In 2022 alone, holiday sales reached nearly a trillion dollars, showing just how much excitement (and spending!) this season brings. With so many shoppers primed to find the best deals, the question is: Is your website ready? 

Prepping your site for Black Friday doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Whether you’re looking to increase online sales, showcase irresistible deals, or ensure a seamless shopping experience, Kadence has the tools to make it happen. 

We’ve put together a complete guide to help you get your site ready and make the most of this year’s shopping events. Let’s dive in.

Preparing your site

For most retailers and ecommerce sites, there is an influx of website traffic during the holiday season. You may have visitors returning for those sweet deals or gift ideas. Either way, you need to be ready to convert as many of those visitors into customers as possible. Here’s what you should do to get started. 

Test and analyze your site

The first step to preparing your website for Black Friday/Cyber Monday is ensuring it’s fast, efficient, and easy for users to navigate and find what they are looking for. 

Start by viewing your website in an incognito window. Browse through your site the way a customer would to see if the user experience is up to par. 

• Does each page load quickly? 
• When you click on each link, does it take the user to the right place? 
• Did you test your checkout process? A smooth seamless checkout is less likely to result in abandoned carts. 
• Is there a way to reduce the number of clicks to purchase to increase conversions? Only ask for the information you need to complete the transaction and make it clear what types of payment you accept to eliminate user frustration.

If you want to take it a step further, you could run a quick page speed test. Google has a great user-friendly tool that will test your website’s desktop and mobile speed. It’ll even provide recommendations for improvement! After reviewing the suggestions, try your best to improve any metrics flagged by the page speed insights tool.

NOTE: If you are going to optimize your site for speed, just don’t obsess over chasing a “perfect” score. It can be easy to get lost in the weeds of trying to tweak every little thing and can sometimes distract you from other more important tasks. Do what you can to improve the user experience overall, but leave enough time to complete all of the other steps in this article as well.

Next, look at your primary site navigation. Is it optimized for the holiday sales season? 

Make sure that holiday offers are prominent, including top-selling items or most searched products. For many brands, the main navigation may look different during the holiday season and may revert afterward. The goal is to create easy and obvious paths for users to interact with sale offers. 

Finally, pull it all together with a site optimization and caching tool. Solid Performance is a free tool that helps you serve a faster website, with optimization and caching. 

Secure your site 

Shoppers need to feel safe making a purchase on your site. Display trust badges, SSL (lock icon), and secure payment icons prominently.

A security plugin can make a huge difference and give you and shoppers peace of mind. Solid Security Pro has everything you need with features such as brute force protection, passwordless login, 2FA, and a real-time WordPress dashboard. And don’t forget to keep all of your WordPress plugins updated!

Layer your security best practices with trusted payment processors, and you’ll have one less worry this holiday season.  

Planning your promotions

Once your website is ready for holiday traffic and sales, you’ll want to create a promotion plan.  

Setting clear goals

Black Friday is a long-standing tradition dating to the early 20th century and has evolved to kick off the holiday shopping season. It’s become the first day in a weekend-long major shopping weekend, culminating with Cyber Monday for ecommerce.

You can track the success of these promotions and your sales season by setting sales targets, inventory limits, and customer acquisition goals. 

• Sales targets: What revenue do you need to hit to consider this a successful holiday season? Set an overall sales target and individual goals for sales people (if you have them). Break goals further into online and brick-and-mortar sales if you have both location types. 
• Inventory limits: At what level will you sell through inventory? Does that get you to sales goals? Avoid carrying inventory past the holiday season when you must sell it at a deep discount. There’s a little magic in carrying just the right amount of product that you will get better at over time. 
• Customer acquisition goals: You should try to generate sales from existing and new customers. For continued growth, the latter is vital. Set a number or percentage of new customers that you want to reach this year. 

With all customer segments and sales, consider pairing promotions with upsell and cross-selling opportunities to maximize cart value for each shopper. Small items, inventory you need to move, or deeply discounted products are quick and easy for shoppers to impulse-buy at checkout. 

Remember to use SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goals in your planning so that you can track results and measure against prior years or efforts. 

Strategizing your offer types

Black Friday promos vary widely, and now is the time to think about what offers, discounts, or special things you may include for your online store. Pairing promotions with past customer testimonials can help turn a casual browser into a shopper. 

Popular options include:

• Deep discounts on specific items
• Doorbuster deals for limited hours
• Extended shopping hours for brick-and-mortar and extended sale windows online
• Social and cultural frenzy for specific, high-demand items to push on social media

Each different promotion should include unique calls to action that encourage immediate purchase by promotion type. Use microcopy for CTAs that’s more specific than “Shop” or “Buy” to encourage checkout. Consider phrasing that creates a sense of urgency, such as “Limited Inventory – Checkout Now.”

If you play your cards well, Black Friday can easily become your most financially successful day of the year.

Timing and countdown timers

Nothing helps convert a shopper like a sense of urgency. A countdown timer can provide this in an unobtrusive way, noting when a sale is about to begin or when a specific promotion might end. 

Countdowns build anticipation in advance of a sale, and enhance the sense of urgency to make a purchase when used on a product or landing page. 

The Kadence Countdown block is easy to configure and can create a sense of urgency to buy now since the deal is only available for a limited time.

Build your landing page

As you plan campaigns that lead to BFCM promotions, a landing page can be the most effective way to organize content and products designed for direct and quick conversions. 

A landing page is any page that your customer lands on when they find your site. Whether this be your home page, your shop page, or your BFCM promo page. A few key things that your landing page needs are inspiration, clarity, and mobile-first design.

• Inspiration: Use beautiful and trendy design styles that are eye-capturing and engaging. When a customer enters this page, they should be compelled to dive deeper into your site. Beautiful, clean design is key.
• Clarity: What are you selling? How will it benefit your customers? Be direct and have clear steps laid out. Don’t leave your customers guessing or you are sure to lose them.
• Mobile-first design: A large number of shoppers will hit your website and online sales from their phones. That experience has to be zippy as well. A fast theme, such as the Kadence Theme, can help. 

A few things to keep in mind as you design a landing page is to maintain visual branding and website design consistency so that the page looks and feels like it belongs to you, while streamlining content to be actionable and specific. (Consider choosing one key product to focus on.)

While every landing page might look a little different, the creation process is similar. Once you know what you want from a landing page, use Kadence Blocks to build a page within your WordPress website. 

Boosting sales with Kadence WP

Kadence WP has everything you need to create optimal landing pages that lead to holiday sales. Don’t forget that all of the best practices you use on your website as a while also apply to Black Friday/Cyber Monday landing pages and product promotion. 

Optimize your landing pages

After creating landing pages, optimize them! The most important thing you can do when creating BFCM landing pages is to stick to a single offer per landing page. 

Visual cues, copy, and direction should be clear and intentional. Don’t try to offer multiple options here. Having more than one offer could confuse users, while just one will help optimize the entire page. Any ads, social media posts, or links to the landing page should directly pertain to the content and offer on the page. 

Add social proof or testimonials to your landing page that support purchases, and consider a popup to help users complete the transaction. 

Finally, all CTAs on the landing page should lead toward the desired conversion. 

Enhance the ecommerce experience with Kadence Shop Kit

One of the most powerful things you can do for your business is create an online experience that is different from all the rest. Anyone can create a generic product page, but when a product page is intuitive and engaging, it stands out. 

Create custom product templates with Kadence Shop Kit to make your product pages really stand out. This is a game changer for WordPress WooCommerce sites. You can build out product pages that actually match your brand and engage with your audience. 

With Shop Kit, you can do so much more than create custom product templates. It also gives you the tools to create stunning product galleries, intuitive variation swatches, conditional cart banners, and tons more. Kadence Shop Kit makes developing engaging and immersive shopping experiences a breeze.

Don’t forget to use Product Badges to highlight key product details, such as low stock, on sale, or promoting special attributes. The feature gives you full control over the appearance and placement of badges, helping you enhance the shopping experience and improve product visibility in your store.

Create promotional blocks with Kadence Blocks 

You can help lead website visitors to promotional content and landing pages from within other parts of your website with sale banners, calls to action, and urgency indicators, too. 

These elements can help repeat customers gain familiarity with current promotions and offers and even lead to higher cart values!

