This week I created a new Facebook account. Having made my original Facebook account at the age of 17, and it following me through my college years, I feared the impression professional contacts would get from my pictures, status updates and wall posts from friends. Not that I was the most rebellious girl in the pack, but I doubted that my boss needed to be updated every time my best friends wrote an inside joke on my wall or posted…

...continue to read "The Social Network Debate: Separation of Professional and Play"

This year, 45% of Americans made a new year’s resolution to lose weight. And, of these people, there are two different approaches to improvement.

1. The crash diet, where you could loose a bunch of weight in a short period of time (and then usually put it right back on, plus some).

2. Or, make a lifestyle change and commitment to eating healthy and getting physical exercise, which will cause the weight to come off more slowly but at a commitment level that you…

...continue to read "Improving Conversions: Crash Diet vs. Lifestyle Change"

I’ve spoken to many people recently who have grown increasingly frustrated with the either drop or stagnant state of their conversion rate during this recession, and after listening to their problems I ask two questions:

1. When did you first begin to notice this drop/plateau in your conversion rate?

2. What have you done to try and fix/improve your conversion rate?

And, 9 times out of 10 the responses I hear are along the lines of “I began to notice a drop at…

...continue to read "Still Waiting for the Conversion Fairy to Come?"

Converting first time visitors are a must if you want to succeed in uncertain economy.  They’re also often times pretty expensive to convert into sales. Join FutureNow’s co-founder and best selling author, Bryan Eisenberg as he teams up with the Sitebrand team to help you tackle the issue head on…

Most of the time, first time visitors are the largest underperforming segment of your traffic, representing on average 60 to 80 percent of all visitors, with a conversion rate significantly lower than…

...continue to read "Webinar: Your Website and First Time Visitors…Friend or Foe?"

Future Now’s will be presenting our “Call to Action” workshops this October at two locations! This workshop is meant for those looking to learn how to improve their online conversation rates and is based on the bestselling book by Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg.

The first opportunity to see it is at the Direct Marketing Association’s Flagship Event, DMA08 Conference & exhibition – being held October 11 – 16 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas.

There is even a $150…

...continue to read "FutureNow presents “Call To Action” in October"

When creating your ideal customer profile, few companies would include the age range of 13-21 year-olds, but a new study conducted by Doubleclick Performics and ROI Research might persuade you otherwise.

Children as young as 8 years-old are not just using the internet to chat with their friends on AIM or email grandma – they’re shopping online. According to the study:

“Four out of 10 responding young consumers said they used search to learn about products or services after seeing ads. Many said…

...continue to read "Kid’s Purchasing Power"

FutureNow’s co-founder Bryan Eisenberg, has been busy reviewing websites, preparing for his upcoming webinar with Elastic Path and his presentation at NYU, and answering questions like these for CNNMoney.com, DuctTape Marketing and MarketingPilgrim.  Together with Tom Leung from Google, he has recorded two  “Always Be Testing” monthly webinars so far, the archived versions are now available. There are also a couple of more podcasts and interviews with others coming soon as well.

My favorite quote comes from his recent mention in the CNNMoney.com article,�…

...continue to read "Ask Bryan Eisenberg + Free Website Reviews"

Did you know that there’s a cool tool called Social History that will estimate your gender based on your browser URL history?

My favorite feature of this tool is how it breaks down by percentage how much of each genders’ browsing habits you exhibit, and correlates them to the results you receive. I cleared my browsing history and visited, what I though to be, a range of sites. Here are my results:

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 54% Likelihood of you…

...continue to read "Estimating Gender"

After my last post, I came across this error message and thought it exemplified all the qualities that a noticeable error message should exhibit.

1. It’s in a contrasting color (I know on our last conversation red was discussed and is used here, but if your site’s overall color-scheme is red it will not be effective at catching your customer’s attention).

2. It’s located in a place that the customer is already looking. By placing the error message where your customers last…

...continue to read "Noticeable Errors"

Ever wonder what happens when you watch your customers put loads of merchandise in their shopping cart; spend a significant amount of time on your site and then all of a sudden abandon it?

Ever get frustrated that they didn’t utilize the wish list tool? Your online shoppers may be falling into the “add and abandon” method of online shopping.

There are 3 core reasons people don’t utilize your wish list.

1.    Sites often require you to…

...continue to read "Preventing the Add-and-Abandon; Making a more user-friendly wish list"