AJ Davis  00:00  Hey everyone. Welcome to today's episode. Today I talked with Don Selvik, a Math Celebrity. They're helping over 8 million unique visitors per year learn how to do math in a new way. In today's episode, we then dive into some opportunities for conversion, for how to improve how many people sign up for their paid subscription. We take a look at some ways to truly simplify the enrollment process, to remove some of that friction along that journey. We also employ my very favorite, very free technique called the squint test to make sure that the page design reflects the true nudge that you want people to do or the true action you want people to do on the page. We also hear from Don about the importance of having really clear communication transparency, and also the importance of having testimonials to build trust with your visitors. So let's dive in. Hi. This is AJ Davis, and I'm here today with Don from Math Celebrity. Welcome to this episode of the Experiment Zone podcast. Welcome, Don.

 Don  01:10  Thanks. I'm excited. Thanks for having me

 AJ Davis  01:13  Tell us a little bit about yourself and also about Math Celebrity.

 Don  01:18  Sure, I'm Don Sevick. I run Math Celebrity, which you can think of as a Google for math. So you enter your math problem or search term, push the button and in a split second, we'll show you this step-by-step work followed by the answer. We cover fifth grade through college, and last year, we got 8.1 million unique visitors from over 150 countries.

AJ Davis  01:42  Wow. You guys are getting a lot of traction with traffic. Tell us a little bit about the conversion side of that puzzle.

 Don  01:49  We struggle immensely with conversion. So 65% of our traffic is under 18, so obviously they can't buy without a parent. And then the other 35% ranges from college students up through parents. So we've tried fees in the last six years, probably 13 different offers and funnels, and we haven't had anyone buy. So we're in a weird spot, because our traffic grows every year, year after year, but we just haven't found a way to monetize licenses. So really, we only make money through ads. 

AJ Davis  02:24  Tell us a little bit about what people get if they sign up to be a customer

 Don  02:29  Our Math Celebrity plan, you get the ads removed. You get unlimited calculations with steps. You get to save your calculations. And then if you upgrade to Math Celebrity Plus, you get unlimited practice problem generators. So instead of having to go to a book to learn more practice problems, you just click a button and it will randomize a problem on that calculator, and you can just keep generating practice problems. And then we also have quiz generators and assessments. So suppose that you're on algebra equations, you can say, give me 15 problems with a to d multiple choice, and it will score you and time you

 AJ Davis  03:06  Awesome. That sounds helpful. It sounds like it's a good substitute or a compliment to potentially having a one-on-one person who's tutoring you or something else. Is that about, right?

Don  03:16  Yeah, that's correct. I mean, mom doesn't have to leave the house. She doesn't have to schedule tutoring sessions, doesn't have to worry about the weather, and doesn't have to worry about her child going to see a tutor who they know nothing about. It's just you can use it 24 hours a day, and you don't have to worry about scheduling conflicts. Well,

AJ Davis  03:33  I'm excited to jump in and do our quick conversion on it with you, so I'm gonna set up a screen share in just a moment before I do that. Can you tell me where most of your traffic is coming from? Are they on desktop or mobile? Kind of a combination?

 Don  03:46  Right now it's 55% desktop, 45% mobile, and 91% of that 8 million number is coming from SEO long tail keywords, so things like algebraic expressions calculator or interval notation calculator. So most of the visitors are not hitting the home page. They're jumping into one over 500 calculator, and that's how they start their journey.

 AJ Davis  04:10  Awesome. Well, we'll pull up one of those calculators now, then I have the home page up, but let's navigate over to one of those. So give me just one moment, and I do think I will stick to the desktop since that's a little easier to screen share today. And you said most of your traffic is there. If I were coming in on the home page, how do I get to one of those popular calculators or entry points?

Don  04:29  If you see that search box there with the camera icon, you could just type in something like 2x minus nine equals 31

 AJ Davis  04:40  There you go. Okay, great. So here we are on a typical page. So you say this is kind of how people end up on the site, to begin with. This is their first experience here. So I could have typed this in Google search and then it brings me to this page?

Don  04:57  Yeah, Google's actually, in the last two years picked up some of ours.   Math problems now. So what happens is, you'll type in, like, a cosine of 60 degrees. We will come up with the first one, two or three results. You click that, and it runs that problem on our site.

