HE HAD A VOICE NO LIBRARIAN COULD LOVE – CAUSE HE ALWAYS TALKED LIKE THIS.  But look past the booming voice and easily parodied stage persona of the late Billy Mays and you’ll find an extraordinarily gifted pitch-man, worthy of his own TV show.

A pitch-man whose fame and success made him the target of more pitches than he ever gave.  Pitches made by desperate inventors looking for him to save them after they’d already mortgaged the house, spent the kids’ college…

...continue to read "Billy Mays: If All You Remember is the Voice, You’re Missing Out."

Most companies measure keyword performance – and especially PPC keyword performance – based on one factor: did that word or phrase bring converting visitors to the site on the visit in which they converted.

So the natural thing to do is trim non-performing words and phrases in order to increase the efficiency of your PPC spend.  And that’s exactly what one client did, except rather than increasing his efficiency, he dropped his sales by 30%.

Why?

Because, depending on what you sell,…

...continue to read "Are Your Analytics Causing You to Lose 30% of Your Sales?"

Steve Krug has famously compared Web pages to billboards, meaning that Web visitors are task oriented, and therefore on-the-move.  They click through websites, sizing up any individual page’s content in about as much time as a driver takes to glance up at a billboard, roughly 7 seconds or so.

The difference of course, is that material in the active window is being actively and consciously engaged and evaluated by the Web visitor, who can then slow down and read material that…

...continue to read "Visual Scandal, Story Appeal, and Banner Ads"

We’re now 6 months into 2009, and if you’ve embarked on a program of Website/ Marketing optimization, you’re probably looking for some clear, common-sense benchmarks to measure your progress.  Here’s what you should be looking at:

Cost Per Visitor (CPV) – How many advertising, marketing, SEO, etc. dollars do you need to spend to bring in each Website visitor you’re getting.   Don’t look at conversion just yet – it’s your website’s job to convert the visitors; marketing’s job is to get them…

...continue to read "Have You Given Your Website a Mid-Year Check-up?"

About a year ago, Bryan Eisenberg gave an interview talking about Maybe The Best $100 You’ve Ever Spent, essentially raving over the ridiculously cheep rates charged by UserTesting.com.  The always-astute Patrick Sullivan, Jr. of Edit Weapon picked up on this and decided to give UserTesting.com his own personal test and blog post/review.

Now, as a usability expert himself and a usability testing veteran, Edit Weapon’s initial reaction to UserTesting.com was:

“Well this will either put me out of business, cause me to cut…

...continue to read "Top 6 User Testing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them"

Probably the most famous (and successful) banner ad campaign has been the infamous dancing figures banner ads for LowerMyBills.com, with ROI reported to be in the 4:1 range.  The fact that they no longer infest the web with their rational-though destroying antics might be the sole silver lining of the recent financial crises.

But as the ROI figures attest, the ads worked.  And they worked because:

1) The animated movement made them almost impossible to ignore.

This is important because online visitors are…

...continue to read "Apple’s Banner Ad Innovation"

In my last post, I made use of a brick and mortar analogy to the current online behavior of some e-commerce Websites, and even recommended the use of those analogies when analyzing online persuasion strategies.

And since at least a few readers responded positively to the idea, I thought I’d share one of Get Elastic’s videos  dramatizing exactly one of those analogies, as well as sharing a link to their whole series.

So welcome to The Crazy, Messed-up World of E-commerce!

And if…

...continue to read "What Would Online Retailing Look Like in the Offline World"

In the offline world, have you ever been chased by retail staff because you opted not to buy something at their store?

Never?

You mean no one has ever blocked the exit and said something like, “Hey, I saw you put that bottle of wine in your cart, why didn’t you buy it?”

It sounds funny until you realize that most online remarketing services offer to do exactly that to your website visitors.  They’ll pester them with e-mails, pop-ups, and phone calls should they…

...continue to read "Can Bad Assumptions Lead to “Gorilla Marketing”?"

I’ve written about this before, but new reports keep reinforcing the point that most organizations don’t know what to make of their Web Analytics, meaning they can’t take action to improve their site based on the information they have.  And while the best bet in these situations is simply to hire an expert guide, that may not be an option for you (or maybe you’re just a hard-core DIY-er when it comes to website improvement).  If that’s the case, here is a…

...continue to read "Make Your Web Analytics Actionable in 5 DIY Steps"

Very simply, reviews increase conversion rates.  And several studies point to the fact that, yes, even negative reviews help.

It all boils down to credibility.  Customer reviews simply have more credibility than your sales copy, so they inspire more confidence in the buyer.  And negative reviews lend credibility to the review process itself, standing as visible proof that the reviews are not edited.

Makes sense right?  Sure it does, until you find yourself staring at the (perceived) ability of a blisteringly negative…

...continue to read "You Can’t Edit Your Way Out of Negative Reviews"