Author Archive
Are Your Analytics Reports Breaking News or Listing Facts?
I have a friend who works in the online marketing department for a multi-million-dollar clothing retailer in Canada. Because they’re still stuck in the dark ages and don’t yet have an online store, the company’s web marketing team consists of four people.
A week ago, my friend called me to ask, “What’s the industry average time spent on a site?” Her boss asked her to find out because she was doing a presentation to the marketing team and would be attempting to describe what was happening on their website.
My friend was looking at her analytics reports, assuming they should be reporting metrics like “time spent”, but she couldn’t give me any explanation as to why they were measuring certain things or how it all fit together. This marketing team had no idea what their analytics were trying to tell them.
Sound familiar? Whether or not we care to admit it, this problem is all too common. By themselves, the facts can be deceiving. If the facts don’t fit into a larger story line, they’re meaningless. Just because something happened, that doesn’t make it newsworthy. That’s why…
Marketers should think like news editors.
Your web analytics program works for you, not the other way around. It’s the news wire that serves your staff of reporters and, as editor-in-chief, it’s your job to decide which stories are most important.
There are two types of approaches to web analytics reporting:
• The beat reporter reliably follows the same story from day-to-day. If you tell the beat reporter to follow “time spent”, she will diligently explain where visitors spent the most time, how much time they spent overall, and how much time they spent today versus yesterday, last month, last year, and so on.
• The investigative reporter tries to find the meat of the story; to get the bottom of what truly matters. If you tell the investigative reporter to follow the “time spent” story, she’ll start to ask big picture questions. She’ll want to know why time spent matters, how it relates to your other metrics, whether “time spent” means one thing on one page and something very different on another, and whether it even matters if visitors are spending more — or less — time on your site verses the competition’s. She even wonders if this whole “time spent” thing is really a distraction. She doesn’t want to spend her time chasing false leads.
Like other default metrics, average time spent tells us nothing on its own. The company that my friend works for has over a thousand employees. Most of the staff in their home office and brick-and-mortar stores use computers every day, and many of them likely have their browser set up to go directly to the company’s homepage automatically. Each day, a large amount of their traffic probably comes from employees, not potential customers. If this is the case, the average time spent on their site tells them very little about the customer experience on their website, because employees’ time spent would skew this number. Likewise, the traffic sources would be skewed and the average page views and bounce rates from the landing page would also be skewed.
Don’t use your analytics tool just to report the facts. Become an investigative reporter. For each piece of information you find, ask yourself why it matters. Ask how the metrics tie together. Most importantly, ask yourself how the web metrics you report on tie into your overall business goals.
That’s how reporters break news.
. .
About the Author: Melissa Burdon is an investigative reporter (or Persuasion Analyst) at FutureNow. She’s also a recovering Canadian. Oh, and it’s her birthday.
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
Stop Paying for Bad Keywords in Three Steps
Web analytics reports can be deceiving. They’re great at showing you WHAT visitors did on your website, but they can’t tell you WHY they didn’t do what you hoped they would.
But with the right process and frame of mind, it is possible to use web analytics to get insight into “why” your traffic isn’t converting — especially if you do pay per click advertising.
Here are some ideas for attracting more targeted traffic in order to get higher conversion rates and a much better return on pay-per-click (PPC) spend.
One
• Look at your top traffic-driving keywords (PPC and organic).
Are they highly relevant to the industry you’re in and the products you sell? Do these keywords clearly indicate that the searcher has a motivation to find your solution to their problem? Some keywords may have double meanings and could suggest that the visitor had a completely different search intent than expected. Someone searching “training videos” might actually be looking for “workout training videos,” “management training videos,” or a variety of other things. If the traffic from these fuzzy keywords is converting poorly, don’t be surprised. Stop buying and doing search engine optimization (SEO) for ambiguous keywords. The ultimate goal should be to figure out which key phrases specifically relate to your industry, product or service, and do some PPC and/or SEO to get listed for more relevant keywords.
Two
• Don’t play the generic keyword game.
