Focus: Website Usability
About the Client: SharperAgent provides custom-branded marketing suites and powerful CRM solutions that enable real estate and mortgage professionals to prospect more effectively, build strong lead pipelines, and grow customers for life. A privately held LLC, the company has more than 20,000 customers, including many of the most prestigious real estate and mortgage firms in the world.
The Challenge: Despite offering a free 30-day trial of its services through a link on its website, SharperAgent was getting next to no takers. The company’s marketing team couldn’t figure out the reason for such low response, so they called on gWave for assistance.
The gWave Solution: gWave started its engagement with SharperAgent by conducting
an Internet marketing audit to determine where things stood with respect to response rate, web page usability, page layout, banner ad messaging and advertising mediums. gWave prepared a report documenting the following findings:
- A usability test determined that there was significant room for improvement in the online checkout process.
- The landing page required a redesign to make it user-friendlier, a process that included enhancing its visual appeal, and writing a headline and copy that were more compelling.
- The banner ad messaging, which was intended to drive visitors to check out the free trial, needed to be more compelling.
- The advertising mediums that were being used to reach real estate and mortgage professionals needed to be refined and expanded.
SharperAgent implemented changes based on gWav’s online usability research, with gWave serving as a guide and consultant throughout the course of the SharperAgent team’s work.
The Result: Since the changes suggested by gWave were incorporated, SharperAgent has seen a significant increase in the number of website visitors who’ve signed up for the free 30-day trial. Statistically speaking, in just three months the rise was about four percent. gWave successfully met the challenge of helping SharperAgent increase the response rate to its free offer by enhancing and simplifying visitors’ online experience.
The Client Quote: ”Before we started working with gWave, we were concerned that our free trial offer wasn’t getting much traction. Their expertise in determining usability issues and suggesting solutions to enhance our response rate was clearly demonstrated during the entire process. We learned an important lesson: It takes more than merely placing a free offer on your website to ensure an acceptable response.” - Brian Wildermuth, SharperAgent President