Most valuable writing lesson ever.

“Nobody wants to read your shit.

Let me repeat that. Nobody–not even your dog or your mother–has the slightest interest in your commercial for Rice Krispies or Delco batteries or Preparation H. Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and Tchopotoulis.

It isn’t that people are mean or cruel. They’re just busy.

Nobody wants to read your shit.

There’s a phenomenon in advertising called Client’s Disease. Every client is in love with his own product. The mistake he makes is believing that, because he loves it, everyone else will too.

They won’t. The market doesn’t know what you’re selling and doesn’t care. Your potential customers are so busy dealing with the rest of their lives, they haven’t got a spare second to give to your product/work of art/business, no matter how worthy or how much you love it.”

Every online copywriter – no scratch that – every writer, marketer, advertiser, business owner, and entrepreneur should go read this post in its entirety.

This very powerfully states what Future Now has long taught: prospective customers are task oriented – they have lives and they are not on your Website because they are interested in you, or your company, or how you’d like to “position” yourselves within the industry.  Your online visitors have a problem and they are really only interested in whether or not you have a viable solution.

Once you understand that, you can move away from we-we copy in order to focus on providing visitors with:

• Ongoing visual and text assurances that they’ve come to the right place to find their solution – i.e., provide good scent.

• Copy that speaks to them about what matters to them.  Establish empathy with WHY they need your solution.  Figure out what has driven them to need your product or service, and make sure you address those felt emotional needs as well as ALL of their lingering, sales-killing questions and doubts.

• Pathways/links that allow each visitor to choose their own path, to either take the express train to grabbing what they need and converting, or to drill down to richer content on those elements where they need to assure themselves that you are, in fact, selling a real solution to their specific problem.

Nobody wants to read your copy.  But if they’ve voluntarily come to your Website in search of a solution, chances are good they will scan, skim, and yes, even read copy that addresses their task at hand.

The difficult part is often the task of separating out “your sh**” from the copy that’s actually needed to address visitors’ concerns.  Hiring outsiders often helps with this.  Personas are also extraordinarily helpful.  And so are the guidelines outlined in Steven Pressfield’s post – go read them!

And then go kick some online marketing a**

P.S.  If the name Steven Pressfield seems familiar, you may have read his (highly recommended) non-fiction book, The War of Art.  Or possibly his extremely popular historical fiction (also recommended).

[Editors Note:  The author of this article is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]

1) Where are they entering?

Most analytics packages (including Google Analytics) make it easy to view your top landing pages.  If you haven’t checked this before you might be surprised at the number of visitors who aren’t entering your site through the home page.  That can be crucial information.

Maybe your PPC landing pages don’t provide all the information visitors need and you’re not giving visitors clear links back to your main site.  Maybe your UVP is only clearly explained on the home page, so that someone landing on your services (or a product category) page wouldn’t get that info.

But more than all of that, you’re trying to get an understanding of how visitors move through your site and why they take the actions they do, so you’ll need to know visitor entry points.

2) How are they entering?

Your analytics package should let you analyze traffic, breaking visitors down by source: organic search traffic, paid ads, direct traffic, etc.  And for organic and paid search, you should be able to see what keywords brought the majority of your visitors to your website.  From this information, you should be able to get a sense of the following:

• What are their expectations? Given your visitors’ traffic source and keywords, what are they looking for?  What would they most expect to find when they land on your website?  What scent are they following?

• What are their likely goals? The same key word search could easily be used by people with differing goals.  Chances are you might be ignoring all but one of them.  For instance, I could be searching on “Pensacola Day Spas” because I wanted to buy a gift certificate for my wife.   Whereas my wife might search the same term to see if they take last-minute or walk-in appointments.  Or maybe she’s searching  to see if they have a specific treatment?  The point is, it helps to mentally force yourself to brainstorm as many real-world behind the search terms as possible.

• What do they already know? Someone searching on your name or on the name of a specific service or product line obviously knows more than a visitor entering from a general search term.  Use your keyword knowledge to get a sense of visitors’ differing stages of the buying process?   Are they just starting out and searching for general info?  Do they already know exactly what they want?  Or are they somewhere in between?

• How well is your landing page matching up with visitor expectations and goals? Would visitors find their keywords on their entrance pages?  Would they know that they are in the right place, based on a 7-second scan of the page?  Do your entry pages have high bounce rates?  What is the average time spent on the page?

