Author Archive
Save Hundreds Off Our Upcoming West Coast Seminars
Just a friendly reminder to West Coast readers to take advantage of the early registration discount for upcoming events in San Francisco…
Call to Action - March 27, 2008
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Call to Action is led by the incomparable Bryan Eisenberg, best-selling author and co-founder of Future Now, and is based on the Eisenberg brothers’ best-selling book, “Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results.” This seminar presents the principles of Persuasion Architecture and the tactics of conversion rate marketing, and will help you understand the roles of web analytics, web design, usability, social media, information architecture, and search engine optimization in the context of conversion rate marketing. Read more about this seminar. |
Persuasive Online Copywriting - March 28, 2008
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Persuasive Online Copywriting is co-led by two of our most popular writers, Holly Buchanan and Jeff Sexton. Come learn from the experts about making your copy more persuasive and speak to all of your market segments. Not only for copywriters, past attendees in this class include C-level execs, marketing directors, entrepreneurs, and others who just want to improve their online communication skills. Read more about this seminar. |
Take both and get a discount
Want a bigger bang for your buck? Be sure to check out our Early-bird Special (for early registration), the “House Combo Special” (a discount for registering for both classes), and our Group Special (a discount for multiple sign-ups).
Don’t delay! We have to limit the number of participants, so these events sell out quickly!
Call To Action Seminar - March 27, 2008
Early-bird Cost $795.00 (SAVE $100) prior to 2/29/08; $895.00 after.
Improve your conversion to increase your sites revenue potential
Register Now (link takes you to our event registration site)
Persuasive Online Copywriting Seminar - March 28, 2008
Early-bird Cost $695.00 (SAVE $100)prior to 2/29/08; $795.00 after.
Write to your customers needs to drive more results.
Register Now (link takes you to our event registration site)
Sign up for Both Seminars and Get A Discount
Early-bird Cost $1340.00 (SAVE $180) prior to 2/29/08; $1520.00 after.
Maximize the impact of increased conversion and persuasive copy.
Register for Both (link takes you to our event registration site)
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Written by:The Grok
Happy Web Analytics
Some people say web analytics is hard. Others try to keep web analytics simple. But at least one company is trying to reduce web analytics rage with a smile on its face.
Most web analytics use an invisible gif to track Web traffic, but WordPress uses a small smiley face gif on their pages (scroll to the bottom-left of WordPress.com). Some bloggers are surprised to see a smiley face in their blog themes, but it’s actually part of the WordPress stats plugin.
Other than the smiley face, what images have you seen being used for data collection?
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Written by:The Grok
Free Download: 10 Tips to Start Optimizing Your Website
Want to know what stops website visitors in their tracks? Ready to take the next step toward optimizing your site? Want to fix your website today without a(nother) redesign? Need fresh ideas?
If so, we recommend you hire Future Now immediately. Or download our free white paper.
You will LEARN:
- How to find trigger words that excite visitors
- Tips for profitable calls to action
- How to optimize product images
- Tips for optimizing headlines
- How to optimize your optimizing (tips for effective testing)
Who SHOULD download this white paper:
- Small business website marketers
- Anyone looking for new ideas for testing and optimizing
- Anyone looking for an edge over their competitors
- Anyone who just getting started optimizing
- Anyone frustrated with their current optimization efforts
- Anyone looking for a more sound and logical process for optimization
- Anyone responsible for a marketing channel and needs life to be easier
- Anyone getting mixed results with their current optimization efforts
Who SHOULDN’T download this white paper:
- Lazy people
- People who hate change
- People who aren’t willing to commit to serious changes on their sites
- White paper junkies who print ‘em out and never read them (honestly, save a tree)
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Written by:The Grok
Would the Sex and the City Girls Click on This?
Online or offline, on the magazine rack or the clearance rack, headlines are your one sure chance to make an impression.
Jeff Sexton, our resident copywriting pro, makes his Copyblogger debut today, revealing secret techniques for alluring headlines. Here’s a peek…
I bet you didn’t know that the main characters of HBO’s Sex and the City represent one of the better examples of the four personality temperaments, did you?