It both difficult and expensive to get traffic from the most generic keywords in one’s industry. Such keywords are much more competitive in the search engines. You pay more for text ads and it takes a lot of SEO effort in order to get listed organically for these keywords. A lot of these single-word keywords are really only attracting early-stage visitors who are not necessarily ready to buy, anyway! If I’m searching for “purses,” I probably haven’t yet decided on a brand or a style of purse and it could take me a lot longer to convert. When I search for “white Chanel purse,” though, you can be fairly certain I’m ready to buy. Focusing on phrases that are tailored to your product or service is what people really mean when they talk about “long tail keywords” [define] — and often it’s the difference between having visitors who are ready to learn and ones who are ready to buy.
Three
• Speak the customer’s language, not your own.
Sometimes, marketers get so focused on their own sales process that they convince themselves that would-be customers actually care about the words they use to describe their own products and services. When someone is searching for a solution to their problem, they enter search terms that sometimes don’t match up with what the company thinks people should be searching for.
Are you buying traffic for keywords that mean something to you but mean precious little to your customers? We’ve all done it before. Even brilliant marketers can assume that customers will think and behave as they do. This is what we like to call “Inside-the-Bottle Syndrome.” Although contagious, it is curable, but your web analytics reports alone can’t diagnose you.
Let us know if you’d like to optimize paid search from the customer’s perspective.
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
Why Free Web Tools Make Customers Want to BUY NOW
Makeup is like deodorant to me. I would rather not think about it — ever — and I only wear it because I have to.
I don’t know makeup brands or colors, and I don’t care enough to research what makeup would be right for me. Usually, my need for makeup only results in a purchase if a friend recommends something specific, or when I run out of an essential piece, like mascara. Then I’m found sprinting to the local pharmacy to pick one that looks decent.
How do you look for people who aren’t looking for your product? Anticipate their need.
Search engine marketing is a great platform for gaining the attention of those who already have some kind of motivation, need or want for a particular solution. It’s much more difficult to get the attention of people who don’t currently need or want whatever it is you sell.
Historically, the most common forms of online marketing tactics used to gain the attention of potential customers have been pay-per-click advertising, banner ads and email marketing. But today’s customers are ignoring unwanted marketing efforts, so our tactics can easily fall flat. In order to get a higher return on investment, marketers need to find new ways to speak to customers and help them figure out what they want.
How do you speak to potential customers when they aren’t listening? Find out when and where they’re listening and provide an experience that fuels demand for your solution.
Social networking sites are growing by the second and people are looking for more interactivity and experiences online. TAAZ.com captured my attention by first offering me an interactive experience.
First, I uploaded a picture of myself without makeup:
Then I proceeded to add different eye shadows, lip liners, mascaras, etc. Each shade or style that I chose was a real product color and brand. The quality of the widget impressed me, so I spent a good deal of time uploading the image of myself and messing around with different styles and colors.
Apparently, I was going for the Cindy Lauper look!
Not a bad look, I know, but I digress. 
Eventually, I played around with some shades I would have never even thought of purchasing and realised that some of them actually didn’t look too bad on me. Not only could I interact with different colors and brands of makeup, I could actually see what they looked like on me without ever trying it on.
There are some things TAAZ still needs to work on. The hair portion of the widget doesn’t look as real as the makeup portion. They don’t yet offer hair dyes relating to the color of hair you choose to place on your image.
I could go on, but suffice it to say, the look I ended up with…
…didn’t exactly measure up to their best makeovers. Still, this is a smart way to attract ad dollars from cosmetics brands like Revlon (pictured) and Sephora (which currently has banners on the site).
There’s also a great opportunity here to push the business model further. For instance, TAAZ could create a Facebook widget so users could share their makeovers amongst friends. They could get one of their advertisers to sponsor a “best makeover” competition. You get the idea.
In case you haven’t heard us talk about “The ROI of Free,” here’s what we mean: If you want to gain the attention of potential customers who aren’t actively searching for the solutions you offer, don’t just tell them about your solution, give them a way to interact without having to commit to anything. Bring the visitor into the experience and let the experience sell itself.