3) Next-page navigation – where are they going when they first hit your Website?

Now that you know where visitors are entering your site and you have a sense of their motivation upon arriving at your site, take a look at where they navigate to upon their arrival.  What are the most popular next pages? Look at this information while looking at the actual landing page.

• Are the most popular “next pages” the same ones you would have guessed?

• Are they pages linked to by prominent calls to action or embedded links placed within the active window? Or are they pages only accessible through your top or side navigation?

• What questions would those pages answer for the visitor?  Why do you think the visitor is moving to those pages? Is that action congruent with what you’ve seen of visitor motivation from their keywords/scent?

After you see what those most popular next pages are, click through to them within your analytics package and see where visitors are going from that next page.  If the majority of entering traffic (for a given page) is clicking through to a couple of different pages, you’ll often find that visitors navigate to the remaining popular pages following their first click.  You should start to see patterns forming – key, or most navigated to, pages will stand out.

Watch out for situations where your most persuasive content is NOT one of those most navigated pages; you can’t persuade visitors with content they never see.  Also, watch out for situations where one of your most navigated pages are also exit points, in those cases the visitor either lost confidence or didn’t find what they were looking for.

4) Where (and Why) are they leaving?

First, let’s talk about the difference between bounce rate and exit rate. A bounce is sort of like it sounds, someone came in on a given page and left on that same page without going anywhere else on the site.  Unless visitors are also converting on that same page, bouncing is bad.  It means visitors are rejecting you – either because you are attracting the wrong visitors, or because your landing pages are not re-assuring them that they are in the right place to find what they came looking for.

An exit rate simply tells you how many of the people who came to that page also left your site from that page, including both people entering the site on that page AND people navigating to that page from somewhere else on your website.

• Planned and unplanned exits. Some exits are good.  You expect people to leave your site after buying something/filling in a lead form.  Customers who log-into a registered user domain from your home page will likely show up in your analytics as a bounce.  Etc.  But you obviously don’t want customers to leave before reaching their goal or your goal.  Often you’ll find visitors exiting from pages containing your conversion beacons – product pages containing the “add to cart” button, service pages containing your lead form, etc.  Or you’ll see cart/form abandonment, where visitors start to convert and then back out.

• Take a look at “time on page” for the conversion beacons. Abandoning a page after a few seconds isn’t the same as dropping it after a few minutes.  A few seconds means it was the wrong product or service for them.  Someone leaving your page after a few minutes engaged with your content and never got the answers to their questions and/or simply didn’t have the confidence to buy.  Take a look at the page itself, what information are you not giving them?  Are you using great photos, persuasive copy, points of action assurances, risk reversals, etc. in order to instill buyer confidence?  What about shipping information?  Most of the exits on both this page and the cart page are caused by inadequate information and content on these conversion beacon pages.

• Page prior and broken scent? If you find a high exit rate page, look at the most popular entry paths to that page.  Look for mismatches between expectations in moving from the prior page to the exit page.  What were visitors hoping to find on that exit page and what did they actually find?  Was the hyperlink misleading or was the content simply anemic?  Try to figure out the Piss-Off Factor.

5) Form a hypothesis and test

Completing steps 1-4 should have shown you several mismatches between what you and/or your visitor expected and wanted to happen vs. what actually happened.  You should also be able to come up with some pretty good theories for why these mismatches are happening and what might fix them.  Even better, you should have a strong idea about what success would look like if your tested theory proves true.  In other words, you know what metrics are indicating a problem, so you know what metrics you should see change.  Congratulations, you’ve now made your analytics actionable.

Here are some further tips to help keep you going down the right path:

• Don’t test randomly - always test with a hypothesis regarding visitor motivation/behavior.  You’re after insight as much as lift – a “negative” test that gives you a better idea of what motivates your visitor is     actually better for your long-term success than a positive test that provides little or no new insight.

• The difference between micro-conversion vs. macro-conversion. Testing a page variable that reduces bounce rate and/or moves more people to a key persuasive page may or may not immediately impact your conversion rate, as you may be moving people down a funnel that’s leaking somewhere else.  Or maybe you’re engaging early stage buyers that won’t convert for another month or so.

• Know when to test for micro-conversions, such as moving from one page to the next; when to test for macro-conversions, as in how much bottom-line impact this change made; and when to set-up a secondary, earlier-stage conversion, such as signing for the newsletter or downloading a white paper vs. buying or filling out a lead form.

