Yep, that’s me (photo by jmpk).
Somehow I allowed myself to get talked into doing the Pecha Kucha at the 2009 Business of Software conference in San Francisco (seriously though, I want to thank Jeff Atwood for convincing me to go through with it).
Pecha Kucha is 20 slides, 20 seconds each…in 6 minutes 40 seconds you are done. And it’s twice as hard as it sounds.
I hope to share a video of the talk with you in the coming weeks, but for now here are a few resources I mentioned during the talk that I want to provide to anyone interested.
Overview
The presentation was titled Marketing is Design: Three Words that Increased Sales 1000%, and was based on an a post from about 8 months back.
Given the terse nature of the Pecha Kucha I focused the talk on the point that you should always be testing, and talked very briefly about how Google’s Website Optimizer allows you to do that quite easily. I also included some examples of smart companies and individuals who test.
Slides
Available here
(note: they are timed to automatically flip every 20 seconds).
Links
- Google Website Optimizer
- Getting Started with Google Website Optimizer
- Google’s A/B Testing with Gmail
- Frank Lutz
Screencast
I recorded a screencast that I mentioned during the talk. It’s for anyone who wants to setup an A/B test using Google Website Optimizer. It’s a lot faster than you think; you can setup your first test in under 5 minutes.
5 comments ↓
It was pretty amazing to hear how simple it was to boost your sales!
Well, simple is one way to put it, although it required 6+ months and 20+ attempts at it. In the end it was one of those overnight successes that takes forever to achieve.
Being lucky always trumps being clever or gifted or any other skill
I enjoyed your Pecha Kucha. It is pretty amazing how such a small detail can make such a big difference. It is an interesting psychology question. I wonder if the ‘guarantee’ stops people from surfing for alternatives.
That’s exactly what it is. I couldn’t go into the details due to the length of the talk, but people buying beach towels on Google want to get in and get out, and if you can offer them something that makes them feel good about their decision they will buy from you without looking any further.
Only once in 7 months of owning the site after I placed the “Low Price Guarantee” message on the home page did I have to refund any money, and it was a pittance – around $50 on a $200 order.
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