Just about every personality typing system—from Hippocrates’ humors to Myers-Briggs/Keirsey or DISK—groups personalities into four primary temperaments. Only the labels differ:
- sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic
- spontaneous, methodical, competitive, humanistic
- artisan, guardian, rational, idealist
and so on.
And, yes, each major character on Sex and the City typifies one of the four temperaments…
Want to know how it’s done? Just order up another cosmo and click here.
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Written by:The Grok
(Free Download) Seth Godin & GrokDotCom Sync Into Meatball Sundae
Recently, Seth Godin joined us for an exclusive interview on WebmasterRadio.fm to discuss his latest book, Meatball Sundae.
“What’s a meatball sundae?” Good question. Basically, it’s what happens when everyday products are out of sync with new marketing tactics. For the full story, listen to the podcast (or download it for free!) below. But first, here are a few extra scoops from Seth & Bryan’s interview. Bon appetit!
Bryan Eisenberg: In the introduction, you admit that you’re breaking your own rules about book publishing. First of all, your last book, The Dip, only came out six months ago. Secondly, Meatball Sundae is, what, two or three times the size of The Dip? We see why Meatball Sundae is, well, meatier – but why does it have to come out now, while your last bestseller’s still busy marketing itself?
Seth Godin: The ideas don’t work for me… I work for the ideas. When the book was ready, it had to go out, because the market wanted/needed to hear them. So far, every time I make a silly non-strategic decision that benefits the ideas, it seems to work out okay. So I’ve learned not to get in the way of the ideas.
BE: People are very good at saying “I agree,” and you’re an easy guy to agree with. But what are the really tough questions – outside of the 14 trends you mention in the book – that marketers need to ask themselves so they know whether they’re marketing meatball products with sundae tactics.
SG: I’m not asking for agreement with this book. Not at all. From the title on in, I’m asking for a lot more than agreement. I want action. I want organizations to make fundamental choices and to follow through with them. So, “I agree” will really bum me out.
BE: What are some of the changes organizations will have to make? What are the stumbling blocks, and how will they know if they’re headed in the right direction?
SG: The biggest change is to decide to realign to get the wind at your back. To reorganize and re-strategize to get out of the last industrial revolution and move into the new one. That’s not easy, but you’ll either do it or struggle. Now’s the time, not five years from now.
BE: When you’re talking about the lure of running Super Bowl ads and the like, you say, “The web is astonishingly bad at reaching the unreachable . . . Mass is still seductive, but mass is so expensive that marketers balk at buying it,” and the example you use is that Time magazine is much thinner these days than Gourmet. How do we stop marketers from worrying about driving all this traffic — from reaching out to anyone and everyone — and get them to focus on creating a great experience for the ones who actually want to reach them?
SG: Who is so much more important than how many. And interactivity proves it. You can measure it. You can see what happens, not in months, but in days. Smart marketers are already smelling it, which is one reason they’re running away from magazines so fast.
BE: Trend #2 in Meatball Sundae is “Amplification of the Voice of the Consumer and Independent Authorities.” This made me think of the November 2005 cover of Forbes magazine (“Attack of the Blogs: They destroy brands and wreck lives. Is there any way to fight back?”). Back then, the idea seemed pretty over-the-top. What would you tell marketers today?
SG: Fighting back is such a bad idea. Join is a much better one. Make great stuff, be respectful, tell the truth. Not so hard to describe, pretty hard to do.
BE: How do you know when your organization is ready to serve a sundae? And once you do, how do you match the toppings to suit your customers’ needs? For instance, it seems pretty clear that not every business should be blogging. Is it possible to serve meatballs to some people and sundaes to others, or is it truly either/or?
SG: Oh, I think organizations can do both, just as GE was able to sell blenders and nuclear power plants for a while. The mistake is when one division or one brand tries to do both. When you’ve got need-based, factory-driven commodities colliding with the idea-driven, speed focused web, it’s a big problem.