Bonus step – answer their questions, manage their anxiety, stoke their imagination.

When looking at a page in terms of visitor behavior and motivation, always ask yourself how well that page is answering visitor questions, how well it is re-assuring them emotionally that they are in the right place and on the right track to accomplish their goal, and finally how well it is appealing to their real desires.

P.S.  A quick note on how to integrate “best practices” into your optimization efforts.  Rather than blindly testing best practices, allow your knowledge of them to help you form theories about why visitors are or are not taking a certain action.  For instance, it’s a best practice to place your calls to action within the active window.  If your main call to action is in a side-bar and almost no visitors are taking that action, you might test moving your CTA into the active window.  For some fabulous books on best practices and testing, take a look at Call to Action and Always Be Testing.

P.P.S. If you enjoyed this post please consider Tweeting it please.

[Editor's note: the author of this post is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]

Absolutely not, right?  Or at least not yet.

You came to buy a specific book.  You’ve already got a task in mind and browsing random books aint it.  You’ll likely blow past any and all call-outs, recommendations, and other assorted distractions until you’ve found the book you came to buy.

And if Amazon ends up not having the book in stock, you’ll go elsewhere.

But AFTER you’ve found the book you wanted, recommendations are welcomed. At that point you’ll actually pay attention to other books Amazon recommends and bundles with your searched-for book.   You’ll even look at what other Amazon shoppers eventually bought after viewing your friend’s book.

Task Orientation Defines Scent

This Amazon thought experiment exemplifies the task-orientation common to most online visitors.

Visitors arrive at your site with a goal in mind.  They already have a task, and your website either helps them accomplish that task or it gets dumped.  And that goes for every page on your site – either it contains the content the visitor wants, or it provides a link to it, or the visitor leaves.

But what about people just wanting to browse?

This is a question posed to me in a recent comment.  As the commenter put it:

“… when I’m browsing through Amazon – with no other goal than to pass the time – I get converted to buy stuff all the time.

‘People who bought x also bought Y’ And if the book or cd Y is something I’ve been interested in – it triggers a purchase.”

His point was that browsing is a task-less online activity that eliminates the importance of scent.

And it’s an interesting question/thought.  To answer it, I’ll first have to distinguish between early stage shopping and true browsing.

Early Stage Buying vs. True Browsing

In the early stage of the buying process, the visitor is aware of an itch he’d like to scratch, but isn’t quite sure exactly what purchase will best scratch that itch.  Let’s say our shopper is vaguely aware of wanting to get in shape, and is kind of wanting to do Yoga.  But he’s not sure if he wants to do Yoga in a dedicated studio, or take classes in a more general, multi-purpose gym, or just buy some tapes for home workouts.

This Yoga shopper is still task oriented – it’s just that the task is researching rather than buying.  And a home-workout themed website or Yoga Studio website that helped her do the research stands a far better chance of getting her business than a Website exclusively focused on late stage buyers.

This is one reason we highly recommend catering to early stage buyers and developing a content strategy for them.  And for more info on how to do that effectively, check out David Young’s excellent video series: Hunting for Early Bird Persuasion

Browsing is different.  Browsing means the shopper isn’t even clearly aware of a product desire yet. They’re not even focused on research.  If asked, the shopper couldn’t even describe the itch they’re looking to scratch.   And yet, they could buy if presented with the right product.

Browsers are still task-oriented

Despite appearances, browsing isn’t task-free.  Even though a specific object hasn’t (yet) catalyzed their free-floating desire, browsing visitors are still driven by desire.

Browsers are seeking novelty and possibility: the possibility of finding something different and better than they’d have imagined.   Browsers are as goal-oriented as any other shopper – just with different goals.

And as is true with every goal-oriented shopper, any website that fails to deliver on those goals gets dumped.  In fact, most shoppers only browse on sites that have already proved themselves capable of delivering novel products.

People browse Amazon.com not because it presents them with recommendations on the home page, but because Amazon masterfully presents them with interesting possibilities of new books that are similar to and possibly even remarkably better than books we’re already impressed with.  This is why the commenter I quoted from recalled the ‘People who bought x also bought Y’ quote rather than a “view Amazon recommendations” quote.

So how does a site plan to deliver on this search for novelty and cooler-than-expected items?