Kadence Blocks allows you to use Hooked Elements to add content in different areas of a page, with unlimited customization options. This makes creating sitewide banners a breeze! Check it out for yourself with this live training video. 

Try conversion tools with Kadence Conversions 

In addition to promotional blocks, you can implement conversion tools throughout your website to help drive shoppers to key products. 

A simple reminder as a visitor moves through the website can help them find items that are most in demand or that drive your sales funnel.

Plus, shoppers are used to popups, announcements, and special offers. Those elements can sometimes convert when other opportunities do not. 

Kadence Conversions is a no-code WordPress block that lets you create all of these items with ease. Use it to increase sales, collect leads, and connect with visitors in more meaningful ways. Plus, it offers ready-made designs that you can drop in and use right away!

Promoting your Black Friday deals

What good is a sale if you don’t have customers? Spreading the word is everything when it comes to having a successful Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale.

Here are a few key questions to ask yourself when thinking about marketing your sale:

• What are you selling?
• What is your sale?
• Who is your target audience?

Once you know the answers to these questions, it’s time to get after it. Here are some marketing tactics to consider. 

Social media

Don’t downplay the power of social media. That’s where the people are, so you should be there too. Don’t just post about your sale; engage with your audience. Like, comment, DM – whatever it takes to create connection. 

People want to feel seen, like your sale was catered specifically for them. This is why it’s so important to put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and speak to them like you would want to be spoken to.

Email

The other marketing tool that can be your most effective is email campaigns. An engaged email list is your power tool. 

The first step here is getting customers to open your email. When crafting your marketing email, you will want a powerful subject line. Based on conversion rate research, words like “just,” “wonderful,” and “upgrade” are the most effective when added to your subject line. 

Once the email is opened, engaging content, beautiful photos and enticing content is what will keep your audience engaged. Then, to finish it off you will want a killer call to action and be sure to have an obvious button that links directly to your shop or landing page.

Advertising 

Finally, consider adding online advertising to your promotional mix to help reach a targeted audience that’s most likely to engage with your brand or buy your product. 

Advertising tactics could include social media advertising, search engine ads, or even traditional media buys. The most important consideration for product advertising is meeting potential customers where they are and advertising on channels and platforms they are most likely to use.

Tracking and analyzing performance

Your Black Friday Cyber Monday work does not end with a customer purchase! One of your biggest marketing assets is tracking and analyzing performance to see if you met goals and what you can learn for future campaigns. The work you do after the sale will set the foundation for a better campaign in the future. 

Go back to the SMART goals you set for BFCM campaigns and compare them to actual results. 

• How do actual numbers compare to goals? 
• What was your overall return on investment for campaigns?
• What worked well?
• Where are areas of opportunity in the future?

Many of the numbers you need to create baseline reports are available in Google Analytics. This is a free tool that you can set up on your website if you don’t have it already. 

Take a little time to reflect on these metrics and start planning for next year. While results and numbers are fresh, it is a good time to create starter goals for future campaigns. 

Crush your sale goals with Kadence WP

We hope this is your best Black Friday Cyber Monday ever. By preparing your site for traffic early, planning campaigns with intentional goals, and setting a promotional plan, you can set the groundwork for a strong holiday sales season. 

Kadence can help. Kadence Shop Kit gives you the ability to customize your shop experience to drive sales, Kadence Conversions can help you create flows that lead on-site visitors to promotions, and Kadence Blocks has elements and tools that make building landing pages that much easier. 

Get the full bundle of Kadence products today to supercharge your website and holiday campaigns!

It’s that time of year, folks. We hope by now that your home smells like cinnamon and you’ve found yourself looking forward to watching Home Alone for the 100th time. This time of year is really the sweetest, and if you’re a business owner, there’s a whole other kind of sweet that this time of year brings: sales. According to the National Retail Federation, the 2022 holiday sales reached $936.6 billion in sales. This was an increase of 5.3% since the previous year. My point? People are spending money and we want to help you get on the receiving end of those sales.

We wrote up a little guide with some tips that we think can boost your sales and help you create lasting customers. Now’s the time to enhance your site and do all the necessary prep work so you can have an out-of-the-park Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

Optimize Your Landing Pages

One thing to keep in mind with BFCM (Black Friday/Cyber Monday) is that the competition is high. You may be holding a killer sale, but so it the next person and you need a way to make yourself stand out. One way to do this is to have a beautiful landing page. A landing page is any page that your customer lands on when they find your site. Whether this be your homepage, your shop page, or your BFCM promo page. A few key things that your landing page needs are inspiration, clarity and speed.

Inspiration: Use beautiful and trendy design styles that are eye-capturing and engaging. When a customer enters this page they should be compelled to dive deeper into your site. Beautiful, clean design is key.

Clarity: What are you selling? How will it benefit your customers? Be direct and have clear steps laid out. Don’t leave your customers guessing or you are sure to lose them.

Speed: Your landing page needs to be optimized for speed. Lucky for you, Kadence theme is one of the fastest themes in WordPress history. But there’s a lot that plays into speed. We recommend doing a little page speed test to see where you currently stand.

Last year we hosted a live teardown with Jon MacDonald, founder of The Good. In this session we brought in landing page examples, specifically those geared toward Black Friday/Cyber Monday, and we discussed ways to enhance and improve these pages for a better conversion rate. Even if you attended this event last year, we highly recommend going back and watching again to get some invaluable refreshers as you prepare for the biggest sale of the year.

Enhance Your E-commerce Experience

Enhancing your e-commerce experience is so much about standing out. You’re in luck because Kadence has all the tools to help you do just that. With Kadence Shop Kit you have the ability to build beautiful custom product templates that are sure to bring your product pages to a whole new level. If you’re using WooCommerce, Kadence Shop Kit is a must-have tool! Create pages that match and engage with your brand, rather than a generic page that looks like everyone else’s.

With Shop Kit you can do so much more than create custom product templates. It also gives you the tools to create stunning product galleries, intuitive variation swatches, conditional cart banners, and tons more. Kadence Shop Kit makes developing engaging and immersive shopping experiences a breeze.

Spread the Word

What good is a sale if you don’t have customers? Spreading the word is everything when it comes to having a successful black Friday/cyber Monday. Social media and email campaigns are crucial for getting the word out. Here are a few key questions to be asking yourself when thinking about marketing your sale:

Once you know the answers to these questions, it’s time to get after it. The first thing I’ll say is don’t downplay the power of social media. That’s where the people are, so you should be there too. Don’t just post about your sale; engage with your audience. Like, comment, DM – whatever it takes to create connection. People want to feel seen, like your sale was catered specifically for them. This is why it’s so important to put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and speak to them like you would want to be spoken to.

The other marketing tool that can be your most effective is email campaigns. Hopefully by now you have grown (or are growing) and engaged email list. This is your power tool. The first step here is getting customers to open your email. When crafting your marketing email, you will want a powerful subject line. Based on conversion rate research, words like “just”, “wonderful” and “upgrade” are the most effective when added to your subject line. Once the email is opened, engaging content, beautiful photos and enticing content is what will keep your audience engaged. Then, to finish it off you will want a killer call to action. Something like, “your life will be so much richer, so buy now!”. And be sure to have an obvious button that links directly to your shop page.

Drive Conversions

Once you’ve brought people to your website whether through social media, email campaigns or what-have-you, the next step is creating that conversion. At Kadence we have just the tool. Kadence Conversions is a no-code tool that makes it all too simple to add slide-ins, banners, and lightweight pop-ups that will catch the eye of your audience. The best part is that your page speed is not affected, so it won’t add bloat or slow down your site. It even comes with stunning drop-in designs for each conversion type, making it easy to implement this on your page. This is an incredible tool for grabbing attention for your Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. 

Wrapping Up

It’s our goal at Kadence to see you create killer websites that you’re truly proud of. And in this case, we’re looking forward to helping you create a rockstar Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale that generates more revenue than you thought was possible.  That’s why Kadence provides all the tools you need to set your eCommerce site up for optimal success. 

If you’re not yet a Kadence Full Bundle user, there’s no time like the present! Get access to Kadence Conversions, Kadence Blocks Pro, Kadence Shop Kit and so much more! 