What are some interactive marketing examples you’ve seen have turned you into a sale or lead?
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
Don’t Hose the Canadians! (Our Dollars Are Equal Now.)
We Canadians already have a bit of a complex due to the fact that the rest of the world seems to lump us together with the U.S., calling them our big brother. Canadians are sick of being treated like leftovers. So, when certain North American companies leave us (and other international visitors) out of the loop by making it difficult to buy from their websites, they’re losing sales and annoying would-be customers like me.
It’s time for U.S. companies to consistently treat international customers the same way that they treat their compatriots online.
An experience that one of the attendees of our recent Persuasive Online Copywriting seminar shared with us demonstrates the frustrations Canadians face when shopping online: Bill was attempting to purchase a Northwest Airlines flight at NWA.com, so his son could attend a communications workshop in Austin. After going through the process of choosing his flight, seat, and entering his name and credit card information, he realized Northwest’s website had something against foreigners.
In what normally would have been a confirmation email (see thumbnail image), Bill was rejected. He was informed that if he does not have a U.S. billing address, his order wouldn’t be processed. Instead, he would need to go through a long list of bizarre, counterintuitive instructions on how to give them money.
Instead of booking on the homepage…
…he would have to click the “Reservation Center” drop-down menu on the top navigation, then click “Shop for Flights.”
Is there any way he would have figured this out on his own? And if international booking is such an issue, why don’t they just say so right away, or at least offer the same toggle button say that you’re not a U.S. resident on the homepage?
This is just one example of many. I’ve personally encountered countless situations just like this.
Do any of you Canadian or international readers out there prefer not doing business with U.S. companies because of experiences like these?
[Editor’s Note: For the sake of transparency, and because we don’t want to seem too cool for school, let it be known that we at Future Now have been, at times, just as guilty of cultural bias as other U.S. businesses. Although many of our Canadian friends, clients, readers, and (in Melissa’s case) colleagues know we love our neighbo(u)rs to the north, we have occasionally and regrettably missed out on international business. You can read the comments on Melissa’s last post for details. As always, the first step toward recovery is admitting you have a problem. ]
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
7 Tips for Boosting Web Form Conversions
Whether your site is lead-generation or retail, you probably have a form somewhere. Here are some basic things you can do to optimize your forms.
1. Indicate which fields are required by using asterisks next to these required fields. Ask yourself if the non-required fields offer enough value. If they don’t, remove them from the form. This could potentially make all fields a requirement — and if that’s the case, the asterisks would be overkill — which brings us to our next point.
2. Only have them fill in required fields. Asking for too much information on a web form is like proposing marriage on the first date. We would all like to know our customer’s age, work title, phone number and address, but if you don’t absolutely need it, then remove it from the form. This will make the form shorter and less likely to frustrate the impatient, fast-paced visitor who may not feel comfortable exposing their personal info. Don’t let this be the reason why visitors are dropping off.
3. Clarify what you expect them to do. Doostang gives the visitor a dialog bubble explaining each field when the visitor clicks to fill out a field. This removes any potential confusion as to what information is being requested and could lead to a reduction in errors taking place if a field is filled out incorrectly.
4. Offer reassurances when asking for personal information. Your visitors are concerned about privacy and security issues. You can offer a link to a privacy and security page so that the visitor can click to read and gain confidence.
5. Clearly state what the visitor will get by filling out the form, and do it at the very beginning of the page. Tell them what the benefits are. There should be no question as to what they’ll expect once they fill the form out.
6. Don’t ask people to submit. Call to action buttons should clearly state the action they’re about to take. Use colors and shading that make the button stand out effectively and, please, try to not use the word “submit” — it’s generic and misleading geek-speak.
7. Offer contact information somewhere on this page and/or in the top-right corner of the site (on every page). Give the visitor a phone number and a “Contact Us” link. If they don’t feel comfortable filling out the form, persuade them to call and speak with you directly.
Do you have any other suggestions to add to this list?
