June 3, 2008
One of the most significant aspects of vacation travel in Europe has been the recent explosion of interest in the short break vacation market. No-frills airlines have led the way to opening up cheap routes from London and regional airports to destinations all over Europe. A short weekend break in some thrilling city has now become a viable alternative to sitting home in front of the television set.
A UK survey of Britain’s vacation habits recently shows that this weekend escape plan is now worth a phenomenal £34 billion a year. People are spending an average amount of £760 a year on these short breaks, flying off to European cities, cultural festivals and sporting events.
The three-day break is most popular, with 21% of respondents taking Friday off work to fly out and 34% arriving back late Sunday evening, giving them some 55 hours away.
Edinburgh and Glasgow were some of the most popular weekend break locations in UK, while Paris, Amsterdam, Palma, Dublin, Brussels, Venice, Nice and Madrid were their most popular European weekend destinations. Other airlines have reported strong interest in Prague, Rome and Barcelona.
The key ingredients to a successful weekend break away were spending quality time with a partner, sampling local food and drink, cultural sightseeing, weather and, (for the ladies), shopping. Nightlife, perhaps unsurprisingly, was more important to the younger travelers than the more elderly.
Psychologist Dr. Aric Sigman said, “The results indicate that the British have now developed proper escape plans to counterbalance the fact that they work the longest hours in Europe. The low cost and accessibility of short haul travel now enables people to act out the growing need to be physically and geographically removed from their everyday surroundings in order to truly get away psychologically and emotionally. In fact it has been found that when it comes to dealing with stress, frequent short breaks are more effective than infrequent long holidays. What is interesting is that most people spend their weekend breaks in a low-key way involving time alone with their partner, dining and R&R as opposed to the frenetic activity and nightlife sought by previous generations.”
Whatever the reason, many UK residents are now taking advantage of rock bottom no-frills prices to spend four or more short breaks in the thrilling cities of Ireland, Scandinavia, Europe and the Mediterranean during the summer months, the German Christmas Markets and Alpine or Spanish ski slopes in winter. Visitors to the UK from North America are also taking advantage of these no-frills flight options, spicing up their vacation in England with short breaks in cities as far afield as Copenhagen, Berlin, Prague in the Czech Republic, Spain’s Barcelona and Athens in Greece.
Given the astronomical prices charged by West End restaurants where dinner for two can set you back £250 or more, it makes sense to take off for a paella to the sound of Spanish guitar in Barcelona, a spaghetti and a bottle of Bardolino under the stars at a pavement restaurant in the Piazza Santa Maria in Rome’s Trastevere, or a more expensive romantic dinner for two on a Seine bateau mouche in Paris. Before only the jeuness dore and the jet setting glitterati could afford such extravagances. But things have changed and many prefer to take a number of such fun jaunts through the year rather than undergo the hassles concomitant with organizing a long vacation.
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While most marketers are beginning to understand the critical importance of maximizing conversion rates, few are tracking or working to maximize another critical measurement of website effectiveness.
Visitor value…
Visitor value is simply a representation of how much money you make per visitor to your website.
You can calculate visitor value by multiplying your number of sales over a given time by your average price per sale and then dividing by the number of unique visitors you received over the same time period.
(# of sales x price) / (# of unique visitors) = visitor value
For example, if your website made 1,000 sales last month at an average order size of $100 and received 50,000 unique visitors, your visitor value is $2.
(1,000 sales x $100) / (50,000) = $2.00
When split testing modifications to your website, it is important to understand the effect these changes have on visitor value, not just conversion rates.
This is particularly important when testing different price points or working to improve your average order size.
By focusing only on conversion rates when testing different prices, you run the risk of selecting a price point that may convert best, yet produce a lower overall visitor value and profit.
For example, in a recent split testing campaign I conducted for one of my coaching clients we tested three different price points, $17, $27 and $47.
The $17 price generated a conversion rate of 3.4%, the $27 price actually converted the highest with 3.65% and the $47 price point converted at only 3.18%.
Without looking at the visitor value, many marketers would select the $27 price point. However, after calculating the visitor values for each price point, we discovered that the $27 price produced a visitor value of $0.98. But the $47 price produced a visitor value of $1.49.