Holiday excitement is in the air! Do you feel it? Now is the perfect time to optimize your site and let your products be the answer to everyone’s wishlist. Kadence Conversions is an amazing way to engage with your audience and boost your sales, and we want to help you make the most of it!

Kadence Conversions is a no-code tool that can help to significantly increase your site’s conversions without affecting your page speed. With Kadence Conversions you can capture the attention of your audience by creating popups, banners, slide-ins, consent forms, customized modals and more. With Kadence Conversions you can schedule content, track your conversions, connect with your visitors, and ultimately, increase your sales.

This is a powerful tool that can be an incredible asset to your eCommerce store at a time when you’re hoping to increase engagement on your WordPress site. Though having conversions enabled isn’t always enough. If you’ve been around the web, you likely know that not all popups have the right kind of effect. There’s a good way to do popups, slide-ins, and banners. There’s also a bad way that gets in the way of your site visitor’s experience. Let me elaborate on that…

Do’s and Don’ts with Conversions

Everyone loves a good conversion. A banner or a pop-up that says, here’s a free gift or a discount or something that will enhance your shopping experience. However, there is certainly a bad way to do conversions, and this is what I want to help you avoid. Nothing feels more spammy than opening a website and instantly getting bombarded with popups and slide-ins that are irrelevant to your intent on the site. Like I said, I’m all about a good pop-up that actually has my best interest in mind and helps me with a positive experience on your site. But a popup that jumps at me the second the page loads asking for my email before I’ve even had a chance to explore your site? Sorry, you won’t be getting my email. And likely not my business either.

It’s important to keep your site visitor’s intent in mind when you’re creating something that grabs their attention. Are they there to get answers to a problem? Or perhaps they’re comparison shopping for the holidays, or maybe they’re really there to get a good deal on a hot product. Understanding where you’re audience is coming from can help, as well as creating good flows from site content to product descriptions. Once you have an understanding of a visitor’s intent and designing a page that fulfills their goals, adding a conversion element, whether it’s a popup, slide-in or banner, to that page can help nudge a shopper into a customer.

So let’s talk about a good way to do a conversion popup. Imagine this: you’ve stumbled upon a site that seems to have just what you’ve been looking for. Maybe it’s those killer (but maybe way-too-expensive) shoes that your kiddo put on the top of their Christmas list, or the perfect candle set for your mother-in-law. You’re debating on making the purchase, but the price is just a little too high. You move your mouse off the page to exit the site and suddenly, like magic, you get a popup offering you 20% off your first purchase. Sold! 

See the difference? Timing plays such a huge role in whether your pop-up will drive the customer away, or solidify their decision to buy. Lucky for you, Kadence Conversions has automatic trigger settings, so you can set up the perfect times for your conversions to display.

Create Popups, Slide-ins, Banners + More

You can create a conversion by navigating to Conversions from your wp-admin Dashboard. Click “Add New” and you will be prompted to choose between a popup, slide-in and banner. 

Next, you have the option of choosing a pre-built conversion template, or starting with a blank canvas. 

Choosing a pre-built template makes it incredibly easy to drag and drop in your own content. With just a few clicks you can brand it with your own style and flair, and it’s ready to go! 

Assign Launch Triggers

Kadence Conversions is packed with settings, so you can customize your conversion down to the last detail. As I mentioned before, Kadence Conversions has the ability to assign automatic launch triggers. There’s just really nothing worse than getting bombarded with popups and slide-ins. Launch triggers allow you to strategically place popups and banners, so they feel like that gift that came at just the right time, rather than spam that floods your screen. Choose between six different launch triggers:

• Time delay – launch a set amount of seconds after the user loads a page.
• Exit intent – launch after the users mouse moves off the page as if they are intending to exit.
• Scroll Distance – launch after the user scrolls a set amount of pixels down your page.
• End of Content – launch after the user reaches the end of your page content.
• On load – launch when the page loads.
• Custom link – launch when the user clicks a custom link

Schedule Content

Another amazing setting is the ability to schedule when your conversions will show. Let’s say you’re running a one-day only sale. You can assign your conversion to enable at midnight and disable at 11:59pm that evening. That way, you can get that much needed sleep and your sale, empowered by Kadence Conversions, can function beautifully on its own. 

You also have the ability to enable recurring scheduling which allows you to enable a conversion from a specific time to another specific time, and on specific days of the week. For example, if every Tuesday you launch a new recipe for your recipe blog, rather than creating a new banner announcing this every week, you can create one banner and set it to show every Tuesday.

Track Conversions

It’s one thing to use conversions in hopes that they’re working, but how much better to actually track if they’re working! No problem. Kadence Conversions can help with that! You can track your conversion to see not only how many views you’re getting, but how many visitors are actually converting (following the action your conversion is suggesting). This is an incredible way to figure out what’s working and what’s not working.

Start Using Kadence Conversions

If you’re not using Kadence Conversions then now’s the time to start! The holidays are just around the corner and your site visitors are going to be looking to get their stocking stuffers and personalized gifts ready to delight their loved ones. What better way to promote your holiday sale? You gain access to Kadence Conversions when you purchase a Kadence Full Bundle, or you can purchase it individually.

Anyone else out there stoked on the cooler weather, warm drinks, and the falling leaves?? All sweet, little signs to remind us that the holiday season is just around the corner. I get that not all of you are holiday junkies, but ready or not, they’re well on their way. And if you sell anything from websites to coffee beans, you know that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner, too. 

Maybe you’re the kind of person who wants to boycott all the Black Friday craziness and if so, I totally get it! But, from a seller perspective there is no better time to market your brand and get your products into the hands of consumers. The reality is that people are going to shop on these iconic days. They wait all year for these sales so there is a real excitement and enthusiasm to buy. Why not let your product be the very thing the people are looking for? 

At Kadence, nothing gives us more joy than to see our users creating effective and successful websites. And we want to give you the tools to do just that. We’ve created a list of five ways that we believe will take your Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales to another level. Here we go… 

1. Speed Things Up

Did you know that the very first thing someone will notice about your site is the load time? If your site has a fast loading time, then people may only subconsciously notice (ideal). But if the load time is long, you better believe that can be the very thing that drives someone away before they’ve even seen what you have to offer. Forty percent of online consumers will abandon a site if it takes more than three seconds for it to load. That’s 40% of your potential customers who are leaving before a sale. Site speed matters. 

Lucky for you, Kadence Theme is one of the fastest themes in WordPress. But just because you have a fast theme doesn’t mean you have a fast site. There are other factors that contribute to your load times including image sizes, plugins, cache, and your host. We recommend doing a little page speed test to see where you currently stand. Check out this post if you need some helpful tips for speeding up your site. 

2. Enhance Your User Experience with Shop Kit

One of the most powerful things you can do for your business is create an online experience that is different from all the rest. Anyone can create a generic product page, but when a product page is intuitive and engaging, it stands out. A tool new to Kadence Shop Kit (and one that we are particularly stoked on) is the ability to create custom product templates.  This is a game changer for WordPress WooCommerce sites. You can now build out product pages that actually match your brand and engage with your audience. 

Another powerful tool that Kadence Shop Kit gives you is the ability to optimize your checkout flow. You can now enable and disable checkout fields or create your own fields using the checkout manager. A streamlined checkout reduces the complexity of getting to a sale, making it more likely your site visitors will become customers.

Shop Kit also gives you the tools to create stunning product galleries, intuitive variation swatches, conditional cart banners, and tons more. Kadence Shop Kit makes developing engaging and immersive shopping experiences a breeze.

3. Create Lifelong Customers with Kadence Conversions 

Another way that Kadence can help you boost your sales and engage with your customers is through Kadence Conversions. This no-code tool makes it simple to add slide-ins, banners, and lightweight pop-ups that catch your customers eye. These tools can significantly increase your conversions without affecting page speed. It even comes with beautiful drop-in designs for each conversion type, making it all-too-simple to implement this on your page. This is an incredible tool for grabbing attention for your Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale.  

Conversions don’t just help with one-time-sales, they help create customers that will come back again and again. With banners and pop-ups that encourage the customer to “Subscribe and Save” or “Take 20% off your next purchase.” These simple gestures are huge when it comes to creating lasting customers. 