BE: You talk about the shift from “How many?” to “Who?” (“Just as a store in a busy mall doesn’t have to worry about converting every browser into a customer, high-traffic Web sites and advertisers get sloppy about being efficient.”) As marketing optimization experts, our firm sees this all the time and we still don’t understand why anyone would want tons of traffic with few conversions. But how does a business know when its marketing is inefficient? Are there any telltale signs across industries?
SG: I would never try to tell the guys at Ford about crankshafts. I also won’t tell them about web conversions. They need to learn it, evolve it, test it, measure it. If this is the core of the business of the future (and it is) then a rule of thumb isn’t going to cut it. My point: get in early, spend the money, do the learning.
BE: How do you like your sundaes? (Inquiring minds want to know.)
SG: I’m such a weird eater. It would be Ciao Bella chocolate sorbet, with a teaspoon of Steve Herrell’s hot fudge, a tablespoon of Marshmallow Fluff and a Starbucks Biscotti, chocolate, please. Except that if I was making it, I’d leave off the hot fudge, cause I’m an ascetic.
For the rest of this exclusive interview, click here (or right-click to download).
Click here for Seth Godin and Bryan Eisenberg
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Written by:The Grok
12 Marketers Pick Year’s Most Valuable Online Videos
The smart people at Twist Image have built a gorgeous video site to showcase 2007’s most valuable online videos, according to their “most influential friends.”
Paula Gignac, Seth Godin, Ken Wong, Joseph Jaffe, David Weinberger, David Usher, Jackie Huba, Shel Israel, John Gustavson, Christopher Loudon, Mary Maddever and our own Bryan Eisenberg were each asked to share their favorite video of the year.
Which videos were your favorites?
(To Mitch Joel, Mark Goodman, Mickael Kanfi, Aubrey Rosenhek and the entire team at Twist Image, joyeuses fêtes à vous tous! Thank you for helping to shape good ideas, as always.)
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Written by:The Grok
Podcast: Seth Godin on His Latest Book, “Meatball Sundae”
We’re excited to announce that today at 2pm (EST), Seth Godin — author of the most popular marketing blog in the world, Permission Marketing, Purple Cow and many other bestsellers — will join us to discuss his latest book, Meatball Sundae.
What’s a “meatball sundae,” you ask? In addition to something you probably shouldn’t eat, it’s an analogy for what happens when product development, management, strategy and tactics are out of sync with today’s “new marketing” era. But Seth will explain all of that in his own words.
So, be sure to join us today @ 2pm (EST) on WebmasterRadio.fm (home of our daily Blog Buzz podcast) for this rare conversation between two of the most respected minds in modern marketing. It’s 30+ minutes, so grab a cup of coffee, tea, or whatever you think might help you wash down a meatball sundae.
UPDATE: The podcast has been archived and is now available here (right-click to download).
Click here for Seth Godin and Bryan Eisenberg
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Written by:The Grok
This Year in Blogs: The Definitive Marketing Posts of 2007
2007 was the year “blog” became an everyday word. Only twelve months ago, blogs was seen as a fad that maybe, in a few more years, might be seen as credible by the masses.
Oh, how quickly things change. Blogs have taken over, creating a feedback loop between journalists and readers, businesses and customers, you name it — conversation has officially changed the game.
While this may not represent all of the year’s best marketing bloggery, it’s a start. Are there posts by other bloggers you’d like to see on here? Let us know with a brief comment and (so long as it fits) we’ll add your suggestion to the list. Enjoy!
December
“Best of 2007: Top 7 Tech News Stories” — Mashable (The top tech posts from the Mashable.com team.)
“2007 Brand Autopsy Marketing Book Awards” by John Moore, Brand Autopsy (Find out which books John thought were made to stick, so to say, in ‘07.)
“The Cosmo Headline Technique for Blogging Inspiration” by Brian Clark, Copyblogger (Shows how to spin brilliantly trashy headlines into useful attention-grabbers, e.g., “Headline Help: Crucial Tips That Brian Clark Forgot to Mention” [Hint: It’s not just for bloggers.])
November
“The Blogger’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization” by Aaron & Giovanna Wall, SEO Book (It’s quickly becoming the go-to resource for blog SEO.)