What it takes to be a browsing-friendly Website

Apart from bargain-priced rotating-inventory sites like bluefly, overstock.com or woot.com, the top three e-tailers most noted for browsing-friendly design are:

• Amazon
• Zappos
• iTunes

Here’s what they have in common:

They sell “impulse-buy-friendly” and “most-people-own-a-bunch” items.  Think about it: books, music, and shoes are all things we buy a lot of AND things we buy on impulse.  So each of these sites have a lot of repeat visits/visitors AND a fair chance at luring visitors into impulse buys.

They make it easy to sample the items in stock. iTunes lets you actually listen to the song.  Amazon lets you read the dust cover, table of contents, and a few passages from the book.  Most reviews also give you a flavor of the book.  Zappos gives you the best product photography to be found and provides expedited shipping both ways, which is a way to eliminate the pain and friction of customers trying on and “sampling” the shoes.

They routinely get new items in stock and make it a point to stock huge inventories. If browsers want novelty, it helps to be able to provide it, both with new stuff and with stuff I’ve never heard of before.  Amazon.com has all sorts of weird titles I’d never find at my local Barnes & Noble or even imagine existed.  Same thing with iTunes and Zappos.  Browsing shoppers know that novelty is only a click away.

They have solid user reviews set-up. Amazon and Zappos make up for limited sampling through user reviews, making it no coincidence that they have the best and most solidly established review communities on the Web. iTunes lags behind the others when it comes to reviews, but makes up for by better sampling, lower average price point, and better than average recommendations.

They make it easy to sort by regular categories AND by loose associations. Amazon let’s me see cool webs of connections between books, and look at user generated lists.  Zappos provides great filtered navigation options, so that I can not only sort by black men’s dress shoes, but also by black cap-toe lace up oxfords that cost between $100 and $150.  And many of the revues compare shoes, even to the point of recommending alternatives.  iTunes allows users to sort music by genre, decade, and browse with the aid of since-you-bought-that-you’ll-like-this recommendations.  For even better filtered, or faceted, sorting, check out this Get Elastic article as well as their thoughts on using user filtering and sorting preferences to personalize visitors shopping experience.

They’ve eliminated or greatly reduced buying friction. I can buy shoes on Zappos and get them next day or by 2nd day for free shipping.  With Amazon prime, I get 1-Click buying, and free 2nd-day shipping.  iTunes allows me to enjoy my music within seconds of buying.  And I know I’ll never have a problem with billing or customer service with these e-tailers.  There’s simply no friction to buying and a good bit of near-instant gratification – important factors for inspiring impulse buys.

So start your headline optimization process with a close look at scent.  These links will help drive home the point:

Bryan Eisenberg gets interviewed on Scent and Landing Page Stickiness:

Click here to view the embedded video.

How lack of scent feels like “bait and switch” to website visitors

Broken scent between e-mails and landing pages accounts for 35% of failed campaigns

Step 2. Angle of Approach: After you understand what it will take to provide continuity of scent, you’ll need to do the research and idea generation to come up with that compelling hook, or angle of approach that will compel readers to stop and scan the article.

Think of it this way, if scent is about matching information, keywords, and look and feel, angle of approach is about matching your copy to visitors’ emotional drives, motivations, hopes, dreams, fears, etc.  Of course, it’s also about introducing a compellingly interesting thought into the reader’s mind.  For some incredibly helpful tools and techniques on Angles of Approach,take a look at the following blog posts:

How to connect with your prospect’s dominant emotion

How to polarize an audience to speak to the prospects you most want

Roy Williams on Choosing Whom to Lose

Why writing to a specific person (or persona) Overcomes the 200 Headlines Myth

The power of Magic Words – and how to find them

Sean D’Souza on the Power of New & Knew

Sean on how specifics beat generalities when it comes to Angles of Approach

Roy Williams on Framing First Mental Images

Compelling the visitor to keep reading

Why your headline may want to refer to an unseen action

I’d recommend you come up with at least a couple of different approaches and test them.  This might cause you to rewrite your first paragraph or two of body copy for each test variant, but it’s well worth the effort.

Step 3. Wordsmithing: Once you have the angle of approach and the “Scent” requirements, then it’s time for some of the traditional wordsmithing normally associated with writing headlines.  Can you sharpen the point?  Can you increase the curiosity factor?  Should it be a statement or a question?  Can you swap out words to create different emotional associations or connotations?  Can you test fractions vs. percentages?  What kind of presuppositions can you bury in And so on.

Here’s a monster list of links containing some of the best stuff I’ve seen on Headlines:

First, go sign up for Sean’s newsletter and get his free PDF report on Why do most headlines fail.