4. Get the Word Out – Social Media + Email Campaign + Optimized SEO

While you may be putting out a killer Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale, it’s important to recognize that much of the world is also putting out a their best offerings as a part of this seasonal sale. The competition is real, and it’s especially strong at this time of year. This is why it’s key to market your sale well. The first step to this is to determine what your sale will be. Then, if you don’t know already, determine who your target audience is. And you already know the next step, but I’ll say it anyway – social media. Social media is an amazing way to reach people who are interested in your offering. So whether your niche is active on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or an up and coming social network specific to your niche, engage with your audiences in ways that get them noticing your brand! This stirs up excitement and helps you stay on top of your competition. 

Another effective marketing tool, and one that is likely to be your largest force for sales, is email marketing. This is especially true if you have a growing, engaged email list. The first thing you’ll want is a powerful subject line. Conversion rate research has shown that words like “just”, “wonderful” and “upgrade” are the most effective to add to your subject. Then you’ll want engaging content that inspires and connects and, as always, a call to action. Somethings that screams out “this is going to make your life better, so buy now!” Maybe don’t use those words exactly, but you get the point! Point the people in the right direction.

The next thing I highly recommend is enhancing your search engine optimization. Maybe this doesn’t feel like marketing, but this is a crucial step to take in getting your brand out there and boosting your sales. If you’re not already, we strongly encourage you to to use an SEO plugin such as All in One Seo, Yoast, or Rank Math. Some other key things to consider when it comes to boosting your SEO:

• Set up SSL
• Optimize Permalinks
• Set up Sitemaps
• Start a Blog
• Set up Google Search Console
• Optimize keyword search 

With SEO, try not to game the system with too much usage of keywords. Instead, focus on being unique, useful, authoritative while showcasing your expertise. By being authentically you, you’ll differentiate yourself and build trust. Google’s recent helpful content update indicates they’re looking to highlight experts who are authoritative and trustworthy. Find your niche and rise in the SERPs by being helpful to your intended audience with your unique expertise.

5. Spend More Time Engaging with Your Customers

Having an effective and powerful website means more time to engage with customers because you’re not working on tweaking your site. When you complete the work on your site ahead of time, it opens up time and freedom to actually be present when the sale is going on. This enables you to engage with your customers and target market, whether on social media or via email. Customer engagement is key when it comes to building your following. People want to be able to connect with people, not a brand. Connect from an authentic place while your prospects are in the buying process and it will go a long way towards creating a happy customer who tells the friends of their excitement with your products and customer support. When you’re growing a business, there’s no better way to expand your customer base than to be present and active.

We do have to add that balance is everything. An added bonus with having a highly effective website that is optimized and engaging is that your WordPress site built with Kadence does so much more so you don’t have to. Less work means more time to spend with the people you love, so the holiday is not overwhelmed with work. Your family will thank us to have more time with you!

Your Success is our Success

At Kadence, we really truly want you to create rockstar websites that you’re proud of. And in this case, we’re looking forward to helping you create a rockstar Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale that generates more revenue than you thought was possible.  That’s why Kadence provides all the tools you need to set your eCommerce site up for optimal success. 

If you’re not yet a Kadence Full Bundle user, there’s no time like the present! Get access to Kadence Conversions, Kadence Blocks Pro, Kadence Shop Kit and so much more! 

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Timestamps & Links

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:20 The Kadence team summer plans
• 3:39 Popups that miss the mark with their audience & why they miss
• 6:56 Popups that are useful for the audience and how the site owners implemented them
• 9:56 Taking the customer journey into consideration as a whole
• 16:04 What can you give away, what should you give away vs. what do you charge for? Ben’s philosophy on scary generosity
• 19:15 Ben’s rules for popups
• 24:59 Kadence Conversions
• 27:22 What’s upcoming with Kadence Shop Kit, Kadence Blocks, and more

Transcript for The Kadence Beat Episode 8

Kathy: Welcome to episode eight of the Kadence Beat. This is the podcast about creating effective websites with WordPress and Kadence. And it is now mid to late April. And it’s starting to get hot in Texas. So I bet it starting to get nice where you guys are, where I’d rather be. What are you guys going to do now that summer’s on its way? What’s your big plans?

Hannah: I love summertime, everything summer. And I feel like April is actually such a tough month because you get these like trick days where it’d be like 75° and sunny. And then the next day it’s like 40° degrees and snowing. And you’re like, what the heck? It’s a mental battle all of April, but summer is coming. And I’m so excited. I live in Idaho for any of you who don’t know, I’m a big runner and I’m doing a marathon the end of July. I absolutely love getting out and running when it’s warm. So yeah, I’ll be doing lots of that. Super excited.

Ben: I definitely echo the April weird weather thing. We had snow yesterday and just four days ago it was like 70 degrees and nice outside. So that’s definitely a thing where you’re like, “Oh, it’s here. We can go outside.” And then, oh, it’s snowed last night. But it’s definitely changing.

I started mountain biking just a couple of weeks ago and that’s been super fun to get outside. I’m also very out of shape.

Hannah: Biking is hard. I didn’t know until I started, it’s not like normal biking. It’s really hard.

Ben: Yeah, where I’ve been going is like, there’s a path that goes straight up this mountain. And so I just go and I peddle until I can’t peddle anymore. And then I walk and then I peddle some more and then I get to the top of this place. And basically by then, I’m ready to puke. So I spend 10 minutes just trying to get my body under control. And then I have the best 15 minute ride down that mountain that like cuts this trail, just like does a whole bunch of cuts. So the way that it keeps me going is that I end by going downhill. So I’m just so happy by the time I get back to my truck about the event that I forget all about how miserable I was going up the mountain.

Hannah: That is the realest feeling. Every time I’m running up a hill, I’m like, why do I tell myself I like this, but it’s the downhill… it’s so worth it.

Ben: Yeah. Well, and I’m a big backpacker. So like this summer, I’ve a couple of trips planned. I’m really excited. I’m going to be in the Madisons this summer which is a mountain range in Montana. And every time you go backpacking, the first mile is like, everything about it is miserable.

And your body’s just like, this is the dumbest thing you’ve ever decided to do. Once you get past that initial pain and suffering, it just all gets better from there. And then you somehow want to do it the next weekend. But yeah, in July I’m going to be in the Madisons with you, Hannah. So that’s going to be awesome.

Hannah: Can’t wait.

Kathy: Wow, that sounds awesome. And we’re going to see some pictures I’m assuming, on the Instagram account?

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. You’ll see them for sure. I’m running out of any content to post or I need to get outside and do something fun.

Kathy: Oh, that’s great. I will live vicariously through your fun travels through the mountains because I really, really miss the mountains. I do live on a hill, you know, if it snowed, I could slide down the backyard. It’s not mountains.

Hannah: That counts for something.

Kathy: Yeah. My daughter is trying to get me to take her to a horse show in Colorado this summer. So I might see a mountain or something there. Not sure yet, but yeah. Fun times, exciting.

Well, I figured today we could start talking about, well we’ve alluded to this a couple of times on the podcast in the past, when we have talked about poor website design and the use of pop-ups, or modals or any kind of call to attention that gets in the way of our experience of a site.

I love to call out the Williams-Sonoma/Pottery Barn brands because they all do it. I’m not even on the site yet. It’s like I might be following a link to look at a KitchenAid mixer or something like that. And then boom, popup before I can even look at anything, and I’m sure you guys have had some experiences like that in the past. Hannah have you had a recent pop-up that has annoyed you?

Hannah: I’m sure that I have, I can’t think of one off the top of my head but, I usually, because I just exit them so quickly.

Kathy: Of course. Well, Yeah. Big brands, small brands, website owners, across the board use these because they work. But I thought because we’ve had some great experiences with popups and we’ve also seen a lot of Kadence users use pop-ups very well, we could talk about ways that you can use these attention-grabbing devices in a good way that contributes to a user’s positive experience. What do you think?

Hannah: Yeah.

Ben: Yeah, I think that’s great. I think for me, one of the most annoying things. is like taking over the screen right after the homepage loads. So you haven’t had a chance to even read anything yet or see anything, or it’s not even on the homepage, just anytime you land on the page and then you’re hit with a pop-up. There’s a clothing company. I don’t even know how to pronounce this, but I just got some pants from them. V U O R I.

