Erik T. Ford

Shared by Erik

Fantastic play on the “Ws” applied to Conversion, business innovation and [social] media penetration-

It’s elementary! Your website is a crime scene and I am going to cry bloody murder!

Every second of every day websites are drawing qualified traffic that’s not converting to leads and customers.

And that’s not the only crime being committed! Companies are not setting goals, they are not benchmarking results and often have no basis to track improvement in their marketing over time.

These are all crimes and I call on all internet marketing CSIs (crime scene investigators) to use their deductive reasoning to solve these five puzzles for improved conversion and business success:

1. HOW – How did visitors learn about your site?
It is critical to know how visitors are learning about your site.  Track referring sites for all your visitors.  You should identify which sites (and types of sites) are sending you the most visitors and visitors that convert to leads.  It's amazing what a little focus on the best sources can do to improve your conversion rates.

2. WHO – Who are your visitors (and leads and customers)?
Do you know the kinds of visitors (personas) who are most interested in your products and services?  Qualifying questions on forms can capture explicit information about your visitors and implicit clues such as site visits, downloads, and content viewed can tell you a lot about the DNA of your ideal audience.  Use targeted marketing campaigns to home in on suspects who make ideal customers for your business.

3. WHAT – What content interests your visitors?
Do you know what content or keywords are attracting visitors to your site?  Which lead generation offers get the most downloads? Track the performance of all your content.  You can use some clues to optimize or create new content that will attract more visitors and convert more of them into leads.

4. WHICH – Which are your most effective marketing channels?
Is your site a search traffic magnet because your pages rank high for a multitude of keywords?  Perhaps your email campaigns generate fewer visitors but are more influential in converting your audience into customers.  Figure out which of your channels work best so you can use them strategically to generate more traffic (prospects) and convert more customers.

5. WHY – Why do your visitors become customers, or not?
This is toughest (and most subjective) puzzle to solve.  There are a multitude of reasons customers buy: they need your product, they really liked your sales rep, or maybe you came highly recommended.  Ask your customers after every win and document it.  More importantly, in the event of a lost deal ask the prospect why.  Focus on your strengths and work on filling up the gap to ensure a higher win rate.

Are you a marketing CSI facing similar challenging business puzzles? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Photo Credit: Sashafatcat

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Erik Reader Shared Conversion, social marketing, social media

In effort to share the very best, I find myself hardpressed to be able to share what I’d like to share with appropriate editorialism.  So, I’m going to post briefer posts with more focus on the essential content.

There was the Search Insider Summit in Captiva, Fla., which Gord Hotchkiss hosted a panel/ clinic on eye-tracking analysis of Web sites.  His focus was on post-click optimization.

Gord Hotchkiss

The importance does not need to be underscored:  marketers are looking for ways to show a higher return on investment for spending in SEO, PPC and other online channels.

If there was one single takeaway, it was this: enable this type of testing early in the discovery and design process of Web site and landing page development, testing multiple creative comps, architecture, and messaging on groups that represent targeted users, in addition to testing the pages with a paid search campaign.

• Paid Search: Most effective types of pages were specifically targeted landing pages
• Using Own Page Sites is common when: many brand and DR marketers use their site pages as landing pages for very large spends, even though many of these sites were developed without the search user experience and conversion process in mind. Generic approach for multipurpose use.
• Paid Landing Page: Difficult to scale from an enterprise level standpoint; additionally tough to tweak down the road.

Takeaways from the overall discussion regarding development:

• Set up a testing lab, or hire someone to do it for you.
• Get media stakeholders involved early in the development process.
• Test multiple creative comps, architecture, and messaging with your target group, for both direct navigation experience, and also effectiveness in paid search.
• Use prior performance knowledge to inform redesign or landing pages.
• Build in the ability to test and change.

You can find the article in it’s entirety over at MediaPost

Erik Click-throughs, Uncategorized, Usability, Web Development Conversion, e-commerce, enterprise, methodology, optimization, Post Click, SEO, testing

Susan Boyle video virality

We reside in an interesting times.  This has nothing to do with the economy or government, although these days any conversation seems to be tied to one of those two culprits.  This is about the unbelievably grey transition of technology in its most modern, potent form.

We have come a long way, and I often tout that the best technology is truly ubiquitous; it seamlessly and naturally blends in with our lives as if it were there all along.  Cell phones are certainly a fortuitous example.

But where are we now?  We are at a time where a never heard of British phenomenon has received more attention and awareness than what Superbowl ads strive for at millions a pop.  Yet… YET, YouTube has still yet to find a way to monetize this monumentally mammoth sensation.  Ironically, sensation is the name of the game.  Where’s the capture?  Modern news media focuses on sensationalism daily; gotta go for the attention-getters.  Sex sells, etc.

So where does this all leave us?  Well, a gap for one.  We are at a turning point where conventional media is turning to social media.  The burdens of overhead are shifting to outsourced expenses for services, to sacrifice the silver lining that contributes to the bottom line.

It is time to innovate.  It is time to stick our heads forward, confidently.  I am not a large proponent of ‘2.0′, as I believe the term to be thrown around so loosely, much like HD and going Green.  Yet, we are emerging on business 2.0, across all spectrums.  Much like the industrial revolution inherently set the landscape for the 20th century, we are now embarking on a new journey.

We have set foot on the technological revolution; the digital revolution.

Erik Business Innovation, Digital Trends, Usability, Web Development Conversion, exposure, monetization, social media, social networks, social videos, susan boyle, viral, youtube