I did an interview with Mark to find out more about his experience with Trust Guard, and most importantly, what type of impact the 12% increase in sales meant to his company. To watch this 7 min. interview between Mark and myself, click on the play button below.

Scott: Hi, this is Scott Brandley with Trust Guard. I’m here today, with Mark Griggs. He’s one of the owners of Gray and Holt, Inc. He is actually a Trust Guard member and he recently finished a split test and had some pretty good increase in his conversion. I asked Mark if he would do an interview today, and just kind of get some feedback from him on his experience with Trust Guard, how his split test went, and what that means to his company. Hi Mark.

Mark: Hello Scott. How are you doing, today?

Scott: I’m doing real good. Can you tell us a little bit about your company and what you do?

Mark: My name is Mark Griggs, and I’m one of the owners and managers of Gray and Holt Dry Goods. We’re an old fashioned dry goods stored, located in Athens, Alabama. Many people might not know what a dry goods store actually is, but we sell a little bit of everything from work clothes to coveralls to boots to old fashioned toys. One of my main jobs here is I handle the websites. My other owner here is Bob, who is my brother. He helps with that, too, to manage the website. We also have a local store here, in Athens.

Scott: Okay, so you do Internet and brick and mortar.

Mark: Yes, we have a brick and mortar store. Actually we have been in business since 1934, and this is our 75th year in business.

Scott: Wow, congratulations. That’s really cool. How is the Internet going for you?

Mark: Overall, it’s going pretty good. The last year or two, we’ve really kind of tried to enhance our site. We came up with a new website design about six or seven months ago. About every month or two, we try to add something to enhance it, to better serve our customers.

Scott: That website is www.grayandholtclothing.com, right?

Mark: That’s correct.

Scott: How did you hear about Trust Guard, Mark?

Mark: We are always trying to enhance it and we were trying to look for a way to give more confidence to our customers when they came to our site. We wanted to make sure our customers knew our site was safe and reliable, that they could shop, and it would build confidence in our customers. We wanted to find a company that would help with that, to convey confidence.

At the same time, we were looking for a way to increase our sales. A few months ago, we started a stats program that gave us all the information about how many visitors were coming to our site. We noticed we were increasing visitors, but it seemed we weren’t getting much of an increase in sales. Since we wanted to both increase confidence in our site and to increase sales, we started to look for a solution. As we started looking, we came across Trust Guard. The one thing that we were kind of looking for in this was a company that didn’t really have a big upfront cost.

As we were looking around different places, different companies, that seemed like the major hurdle. A lot of companies had a big upfront cost that for a small business was kind of hard to deal with. We were looking for a flexible monthly plan and one that also had a guarantee to it. As we were searching, we came across Trust Guard. The flexible monthly plan is kind of what caught our attention at first, because of not having to put up that big upfront cost.

Scott: Right, okay, I think a lot of our customers really appreciate that. You ended up putting the Trust Guard seals on your site and you actually started a split test, right?

Mark: Pretty much right when we signed up, we wanted to see how it would go with the conversion testing. One thing we noticed also on there was the double your money back guarantee. The split testing showed that if we didn’t increase then we would get double your money back so that was kind of a nice incentive to try Trust Guard out. That was kind of a nice plan that you have there. If it doesn’t work you get your money back, plus some. It’s a no-lose situation.

Scott: Exactly, that’s why we have that, because we want to challenge people to really try it out and see if it works for them. I’ve always said you should never have to pay for something that doesn’t help you make more money.

Mark: As we were looking around, many of the other companies had some sort of a guarantee, but they didn’t have the guarantee that you have.

Scott: Where did you place the seals on your site?

Mark: We placed it in three different locations. First, we wanted to make sure that every customer that came to any page on our site would see the seals. We placed the security scan seal in the upper left hand corner of every page. Next, we placed all four of the seals that you provide on the middle of the shopping cart page. Also, on the final page of checkout, we placed all four seals right below the checkout button.

Scott: That’s generally where we recommend when somebody does a split test because that’s what we’ve found gets the best results. It sounds like you put them in the right spot. So, you ran the split test and what was your reaction when the split test finished?

Mark: We were pretty excited. It came back with pretty much about a 12% increase. To actually see the results and know that what you are doing actually increased your sales, that’s a pretty good feeling.

The best part is we really didn’t have to put much effort into it. Basically, we put the Trust Guard seals on our website and let the seals work for us. It is very exciting.

Scott: It is exciting and I love to see the results on our side, because we can actually see all of our different clients’ results in real time. It’s fun to watch and see the increases happen. What kind of an increase does 12% mean to your company, Mark?

Mark: With the extra cash flow coming in from the 12% increase in sales, we’re able to improve in other areas of our website, offer more product, and improve other customer experience with our company. It’s a win-win situation for both us as a company, and our customers.