Hannah: Vuori.

Ben: Vuori? Yeah. Uh, you got me some pants, some shorts from them, which turned me on to them. Yeah. Cause they’re awesome.

Hannah: Wow. Incredible. I that’s actually shocking if you don’t know Ben side note, his style is… he’s come a long way. And he asked for Walmart shorts for Christmas, and I was like, I’m not buying shorts from Walmart. So I bought him the Vuori shorts. And this is a proud moment. Sorry. Absolute tangent.

Ben: Okay. Yeah. So because of you, I went on their website to find some pants cause I wanted some pants. And they hit you with this pop-up the moment you get there, doesn’t matter like which page you land on and it’s asking you, and if you want so much off and you have to put in your product preferences and your email address to get the discount code.

The fact that it does it before I’ve been able to even know if I’m on the right site, like that’s what drives me crazy. It’s like I would, because I came here with the intent to buy and I already, cause my sister gave me one of your products. I already like know I like your brand. I’m not going to sign up because I haven’t even had a chance to make sure that I’m on the right website.

That to me is like bad use case. Like if you would’ve just waited even five seconds for me to like, verify, Hey, this is the site, this is, this is what I’m looking for. I would have been like, yeah, I’ll take that 10% off. Cause I’m, I’m here to buy and you can go and have my email. And now. I’m questioning whether or not I want to buy from you. Already. And I’ve just landed on your website.

Hannah: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. Something I found to be very attractive with popups is pops that hone in specifically like better directed at me. So for example, whenever COVID had just happened and people were quarantining and all these companies were giving discounts to healthcare workers.

Well, I’m a midwife, so I am a healthcare worker. So if I went to a website and I got a pop up, that was like, healthcare workers receive 20% off, I would be like, oh, wow. Yes, I will do that because this is speaking to me. And obviously you don’t want to exclude people from what you’re offering, but you also want to make people feel like they’re in. And like you’re speaking directly to them and not to other people. So even if you’re like, are you a mountain biker? Perfect. And then you’re like, yes, I am a mountain biker. I guess I will take this discount because it feels like you’re speaking to me.

And that’s something that I can appreciate. And it just makes me feel like seen and known. And, and then, yeah, I’ll probably give you my email.

Kathy: I’ve seen some really good uses of popups, like on sites where I already have an account and let’s say I just paid my bill and then they pop me up, “how happy are you with our service, or our product or whatever.” And then obviously they’re trying to get their NPS score or whatever. but they’re giving that pop up to me after I’ve just done something, I’ve just added new payment method or I’ve just upgraded or something like that.

So I’ve done something I’ve taken some kind of action and then they give me a pop-up, and I thought about this. Obviously they’re not trying to sell me anything, but they’re trying to investigate how their market, their customers, view their particular brand and view their experience.

And I thought that that could be also used when there’s a negative situation, when there’s a negative interaction with a brand, say for example, somebody is canceling their subscription. Obviously that’s a good time to pop up and say, optionally, please let us know if there’s a problem that we can help solve, or why are you canceling so that you can understand what is happening when your customers are churning out of a relationship with your brand.

But those types of pop-ups where they occur. Immediately after an user has taken an action and that it almost feels like part of that journey. That to me is one of the best ways to use a pop-up because you’re actually you’re getting information, but you’re triggering that pop-up based on an action that a user has taken that makes sense.

The worst is I’m on an airline site and I’m booking a ticket for a trip that maybe I don’t even want to go on. And they popped me up and they want me to take a survey and it’s like, I’m not even done booking yet. And they’re already asking me for feedback and that timing of it just, it gets in the way of my experience.

These calls to attention obviously work, but what types of questions to site owners ask themselves before they decide they’re going to use a pop-up and their experience?

Ben: Yeah. I mean, to me, I think you’ve got to be thinking of. Your customer journey as a whole. Popups and just serve a purpose for your customers and for you, and not as like, okay, I need some way to get emails. You need to be thinking m website is designed for what, is it designed to get subscribers?

It’s like, what’s the overall goal of my website. And then I want to, I want to put popups or slide-ins or things like that into that strategy. But it needs to compliment the strategy of the website. Not like I have a website and I don’t have any emails and everyone says use pop-ups to get email. So I’m just gonna throw a pop-up in everybody’s face to get their email.

It needs to be like part of your strategy. And then you can be really specific about how you want to use it. if someone’s coming to your website and you want them to download this like content thing you’ve created, let’s say it’s a PDF, or maybe you’ve got, a discount code or maybe you’re offering a free, you know, whatever it is for free.

Usually you’re giving away information for free, then that call to action, that take, should be on your website and not just in the pop-up. You want to make sure it’s not the only place they’re going to see it. Right? It needs to be part of your banner or maybe right under your header or whatever. It needs to be the direction of your website.

And then you can go, well, hey, the customer has an opportunity to see it here. And if they’ve gone to a couple of pages, let’s hit them now. They’ve invested, they’re interested. They’re looking around, now let’s hit them with a pop-up and say, Hey, do you want to download this free thing? Maybe you’re going to give it, let’s say 10 to 12 seconds on the page before show them. So they’ve had time to like, actually click on your already- in- content call to actions, which are much less aggressive toward the user. Where it’s like a pop-up is just extremely aggressive way to say, Hey! And that can be really powerful, but it also can be really off-putting. So I think you have to think through the strategy of create user journeys for your website. If they’re coming in to this landing page, this is the focus and I’m going to create a user journey. And then I’m going to think about when, and if I should have a pop-up show up in that user journey.

Kathy: So really, the overall goal of any web page should be just one particular… You’re trying to get the user to have to take one specific action. Your brand might have a number of different things that it’s trying to do, but that one page should have one specific action and a pop-up can be a part of that communication. But it almost seems like if you had a page and you have a call to action as a part of that page and the user still hasn’t taken any kind of interaction with it, then a pop-up might make sense rather than just boom pop up because we know it works.

Ben: Yeah. I mean, cause I think what we don’t know is, while it might convert, how many people are rage-leaving your site because they’re annoyed by it. Or just have this like undertone of like, I don’t really want to interact with this company because I feel like every time it’s this big ask, they’re just throwing things in my face.

So I think you, you just want to be careful with like, something is like all encompassing on the page as a popup.

Kathy: Definitely. I just had a pop-up experience, actually researching pop-ups. Like, what other things might marketers be saying about this? I was on this site and it was talking all about pop-ups and of course it gave me a pop-up for the ultimate guide for pop-ups. And so I’m like, all right, I’ll bite.

What do you got? And I filled out the form and never got the ultimate guide. Was just like, Hey, I’ve gone, I’ve read your content. And then at the end you give me a pop-up, I interact with that pop-up, and then I don’t get what you promised me? I’m not even going to say who it was or anything. Obviously, these things need to be tested.

You need to make sure you just got a conversion, but I didn’t get what I wanted. And if you email me now, think going to be really be mad. So it’s really important to understand that the pop-up in itself, the conversion in itself is not the end goal. There is an experience that happens after that pop-up that you have to also think about, that relationship with that customer that is just starting.

One step. That is the first step. Now if your conversion intent is to get an email address. Now you have a relationship with that customer going forward. So the pop-up is just one small part, but it seems as you go across the internet, it seems like it is the, the most important thing.

And I’m sure some marketers somewhere following those metrics closely, seeing how well these things are converting. What happens to the customer? Are you, can you really put yourself in their shoes?

Ben: To me, like the pop-up should be the extra. And your website should be doing the converting and the pop-up should be like, we’re going to use it as an exit intent to like, we’re all, we’ve almost lost this person. So let’s try one more, , not as like our goal is for you to land on the site and then we’re going to throw a pop-up to you.

So we can try to capture email as quickly as possible in this journey. yeah, I think you, your website should try to capture email and to that extent, We need to be, as site owners, we need to be a lot better at figuring out what our customer wants, that we can give them for free. just making it so appealing that I’m like, “ah, I just have to.” I like, I gotta figure out what this, what this piece of content is or what this, you know, I want this free thing, whatever it is, like we’ve gotta be better at being able to deliver on things for our users right away. , and coming up with whatever that is that we can, you know, potentially give them, even if it’s, you know, access to product or things like that. Like finding things that are, that you can give away, um, I think is, is like, Your first step, like if you’re going to end up with a pop-up somewhere, it needs to be like a value.