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
Why I Nearly Flaked on the Season Pass
Last winter, when I made my temporary move to Salt Lake City, I started researching the local ski resorts. The mountains surrounding the city are known for having some of the world’s biggest and lightest powder snow. I was convinced by the customer reviews I’d read online that were written by local ski bums from Utah.
Time and again, I read and heard reviews about the Snowbird resort having some of the most challenging terrain, coated by the area’s best powder. So when I finally got a chance to ski Snowbird’s Cottonwood Canyons trails for myself, I quickly turned into a raving Snowbird fan.
I was set on getting a season’s pass for the this year. And after reading reviews like this one from CitySearch, my excitement about the upcoming ski season reached fever pitch:
Depending on the characteristics of — or our level of attachment to — the must-have thing du jour, we all buy in different buying modes to match our feelings about it. I typically purchase commodities in a more Spontaneous mode, but I take my ski season very seriously, and my search for a good deal on a Snowbird pass turned into a Methodical review of various resources to find the ultimate deal. I took my time and I read everything I could before I pounced.
Although I knew I wanted a season’s pass, I had a hard time justifying the steep price Snowbird was asking ($1,149). If the season let me down with only a few big snow days, I could be kicking myself for risking that much money.
As the summer came to a close, I got a little anxious about my upcoming purchase. Around this time, I heard a radio ad about “Sniagrab,” an annual sale run by the Sports Authority a local sporting goods chain called Canyon Sports. They were offering discount season’s passes to Snowbird. I don’t recall them specifying a sale closing date, but when I called Canyon Sports (shortly after hearing the ad), I was let down when I heard I’d missed the sale by one day. Maybe it’s my fault that I missed their sale, but the ad was vague and I had still acted quickly. It made me feel stupid — as dumb as that sounds.
Chances are you won’t catch me in a Canyon Sports any day soon.*
Unwilling to give up my quest for a deal, I searched for “snowbird seasons pass” at Craigslist. Believe it or not, there was a woman who posted a 10-day pass because she’d recently broken a bone and wouldn’t be skiing this season. She was selling it at a discount because she obviously needed to give the buyer an incentive to purchase from her, rather than go directly to the source. But since I was planning on skiing more than 10 days, I continued my search.
I sent an email to my local friends, asking if any of them had a connection to help me out. To my delight, I received a reply from a snowboarding friend. He encouraged me to join the Velocity Sports club in order to get a discount at Snowbird. Velocity’s an exclusive club, so in order for me to join, my friend had to sponsor me. He was only allowed to sponsor one person annually. There was also a $40 membership fee that I had to pay upfront. I signed up and paid my dues but this still didn’t guarantee me a discounted season’s pass. Before I had a shot at one, they made a limited promotion available to existing members who have been members for over a year. So I waited and waited for a reply.
After two weeks without a reply, I sent them a follow-up email. They told me I would hear back from them in a couple of weeks. When three more weeks passed without a reply, I decided to email again. That same day, I received a phone call from Velocity Sports, telling me that the promotion was now open to me but I had only two days to take action.It’s a good thing I didn’t miss the promotion (like I had with the Canyon Sports promo). It would’ve been nice to have gotten periodic updates from Velocity about the promotion. Then again, maybe I would have never even heard from them had I not been really good at nagging! Regardless, they came through for me in a big way, and I got my season’s pass for $799; a $310 savings (after membership fee) over buying directly from Snowbird.
No matter where they decide to buy a product, 64% of customers regularly do their research online before they go for it. In this case, there were a few multi-channel influencers (i.e., the radio ad, craigslist, Snowbird.com) in my buying decision process, but only the consumer-generated media (i.e, the customer reviews and word-of-mouth) had a positive influence on where I actually bought the thing.
The bottom line: It seems the local skiing/snowboarding community is more involved in finding and offering good deals for Snowbird customers than Snowbird is itself.
What do you think? Am I just griping, or should Snowbird consider being more involved in the community in order to better harness their marketing potential?