“Who Owns Your Data on Google, Facebook, Netflix?” by Don Dodge, The Next Big Thing (One of the year’s top debates, nicely distilled in a simple response to Jason Calacanis, Doc Searls, and Dave Winer.)
“Amazon Sets eBook World Alight with Kindle” by Richard MacManus, Read/Write Web (Review of a clunky internet-connected e-book reader. Will it catch fire or burn up?)
“Google’s Android Arrives . . . An Open Source Mobile Phone Platform” by Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s not a Google Phone, but a mobile operating system.)
October
“Sorry PR people: you’re blocked” by Chris Anderson, The Long Tail (If you’re in PR or have ever considered emailing Wired Magazine’s editor-in-chief, or any other blogger/author/journalist, don’t do a thing until you read this appropriately scathing post.)
“Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet” — GrokDotCom (Resources for anyone who wants to communicate on the Web.)
“Radiohead’s In Rainbows: A Look at Anti-Marketing in the Music Industry” by Maki, DoshDosh (One band schools an entire industry on “the ROI of free,” but stumbles a bit in the process. Read our follow-up case study for more.)
September
“Dear Steve Jobs” by Robert Scoble, Scobleizer (Apple announces iPhone. Zealots and Geeks wait in lines for days. Sales are a bit slow for Jobs, so he drops the price. The blogosphere speaks up. Jobs listens.)
“Forget About Page Rank and Build a Better Blog” by Darren Rowse, ProBlogger (A terrific video post on why it’s important to put content first, then let search engines do their job. Optimization matters, but what you’re optimizing matters more.)
August
“Damn, I am so busted, yo” by Fake Steve, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs (One of our favorite satirist bloggers, Daniel “if-that-is-his-name” Lyons, gets outed by a New York Times writer whose name happens to be BRAD STONE.)
“Moving Day” by Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics (In a freak move, NYTimes.com picks up Dubner & Levitt’s popular blog, breathing new life into old media.)
“See Who’s Editing Wikipedia” by John Borland, Wired (A Cal Tech graduate student makes a program that allows us to see who’s editing wiki entries. You might be surprised. Read our follow-up post for more.)
“Answer These 10 Questions Before You Charge for SEO Services” by Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz (A must-read for all SEO firms and the people who hire them.)
July
“Will The Last Corporation Leaving Second Life Please Turn Off The Light” by Duncan Riley, TechCrunch (The L.A. Times talks about the pink elephant: Are businesses making money or even wooing fans in Second Life?)
“Sphinn: Our Social Site For Search & Internet Marketing Professionals” by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Danny and crew launch a cool, 2.0-ish social news service for SEO’s.)
“FreeBurner for Everyone” by Traci, Burning Questions (Google acquires yet another important company. David Dalka gives six reasons why the deal was a mistake.)
June
“Why I disagree with Privacy International” by Matt Cutts, Gadgets, Google, and SEO (Google gets poor grades on their privacy practices. Matt speaks out.)
“Ask Launches Ask3D” by Eric Enge, Search Engine Watch (The “first” major launch of universal search.)
“Building 43” by Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog (You can’t out-SEO the team behind Google’s algorithm.)
“If Clicks Were Votes” by Andrew Meagher, Compete blog (A fun double-header analysis that tries to infer what could happen to Democrats and Republicans in the ‘08 U.S. presidential election if Web traffic on its own actually mattered.)
May
“Google Maps is spying on my cat…” by Xeni Jardin, BoingBoing (Google Street Views takes some very revealing photos, backlash ensues.)
“New Version of Google Analytics!” by Jeff Gills, The Official Google Analytics Blog (Sparks go off as Google unveils its updated analytics solution. Impressive, but is it an enterprise solution?)
“Thank You for Helping Me Write The New Rules of Marketing & PR!” by David Meerman Scott, Web Ink Now (With one of the year’s best executed and most earnest linkbait posts, David proves why everyone should read his book. Thank YOU, sir!)