So what can, you know, what can we give away? What can we afford to give away? Or what can we create to give away? And I think that’s a big one. Like we just don’t think so much about like creating stuff to give away, but I think it needs to be, uh, a big part of a marketer’s job is like, here’s this brand, how are we going to create something to give away? That’s going to be really like powerful to their visitors.

Kathy: A lot of marketers don’t have an idea of what do I charge for versus what do I give away. And I know even in the WordPress space, that is a big question. And I’ve talked to a number of people who are like, well, if it makes the web a better place, or if it really helps the user create better content that makes the web a better place. That’s something we give away for free. But if it’s going to save them time to do that, then that’s something we charge for. Do you have any thoughts about that?

Ben: It’s tricky to create a rule. I like the sound of what you said in terms of, you know, if it makes people the web better, but I’m not sure that I subscribed to like a hard rule.

I think more than anything, I want to be scary generous with my products. Like I want to be always on that edge of, “I think I gave too much away and now no one’s going to buy anything.” And that’s pretty much where I’ve always tried to stay is where people continually come to me and tell me your free stuff is too good.

Like you have, you have too much that you’re supporting too much that you’re doing that you’re never getting anything from your customers. That’s where I want to live. I want to live in that area where it’s uncomfortable and people will come to me and tell me you’re giving away too much.

I, more than anything, want to create relationships with users where they honestly choose to buy the product because not because they’re chasing. Hey, I finally get this thing to work cause I’m going to buy a premium.

Whereas like the free version didn’t really work. It kind of worked. I want them to buy premium because they’re like, I love this company so much that I’ve got to support what they’re doing. And on top of it, they’re going to give me all these benefits that just add to my experience. I don’t necessarily need them, but they are convenient.

That’s just my general, especially with Kadence, where I want to live. , But I think that each brand has to figure that out for themselves. I think in each situation it’s different. Software’s a lot easier obviously to give away than raw product where you’re like that cost me so much to make

Kathy: Shoes. Yeah, Nike’s not going to be giving away shoes so that you buy hoodies necessarily.

Hannah: It’d be cool if they did, though.

Kathy: I’d line up for it.

Hannah: I would totally sign up.

Kathy: Well, it’s worked well for Kadence because there are so many free elements to Kadence that really have not only made the web better, made websites better, made my website better because it just got scary fast. Your scary generosity made it scary, fast. But it also has helped so many more people come into the WordPress space and start using blocks in ways that they couldn’t have before.

So I’m really happy that you shared that perspective. Let’s get back to to pop-ups, and Ben, you had some general rules that you use when you’re thinking about how to use a pop-up modal or slide in or something like that effectively.

Ben: Yeah, I think my number one thing is it’s got to be valuable to the user. So if I’m going to interrupt their browsing experience, if I’m going to do this thing, it needs to be really worth it to them. And by that it’s got to offer them something. It’s got to give them something. That rule and alone, like makes me go, Nope, not gonna do a pop up, a lot of the time cause I’m just like, I can’t come up with something that is really worth interrupting their experience. but obviously that’s, it’s like for me, it’s a good standard to think through like, okay, I gotta make this offer better.

Kathy: That’s definitely a very good rule. A 10% discount isn’t necessarily valuable to me, but you know, 40% off today only is. Right. So where that line is, is obviously going to be different for each user. It’s going to be different for each brand, but that value is something that can be tested, that you can try 10%. And if it’s not really working, try it 40% for just today. And does that work?

Ben: I think with value it’s tricky. It is like generally valuable to the visitors. There’s always going to be visitors. Like that’s not valuable to me, but you could give them a car and they’d be like, I don’t want a car. Okay, my second rule is don’t do it the second they reach a site. Let people actually know that they’re on the right website. So I would try to target visitors after they’ve viewed a couple, especially if I’m going to go all the way to a pop-up where I’m going to take over the screen. I want them to have at least viewed a couple pages or exit intent is a really good way, to target with a pop-up because even on the first page.

They’re leaving, so you’re going to throw an offer at them. And it’s not interrupting their browsing experience. They’re already leaving. And then I think the other one is after reasonable delay. So if they’ve been on your page for 10 to 12 seconds, that’s a pretty long time to be reading and scrolling and browsing, that feels a lot safer than the instant you land on the site. Three, don’t make them hard to close. I think it’s just speaks so poorly of you as a brand. If you’re hide the close button, it’s like the fastest way to get someone to rage-leave your website. It’s like, how do I get out of this pop-up and it’s not like instantly clear. So make it very clear, very easy to close out the pop-up.

Kathy: Or if it’s being shown like a pop-up that’s intended for desktop, that ends up being shown on mobile, and then you can’t even find where to tap it to click to close it.

Ben: Yup. Or you make the close so tiny that you can’t tap it, Yeah. So, I think that’s a big one. Number four, keep the content in your pop-up simple. Focus on making the offer as clear and as transparent as possible. So. this is the offer. Don’t give a long 10 steps on why this offer is so great and all that stuff.

Just, this is the offer. And do you want it or not. Ones where it’s like the pop-up comes, especially on mobile and it’s way bigger than the page and you kind of gotta scroll through the pop-up , yeah, don’t do that. So keep it really, really simple. Keep it clear. And too, make it offer needs to be valuable and make it, you’re choosing to interrupt, so own that.

Hey, I’m interrupting you because this is so good. So in your language, in the way you present. Own the fact that you’re doing a pop-up and that you think this offer is worth a pop-up, by just clearly communicating you should do this, make it hard for that person to be like, I want to exit. Five, making sure it’s relevant to the user.

So you want to do a pop-up on a sale, you’re doing like, Hey, check out this sale. If the sale is for women’s clothing and you’re showing the pop-up on men’s clothing, that is just silly, like make it as relevant as you can. And there’s a lot of easy ways to do that like excluding pages and popups and things like that. Make sure that you’re doing whatever you can to make sure that that pop-up is relevant. And I think if you’re getting started, like focus on one particular page where you want that pop-up to show, now you can have it track on different pages, but then let’s say I wanted to show on my services page only if they’ve been on two other pages or whatever, and, you know, kind of focus in on like an offer based on that services page.

Six is popups can lead the visitor. So don’t just think about them as an email collection. I think there’s times to show suggestions, or like Kathy, you were talking about, on an event, a person adds something to cart, showing them a product that bundles with that. It’s a great, like after an event.

So think about your customer journeys. Not just like, when am I going to give them this pop-up but also like, can I do things that’ll help move them along in this journey? And then seven is consider a slide in or a banner first. I think pop-ups are aggressive in just the way that they get attention.

And there’s just times where you could get a really good result by just simply showing your offer in a banner on your website, whether that’s even a sticky banner or just something in your content or doing a slide in, where if you’ve got a blog post that’s doing really well and you’re like, Hey, I want to get, try to get some of that traffic onto my other blog posts.

Like maybe you have a slide in that comes halfway down the page that just slides on the side said, Hey, you might be interested in. And then you list off two or three headlines that are really, like, oh, I want to check that out. I want to see what they have to say about that. So there’s my rules.

Kathy: Okay. Well, these weren’t carved in stone, but they are definitely good rules to go by. Um, and I think that. Just these guidelines and thinking through how you’re using popups, not just looking at other sites and saying, oh, well they’re doing this. So obviously it must be working and we should just copy that.

But being really intentional about the tools that you’re using, not just pop-ups and sliders, but any kind of attention seeking device, realize that the user is going to have a specific experience of those and these guidelines and rules are just kind of a good way for you to start thinking about how this fits within a journey rather than just something that you’re doing, because.

Hey, well, I guess it works. So obviously Kadence has a product called Kadence Conversions that helps you make very effective slide-ins, banners, as well as pop-ups. And it also gives you a number of different tools that allow you to control how those are shown so that you aren’t obtrusive that you’re not just popping up on every single page, that if a user has seen your pop-up before and closed it out, that you can not be obtrusive to that particular user.

So Kadence Conversions just had an update recently as well. So, if you haven’t yet looked at it, I will have a link in the show notes. Ben you added some new things to Kadence Conversions, with what Gravity Forms?

