Archive for November, 2004
2004 Online Retail Study for Customer Focused Excellence
As featured on Friday’s home page of Internet Retailer I’m proud to announce that Future Now has completed the 2004 Online Retailer Study for Customer Focused excellence. A report that measures how well a website meets a customer’s needs from the time a shopped identifies a product to be purchased.
Read the entire 2004 Online Retailer Study for Customer Focused Excellence.
Also check out a highlight of the results at Internet Retailer. You can also get a PDf of last year’s study.
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Written by:Persuasion Architects
A Few Things You Might Have Missed
Just a hi-light of a few articles you may have missed over the last week or so.
First, Bryan Eisenberg’s most recent ClickZ article debunks one of the internets biggest myths… Price Is Not King. Sometimes trying to win the price game will get you nothing but a bunch of parasitical customers who latch on and feed on your profits. Bryan shows the alternative to offering the lowest price on your site by increasing your site’s personal experience factor.
Our bud and web analytics guru Eric Peterson recently released some data indicating that companies that have at least one full time staffer analyzing site metrics got a greater value and better conversion rates out of their web analytics. It just makes sense, when someone is around to analyze , parse, and recognize patterns in the metrics each and every day you will likely end up with more actionable changes to implement. Once those changes are implemented, your staffer can them monitor the difference and tweak further and further, After all you web site should be dynamic, always being optimized for conversion.
Finally, our most recent GrokDotCom article is rich with insight about some basic persuasion principles and some very pratical advice about HTML/CSS coding.
Now go and have a wonderful Turkey Day ok?
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Written by:Persuasion Architects
Climbing Out of the Lowest-Price Trap
Price is not king. Not on the Internet, not anywhere.
Now don’t misunderstand. Price is a critical attribute of any competitive product. But let’s not place it on too lofty a throne.
No one wants to pay more than she must to buy what she wants. Who doesn’t seek good value? But a fair price and a good value are entirely different from the lowest price.
Among e-tailers, the argument usually goes something like this: “My visitors are just a few clicks away from my competitor. If they see the competition has a lower price, I lose the sale.”
That’s certainly true. A portion of your visitors will always scavenge for the lowest price — but only a portion.
Playing the lowest-price game is a losing battle for many online retailers. The casualties are profit margin and, often, sanity. Businesses scramble to meet low-price demands and chase customers who pimp their loyalty for a nickel in savings. Playing the lowest-price game just isn’t any fun.
If you want to elevate your site’s offerings above the messy low-price battlefield, there is a way. Start by letting go of the coupon-clipping, penny-pinching customers, and end by delivering more than visitors expect.
Continue reading my column at ClickZ…
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Reconcile Rising SEO Costs With ROI
Search engine pay-per-click (PPC) ad prices are rising. If your Web business relies heavily on search engine marketing (SEM), you may already feel the crunch.
Marketers often abandon certain search terms because the cost rises above their ability to achieve a reasonable return on investment (ROI). In-demand terms are often too expensive to be worthwhile. Soon, demand will place many keywords out of reach of everyone excepting those with the deepest pockets.
What about organic SEO (define)? This week, a few tips regarding ever-important SEO, its relationship to conversion rates and ROI, and shopping for an SEO firm.
PPC Inflation Is Real
The Keyword Price Index is published monthly by leading search engine marketer Fathom Online. The October index shows an overall 14 percent increase in keyword price, from September’s average of $1.37 per keyword to $1.55 in October. According to the index, October was much more costly than September. Average keyword prices for consumer services (e.g., entertainment and spas) rose from $0.54 to $0.96 (78 percent). Retailers saw higher prices, too, from $0.32 to $0.48 (52 percent).
Some verticals saw prices drop. In the automotive industry, the average price went from $1.43 to $1.39, a 10 percent decrease. Telecom/broadband keywords fell from $1.89 to $1.78 (5 percent).
Continue reading my column at ClickZ…
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
A Shout Out
It’s a quiet day on the road (right now in Brooklyn prepping for our Persuasive Online Copywriting Workshop ), so we wanted to take a few moments and give a shout out to 3 fine ladies who are also our blogging friends.
Our good friend The Diamond Diva (a faith GrokDotCom reader) blogs about diamonds, diamond jewelry, fashion, and other things for the ladies.
