hey, I totally get it as a marketer, but for me it’s a major turn off.

It’s additional obstacles, it’s additional obstacle, and it’s additional friction. So this is up to you. Everything I’m saying in this episode, by the way, feel free to disagree with like, Hey, no, my coach says otherwise, she’s not great. Just do me a favor and test and see what really works for you. Don’t take my word for it. Don’t take your coach’s word for it.

Don’t take your virtual mentor’s word for right. Some of these gurus out there don’t for me, don’t require people to create an account just to browse or purchase. It’s just an extra step and then offer guest checkout as an option, allowing users to complete their purchase without registering. So if account creation is beneficial, like for course tracking presented as a perk after the purchase rather than a requirement beforehand.

All right. So hopefully I have convinced you to reduce some friction in your marketing process and create a smoother customer journey so you don’t have your buyers hesitating or rethinking because then that’s where buyer’s remorse sits in, right? Or some people say like, is this a sign that I should be registering for this course? And no, it’s not a sign.

It’s just poor marketing, right? So I encourage you to take a deeper dive into your own checkout process and think about what might be a point of friction. Okay, look at your different content. Put it into chat, get what on this page might be a moment of friction or might be a point of friction for my buyers and see what I has to say.

All right. Hopefully you found this episode helpful. I’d love to hear from you. Hit me up on LinkedIn or Instagram. Don’t forget to leave me a review. If this podcast has been beneficial to you in any way. And remember, we’re here to support you every step of the way. So check out our done for you option course creation boutique dot com slash course.

Make sure you’re subscribed and I’ll see you in the next episode. Until then, go create be you and be brilliant and get it done.