Ben: Yeah. So with Conversions, you can use different forms. You can use any form or any block you want to inside of like your conversion element and it has built in analytics. So you can kind of track how many times this was shown versus how many times the user interacted with it, let’s say converted with it.

And, so I had users who were using Gravity Forms as the form in their conversion. And they wanted to be able to track when Gravity Forms submitted successfully. So that was one of the, one of the recent things we’ve added is conversion analytics will track when a Gravity Form converts inside of your conversion element.

Kathy: Excellent. And this just underscores how connected our dev team is to what users are needing. That we’re constantly taking a look at. Feature requests are coming in or problems that users are having, and definitely have user concerns as a part of that development workflow. So thanks for that. And you have some new updates coming out with with Blocks Pro that’s coming like really super soon as.

Ben: Yeah. So, a lot of focus for Kadence Blocks Pro has been on dynamic content and interacting with things like Advanced Custom Fields and Meta Box. So in the latest version, there will be a relationship meta, basically source. So you can source dynamic content through a relationship that you’ve created between, let’s say a post and another custom post type.

So you’ll be able to say essentially, in this current post, does it have a relationship field, is it connected with a different kind of post and if so, use that connected post as the source to get this custom field. So it just allows for some more advanced dynamic content when you’re building out templates and adding in hooks into your page with elements. And then there’s also a new block for dynamic content that’s basically just allows you to pull in fields that might have its own text styling. So currently you can pull in text fields using the Advanced Text Block, but this would allow you to pull in like a wysiwyg or something like that, that you might have like header paragraph list in and it’ll keep all of that and then output it.

And with that block, then you can even style the color for what’s going to, you know, even though this text has markup in it, what’s going to be the color for all that markup or the topography and things like that.

Kathy: Excellent. Great. So that’s coming very soon and then you’re working on the Kadence Shop Kit for WooCommerce, and that’s coming out in May. That’s going to have templating and we talked about that a little bit on the WooVisions podcast with Bob Dunn over at Do the Woo. I am a host at that particular podcast and Ben and I took over.

So that podcast is coming out, I think next week sometime, but that was a lot of fun. Thanks for joining me on that.

Ben: Yup. That was a lot of fun. And I’m excited for Shop Kit and what’s coming. I think it’s going to be a big update with a lot of things for all the different elements that we add in that.

Kathy: Excellent. Yeah, I’m very excited. I know a lot of people have been asking for templating with WooCommerce and bringing that to the WooCommerce community is going to be huge. And you are going to do a beta version for Kadence Blocks 2.5 sometime soon, something interesting coming with that?

Ben: Yeah. So toward the end of April, we’re going to try to release the beta version for 2.5, which has a, kind of a rewrite for the Row Layout block, where it’s going to use scripts CSS allow you to have layouts that are multi row and allow the section block within those layouts to kind of move freely around so you can pull sections out and in.

And, so it will have some performance, optimization, big time for the Row Layout block, as well as just a lot easier way to create grids using Gutenberg.

Kathy: very exciting. Yeah, that’s going to solve a couple of my issues. So some stuff that I’m trying to do too. So that is very, very cool. Thank you guys for joining today. And, for talking about pop-ups. I know this is something that a lot of people are using as they’re building out sites.

And I really appreciate the conversation about how to do that more intentionally. So, Hannah, good to see you as always,

Hannah: You as well, Kathy. Thank you.

Kathy: Yeah. Looking forward to your travels over the summer. Um, I’m going to be living vicariously through all of the fun stuff that you’re doing. And, um, we will talk to you guys again soon.

Thanks for listening to the Kadence Beat.

Let’s face it. Your site visitors spend more time on other websites than they spend on your website, and the number of modals, popups, slide-ins, sales banners, and GDPR cookie notices that your site visitors have to endure on their travels around the web can get a little out of hand. In some cases, a site owner’s desire for conversion forces a site visitor to endure multiple intrusive and disruptive distractions on a single page.

Common reactions from site visitors to popups, modals and overlays are often expressions of frustration, irritation, and annoyance. 

The unfortunate reality is that popups, slide-ins, sales banners and other notices work. They demand that users pay attention, and they often achieve that goal. This is why site owners and marketers use them: to get short term boosts to conversion numbers. But often, they sacrifice our brand goodwill on the altar of conversion metrics.

At Kadence, we think there’s a better way.

After our recent launch of Kadence Conversions, we’re looking at how to implement these attention grabbing elements so that users connect positively with your brand without the irritation they’ve inherited from less effective implementations on other sites. 

Why Do People Visit Your Site?

People arrive on your website for a purpose: to help them learn something, be entertained, to solve a problem, or achieve a goal. 

They’re not there to “convert.”

Unless, of course, your idea of conversion is to give them exactly what they came to achieve: to solve their problems and achieve their goals in a way that builds a long-term relationship with your audience.

If you’re only considering what your conversion desire is — whether that is to get newsletter subscriptions or sales — your conversion goals are out of alignment with your customers goals.

To be better marketers and successful site owners, our conversion goals should align with what our customers are trying to achieve when they’re visiting our sites. 

Redefining Conversion

Maybe that’s what we need. And maybe this is where Kadence Conversions can help us all become better online marketers. Let’s redefine what a conversion actually is. 

For stellar marketers, a conversion is giving your audience what they came for in a measurable way. This means helping our audiences solve problems or learn something new. It means inspiring them, entertaining them and helping them achieve goals and to do all of this in measurable ways. 

By changing the framework somewhat of what a conversion actually is, perhaps we can create better experiences.

Knowing Your Audience

In order to fully give our audience what they’re coming for, we’re going to have to know our audience. We need to know what motivates them, what their pain points are, what they’re trying to achieve, and if we’re really good, we understand what they need when they often say they want something else. 

For example, in the early days of the iPhone without a keyboard, most users said that they wanted to keep their Blackberry keyboards. Innovative product creators like those at Apple knew there was a better way and that changed everything. 

How do we get to know our audience? There are a few ways. HubSpot recommends:

• Review any current data and analytics.
• Look to previous successes among your audience.
• Create buyer personas.
• Conduct surveys.
• Keep an eye on your competitors.
• Monitor audience feedback, comments, and engagements.
• Experiment with content and updates to your products and services.

If you want conversion, give your audience what they want

Once you understand your audience, visit pages on your site and think about the conversion experience they want on each page. Where can we find places to provide a win-win for both our customers and us as marketers on every page on our site?

How to create popups that convert

Keeping in mind that our audience has negative experiences with popups, modals, overlays, slide-ins, and other attention seeking design elements, we can create useful popups that help our customers get what they want and avoid annoying them in the process.

Let’s find a way to make our marketing more useful by connecting with our customers empathetically, meeting them where they are and giving them what they came looking for.

It’s all about timing

When a site visitor first arrives on your website, why are they there? Did they click a link in a social post? Perhaps they clicked a link on someone else’s site. Maybe they saw an advertisement on television, maybe they searched for something quite specific. In any event, they’re on your site for a reason.

Let users get what they came for. If they came for something that is contained within the content of your site, don’t interrupt them. 

If you’re going to use a popup or slide-in, make sure you’re addressing why users are there and use popups contextually, timed for rewarding them for specific action or providing a bonus relevant benefit after consuming content. 

Did the user just read over 60% of an important blog post? Then maybe that means they’re ready to go deeper with more advice on solving their problem or achieving their goals with a special offer.

Luckily, Kadence Conversions lets you set the optimal time to show your popup, slide-in or banner. We’ll show you where to find those settings further down this page. But first, let’s look at some examples of other implementations of popups, modals, banners, and slide-ins to see what works, and what doesn’t.

Timing and value propositions that work

Our friends at WPMayor.com showed us an exit-intent popup with a clear value proposition. They don’t show the popup before we’ve read content and interacted on the site, but as soon as it looks like we’re ready to leave, this popup appears. They explain the benefits of their newsletter. They make sure that before you leave their site, you’re well aware of how to stay in touch in a valuable way. They also let you know who they are. People connect with people, and those personal brands elevate their site’s brand. They also let you know exactly what to expect from their newsletter: a single weekly newsletter that thousands of others receive and very few unsubscribe from. This is a great example of a well-timed, value proposing popup.

