Why Milkman?

I chose Milkman as my husband was on their website ordering some more of their beard balm (yes my husband is a flanny wearing, bearded, in denial hipster!) and he pointed out how cool their product descriptions were. He was right, they have awesome copy and great personality throughout their site, I love their branding, but also noticed there were some easy fixes they could make to improve conversions so Milkman – you’re it!

What  We Love

The messaging throughout this site is on point. From the amazing products descriptions to the headings, it’s clear Milkman know their target audience well.

The Website

As we go through the Milkman website with a fine tooth comb, have a think about how you could relate this back to your own website.

The 3 Second Test

The first thing we check for on a website audit is if the site passes the 3 second test.

If we take a look at the home page, without scrolling can we tell in just 3 seconds what they sell and who it’s for.

There are some really good elements to this home page such as the 3 category images – Shaving Gear, Moustache Gear and Beard Gear. However, like so many sites, there is hidden gold that is being completely under utilised. Take a look at the wording I have highlighted above. This shouldn’t be small print tucked up next to the logo this should be front and centre the first thing you see when you come to the site.

If I were to work on this website I would change the home to have a hero image above the featured collections which pictured different men, like those in the collection photos holding the products they use with the heading “We make Facial hair products to keep you #FreshBetweenTheEars” and sub-heading underneath “Helping you shave, sport a mo or grow a beard”. Then the collection images could have “Shave”, “Mo”, “Grow” as their titles.

Mobile Site

Most traffic these days comes from mobile, however, most websites are built for desktop and then just made responsive for mobile.

This is a prime example as on the mobile site all I can see is that they sell Shaving Gear. The small print next to the logo is now illegible and as we don’t have the hero image with the main description all I have to go on is the first category image.

Unfortunately the mobile site doesn’t pass the 3 second test.

The Menu

The menu should help a consumer navigate the website and easily find what they are looking for. These days home is not required as most people know they can click the logo icon or even use the back button. I’d remove this to clear up space and instead of Shop I’d have Shave, Mo and Grow as menu items linking to their respective categories. Stockists, Wholesale Enquires and Account don’t need to be in the main menu. Account login can simply be an icon  next to the cart icon and wholesale and stockists could move to the footer.  All the other messaging is so creative I’d love to see them come up with something more original than Lifestyle blog as the blog name too.

Once those changes are made the logo can move to the left and the menu items can fit in line with it, bringing everything up the page to save space. Currently 1/3 of the page is taken up before you see the first images.

Love that they have a header bar above showcasing the shipping prices. 

Home Page

If we continue down the home page the featured products section looks good. All images are the same size and have the same white background which makes my OCD perfectionism very happy 🙂 

Everything is looking great until I get to the soon to be renamed “Lifestyle Blog” and I get a bit of a twitch from the miss-matched image sizes – an easy fix but remember many of your website visitors can be triggered by little things like this. Also one of the blog feature images has a text overlay but the other two don’t. All that is needed here is a bit of uniformity and it would be great. 

Looking next at the footer, I love that it’s a nice white non-intrusive footer, however, it is quite big. I’d move some of the links into the 3rd row not being used just to condense it a bit.

Email Opt In

I love that there is no obtrusive pop-ups to be seen, however, there is a sad-looking Newsletter opt in hiding in the footer. Given they never asked for this audit (I hope we’re still friends guys) I don’t know their stats, however, I’m guessing that little opt in doesn’t get a very high conversion.

With all the great copy throughout the site I’d love to see something a bit more enticing than “Newsletter”. With our inboxes fuller than ever we really have to entice people to want to give us their email. Consider offering an incentive such as a discount off their first purchase, or even just a more exciting opt in name with details on what juicy bearded goodness they will get in their inbox. 

What’s Missing?

I would love to see the personality behind the brand. A great pic of the (I’m picturing bearded) owner/s behind Milkman and a story about how they got started would be great. That could then link through to their About Us page, which sadly is lacking anything about them. Remember people buy from people so don’t be afraid to inject some of you into the brand. 

Even eCommerce giant Showpo showcase the team on the home page and link through to a timeline taking you from where it all began to where they are now – check it out at https://www.showpo.com/our-story.

Another element they could add is some trust icons to showcase why guys should want to buy these products from them and not somewhere else. Having scrolled through their about page I found “all wet products are made by beard loving, real scientists here in Australia. We use eco-friendly, locally sourced ingredients and tonnes of botanicals”, however, I didn’t know any of this from the home page and most blokes won’t go searching for this kind of thing. Take a look at the example below from whogivesacrap.com.au and front and centre on their homepage are 3 key messages. Milkman could implement this with “Made by Australian scientists”, “Using locally sourced ingredients” “Eco Friendly” or something similar. 