 AJ Davis  05:11  Got it okay, but it will show this solution here once you come to the site. So I'm gonna kind of put on my hat, as though I typed this into Google. I'm getting to know Math Celebrity, maybe for the first time. I'm seeing the logo here. So there's a nice brand positioning here. Some of these ads are catching my eye, which makes sense that you're getting a lot of revenue through ads. Since they're highly visible here, I see that I can solve the equation here and get to know how this all comes together, which is great. What's the answer? How does a calculator work? So there's lots of great information here. I see some recommended example equations, and as I'm scrolling here, one thing I'm not seeing is what you talked about. So tell me how people typically start to learn about the upgraded service beyond it being in the navigation. If you

Don  06:03  Refresh this page two more times on the third calculation, it will ask you if you want to see unlimited steps, click here, so you get two free full ones, and then the third one will ask you to opt in.

 AJ Davis  06:16  All right, so here's my second one. I'm just going to increment this a little bit. Show the page, refresh, all right, so there, just like you said. So here I have done the equation twice. I got the free walk-through, so I got a chance to preview how it came together. And then now I can tap to view steps. So what I'm expecting is that's where I would see that opportunity. Okay, great. So get the steps to your math problem. You're almost here. Show me the steps. So I'm going to type in my email. So that's my AJ Davis Experiment Zone. Show me the steps. I'm assuming there'll be an email sent to me, and now I'm seeing what looks like a landing page, or kind of overview of how this all comes together. So let me just take a little read-through here. Unlock your math superpowers, become a celebrity now, and enroll now. Okay, so I'm seeing two different subscriptions here that I can do a comparison of. I do feel like I've kind of lost track of my last calculation. So if I go to my email, would I be able to click through to see a result there? Or do I need to upgrade to see a third result? 

 Don  07:31  You would have to upgrade. You will get an email just directing you back to the site. But that's correct. You would need to upgrade to see the math on the third one. Perfect.

 AJ Davis  07:39  Yeah. And maybe there's a way to directly communicate that expectation here. So seeing this page, really kind of switches context from, hey, I'm doing these math problems, now I'm becoming enrolled in the program. And so it could be that you continue that hook of, you know, enroll now to see the results, enroll now to see the problem, or enroll now to get unlimited. It does seem a little disconnected at first glance here, from what I was doing to now becoming a Math Celebrity, when I may not know what that term means, so I'm just gonna read through this page a bit. So join our community to elevate your skills to celebrity status. What does it mean to have my turn to shine or become a celebrity in terms of like, what the customer is thinking about here, or what you want them to think about?

Don  08:34   That comes from how we found our name. So back in the day, when I started this, we were watching the Oscars one day, and we saw that the celebrities that were there would get a huge bag of swag worth, like, $30,000 and they get a red carpet rolled out to them. So our thought was, why couldn't we do that for math students? Right? You would become a Math Celebrity, where we would just give you, step-by-step math, all the help you need at your fingertips.

 AJ Davis  09:00  I love that last phrase you just said, all the help you need at your fingertips. And I'd love to see some more direct language here, so it's super playful to tie this back into the brand name. I do want to see some directness of who you help, what we get, and then that outcome. So I am thinking about simplifying this hero section again to communicate who you help, how you help them, and why they should work with you. I think it would really kind of help elevate what's happening here. Enroll, now, start now. Start now. So tell me a little bit. I haven't done it yet. So what's the difference between this, enroll now and then these two start now options just in terms of the journey itself?

 Don  09:45  If you click either one, well, if you click the Enroll now, it brings you down to the two options, okay? And then if you click Start Now, it'll go to the respective checkout page for that plan. Got it okay. But I think what we're going to do in the future is just do the. Lower plan, and then you can upgrade to the higher plan. So the journey is a little bit clearer. Yeah,

 AJ Davis  10:04  I like that idea. And I think sometimes what can be helpful is to talk about the benefits versus the features. And so I think there's a bit of a blend here which can be clarified. So sometimes you even think of it as a kind of a map of that, where one column shows a feature or a benefit or an outcome. So step by step, solutions, see the journey, not the test, not just the destination. Track your progress. Add free experience. A lot of the things you mentioned upfront about like being able to save time or get a math suiter available. 24/7 I feel like some of that language could fit in here, as well as one of the features and benefits of the plan. Okay, we've got some social proof here, which is great. Got instructors. So one of the things that comes to mind for me in this section is helping answer the question of who you help by reinforcing it within your testimonial section. So I think an opportunity here is to kind of call, is to call out if they are a parent of a certain age group, or a student trying to tackle a certain type of problem, or she is a certain goal. And oftentimes that can be done, you know, Valencia comma, mother of 16-year-old, preparing for SATs. So something that becomes relatable and tells some of that story. And then that's a great idea, thanks. And with the thing I see here too is there's a bit of this combination of the hierarchy here, of like, see what our math celebrities are saying. I would use it again. Math is not. My favorite subject is this. I would use Math Celebrity again, like something they provided as part of this review as well.

