A great product alone does not lead to sales. We cannot assume, just because we made something — even if that thing is really good — that we’re entitled to sales.
No. We also have to spend a lot of time and effort showcasing what we made and get it in front of the right people.
But where you find those people (and what you put in front of them) makes a ton of difference.
Let’s look at the stats behind why and explain what you can do to make more sales and convert more leads.
Note from Caleb: FYI folks, this article is from Matan and Tuhin (the Data & Risk guys) and Jessica (head of Seller Success) over at Gumroad. Matan, Jessica and the data team at Gumroad have put together some really insightful stats on what leads to sales.
They’re going to show you 4 tactics that will help you towards any conversion, be it sales, email opt-ins, subscriptions, downloads, etc. Enjoy!
Sales conversion is the ratio of those who bought your product to those who saw it. In e-commerce, conversion is the one metric that rules them all.
At Gumroad, we have tons and tons of data to help us understand what drive conversion. After performing an extensive analyses we’ve found a few key insights that can help push your products ahead of the pack.
So, without any further ado, lets get into what drives conversion.
1. Presenting your work
When selling on Gumroad (or anywhere, really), buyers care about the small details. We found that product covers and descriptions go a long way in increasing conversion. How much?
Products with covers have a 22% higher conversion rate, while products with descriptions of more than 200 characters show a 9% lead in conversion over products without descriptions. We also found that when a user provides a bio, conversion is 11% higher.
The more features you add, the more “trusting” consumers are in the quality of the product you are selling.
Justin Jackson’s product, “Amplification”, is a great example of how to include all the right kinds of information to remove uncertainty and build trust in your buyers. He incorporates the 8 main elements of an effective product page, including a cover, bio, social proof, and more.
2. Choose your cover carefully
Gumroad lets you decide which cover types work best for you. You can use images, videos, or audio.
Adding a cover image increased conversion by 3%
When looking at each category individually, we found that adding an image cover can increase conversion by 3%. Adding a video cover can increase conversion by 2.7%.
The right product cover depends on the nature of your product. You would expect that book covers, album art, and movie trailers are all effective, but don’t be afraid to get creative.
For instance, check out Kyle T Webster’s cover for his Ultimate Drawing Set, a set of Photoshop brush plugins. Kyle put together a short video that’s not only super entertaining, but also demonstrates the different uses for his brushes. His conversion rate for this product is a whopping 10%. As a bonus, it serves as great marketing, with over 11,000 views on Vimeo to date.
3. Connecting your social networks
The Hooping Life is a documentary chronicling the lives of 8 hoopers across the world who made a difference in their communities.
Its tagline – “It’s a movie, it’s a movement!” – illustrates their goal is not only to sell their film, but to grow the community of hula-hoopers worldwide.
The film’s team is very active on social media, especially in Facebook groups such as Unity of the Hula Hoopers, which has over 12,500 members. By connecting the film’s Facebook and Twitter accounts to Gumroad, potential buyers can see their involvement in the hula hooping community, and can connect to other like-minded individuals themselves.
Users who connect Facebook or Twitter accounts have 18% higher conversion rate on average
Our data shows that users who have either their Facebook or Twitter accounts connected have on average 18% higher conversion rate. Users who have both platforms connected have a 46% higher conversion over those with neither platforms connected.
4. Selling directly to your audiences
By looking at sales lead conversion on Gumroad, we see that social networks and email marketing push sales. Email marketing is the most productive means, wildly outperforming the next best platform.
Facebook and Twitter come next, significantly beating out broad marketing methods (YouTube and HackerNews).
Email wildly outperforms other platforms
In short, emails are gold.
To illustrate this, let’s take a look at the case of Tom Coleman and Sacha Grief, authors of the popular Meteor.js book, Discover Meteor. Tom and Sacha put an email signup form on their website months before they even starting writing the book to gauge interest. By the time they launched, they had about 3,000 newsletter subscribers.
Their conversion from that list? 17%. The average purchase was more than $48 and revenue per subscriber was $9.
Conclusion
By looking at sales lead conversion on Gumroad, we see that social networks and email marketing push sales.
Email marketing is the most productive means, wildly outperforming the next best platform. Facebook and Twitter come next, significantly beating out broad marketing methods (YouTube and HackerNews).
It’s important to remember that the results above are indicators, meaning buyers and products are not identical. The way you set up your page, as well as the product(s) you sell might result in different behaviors.
We recommend using the above information when deciding how to design your seller page, but most importantly, you should experiment. Every day we see new and existing users harness Gumroad in ways we’ve never thought of to drive sales (and conversions) higher.
What have your experiences been with social media vs. email vs. other forms of traffic? Let us know in the comments below this post.
Note from Caleb: If you want an extremely detailed case study all on one specific Gumroad seller, check out their free PDF case study on how Kyle T. Webster made over $100,000 selling Photoshop Brushes.
Also, get the free Fizzle guide to Gumroad… there’s a video with me… and a mustache.
“4 tactics to drive more conversions and sales.”
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Awesome post guys.
For me, social media (mainly Twitter and Facebook) are for conversation only. Email is all about the conversion. It seems clients have more ‘trust’ on email than they do on social media….
Great post guys, loving the practicalness (seems like a word Chase would say :) of it. Totally agree that email is the way to go, the money is in the list!
I would totes say that word, Kimanzi :)
Wait… This can’t be right. Email marketing is dead! The experts said so! :) Great post!
I actually learned something new :)
I think adding social proof to whatever you are marketing is key.
Thanks for sharing!
I Know email out performs but interesting to see that facebook and twitter can still have an effect.
Does Gumroad have stats on leading buyers to your Gumroad sales page VS. embedding the Gumroad code for a product on your own website.
Yes, you can see specifically where sales came from, where they bought, etc.
Sorry, I mean do they have conversion rates for those two methods. Meaning, which is more effective. Thanks.
I guess my brain is still on vacation, but I don’t quite understand that chart in #2. Otherwise, this post was very clear with some great stats!
The Sparkline never fails to drop another nugget of wisdom in my lap. Thank you guys for embracing your audience and delivering the content we need to succeed.
Btw, loved the Gumroad guide. Highly recommend it to anyone wanting to step out and sell their craft online. Super easy to setup and great user tools.
I used it to launch a digital publishing platform. It’s amazing to watch the $ signs as people actually buy your stuff. Very validating.
My experience has been that Facebook and Twitter are great ways to bring awareness to our brand and/or cause. However, it has not generated any income/donations in our case. Email marketing has been the source of donors, but we are facing an issue with in in reaching more donors, sponsors, partners or even supporters and bring them to our website and product pages.