Second, read through Jay Abraham’s list of 100 Greatest Headlines Ever written

Third, listen to Gary Bencivenga’s explanation of why you should build credibility into your headlines

Now feast on Brian Clark’s brilliant headline articles:

5 Simple Ways to Open Your Post With a Bang

10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work

7 More Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work

Warning: Use These 5 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas at Your Own Risk

How to Get 53% More Readers for Every Blog Post You Write

And for sheer tonnage of listed techniques, it’s hard to resist Chris Bloczynski’s post:

99 Headline Techniques Revealed

Or SEO Blackhat’s 54 Headline Templates That Sell

Of course, it goes without saying that with all these choices, you’ll want to test and optimize, and the Grok’s own post on Top 10 Ideas for Testing Your Headlines is a great place to start, or you can watch the webinar on testing headlines and calls to action:

1. You use the set it and forget it strategy to PPC. If you setup your PPC campaigns months ago and haven’t adjusted a thing in it, I can practically guarantee you have room to improve it. The seasons change, traffic flow and traffic quality change, even Google’s Quality score changes.

2. You don’t have proper tracking in place. In a recent study of over a 1000 small and midsize businesses it was found that over half failed to properly track conversions. You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Do you have enough insight to what is happening with your PPC ad spend?

3. You have not tested at least 3 variations of your PPC ad. Try testing the following variables in your ad copy: headlines, different offers, variations of your USPs (Unique Selling Propositions) or UCPs (Unique Campaign Propositions, and calls to actions (try, learn, get, save, etc.).

4. You have not tested matching options. If you are not getting enough traffic at your bid prices, test the different matching options. Test between broad, phrase and exact (standard) match to see which brings you the best combination of traffic and converted sales.

5. You have a long list of keywords in your ad groups. The keywords in an ad group should be tightly associated and extremely relevant to each other so you can be sure the ad(s) and landing page are effective for the ad group.

6. You have poor scent from the ad to the landing page. In 2001, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, shared their research with Wired on how humans look for information on the Web;  they use the same food-gathering techniques employed by animals. They follow scent. This is an example of bad scent. Make sure to match your PPC ad text with the message on your landing page.

Click here to view the embedded video.

7. You aren’t testing your landing pages to maximize conversion. With over 1100 variables that impact conversion, if you aren’t testing to see what the best combination to use are, you are leaving money on the table. You should always be testing.

If you would like to learn more about optimizing PPC campaigns don’t miss our upcoming Always Be Testing webinar on November 25th titled Google Quality Score – Exposing the Secret Factor to PPC Success. Sign up now, and even if you can’t watch the live viewing we will notify you as soon as the recorded version is available. Of course, the webinar is free so register today.

In the second and final installment of Bryan’s interview with Ralph Wilson — recorded at February’s Search Engine Strategies conference in London — the two shift their focus from personas (as discussed in Part 1) to improving landing page conversion by creating better “scent” for the visitor.

In the video, Bryan talks about a study conducted by usability guru Jared Spool that shows, among other things, that…

• When visitors found the “trigger words” — keywords that either get stuck in their heads, either consciously or subconsciously, often from advertising — on the landing page they’re sent to, they were content with what they found a whopping 72% of the time.
• When these same visitors didn’t see their trigger words on the landing pages they found, their search was only successful 6% of the time.

Despite all the heady research that analyzes how people actually search for — and find — things on the Internet, it’s so obvious that it’s almost funny: We sniff around for relevant info like animals on the hunt. We go where the scent takes us. If we find what we’re looking for, great. Game over. If not, we retreat to home base, regroup and go out on a slightly more refined path until we see it in the corner of our eye. Then we pounce.

. .

Want Bryan’s advice on how to make your website stink (in a good way)? Meet him at FutureNow’s Call to Action seminar on June 3rd in Manhattan.

So why not try something new, like placing an ad on Facebook, where captive users are forced to see it right there in their news feeds?

That’s Virgin America’s strategy. But is it anything new?

Despite the hype, social media ads are rarely different than traditional banner or pay-per-click ads. The landscape has changed slightly, but the need for fundamental persuasion and conversion tactics remains. As always, better planning makes all the difference. Let’s take a look…

A Smooth Takeoff

Here’s Virgin’s latest “sponsored news feed item” — i.e., fancy contextual banner ad that targets only certain demographics:

As you can see, the language is simple and engaging. A time limit (March 28) is set, thus creating a sense of urgency without drilling it into the customer’s head.

