Henk Bolhuis, Product Specialist CRO at Reprise Digital, Netherlands’ leading digital marketing agency, talks about making experiment outcomes & learnings stick in the audiences’ minds, about understanding why communication is key to the success of a good experimentation program, and more.

1. What we read about CRO

2. The real C in CRO stands for
Communication
How to optimize for communication to create a testing culture.

3. Hi, there!
I’m Henk, Product Specialist CRO at Reprise Digital
That’s me!

4. For today, we'll discuss:
❏ Why communication is just as important as conversion
❏ How communication fits within the CRO process
❏ 6 tips/lessons how to improve your communication
❏ How to continuously improve your communication skills.

5. C
Conversion
RO
Increase the amount of times a
visitor converts. Communication
Increase the amount of times a
stakeholder understands your
message and converts.

6. Have you ever experienced these reactions to your presentation?

7. With communication, we mean:
Sender Receiver - Team mate
Insight Insight
Medium
Message Message
This is what we can influence
Receiver - CEO
Insight
Message
Receiver - Client
Insight
Message

8. Why is communication so
important when talking about
experimentation?

9. Finding
problems
through
research
Generate
Hypothesis
Prioritize
Hypothesis
Validate through
experimentation
Report &
Learn
Process of CRO and communication
Stakeholders are involved
x
x
x

10. To put this in practice
Sender Receiver
Insight Insight
Analytics

11. Basically, what I’m trying to say
Mweh, let’s
focus on
something
else
Knowledge Communication
Good Mweh
+ =
Yes, we
should do this
more!
Knowledge Communication
Good Good
+ =

12. Most optimizers only focus on their business, but
to create a culture of experimentation,
communication is key.
Basically, you need to bring people together

13. 6 tips/lessons to optimize for
communication.
1. When presenting insights, make it interactive
2. When presenting user test findings, use a highlight video
3. When giving recommendations, follow the secret formula
4. When working with others, be nice :-)
5. When showing graphs, get your data cleaned out
6. When reporting, start with the most important findings.
Finding
problems
through
research
Validate through
experimentation
Report &
Learn

14. Make it Interactive
Tip 1 When presenting insights

15. What you shouldn't do
Start showing the data

16. What you should do
Play a quiz master, by asking questions to your audience.
Tip

17. Use a highlight video
Tip 2 When presenting user test findings

18. What you shouldn't do
Present insights from a user test without any actual visuals.

19. What you should do
Always make a highlight video when doing an important user test
Tip

20. How does that work?
It’s not really rocket science, but it takes up some time

21. Follow the formula
Tip 3 When giving recommendations

22. What you shouldn't do
This is bad

23. What you should do
Observation
+
Consequence
=
Next step
When giving recommendations
Tip

24. For example
When landing on the homepage there is no clear
Call-to-action present.
Users have to scroll down to learn more about
what the company does.
Try experimenting by adding a call-to-action to
your website.
Observation
Consequence
Recommendation

25. When auditing a full page
Proof
Conclusion +
recommendation

26. Be nice
Tip 4
When working with others

27. Tip
This book can be summarized in two words

28. What you should do
● Change your tone - pick up the pace and make sure you pause when
speaking.
● Be energetic - show your enthusiasm, but be critical when needed.
● Smile (use emoji’s) - smiling people get more done.
● Compliment - we don’t do this enough, but show appreciation.
● Be super clear - make sure what you want, don’t waste everybody's time

29. Get your date clean
Tip 5 When showing graphs

30. What you shouldn't do
Just copy paste Google Analytics findings
What am I looking at?
What should we be doing?
What’s going bad/good?
Is this all relevant?

31. What you should do
!
Make data actionable
Tip

32. You can apply the same rule from this book to your slides

33. Start with the most important
findings.
Tip 6 When reporting

34. What you shouldn't do
End with your key-takeaways
Slide
Slide
Slide

35. What did we learn?
What you should do
Start with your key takeaways
Results
Conclude
Next steps
Tip

36. To create a culture of experimentation,
communication is key.
A final reminder ;-)

37. How to further improve yourself?
❏ Ask for feedback - show them the slides/output to a random person and ask if the
purpose is clear.
❏ Listen to your audience - what responses do you get when showing x? What
questions do they ask? It’s important to note down the questions they ask.
❏ Collect slides in a swipefile - observe slides from other people, copy them, place
them in a document and look at what their doing.
❏ Always keep optimizing yourself - because it will help you become a better
optimizer and achieve your goals.

38. Any Questions?
If not feel free to follow-up on LinkedIn!

39. Thank you!