Even though the $47 price had the lowest conversion rate, because of the higher visitor value it was over 50% more profitable than the highest converting price point.
Once I explain the power and importance of improving visitor value to my clients I am often asked…
“How can I improve my visitor value?”
There are only three basic ways to increase your visitor value.
First, you can improve your sales conversion rates. As long as your boost in conversion rates doesn’t come at the expense of price or average order size, improving conversion will also improve your visitor value.
Second, as I have already demonstrated, by testing different price points for your products, you can often find the “sweet spot” where your visitor value is maximized.
The third way to maximize visitor value is by working to increase your average order size. Using tactics such as up-selling, cross-selling and bundling you can quickly boost the average amount your visitors spend per sale.
While my clients and readers all know how passionate I am about maximizing conversion rates, when it comes to changes or split tests on your website that involve pricing or average order size, visitor value is the metric that you want to maximize.
By consistently measuring the impact your conversion rate optimization efforts have on visitor value, you can ensure that your site is living up to its most profitable potential.
Want to improve your conversion rates? Get a FREE website evaluation from one of the worlds top eCommerce and traffic conversion experts. Visit http://www.web-site-evaluations.com/free today for your free, no-obligation website evaluation today!
Eric Graham is the CEO of several successful online companies. Internationally recognized as a top authority on eCommerce, Website Conversion & Internet Marketing, he’s an in-demand speaker & consultant.
Get expert tips, advice, news and commentary on improving conversion rates, split testing, web usability, copywriting, internet marketing and more. Just visit Eric’s popular Blog: http://www.conversiondoctor.com/conversion-blog/
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Nielsen BookScan reports 4.1 million copies of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold in the U.S. in its first 24 hours of release. Industry tracker, Scholastic, reports when sales at Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and airports are added, the figure jumps to 6.9 million in the same period. Nielsen also reports the Mountain region of Utah, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada accounted for 328,000 of the sales.
Astronomical sales figures are fun to imagine but the real business of selling books is closer to selling éclairs. Authors, publishers and bookstore owners get up early, do their work, hope customers buy and then deal with unwanted leftovers. Similarities don’t stop there. The baking and book business both say name identity, distribution, word-of-mouth, and price make a difference. Quality helps but isn’t always mandatory because things sell more in the big stores than one little boutique bakery or bookstore down a sidestreet. Fortunately, judges sometimes overlook sales. It was rumored Gilead by Marilynne Robinson sold less than 10,000 before winning the Pulitzer Prize this year.
Pastry taste and book preferences are subjectiveand regional. Consider the week of January 29 when Nielsen’s Book standard rating nationally placed James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces as number two while Sheri L. Dew’s If Life were Easy, It Wouldn’t Be Hard in the same slot in Salt Lake City, Utah though it didn’t place nationally in their top fifty. But then, the Los Angeles area number ten, 2006 Los Angeles & Orange Counties: Street Guide didn’t either.
Books are also ranked by genre which is a good marketing opportunity to showcase books that otherwise no one would have heard about. The same week Night by Elie Wiesel was number one in adult non-fiction, Cell by Stephen King topped fiction. Stitch & Bitch, The Knitter’s Handbook by Debbie Soller led crafts and hobbies, Backyard Bugs by Vincent Douglass led education and travel’s number one was Walt Disney World 2006.
The book industry is not eager to release exact sales figures but it has been reported that books on a best seller list can currently be selling anywhere from low thousands to hundreds of thousands a week. They do start bragging when a book hits over 50,000 total sales which can include titles as diverse as Celtic Needlepoint to Raising a Daughter and Almost Vegetarian.
Choosing a favorite éclair is as subjective as choosing a favorite book. Marketing techniques and availability gain attention and increase the odds but when asked about a favorite éclair people are as likely to name their grandmother’s over a frozen brand as they are to name Nancy Drew over any Stephen King.
Rebecca Guevara is a speaker and freelance writer whose first novel, The Trading of Ken, published last fall and can be seen at http://www.rebeccaguevara.com, http://www.barnesandnoble.com, http://wwww.oxidebooks.com or she can be reached at rebeccaguevara@comcast.net
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