Category Pages

The category pages are nice and simple. No filter required as there aren’t too many products and you can see them all without going to another page. 

At the moment half the page is taken up by the header, menu and breadcrumbs before you actually see any products so if they do condense those as mentioned above it should fix this problem as well. 

On a mobile you can see this problem is amplified as you are more than 3/4 down the page before you see a product.

Product Page

Product pages are one of the most important pages as a lot of the time people are directed straight to a product – either from an ad, Google or even a friend. Because of this it’s important to repeat any of the key messages from the home page as they may not see them. 

I’ve included a screenshot below of the entire product page, I choose this one as it’s my hubby’s favourite product! 

Aside from some of the same header images bringing the whole page down the products pages are quite good. This is the messaging that made me fall in love with the brand, and it continued throughout the headings such as “what’s in this stuff” and “how do you use this stuff”. It casual and perfect for their target market. I also love the instructional video.

All I would tweak is really the consistency of text size and image/video sizes. It’s not your typical product page layout but I think it works. I would perhaps just move the product name to the right allowing them to bring the product image up above the fold. 

They have some great social proof down the bottom with their reviews – I’d just like to see the 5 stars placed under the product name which when clicked on would take people down the page to see the reviews. 

It would also be good to see some trust icons towards the top of the page showing the eco friendly, Australian made and local ingredients again. 

Personally I think the Afterpay and Zippay descriptions take up too much prime real estate and I would just have the logos under the add to cart button and bring up the first paragraph of description text instead. 

 Cart Page

Now that we’ve gone to check out we’re presented with a pretty stock standard Shopify checkout page. Later this year (2019 if you’re reading this in the future) Shopify are releasing the ability to customise their Shopify cart page without the need for a developer – which we can’t wait for! I’d love to see some of the awesome testimonials from the product pages added here for trust. 

Also as an Aussie, it says free shipping over $60, but if I add more than $60 to my cart it still shows that shipping with be calculated at checkout. It would be great to see I’ve qualified for free shipping once I reach the required amount. You can even use plugins to update your header bar at the top to show customers how much more they need to spend to qualify for free shipping. This is a good one for Shopify. 

Website Overview

All in all my guess is that this website is already converting OK – it works on my hubby after all! However, with a few simple tweaks and more of their awesome personality dabbled throughout I think they could greatly improve their conversion rate. 

Facebook Ads

Through the power of Facebook’s Ad Library we can have a sneak peak at some of the ads Milkman are running. You can use this tool to spy on others in your industry, find inspiration from your favourite brands or even do an audit for someone who didn’t even ask for it! (Milkman are you still with us?) 

So let’s take a look at what they have running.

They currently have a video ad running which is pretty cool. The image is all perfectly still, aside from the liquid which moves accompanied with some blocky acoustic rock in the background. 

I love that they have made it look like they are creating a cocktail, which in fact is their “recipe” for their 2 in 1 beard wash. A clever ad and spot on for the target audience. 

This one is an ad I saw in my Newsfeed after adding to cart. It is another carousel dynamic ad pulling through the products I had in my cart. What is missing on this one is the description of the product. Given it is lifestyles images showing, I’d recommend putting the product name so it’s clear what it is – but again this is completely unauthorised and they may have already tested that! 

To Try

Milkman if you’re still with me this is what I would try if I was doing your ads (feel free to call me 😉 )

As their customers and products fit nicely into three distinct categories – shave, grow and mo I would split these products into 3 different product sets and then show different re-targeting ads for each one.

Then rather than having to be generic in their copy “Whether you shave, sport a moustache or grow a beard, we’ve got the gear to keep you Fresh Between the Ears” they could have super specific text like “Want to keep your beard looking it’s best – we’ve got you covered”  type thing. When you split out your ads based on products you can speak to your audience better and when they feel like you’re talking to them – that’s when you’ve won them over 🙂 

So Milkman thanks for playing (even if you didn’t ask to) it’s been fun reviewing your site!

I hope if you’re reading this you have found some tips you can use for your own website as well. 

If you have a favourite business you’d like us to perform an unauthorised review on, let me know in the comments below. Or if you want us to do an audit on your own site, simply fill in the form below. 

Until next time,

Karyn 

Written by Karyn Parkinson

Karyn AKA Karyn with a Y is a Facebook ad specialist with a side dose of eCommerce marketing, particularly website optimisation.

When she’s not behind the computer you’ll find her at the beach with her fur babies or on the roller derby track as Pink Fury!