A Future Now faithful Yvonne DeVita and her Lispsticking blog, all about marketing to women.
And Debbie Weil is the author of Debbie’s blog, who covers the increasingly popular subject of business blogging.
If you have an interesting blog that we need to know about… please let us know.
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Written by:Persuasion Architects
eTail Redesign for Conversion Workshop
Again, seats will be limited. We wanted our faithful blog readers to get first dibs.
You Will Learn Exactly How To Increase Your Conversion Rate
During our two day workshop we’ll work hands on with you to guide you on how to implement techniques that will boost your conversion rate to its maximum, and streamline the shopping experience for your visitors.
The workshop will be January 12-13 2005 in our cool new digs in Brooklyn’s Red hook district.
If you are planning a site redesign in 2005 you should clear the calender and come to the workshop.
Get everything you need to know about our eTail Redesign for Conversion Workshop.
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Written by:Persuasion Architects
Persona-lization and Behavioral Marketing
As a marketing vehicle, the Internet is multitalented. A strong suit is collecting and comparing considerable amounts of visitor data. Compared to other ad media, the Internet delivers more data about who our customers are and what they actually do, and does so more specifically and quickly than we ever dreamed possible.
Combine such data with the context of site content or a specific ad campaign, and you see accurate snapshots of customer behavior patterns that can be observed, tracked, and measured.
Behavioral marketing’s promise is marketers can use this information to determine where to spend ad dollars for maximum return on investment (ROI). Behavioral marketing allows advertising to better segment and target audiences. Yet a critical piece of the puzzle is missing.
Although behavioral marketing offers an impressive advantage, it’s the ad message that makes the difference in long-term ROI marketing efforts.
Crafting messages customers will respond to, through persona creation, is the missing piece of the behavioral marketing puzzle.
Continue reading my column at ClickZ…
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Debunking Miller’s Magic 7 in Web Design
Bottom Line: Miller’s Magic 7 has NOTHING to do with building a persuasive website. Don’t let your website design decisions be bound by outdated science.
Miller’s Magic 7 has been bandied about in web design circles for years, and many site designs have been conceived under the premise of George Miller’s 1956 article about the ability of humans to retain in a total of 7 plus or minus 2 items in working memory.
In his most recent ClickZ article Bryan Eisenberg lays out the case warning against using Miller’s Magic 7 as a guiding design principle.
Debunking Miller’s Magic 7
George A. Miller penned a research paper in 1956, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” It was groundbreaking in its time. In it, Miller hypothesized the human working memory can hold up to seven bits of information, plus or minus two, at once. Often referred to as “Miller’s Magic 7,” that theory is the basis of many Web page design decisions. Below, some modern day extrapolations and design conclusions rooted in Miller’s research:
• Give users only seven links (choices) in the active window.• Give users only seven items on the menu bar.
• Give users only seven tabs at the top of a Web site page.
• Give users only seven items in a pull-down menu.
• Give users only seven items on a bulleted list.
Many advances have been made in understanding human memory since 1956. Why does Miller’s Magic 7 survive in light of current science? We can’t concede that maximizing this informational processing “capacity” is necessary on a Web site.
I want to offer a more current and commonsensical approach to these design element “conclusions.” No designer should be bound by a meaningless number rooted in dusty science.
Read the rest of the Bryan’s article aboutMiller’s Magic 7 and Web Design.
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Written by:Persuasion Architects
Considered Choices
Your business imperative should always shape the design, development and evolution of your Web site
I’d happily pass out rules right and left on a silver platter. If only I could. But in our business, we live and breath the fine line between “best practices” and “principles.” If we didn’t, we couldn’t help you be effective in your online efforts.
Sometimes practice and principle are a comfortable fit. Sometimes they aren’t. What should you be doing on your Web site? You know I’m going to say, “That depends on the function and purpose of your site.”
So, cozy up folks; it’s time for a ponder. This particular ponder is brought to you courtesy of Linda Caroll. I’ll confess right now … I have a bone to pick with Ms Caroll. But by picking that bone, I hope to shed light on the nature of the choices every single one of us has to make when it comes to the design and development of our Web sites.
Read the rest of this article.
Read the entire newsletter: Volume 101
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Written by:The Grok