Nobody likes to be yelled at, especially not on an airplane. So why yell at them to “BUY NOW”? Virgin knows better, and this ad’s subtlety makes it that much more click-worthy.

A Soft Landing (Page)

The landing page continues the scent trail that started with the banner ad. Notice how the exact wording carries over.

See that? Change may be “in the air,” but Virgin was smart to stick with their original verbiage.

What’s even more interesting is that this landing page is actually the VirginAmerica.com homepage. It was the homepage last week, when the March 28 promotion was happening, anyway. This week, there’s a new promotion, and a new homepage message to match.

Consistency across channels is what ensures the success of Virgin’s ad buys. By adjusting the homepage to match their current campaigns, they’re capitalizing on the persuasive momentum of their various banner ad campaigns. (This screen shot proves that Virgin’s Facebook ads are no different than any of their other banners. Would they change the company’s homepage just to match a persuasion scenario that starts at Facebook? Nope.)

Persuade → Qualify → Convert

Virgin America continues the momentum from click-to-click by keeping it simple and keeping visitors engaged on the active window. By showing all March 28-related promotions on a single page, they’re reduce friction in the buying process.

Virgin uses this page to reinforce the visitor’s original interest while introducing a few more offers, thereby qualifying our needs. We click through, and it’s off to the booking engine.

Like most e-commerce shopping carts, it seems flight-booking engines were made to confuse us. Not Virgin’s. Theirs is intuitive and straightforward. As you can see, several steps are combined into one. It’s the website usability equivalent of the magical airplane stall door lock (which doubles as a light switch, and triples as a switch for the fan).

The only downside to having a site that works this well is that now Virgin needs to make sure people enjoy the flight as much as they enjoyed booking it. But if the real experience is anything like the one online, it looks like they’ve got you covered.

CMO’s should take notice.

While there’s no such thing as a perfect website, you should still try to convert like a Virgin.

Banner ads, once clicked, usually evoke the confusion of Alice’s rabbit hole more than the come-what-may optimism of Forrest’s box of chocolates — either way, you don’t know what to expect.

Grabbing attention is tough, and most of us are jaded from past letdowns. So, to work, a banner campaign must direct traffic, showing visitors what they’ll get and why they’ll want it.

Who You Lookin’ At?

One way to get attention is by showing models. TracFone is an example of a company that puts on a human face (albeit a scowling one). Let’s take a look at one of their banners to see how they might improve conversion…

The Valentine’s Day motif grabs attention, as do the girls’ faces, which seem to be looking straight at you. But eye-tracking studies show that we’re drawn to models’ eyes. We end up mesmerized, ignoring the critical parts of the ad.

The folks at TracFone should read Bryan’s post, “How a Pretty Face Can Push Visitors Away.”

Since our attention stays on the faces and eyes, TracFone’s benefits are lost in the background. The all-caps name “XOXOFONE” frames the faces, further keeping the eyes on the upper left-hand side. A simple change in the direction of the eyes to the lower-right side of the ad would direct visitors to the call to action and company logo. (Besides, it might make these girls look like they’re not going to yell at the first guy who invites them to Prom via TracFone.)

Oh, No They Di’int…

From the banner ad, visitors are sent to this busy landing page:

Tracfone presents big, bright red hearts as a marker to connect the visitor. Yet they fail to build persuasive momentum. At this critical stage, the visitor isn’t brought deeper into the buying process. Instead of continuing the scent trail [define] of information, TracFone introduces new information and visuals that create a disconnect with the banner ad it was designed to support.

If TracFone were a Future Now client, here are a few things we’d have them test:

1. Don’t Look at Me! — When using models, make sure the eyes aren’t the focal point. Use an image that directs the visitors’ eyes toward the call to action. Let the copy drive the click.

2. Buy When? — Don’t propose marriage on the first date. There’s almost never enough info on a banner ad to convince someone they should actually “buy now.” Try flirting instead.

3. Consistency is Key — Build on the information and images on the landing page. Help would-be customers make the connection. People will quickly lose momentum to move forward if you present different prices, copy and images than they saw in the ad.

[Editor's Note: Tired of one-click stands? Sick of hiring gold-diggers who don't return the investment? Bring home a conversion analysis your CFO would approve of.]

