You may not be conscious of this, but the holidays produce a timed-sale effect for almost all e-commerce websites, and even some lead-gen sites selling/promoting products or services.  The approach of the holiday acts like the same kind of purchasing deadline that a timed sale has.  It pushes people toward a later stage of buying more quickly, forcing them to dig for answers to their early and middle stage questions and concerns, and make a decision before the deadline…

...continue to read "Delight Customers: Pre-empt Holiday Ordering Questions"

Ever since Brendan Regan’s January post featuring an example of effective use of tone in email marketing, I have paid close attention to the tone of the emails I get from companies. With the holidays upon us, I have had plenty of opportunities to critique email tone. One email I received stood out from the pack, and not in a good way. It was a confirmation for an online order from Moosejaw, a distributor of outdoor sportswear and gear. Its…

...continue to read "The Balancing Act of Email Content and Tone"

Many online retailers have an endless stream of gimmicks and promotions to hook the customer. But sometimes all you need is a little good word of mouth to help you gain the advantage.

Recently, my friends and I began seeing Lands’ End Canvas free shipping coupons in popular magazines. Intrigued by the possibility of a new line from this brand known for quality, and drawn in by the promotion, we went to their site and began to peruse their inventory.

After a…

...continue to read "True Customer Care Pays Dividends"

Surprise is the foundation of delight and the beginning of persuasion.

–Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads

Today’s post is about how the element of surprise can be leveraged to optimize the conversion rate of your marketing efforts. We’ve written about the science of surprise before, but today we are going to talk about the best areas of your website to focus on testing this approach.  The Web is too often a place of “me-too” marketing tactics and “late entrant” companies who…

...continue to read "Surprise Your Way to an Optimized Conversion Rate"

I had an interesting testing experience with one of my clients recently.  After looking closely at the data, I formed my hypothesis, and made a recommendation for a variation to test…and it underperformed the original version!  I was WRONG!

Now, I don’t expect to be right with every test (in fact, that’s WHY testing is so important), but my hypotheses are based on real data with a strong analysis behind them…and I have never been THIS wrong.  Was…

...continue to read "Conversion Optimization: How Being Wrong Can Lead to Good Insights"

FutureNow is not a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm.  I am not an SEO practitioner.  So why blog about it?  Because there still seems to be misunderstanding out there in the online marketing world about how SEO does, or doesn’t, fit into a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) strategy.

For some background, you can read Melissa Burdon’s post from over 3 years ago about the “battle” between SEO and conversion.  Still a completely valid and valuable post today! Another…

...continue to read "What Are the Overlaps Between CRO and SEO?"

Ahhhhh, yes… those ever-so-compelling customer rewards and points.  In addition to discounts and freebies, many companies now offer points as a system of rewards for their customers and clients.  While I’m all for getting an extra 10% off my next pair of shoes, or $15 dollars off my next purchase of $150 (or more), I believe that if you really want to reward your visitors, make it easy for them to redeem these special bonuses.  If…

...continue to read "When Customer Reward Programs Backfire"

I was just recently married and moved to a new state not too long after the wedding.  Thankfully, rather than receiving gifts from friends and family, my husband and I received a slew of gift cards, the majority of which were to Target.com.  After moving in to a relatively bare apartment, we happily went to our local Target store in order to cash in.  Already familiar with the Target brand, and having a pretty good idea of…

...continue to read "We Converted Online, But Only Because It Was Free"

My best girlfriend, Brittany was searching online for an apartment in Salt Lake City last week. She told me about her frustrating experience with Rent.com. I want to share her experience with you, to show you what NOT do on your site. This is a perfect example of a reputable company, getting a boat load of qualified traffic, who may be losing out on a lot of leads because some visitors are hesitant to enter personal information, as the first…

...continue to read "Avoid Asking for the Lead Too Early"

The core of FutureNow’s service offering is helping clients persuade their visitors to move from one stage in their buying process to the next, to ultimately convert more visitors into customers.  One common question we get from B2B marketers is how to design marketing efforts that “graduate” their prospects from one stage of their buying process to the next.

If you’re familiar with FutureNow’s process or are a frequent grok reader, you’ll already know that our process involves not only designing…

...continue to read "Graduating Prospects: Getting the Most Out of Your Customer Information Form"