“The Movie is Finally Here,” by Geert, Bring Back the Love (Have advertisers lost that lovin’ feelin’? This short film shows why it’s time to bring it on back, now.)
[If video doesn’t load, click here.]
April
“Google beats Microsoft in DoubleClick bidding battle” by David Hunter, Microsoft News Tracker, (GoogleClick? They win another acquisition battle.)
“Google Website Optimizer Launches” by Robert Gorell, GrokDotCom (Now everyone can do A/B and Multivariate testing at zero cost. Want some free resources with that?)
“Video: RSS in Plain English” by Lee Lefever, Common Craft (Finally, someone shows how RSS really is simple.)
[If video doesn’t load, click here.]
March
“Viacom Sues YouTube for $1 Billion…The End of the Tube?” by Pete Cashmore, Mashable (If you can’t beat ‘em, sue ‘em? The great debate rages on.)
“Why Online Advertising Economics Are So Messed Up” by Scott Karp, Publishing 2.0 (Now that “page views” are dead, it’s time to take a look at the real problem. Just beware of those zombie metrics.)
“Taking the Week Off” by Robert Scoble, Scobleizer (After receiving horrible anonymous threats, Kathy Sierra, one of the world’s top bloggers, quits blogging. A regrettable chapter, indeed — but there was a silver lining. Ultimately, greater minds prevailed and the incident fueled a much-needed conversation about balancing professionalism with free speech in blogland.)
“10 Reasons Commenting is Good for Bloggers” by Chris Garrett, ChrisG.com (’Tis better to give than to receive. Here’s why.)
February
“Why People Hate SEO…” by Jason Calicanis, Calicanis.com (SEO is Bull? Although there are likely reasons why Jason would say such a thing, at least he got savvy search marketers to link to him and even challenge him back. Mahalo!)
“National Pork Board Goes After Breastfeeding Search Marketer” by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (The Pork Board shouldn’t whine about spilt milk, especially when it’s not their own.)
“7 Big Questions for Online Marketers” by Jeffrey Eisenberg, GrokDotCom (Everyone loves answers, but are you asking the right questions?)
January
“Steve’s Devices” by Nicholas Carr, Rough Type (The post that put the year of the iPhone in perspective, explaining its limitations and predicting, without saying as much, that 2008 will be the year of the open mobile platform. Oh, and Nick does this six months before the iPhone even launched.)
Did we miss something?
Probably. There were so many eye-opening blog posts this year that we need your help updating this list so that it is definitive — or close to it.
What were your favorite posts this year? Leave a comment and/or link to let us know.
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Written by:The Grok
eHarmony “Rejects” Find Better Loving Through Chemistry
Maybe you’ve seen the ads where the girl asks if it’s because she forgot to send her brother a birthday card, or the guy looks at a girlie mag to gauge his reaction and then proclaims, “Nope, still gay.” Bam goes the rubber stamp as eHarmony rejects two more of those one million poor souls looking for love in all the wrong places. A reassuring voice closes the ads, explaining that all us not-wanna-be singles can “come as you are” to Chemistry.com.
REJECTED! Ooof. How do you feel about being rejected?
I had one of those hey-what-am-I-chopped-liver experiences with eHarmony, too. They didn’t exactly send me a Dear John letter or stamp ‘Rejected’ across my torso, but they also didn’t find me any matches, which left me musing how there can be millions of people signed up with this service, and I don’t match up with a single one.
Money I paid. Months I waited. Then those harmonious match-makers told me they were going to suspend my account due to inactivity.
I shot them back a letter. “Give me a match, just one frigging match – even Outer Mongolia is looking good today - and I’ll show you activity!” They kept me on for another month, then dropped me again. I finally bagged eHarmony and wondered whether the planets were inauspiciously aligned for finding love that year. Or whether I was, indeed, chopped liver.
Talk about your failed relationships!
When you consider starting a new relationship, what do you worry about deep down? I’m worrying about…
- whether we’ll be able to understand and respect each other
- whether you are going to be able to acknowledge and accept who I am
- whether you really possess the attributes I’m looking for
- whether I’m going to put all this time into something and wind up with nothing
Most of all, I worry about putting myself on the line and then getting dealt with badly. Rejected. Abandoned. Betrayed. These are the terrible consequences we all fear in any relationship.