Making popups fun again

Lush has some fun with their popup, adding value of some well-timed playful comedy. People love to laugh, and they love brands with a sense of humor. Share your own and let your site visitors know that you don’t take yourself too seriously. Think about where can you have more fun on your site and experiment with it.

Giving users some time to browse products before popping up

Casper’s well-timed popup let’s us know that the products we’re reviewing are on sale as a part of their Black Friday sale. We didn’t see this popup until after quite a few minutes on their site. They wait until the site visitor has browsed products before they show the popup. This well-timed delay showed up after we were distracted by something else and stopped browsing.

Personalized benefits for interacting, plus non-obtrusive appeals

HubSpot activated a slide-in on the lower right while we browsed content. The slide-in does not appear right away, appearing after we consumed quite a bit of content on the page. Then, the slide in comes in without obscuring any of the content. It stayed as long as we were on the page, with an option to dismiss.

Note that the slide-in contains an offer relevant to the content a user is reading, meeting the site browser where they are at in a more personal way. The offer engages the user deeper. If we want the free marketing plan and strategy template, we’ve got to provide a name and email (and often some other identifying information) so that the email marketing automations can do their job to nurture a deeper, more personalized relationship in the email inbox.

Ill-timed popups that don’t work

We were surprised to find so many large brands using popups that obscure content immediately on arrival. Note that many of the experts in usability in the eCommerce field such as Amazon and others don’t create conversion popups. (If you’ve seen one, let us know! We tried many common tricks to get Amazon to trigger one with no success.) What do they know that we might not?

We did get a few from some larger brands. Here’s what we found.

Williams Sonoma wants us on their list. So much so that when we did a search for a Williams Sonoma bread machine on Google, this is the first thing we saw, even before seeing what we were searching for. To get what we wanted, we had to first close the modal. A better timed popup would have allowed us to see the product first.

Using a fresh browser session, we saw this same modal on the home page. It appears that no matter how we show up on their site, they just really want to be in our inbox.

Williams Sonoma is not alone. We found numerous other brands doing the same immediate popup appeal. We believe that there are more creative ways to do popups, and we hope some larger brands can begin to choose solutions that better meet users where they are to make the web a better place.

Nice cookies, though.

Banners for non-obtrusive marketing alerts

Our friends at WPCrafter.com used Kadence Conversions for this Black Friday appeal. A banner across the top of the site links to a collection of Black Friday deals. No content is obscured, but the appeal is still quite noticeable above the main navigation. Users can still navigate to whatever they’re looking for, with an added benefit of navigating where they’d like to go. Unlike other banner plugins, Kadence Conversions ensures that your content is not obscured for the greatest usability.

Creating your popups, slide-ins, and banners

Kadence Conversions has everything you need to start creating these attention grabbing appeals on your site. And it’s pretty easy to start timing things so that your users aren’t interrupted or annoyed. Settings within Kadence Conversions will help you design a conversion experience specific to where your audience is on their conversion journey. Here’s where to find those settings and some thoughts on how to use them.

Launch Triggers

Target Pages

Repeat Control

Target Requests

How will you use Kadence Conversions?

With all of these considerations combined with the capabilities in Kadence Conversions, you have everything you need to create meaningful experiences for your audience.

It really is up to you.

You can create popups, slide-ins, or banners that annoy, or you can make meaningful decisions to use these tools to craft unique, personalized, and effective conversion opportunities that make logical sense and have fun with users.

When we think about what our customers are trying to achieve on our site, we can better create marketing and content that create conversion experiences that meet our audiences’ real needs rather than just a short-term bump to our metrics.

These longer-term, customer-focused methods of building an audience will best serve our overall brand. This makes marketing to our audiences easier.

And, of course, Kadence is honored to be a part of the journey. Have you tried Kadence Conversions? What’s worked well for you? Let us know in the comments below.

Do You Need a WordPress Countdown Timer Plugin?

First things first: do you need a WordPress countdown timer plugin? No, not necessarily!

With the free Kadence Blocks plugin, you get an entire library of WordPress blocks, including a countdown block, form block, table of contents block, and more. With a plugin like Kadence Blocks that adds all of these types of elements to your website, you don’t need a separate WordPress countdown timer plugin.

Each Kadence Block is crafted with care with regard to performance, accessibility, and extensibility. These blocks are not simply one preset-styled item, but tools to create beautiful content with unlimited design potentials.

In the past, you might have used a separate countdown timer plugin or a countdown shortcode, but Kadence Blocks give you an entire library of useful elements like countdown timers with lots of customization options. And because Kadence Blocks works in the WordPress block editor, you can add countdowns and tweak settings from inside your WordPress page or post.

How to Create a Countdown Timer in WordPress

The Kadence Blocks Countdown Block allows you to post a banner with a timer counting down the time. You can use it to give a sense of urgency to your a sale or coupon or to display time left until an event.

To get started, download and install the Kadence Blocks plugin.

• From within your WordPress admin, you can navigate to Plugins > Add New.
• Then in the top right corner search for “Kadence Blocks.”
• Finally, once you see the Kadence Blocks Plugin, click the Install Now button.

After activating the plugin, you’ll see the Kadence Blocks settings screen with options for deactivating blocks you may not need or want.

Now, navigate to the post or page that needs a countdown timer.

• Click the “+” icon to see the available blocks you can add to your post or page
• Find Countdown in the list.
• Click the Countdown icon to add a countdown timer to your post or page

Note: The Kadence Blocks Wireframe Blocks Library also has several countdown timer options! Just use the “Design Library” button at the top of the page instead.

Customizing Your Countdown Timer Settings & Design

After adding the Countdown block to your post or page, navigate to the block settings by using the control panel on the right side of your screen.

From here, you can customize your settings for the countdown timer to control how the countdown timer looks:

• Countdown Type: Date or Evergreen (Pro)
• Date: Use the Calendar picker and date/time inputs to choose the date and time the countdown timer will end.
• Action on Expire: Show Timer at Zero, Hide (Pro), Replace with Content (Pro), Redirect (Pro)
• Countdown Layout: These settings control Pre/Post text and labels for the days, hours, minutes and seconds.
• Count Item Settings: These settings are where you can style your countdown timer with a background color, border color, border, and padding.
• Number Settings: Customize the color of the numbers, font size, line height, letter spacing, and font.
• Label Settings: Tweak the label font size, color, and font family.
• Container Settings: The container is the space around your countdown timer, so this setting allows you to add a background color, border, and padding/margin settings.
• Visibility Settings: The visibility settings allow you to hide the countdown timer on desktop, tablet, or mobile. Super useful!
• Advanced: Finally, his setting allows you to add an HTML anchor or an additional CSS class(es)

With just a few settings tweaks, you can completely customize the settings and design of your countdown timer.

More Options for Countdown Timers in Kadence Blocks Pro

Kadence Blocks Pro offers even more features for your WordPress countdown timers, including the option for Evergreen countdown timers and useful actions for your countdown timers after expiration.

Evergreen Countdown Timers unlock the ability to do a countdown timer based on when a visitor lands on your site, rather than a static date or time. This can be really useful for driving actions and urgency that is more tailored to user experience.

• Everygreen Hours & Minutes: Set when the evergreen countdown timer should expire
• Campaign ID: Create a unique ID. To reset the timer for everyone change this id. To link with other timers give them all the same ID.
• Amount of days to wait until the evergreen is reset for visitors:
• Veryify by IP Address: This setting will add a delay to the rendering of the countdown if no cookie found as it will query the server database to see if the user can be found by their IP address

Action on Expire Settings give you even more options for what happens to the countdown timer after it expires. This is incredibly useful if, say, you aren’t planning to stay up until midnight the night a sale ends.

• Hide: Completely hide your countdown timer after it expires
• Replace with Content: After your countdown timer expires, you can display a message or image instead.
• Redirect your countdown timer to another link

Wrapping Up

A countdown timer can be a really effective element on your website that drives urgency or excitement for a particular date or time. You can also utilize them in more creative ways, based on visitor activity. Now you can easily add countdown timers with just a few clicks, thanks to the Kadence Blocks plugin.

How will you utilize countdown timers on your site? It’s the Final Countdown!