Scott: Are there any final thoughts for anyone considering getting Trust Guard?

Mark: Anyone who is considering Trust Guard, it has the best total package that we’ve found, from a flexible plan, the monthly plans, the great reputation you have, and the customer service. Going through the sign up process with you was easy.

It was a breeze and very easy to understand the split testing. To top it off, the double your money back guarantee; you just can’t go wrong with that. If anybody is considering that, when you put all that together, I don’t believe anyone else out there has the type of package that you provide.

Scott: I would agree with that. Unfortunately, you don’t get double your money back, but you get a 12% increase in your sales for the rest of your life.

Mark: I’ll take that any day.

Scott: Well good; Mark, it’s been really nice talking with you. If anybody needs dry goods, they can go to your website, which is Grayandholtclothing.com.

Mark: I appreciate it.

Scott: All right, take care, Mark.

Mark: You too, have a good day.

Survey Finds 81% of Consumers Don’t Trust Small Online Businesses

“Alessandro Hatami, managing director of PayPoint.net, says: “Small online businesses lack the resources of their larger competitors but have an even greater interest in ensuring their customers have the safest possible experience on their site.

“This situation has led to a haphazard approach to managing fraud – which is in stark contrast to what larger businesses are able to do.”

In addition, PayPoint found that among 1000 consumers, just 3 percent of online shoppers are likely to trust a small online business with their money, preferring to shop with larger online brands. A further 81 percent say they have doubt about the security credentials of small, unknown companies.”

I am sure most of this sounds familiar in these days of technology and the internet. If you own a business whether online or offline, we are sure you have asked yourself this question before, “Do my customers trust my business?” And if you haven’t asked yourself this question, then now is the time.

Two National Consumer Reports Surveys show that…

The #1 concern visitors have: Is my personal information Safe and Secure? (88% of Internet users surveyed, viewed this as “Very Important”)

The #2 concern visitors have: Can I Trust the site and the information on it? (81% of Internet users surveyed, viewed this as “Very Important”)

The #3 concern visitors have: Does the site have a good Privacy Policy? (76% of Internet users surveyed, viewed this as “Very Important”)

95% of those surveyed want access to a websites email address, street address, and phone number.

You can find these surveys at Consumerwebwatch.org

The Trust Guard Mission:

Here at Trust Guard it is our mission to not only help you answer this question but to take action on the question itself. It is not enough to simply think or worry about your websites security, it is time to do something about it.

If 81% of consumers do not trust online businesses then it is time we as business owners do something about it. It is time to give the consumer what they want, which is Trust and Confidence when ordering online.

Consumers around the world are tightening up these days with the global economic downturn. They also are smarter than ever when it comes to shopping online. Consumers are also becoming more aware and more familiar with third party trust seals and companies such as Truste, Control Scan, BBBOnline, McAfee Secure (formerly HackerSafe), and of course Trust Guard. With this being the case you need to ask yourself, “Do I provide a third party trust seal to show my visitors they can trust me?” If the answer is YES, then you are on the right track. If the answer is NO, then you need to reevaluate your business strategies.

Where’s the Value…

The next question you want to ask yourself is, “Where is the best value of security and third party verification seals?”

At Trust Guard we know from 100’s of tests that More Trust = More Conversions. With this in mind, you want to establish the highest level of trust that you can, by addressing the 3 major concerns your visitors have:

• SECURITY – Is your customers information safe?
  Do you use security technology like SSL to protect their financial and private information?
  Do you have PCI Scanning to protect your website from hackers and vulnerabilities?
• PRIVACY - Do you protect your customers privacy?
  Do you respect their information and will you keep it confidential?
  Is your Privacy Policy accurate and up to date?
• IDENTITY – Who is behind your website?
  Is your company address, phone number, and email displayed on your site?
  Has this information been verified by a 3rd party?

All of this can be accomplished by applying the Trust Guard Multi-Seal package that includes PCI Scanning which is our best value. You can find out more about all the packages at

>> http://www.trust-guard.com/trust-guard-seals-s/1.htm

Here is an example of what you get with this package:

These Trust Guard clients increased their conversion using our Multi-Seal packages:

• SummitCampingGear.com – 33.33% increase
• FaithfulTrends.com – 19.51% increase
• SmartLifeLabs.com – 11.11% increase
• ChargedAudio.com – 13.24% increase
• CookForYourHealth.com – 48.28% increase (Anyone want to add almost 50% to their bottom line? Anyone?)
• SuperSizedCycles.com – 216.67% increase (Yes, this is real and it’s backed with a 95% confidence interval – this customer sells higher priced custom bicycles, and adding our seals made a huge impact to her sales!)