This doesn’t apply solely to romance-based relationships; it applies to almost all the relationships in our lives, including customer/business relationships. Businesses usually begin this relationship through their marketing messages.
eHarmony advertising focuses on the relationship you’ll have when you meet Mr or Ms Right. In The Black Table, Joel Keller writes,
But those ads… those freakin’ ads! Commercial after commercial of deliriously blissful men and women embracing, kissing, and smiling longingly at each other. Testimonials up the wazoo that show how wonderful and strong the matches are between people who have signed up. It’s all so lovey-dovey and sweet that my butt clenches involuntarily while listening to them.
(If video doesn’t load, click here.)
But eHarmony seems to gloss over the part detailing how you and they are going to work together to make this happen, over the relationship they will develop with you. And this is the marketing piece that is crucial to their customers’ felt needs. As Joel Keller explains it,
Many people who have used eHarmony, … which matches people using a psychological survey that measures, in their words, “29 dimensions of compatibility,” haven’t been so lucky. Some have been matched up with people that took the survey but never signed up and paid for the service. Others have been deemed to be compatible with people that weren’t looking for a commitment or a person with whom they had little in common. Still others have been connected to people that they wouldn’t even be attracted to in the dark.
This is a failed relationship!
It’s all about the felt need
When it comes to matchmaking, people want to find friendship, maybe love, maybe a permanent relationship, maybe merely the opportunity for casual flings. But before they start to address that felt need, they have to deal with the felt needs of their deepest fears: rejection, abandonment and betrayal. This is hardly confined to potential matches; it applies equally to the matchmakers themselves.
Chemistry.com gets it. They address this need first: We do not believe you are chopped liver. Then, through their online entity, they go about growing their relationship with you.
[Note: Compare Chemistry’s home page with eHarmony’s home page. The primary call to action on both sites is getting the customer to supply information and get started. But which of these home pages offers clear, intuitive ways to learn about the business itself? Big tabs on Chemistry, plus some forums and articles. Tiny links buried in the No Man’s Land of screen real estate on eHarmony. This should be a big relationship red flag!]
At the end of the day, you are in the business of creating relationships. And if you want those relationships to grow beyond the carrot of promise you dangle before the eyes of your audience, then you have to work at it. My mother always told me, “You want to learn who a person really is? Pay a lot less attention to what they say and a lot more attention to what they do.” Warm-fuzzy language may capture attention, but it’s dependable action that cements relationships.
Sadly for eHarmony, there’s a fair chunk of blog-space given over to what they do, and it isn’t positive. Let’s face it. Divorce is almost always an exercise in smearing lots of bad blood all over the shop. You so don’t want to go there with your customers!
Dig deep into the concerns your customers bring to the table when they consider doing business with you. Identify their deepest concerns when they are deciding if you are the business for them.
Will you really understand their needs in the relationship they hope to develop with you?
Are you really going to accept them for who they are and speak to that, not only in your sales process but also their buying process?
Will you deliver on your promise to value them and go the distance on their behalf?
Address these issues in your marketing messages. And remember, your marketing messages are only simpering smiles if you can’t treat your customers honestly in the follow-through!
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Written by:The Grok
Web Analytics Association 2008 Industry Survey
This just in from the WAA:
Help uncover the future of the web analytics industry while gaining valuable insight at the same time. It’s easy. Answer the questions in this groundbreaking survey: Web Analytics Association Survey: Outlook 2008. We’ll send you an invitation to the results webcast in January 2008, and provide you with a complimentary survey report.
How are other organizations like yours using web analytics as a function in their business? What are the pressing issues, and the top concerns? Now is your chance to find out answers to these questions and more!
So take part in this unique survey for the industry by the industry. It will take just a few minutes of your time, and it just might give you the answers you need to make more informed decisions in the coming year.
If you’d like to see the analytics industry shape up for the new year, don’t be shy, take the survey!
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Written by:The Grok