Don  11:55  Yeah, these are all direct quotations from these are all parents, by the way. These are all direct quotations from them. So I could add parent at the end as you said,

 AJ Davis  12:04  Yeah, I think that's great. And what I would consider doing here is bumping up the font for this white section, just so it's like, really the thing in view, and then bold the thing that you want them to stand, want the thing that you want them to remember from the quote. So what you've done is pulled out that part of the quote as almost a title here, and I think it gives it a little bit more continuity from a design perspective, to show here's a robust thing people said, and here's the little bit that we want you to focus on. So upping the font size here will help people focus on it. I've said it again and again in this podcast, but one of the things I love to think about is the squint test, and literally, it's the cheapest research you can do. You sit back in your chair squint your eyes and ask what pops out on the page for you. So I'm going to ask that for you. What do you see when you look at this section as standing out?

Don  12:55  See what our Math Celebrities are saying. I think

 Davis  12:57   What we want to do in this section is to focus on what the parents say, so people can resonate and that stick with them. So one small design change would be to, you know, switch this to be the same type of font, remove that white background. I think that's why you're seeing it pass that squint test, and then use that larger font around the quotes to draw people into the words that people send. But I love that you have the social proof. It makes a huge difference for folks, we talked about the simplification you're planning to do here, so I'll keep that up there. So we bought social proof. I think one thing I'm having trouble with is understanding what the experience is like once I do sign up. So you have a lot of words that talk about what I get and you have your nice little checklist of getting your history and free experience. But I think there's an opportunity here to highlight with some more imagery what the experience looks like once you've upgraded.

Don  13:53  Would a video be good for me to use the site as a demo? Yeah,

 AJ Davis  13:57  That could be something I almost picture for each of these. There's like a list at the very top that says what your subscription gets you check, check, check, all the things with the features and benefits. And then below there could be kind of breaking that into maybe three or four sections where you describe what it means to have step-by-step solutions. Maybe there's a screenshot or a video, a short video summarizing that piece of it just something to kind of really bring the what of this to life a little bit more. Oh, and there's your video. Okay, there we go. So here's what I get with Math Celebrity. There's another Oh, there are more quotes down here. Great. And here. Okay, so one thing that you might consider doing here because a lot of this content is, a recap of what we had before, which I think can be useful in some ways, is to think about the differentiators for Math Celebrity versus other tools they might be signing up for and focus this page on Re. Reiterating that. So I mentioned at a pretty high level on the last page, the who, what, and why, and so what I'm suggesting is reiterating the why. So let me pass it back to you, what are three reasons why a mom would want to sign up her kids with you guys in particular over other tools available on the market?

Don  15:21  In a speed test, we were the fastest out of our top three competitors. You get the step-by-step math and answer in 1/3 of one second, which is the same time it takes to blink your eye, that would be one-two. We cover about 95% of the curriculum from third grade to college, which may be comparable to our competitors. Some we may beat. Some of us may be about the same. And the third is just the depth of the math. So we have students and parents that use my competitors as well. And the number one quote we get from the parents is, where was this when I was in high school? I hear that over and over and over again. So I think it's just the clarity and the simplicity of the math and the steps that we lay out in the order that we do that helps them understand that would be two, three would be the quiz generators. So mom can get an instant assessment of where her kids are and any given of our 500 calculators instantly. So I guess to phrase that in terms of benefits, understand where your student ranks in the class in seconds, at your fingertips, or something like that.