Want more results??? Our first batch of daily and quarterly PCI Security seals are just about to finish their split tests. (We just launched PCI Scanning in January. For more information or to watch our PCI launch video read our previous blog posts.) The preliminary numbers for PCI seals are looking great! So far, the combined increase for all of our clients split testing PCI seals is over 26%! As soon as we have more solid data we’ll add it here to the blog, so be sure to keep an eye out.

Till then, we will keep testing. And if you are on the fence, wondering what to do, why not take our 60 day, risk free Trust Guard Challenge. Go ahead and try our seals completely risk free for 60 days. You have nothing to lose and sales to gain!

We look forward to helping you with your security, privacy, and business verification needs.

Sincerely,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard

When your running a split test, the larger the sample size, the more accurate the results. It also happens that more traffic gives you the ability to test more variables, as was the case with our latest split test at aplaceformom.com. Aplaceformom.com is one of the largest online lead generation websites for retirement homes across the country, getting about 8,300 visitors a day, or 250,000 visitors a month. Because of their high traffic volume, we were able to do something unique – we split tested 32 Trust Guard seal combinations all at the same time to find the highest converting seal for their particular needs.

While most of our clients use multiple Trust Guard seals on their site to maximize conversion, which is the ideal configuration, aplaceformom.com is a lead generation site and not a store, so they only qualified for two seals – the Privacy Verified seal and the Business Verified seal. In addition, they only wanted to display one seal, so we created 32 different seal options in our test – 16 Privacy and 16 Business – all with different colors, sizes, and styles – and then we rotated them in a single position on their site, directly underneath their application form.

In addition to the 32 seals, we also rotated a blank option, where no seals showed up. In the first round we narrowed the test down to the top 8 performing seals (9 including the blank option). In the second round, a clear winner began to emerge to the point where it beat all other options, but most importantly, it beat the blank ‘no seal’ option by a whopping 16.51% with a 98% confidence interval. The winner was the small blue Business Verified seal. By adding this seal to the bottom of their application, they now receive several thousand more applications per month than before. Not too shabby.

So, should you go and buy the small blue Business Verified seal for your site? Not necessarily. While this case study shows that a single seal can dramatically increase your sales, having multiple seals is always more effective because you’re able to resolve multiple customer concerns instead of just one. It’s also important to remember that each website is unique and has different demographics, so what works on one site may not work on another, which is why we have different colors, sizes, and styles available for you to choose from.

Looking back, this was a pretty fun test. I want to thank Ben Gilbert at aplaceformom.com for his willingness to participate in our test. It’s always great to work with people like Ben that can see the incredible value in split testing. The key to split testing is to keep doing it. Not every test is a winner, but by continually testing, you find winners, and you permanently improve your conversion every time a winning test is completed. I also want to thank our programmers here at Trust Guard for their ‘mad programming skills’ in putting together a test of this size and scale. For all of our future clients reading this, on behalf of myself and the Trust Guard staff, we look forward to helping you increase your conversion.

Scott: Hi, this is Scott, with Trust Guard. I’m here today with Paul Young, one of the founders of Skybound software. You can find their website at Skybound.ca. I’m going to let him give a little bit of background about who he is, his company, and we’ll go into some of the results he’s had with Trust Guard, and his experiences.

Paul: Scott, thank you for having me on the show. I am going to say hi to everybody. As you said, I’m Paul Young. I’m from Skybound software. We’re a software company. We specialize in making tools for making things. Right now, we only have one product, which is called Stylizer. Stylizer is a CSS that focuses strongly on productivity and visual control. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll have others, but right now, we just have the one.

A little bit of history about our company, I started Skybound with my brother, Andrew, because it seemed like the natural thing to do. Computers have been part of our lives for basically as far back as I can remember. Our family got our first computer, which was actually an IBM 8088, back in 1981, which kind of got the ball rolling.

When Skybound started, exactly, is hard to pinpoint. Software was kind of the thing that Andrew and I had always done throughout high school, as a way to make money, under a variety of different websites and different names. When I left high school is probably when we started going fulltime into Skybound. We came up with the name Skybound. We tried quite a few products over the years. We eventually decided to focus on building tools for building things because that is what we had done for so long, is make things. Now we have one product, which is Stylizer. We’re doing very well. We’re going to be moving into a new office shortly, thanks to the help of Trust Guard. That’s where we’re at right now.

Scott: You have a very nice-looking site. Whoever designed it, kudos to them. Tell me, what were some of your initial thoughts about trust seals, or why did you decide to look into trust seals, to add to your site?

Paul: I figured out, and in many cases the hard way, that if you want to be successful in business, you can’t leave any stone unturned. Having said that, I had seen other trust seals on other websites. It seemed like everybody else has it so why don’t we have it. I looked at the usual suspects, ScanAlert, Hacker Safe (now McAfee Secure). Actually, because our credit card processing company was running a promotion, what we thought was a promotion, with them at the time.