[Editor’s Note: See comments below. Our sincere apologies go out to everyone at Canyon Sports. Although it seems the Sports Authority chain — not Canyon Sports — has the Sniagrab Sale, there’s too much confusion about who Melissa called. Did she call Canyon Sports, and they answered her about a different sale that just ended? Who knows? Still, it seems there’s a whole lot of ski marketing fog to break through in Utah. Either that, or Melissa needs to stop multi-taking when she drives. 
]
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
Warren Miller Loses His Edge Online
What if you had a business where you had a loyal and engaged community of fans, where people were dying to say good things about your brand, but you decided it wasn’t so important to cash in. How would this strategy work for your business? (Let me know how that works out for you.)
If you’re an avid skier who lives in North America, like me, you’ve probably seen a Warren Miller film. He was one of the first to harness ski culture enthusiasm for commercial purposes — way before the Internet.
For years, I’ve been a big fan. I hadn’t seen any advertising for this year’s Warren Miller film, but — knowing that it just wouldn’t be a ski season without one — I was proactive about not missing a second year in a row. I don’t watch much television and I rarely listen to the radio, so unless I’m lucky enough to see an ad for the film, it’s easy to forget. Luckily, I went online to see when and where his film would be featured and was able to buy my tickets directly from his site.
Warren Miller’s loyal fans are passionate about skiing and snowboarding. His crowd acts differently than most moviegoers. It’s a bonding experience between strangers who are all there for the same purpose; they’re looking for an adrenaline hit from powdery, snow-covered mountains. Everyone is very vocal and outwardly excited, sharing the experience that gets them stoked for the upcoming season.
Still, I’m left scratching my head. Why didn’t they collect my email address when I purchased my ticket online? Had they specifically told me that they’re collecting my information in order to inform me when next year’s film will be released, I would’ve been perfectly happy to cough up my email address. After all, I would rather not have to think about when the Warren Miller flick is playing next year. They would be doing me a favor by telling me when and where it’s playing in my area, and just letting me click to purchase directly from an email.
Something I found interesting at this year’s film was that the majority of attendees had pre-purchased their tickets. In fact, there was hardly anyone purchasing tickets at the box office. Each year, and at every screening, the audience receives a free (or discount) ski pass to the local resort. But this year, the tickets weren’t handed out at the event. Instead, the audience was given a piece of paper with a ticket number where they were asked to go online to redeem their free pass.
Wouldn’t this be the ideal opportunity for the Warren Miller team to collect email addresses with the sole purpose of nurturing their loyal customers?
By the way, the film rocked! It wasn’t the best year ever, but it definitely pumped me up for what’s ahead this winter. After seeing the flick last week, I purchased my season pass at my local ski resort. I may even want to purchase the DVD when it comes out. Too bad they didn’t collect my information. I’ll probably forget about the DVD and I probably won’t be proactive enough to buy it later on when I’m skiing (read: not just daydreaming about skiing). If I received an email about it when it comes out, chances are they would make another sale. This is why it’s often a good idea to ask for an email address after you’ve made the sale.
Oh well. Maybe they’ll catch on next year.
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
Are You Giving Visitors the Bait-and-Switch?
Website visitors are impatient. They have high expectations. Since options are abundant, they’re in control. They hold the power. If your visitors open their circle of trust because you engage them with persuasive copy or links, you have a limited opportunity to meet exceed their expectations.
Each click represents an expectation. The visitor expects that this scent will follow through to the next page, and that she’ll be brought to a page that specifically offers the experience she was promised. When there’s a disconnect and her expectations aren’t met, the visitor is unimpressed — and usually frustrated.
Kelly Mooney expresses her frustration when she was mislead by Williams-Sonoma into believing she would experience the Fall Decorating Guide (please click the thumbnail to see the email she received). And after reading “View tips on confident collecting, elegant entertaining and our tips for style stand-outs,” what would you expect? Most likely, you’d expect “tips on confident collecting, elegant entertaining” and the like, right?
So, she clicks and sees the Fall Decorating Guide, but there’s no continuation of scent (define). Kelly’s left frustrated because she was told one thing in order to bait her into clicking, and the following page didn’t follow through on that promise.