 AJ Davis  16:27  Yeah. And oftentimes, the way this is displayed, you'll see in the hero section the words that represent the who, and what, and then start to introduce the why. And then you may have a section below here that speaks to the value of props. I love to think of it. And rule of three, our brains are good at only limited data. And so three reinforces that idea. So you can imagine, maybe, for you, it's like the speed is the first one. It's like the fastest tool in the market for math problems and solutions, the most comprehensive is maybe the second one. And then you could talk about, like, some of the outcomes, or the depth of the curriculum as the third one. So you would play with the specifics there. But you know, an icon, simple text underneath, bam, bam, bam. And then when you get to the next enrollment screen, you repeat those same icons and that same text right here, just to get them over the finish line, and what they're going to get there makes sense. And I suspect that you may want to simplify this page since they've seen a lot of the other content before, so they don't get sucked into the video or sucked into all the texts here. And it's you've decided to sign up. Okay, now it's time to go. I see you have a 30-day money-back guarantee, which I didn't see on the previous page, or didn't notice. Tell us a little bit about that.

Don  17:45  What happens is you can have no questions asked, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and you keep the bonuses for no cost. So the memory course, we give away a memory course, there's an extra credit template that you fill in your name and class, and you can send this to your teacher with a high probability that you'll get a shot at extra credit. And then there's also a mental math shortcuts guide. So this is a guide where you can do a lot of the math without using the calculator, just simple tricks in your head, where you would be able to keep all those even if you cancel the plan within 30 days.

 AJ Davis  18:21  I love that, and I'd love to see that more on the main site, almost like before I start getting into the problems you have. Let me go back to where we were, so back to where we were looking at the problems. I love that you give people a chance to use the tool before they're shown. You know, the journey itself, but they do have this upgrade here and in the top nap you've got what I typically call a pencil banner. So this thin blue banner at the top with a phone number and your email address. You know, if you set 100% guaranteed here, or 100% satisfaction guaranteed, or draw them into Oh, I can get something from this site, right, and that's with them as they go into the Upgrade page, and you maybe still have that banner up here as well. That might be a way to kind of pull people in. Or maybe, maybe on this first page, it says upgrade for unlimited solutions or unlimited problems or something like that. So thinking about how we can nudge people earlier in this process to know that there's something, and then when they hit that wall on the third one it's time to upgrade. They're not surprised by it. I don't. I love what you have of giving them that free offer and the free value up front, but it kind of reinforces and lets them know ahead of time, that there's a lot of value here. What I'm getting in those first few problems is going to carry forward if I upgrade now,

Don  19:43  I see so seeding the message early so they see it, and then by the time we ask them for money, they're not shocked,

 AJ Davis  19:48  yeah, or they're not shocked, oh, I'm going to run out, right? There's like a limit to how many one of the things you might do, as well as, like, featuring, you know, free problem one out of three or one. Attitude for the month, right? And having some sort of nudge here that gives them a countdown or reminder or something of, hey, at some point you're going to run out of this resource. You can upgrade now to not have a disruption. All right, awesome. Well, we're on time for our very quick audit today. I wanted to ask you, Don, for three things that you are going to take away from our discussion today, either things that came up as we were talking or other ideas for driving more conversion.

Don  20:28  This was awesome. Thank you so much. Number one would be, to just keep the language consistent. So if I say enroll, keep that enroll across the site. Second would be, to make the testimonial font much bigger and indicate whether they're a parent or student, so other parents can relate. And then the third thing is, just start seeding the message earlier. Like you said hey, there you've gotten one free. Calc you've got two left. And then make the language more clear about what they'll get. You know, 30 days, no questions asked, money back, guarantee, and keep the bonuses. So by the time they get to the step where it's time to enter the credit card, they're clear on what's happening and where they're at in the process. Love

 AJ Davis  21:06  Those Don where can folks find you if they want to learn more about math? Math Celebrity,

 Don  21:12  You could just go to mathcelebrity.com. I'm also on LinkedIn as well.   Don Sevick

AJ Davis  21:23  Awesome. Thanks so much for being on today. I hope you have some really valuable outcomes as a result of this, and I look forward to having you on again as you continue to grow in your conversion journey.

Don  21:32  Thanks. AJ

 AJ Davis  21:33  This was awesome. Thank you for tuning in to the Experiment Zone podcast. You can check out more episodes on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and your favorite podcast apps. Check out the show notes for any websites Linked In this episode, including where to connect with us on social media. We appreciate you tuning in. Remember to Like subscribe and turn on your notifications so you'll be updated on each episode release visit us at experimentzone.com for all podcast updates and we appreciate you dropping by.