I phoned them up and talked to the saleswoman there, but it really felt like I was getting the smoke and mirrors treatment from them. I couldn’t justify spending all that money. They seemed to have a little bit of confidence in their product, but it didn’t really seem like the right business decision, not that we’re not willing to invest in our company because we are, but it just didn’t seem like the right business decision.

The impression they gave me was that the security seal business was the typical scenario where the sales person calls up the purchasing department to book an interview, and the sales person goes down, gives a ten-minute PowerPoint pitch on the benefits of security seals, and all that. The purchasing department, which is made up of people who don’t know a whole lot about the industry, decide to buy the security seals and that’s how it goes.

As I said, I don’t leave any stone unturned. I did a little more research and I came across Trust Guard. Trust Guard offered the built-in conversion testing, the double your money-back guarantee, which I think were the two things that really sold me. The double your money-back guarantee, not necessarily I was trying to double my money back, but it seemed like the double your money back was projecting confidence. I was attracted to that confidence it projected.

Scott: What did you think – you said the other thing was split testing. Have you used split testing or heard about it previous to that?

Paul: I haven’t really used it a whole lot, probably a lot less than I would have liked. We did a little bit of work with Google Website Optimizer. It’s not exactly the best system out there. It beats the five, ten, twenty thousand dollar systems that are out there.

For anybody that doesn’t know what split testing is, it’s a system where fifty percent of the visitors to your website are sent one version of your website. The other fifty percent of the visitors are sent the other version of your website. You track which version of the website that does better, the one that does better is the one you keep, the one that doesn’t do as well is the one as you get rid of.

Scott: With Trust Guard, we use split testing. What we do, as you’re aware, we actually show fifty percent of the customers the Trust Guard seals, and the other fifty don’t see anything. That’s how you can see if the Trust Guard seals are being effective for you. You were intrigued by that, obviously.

Paul: I was, but the one thing I think I was really intrigued by was the fact that we didn’t have to set it up. That was one of the things that were deterring me from ScanAlert. I was going to have to set up the system on my own. I didn’t really want to have to do that. It was like this pain I was avoiding, but Trust Guard offered that built in. I said, “Okay, I’m not going to have to do that myself, so it looks like a pretty good offer.”

Scott: It’s pretty simple, you click a button and put a piece of code on your thank you page, and you’re done. Great, so you started the split test. What did you think was going to happen?

Paul: I had, actually, no idea. I’m generally pretty pessimistic, so I wasn’t really expecting anything, although, we did get a fifty-nine and quarter percent conversion. We’ll say sixty percent increase in sales. That’s absolutely unbelievable. I don’t think there is any businessperson out there who wouldn’t be interested in increasing their conversions by sixty percent.

Scott: Definitely, the numbers I have here are your conversion rate, without the seals, was 2.32%. With the seals, it was 3.71%. That is with a ninety-five percent confidence interval. It is some pretty amazing results. We actually have quite a few clients that get similar results, but the split testing software really helps us to actually prove that it’s working for our customers, which they love and we love to share.

Paul: One other thing that I would like to mention is that my initial idea, I guess, about security seals, was that really the only people that it would help – help to the thirty percent increase or forty percent increase, sixty percent increase, are people or companies that had, generally, poorly-designed websites. There wasn’t really a whole lot of confidence that the visitor had in the website anyway.

Our website, obviously, is not designed like that. It’s very well designed. My impression was, “How much more trustworthy can our visitors be,” but clearly, that was wrong. There was a lot to be gained in that regard.

Scott: You have a really good point. I think one of the reasons why it was so effective is because you took the advise that we give people on our split testing page, where we recommend they place the seals in certain places. You actually put multiple seals right on the checkout page where they’re making that final buying decision.

Paul: There’s absolutely no way they’re going to miss it.

Scott: I think that really helps people feel more confident about your company, because they can see that your security has been verified, that your privacy policy has been verified, your business has been verified. They feel a lot more comfortable pushing that “buy” button. Were there any other thoughts, or any last comments you’d like to leave with our members?

Paul: I’ll just say that I would recommend Trust Guard to people who are considering it. I have recommended Trust Guard. At a sixty percent conversion increase that we got, even at a ten percent conversion increase, nobody says, “I’m going to start an eCommerce website and we’re going to be accepting credit cards directly on the site. Do you think it’s worth it to invest in an SSL certificate?” Nobody says that. I think that trust seals, after seeing this, should be placed at a similar level of importance. It shouldn’t be a business decision. It should just be the thing that you do.

For more information on how you can start increasing your websites conversion rate today, go to www.Trust-Guard.com!