This blog post will give you fifteen (15) easy tactics you can use to drop the cost to acquire a customer (CAC) metric in your startup.

Time to read: 7 mins.

I’m currently in San Francisco for Traffic and Conversion Summit 2013. Best conference I’ve been to for conversion and online sales tactics. As a venture fund and consulting firm, it’s hard to be great at everything. SaaS is different than downloadable software, which is different from social games, which is different from lead generation, which is different from info-products, which is different than peer-to-peer marketplaces, which is different than publishing. Nonetheless, we choose to invest/work in each and every one of those I just listed and I believe it’s important that we at least strive to be the best in each. At the very least, this keeps us sharp and our circles/value network sharp, so we’re always in the conversation with the smartest people in those rooms and know where to go if we don’t know something (resourcefulness is a virtue). If you go to the top 1% in every area, your game expands to the level of each extreme. Go to where the top 1% are and feel stupid/get schooled. It’s a beautiful feeling. Whoever is best in that arena, I go to them. For performance marketing, this means being at Ad-Tech. For monetization, this means being at Affiliate Summit. For sales funnels and conversion, this means being here, at the T&C Summit.

Here are 15 gems I picked up that can increase your conversion rates.

Quick logic to spell out the importance of conversion rates for startups:

Conversion Rates -> Cost Per Acquisition -> Cost to Acquire a Customer -> Cost of Business -> User Velocity -> P&L or pro forma financials -> Fundability or Profitability

Bottom line: conversion rates are VERY important.

1. Email marketing – send emails at 4:30am CST.

2. Email marketing – include video screenshots whenever appropriate

3. Joint ventures – partner with those businesses that have high social engagement

4. Landing pages – use flat product images over stock images

5. SEO – use press releases. They still work very well.

6. YouTube – select the video screenshot that spells out what the viewer will get/learn.

7. Sales Funnel – give bonuses/value-adds that customers want at the point of purchase. Sound like a no-brainer? The magic’s in the nuance. The bonuses that help conversion most typically are superficial wants (i.e. mugs, hats).

8. Facebook Advertising – use product images over people images.

9. Email marketing – go short. Think it’s short already? Go shorter.

10. Email marketing – make every bulletpoint linkable.

11. Email marketing – make the header image (if you’re using a heading image) linkable.

12. Copywriting for sales – write with a sequence in mind. Sequence beats prose when prose isn’t in sequence.

Here’s the sequence:

Grabber -> Headline -> Sub-headline -> Identify pain -> Solution -> Pain -> Easy -> Speedy -> Future -> Why you -> Benefits -> Proof -> Offer -> Value -> Bonuses -> Price -> Justify -> Scarcity -> Risk -> Action -> Warning -> Reminder -> FAQ

13. Email marketing -use the “so” rule for bulletpoints. Begin every bulletpoint with a “so”. This is a trick to write wonderfully compelling benefits, effortlessly. Looks cheesy but it performs.

14. Competitor Analysis - use WhatRunsWhere . Use it every time you game plan.

15. Lead Generation – if you use email marketing, send the emails during weekends. That rule also goes for low-dollar offers.

Hope that’s helpful. These are tested, don’t over-think them, just implement. Even if you are skeptical, test them anyways as an A/B test with what you’re currently doing as the control. Nothing to lose there.

Any other tactics anyone else is experiencing results with?

P.S. BONUS tip 16. use P.S. in your emails whenever applicable and make them clickable. This is a piss-poor try on my part. Nonetheless, do it.