What images are conjured in a visitor’s mind when they read the word “Guide”?
Do you think they expect to see a list of products you’re trying to sell, or do you think they expected to find information that would give them direction to decorate for the fall? Not just some 60-or-so words, right?
In Bryan Eisenberg’s article “There is No Egg in Eggplant,” he writes: “The key to constructing effective mental images and creating powerful persuasive copy lies in systematic and coherent intentionality.” In other words, you only achieve your goals by first helping your visitors achieve theirs.
Kelly may easily have been persuaded to purchase some of the products listed at Willaims-Sonoma, but first she needed the guidance to decorating for the Fall. Of course the appropriate products would have been integrated into the content of the guide. She’d have expected as much. But did they really expect her to be content without content?
The moral of this story: If you’re only going to guide visitors to the checkout line, you might as well tell your brick-and-mortar store employees not to talk to customers either. At least then, there would be some consistency in the experience.
[Editor’s Note: Join Melissa tomorrow, September 12th, from 12 - 1pm EST (9 - 10am PST) for a free webinar on “7 Simple Ways to Boost Your Holiday Conversion Rate.”]
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
Van Gogh on Creating Magical Web Content
Vincent Van Gogh painted his ‘Starry Night’ in 1889 while in an Asylum at Saint-Remy.
Vince’s painting has affected millions. It’s one of the best known images in modern culture. It’s inspired songs such as Don McLean’s “Starry Starry Night” and is one of the most replicated prints. The painting has a magnetic appeal, engaging the reader by drawing them into its world.
I say “reader” rather than viewer because this image is a perfect example of how an image SPEAKS a thousand words in an instant, emotional impact.
In the past decade, the online marketing industry has been known to echo the phrase “Content is king”. Great content — and equally good layout — is key to helping your visitors successfully find what they’re looking for. The content that’s king to search engines is the copy on a website, but the content that’s king to visitors is a balanced mixture of copy and images.
The images on a site help to create a face for the organization. The emotional visitor is engaged by pictures of friendly employees and clients. Logical visitors, meanwhile, look for images of competent executives — sorry, but handshake clip art won’t do — as well as product images that clearly describe every feature, using different angles and environments.
As a professional model, I get to see how my image is used to promote and communicate their products. As an online conversion and persuasion analyst, I see how clients use words and images to communicate their products and services. Too often, clients are missing some of Van Gogh’s magic brew that could radically improve their conversion results.
As website visitors become more exposed and sophisticated, they become more demanding. This means you’d better have ALL your words and images working in sync to persuade your visitors that they are in the right place.
The images most websites feature aren’t magnetic and powerful; they don’t speak to the visitor. Ask yourself what your images are saying and if they’re saying the right things. Are you conveying the “feel” of your company and products so the visitor really knows what they’ll experience when they buy from you?
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
Are Your Visitors Searching for Your Products?
I grocery shop once a week and, although I’m never without my grocery list, there are always impulse items I buy for various reasons. There are also those items on my list that I simply have never thought of purchasing online instead of at the grocery store; cleaning products, bath towels and light bulbs, for instance.
Now, I’m big on environmentally friendly products and I recycle as much as humanly possible, so I’d easily be attracted to a product such as biodegradable window/glass cleaner. The issue is that I’d never think of searching for this product online and I probably wouldn’t even think about searching for that specific type of product at the grocery store. Still, I’d easily be sold on the stuff if it were effectively placed within my path while shopping.
Let’s say you sell biodegradable window/glass cleaner online. There will only be a small number of individuals searching specifically for the product, or even generically by categories such as such as “environmentally friendly cleaning products.” On the other hand, you’ll attract far more targeted traffic by advertising on ‘green community’ blogs or message boards, or doing some banner advertising on industry-related (in this case “eco-friendly”) websites.
If your website offers a commodity that’s more likely to be purchased offline, you should always be looking for new places and ways to interact with potential customers. That’s how to get the targeted traffic you might otherwise not get through search.
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
