As weird as it sounds, it’s the norm for businesses with sales cycles that might be as long as several months to a year and that might involve multiple decision makers and influencers to utterly fail to take these factors into consideration when constructing their website or selecting an analytics package.

In fact, whenever I work with B2B and complex sales clients it’s a sure bet their website won’t:

1) Adequately address the multiple decision-makers and influencers involved in securing the lead…

...continue to read "Can your Website Handle the Complexity of your Sale?"

Last week, I had the pleasure to record this webinar with my good friend Craig Danuloff, CEO of ClickEquations. Some of you may remember Craig from the webinar we did a couple of months ago on Google’s Quality Score: Exposing the Secret Factor to PPC Success. I asked Craig to explain to us the details behind his much anticipated e-book on maximizing Pay Per Click marketing, and he was kind enough to take the time out of his schedule.

We were…

...continue to read "Free Pre-recorded High Resolution PPC Webinar"

As part of my Texas Tech series, I’ve been corresponding with West Texas entrepreneur and football fanatic (sorry for the redundancy), Tom Grimes, who has consistently offered outstanding commentary and feedback on the Texas Tech and Coach Leach phenomenon.

In fact, his last e-mail was so good and applied so well to most lead generation websites that I thought I’d share it with you directly:

“…Leach recruited the BIGGEST OFFENSIVE LINE in college football (bet it’s bigger than most pro teams as…

...continue to read "Texas Tech Tuesday – It Ain’t Just About the Website"

When Michael Lewis wrote his article on Coach Leach and the Texas Tech Football program, that program was known as an offensive powerhouse that relied on sheer scoring power to outgun opponents.  Its defense wasn’t mentioned in that article, and one can only guess the omission was intentional.  Just look at their game results against Texas and OSU for 2005-2008:

What you can see is that up to 2007, Texas Tech continually increased it’s offensive scoring, but to mixed results – because…

...continue to read "Texas Tech Tuesday – Challenge Organizational Traditions / Assumptions"

I knew I had to buy a copy as soon as I saw it on the magazine stand: the issue of Time Magazine with Presidential temperament as the front cover story.  They even had four presidential faces on the cover, which, before examining them, made me think of previous explanations of temperament using the Four Presidents on Mt Rushmore:

Dutiful George Washington for Sensing-Judging / Methodicals Philosophical Thomas Jefferson for iNtuitive-Thinking / Competitives Rambunctious Teddy Roosevelt for Sensing-Perceiving / Spontaneous Idealistic…

...continue to read "Presidential Candidates, Temperament & Website Copy?"

A lost wallet lies on a Manhattan street, stuffed with cash. A white middle-income male, New Yorker, between age 30 and 44, picks it up. Will he look for the rightful owner, or pocket the cash?

With that level of “targeting,” it’s anyone’s guess. There just isn’t enough information available.

But if George Costanza, the white middle-income male New Yorker between age 30 and 44 from “Seinfeld” picks up the wallet, everyone knows exactly what he’ll do.

He’ll keep the money.

By allowing you…

...continue to read "The Case for Persona-Based Lead Generation"

Social technologies have changed much more than our marketing strategies; they’ve changed us.

Social technologies have changed how we gather and share information. They’ve changed who we meet, where we meet, and, sometimes, how we meet. They’ve changed how we buy, what we buy, and where we buy. They’ve changed what, how, and how much we know about the people around us. And while social technologies may not have changed what it essentially means to be human, they’ve certainly amplified, at once,…

...continue to read "Podcast Interview: Forrester’s Josh Bernoff on How to Profit from the Social Media Groundswell"

Adobe Flash has been habitually misused by design-centric website developers — so much so that a few of us at FutureNow tend to wince when it’s even mentioned in passing.

It’s not that we don’t like Flash. When used purposefully, Flash has the potential to dramatize a product or service’s benefits in ways that static pictures and text can’t quite match.

The micro-site for the Sigma DP-1 camera (choose language preference to start) is a good example of Flash done right.

Notice how the choreographed presentation…

...continue to read "10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Using Flash"

Last week, I had the privilege of speaking at Search Marketing Expo (SMX West) about using Persona Models in Search Marketing. It was a pleasure to share the dais with Gord Hotchkiss from Enquiro Research and Ian Lurie of Portent Interactive — both outstanding, smart people who gave great presentations.

Our presentations went over the high-level basics of creating personas and planning content that speaks directly to your personas. We had a full house for our session and I’ve received lots of insightful…

...continue to read "Persona Models Presentation at SMX West 2008"

Countless once-skeptical businesses have changed their tune about personas [define]. The successes have been well documented, but a lot of smart people continue to scoff at the idea, thinking personas are a touchy-feely attempt to connect with customers on, like, a cosmic level — and that you’d have to be some kind of marketing hippy to waste budget on fluff like that.

Those attitudes are changing. This month’s Internet Retailer magazine shows how companies like Future Now are using personas to bridge the gap…

...continue to read "Use of Personas Boosts Conversion by 400%"