It all started when I checked my email and found an email from Apple with a subject line that said, “The new Mac Pro. Now with 8 cores standard.”

Like many email users, I don’t automatically enable HTML images. So, I have to click to allow the images to be shown. The result: The Apple email looks like a fancy design of gray and black with absolutely nothing there.

The subject line (”The new Mac Pro. Now with 8 cores standard.”) means nothing to me. How is that a benefit? It certainly doesn’t excite me enough to explore further, but since I’m an Apple fan, let’s say I decide to keep going.

When I did finally enable the image, I see the computer tower…

The call to action above the fold is “Configure now.” Wow, that’s really exciting!

I’m a Humanistic type (as opposed to Spontaneous, Competitive, or Methodical), so the word “configure” holds no scent for me — it sounds like something really technical you do with a graphing calculator. No thanks.

But for argument’s sake, let’s say I’m curious enough to continue and see this landing page:

Could they possibly use more techno-speak? There isn’t a word here of that wonderful, personal, easy-to-understand Apple language.

If this were designed for Methodical types, I’d give it high marks. Even if she didn’t have her images enabled, the Methodical customer might scroll down and see there was indeed some text in the email. She would probably like the word “configure” and appreciate all those wonderful technical specs, and a subject line like, “Now with 8 cores standard.”

But for the other types, this scenario bombs.

Spontaneous customers who don’t have images enabled on their email will likely not even open it with that subject line, and if they see nothing but a black and gray design with nothing in it, they’re gone.

Humanistics won’t often get past that subject line, either. Where’s the wonderful everyday language and engaging images? I’d like to see that nice guy from the TV commercials telling me why this new Mac Pro would be great for me. I bet he could do a good job of putting it into plain English and making me feel good about the product.

Competitives might like the subject line, but they want benefits, not features. How will this help them do more, be better, have a superior computer to what they have today? They also will bail if they don’t have images enabled. They are almost as impatient as the Spontaneous folks. Here’s the sad thing: There’s actually great copy for Competitives like, “Once reserved for the top of the line, 8-core processing power is now at the heart of the Mac Pro.” Same feature, but delivered in a benefit-oriented fashion Competitives would love — yet it’s below the fold where, unlike the Methodical customer, they may not scroll to see it (they’re much too fast-paced).

Bottom line: The whole scenario feels like it was designed by that “PC guy.” I want my Mac guy back.

[Editor's Note: Do your landing pages speak to customers in their own language? If you'd like to optimize your landing pages and improve customer focus, we can help.]

Nice ad placement

Here you can see that Target is paying for their ad to show up on top of the list for my search for “Logitech Harmony Remote.” Target is a company I trust, and it looks like they have exactly what I’m looking for, so I click the link.

Looking good, until…

Instead of taking me to the Logitech-branded page from the text ad, I’m taken back to square one: Target’s homepage.

The more logical choice

This is more like it. Although you can’t quite see from this last screenshot, the remote I had searched for was just below on this landing page (click the image to go to the page). Actually, I found it by typing in “target.com/logitech” since I’d already seen it in the text ad. But my job is to analyze these types of things. And that’s just it: Even if they remembered the web address from the ad, most customers wouldn’t bother.

While this may seem like nitpicking, these types of oversights show how a missing link can ruin an otherwise decent scent trail.

(If you’d like to see more examples like this, check out Bryan’s screencast on conversion-boosting tips for Target.com.)

Landing on the homepage, I was hypnotized by the Flash and interactive design, which must have taken months to program. It showed. (I was on slow connection and had to endure an excruciating load time.) Finally, I was shown one measly, dull-gray shoe. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and clicked on the shoe, expecting to be presented with more colors and styles to choose from. Instead, a new window popped up with no sneaker or link to the online store in sight. They’d sent me to Mongolian Shoe BBQ; a micro-site for a campaign I was unaware of. And although I noticed a trace of copy next to the gray show (after going back to the homepage to figure out what happened), it still felt like the e-tail equivalent of Outer Mongolia.

I started to wonder about Puma’s online business strategy. (Did they even want me to purchase anything? Where the heck are the sneakers or online store? Where am I supposed to go now?) What did they want visitors to get out of their website? As a retail company, the obvious goal of the site would be both branding and e-commerce. In other words, to get visitors excited about their products and brand and, eventually, make a sale. I was ready to purchase, but there were too many usability issues that forced me to browse aimlessly.

A major roadblock for Puma.com com is that it’s top-heavy with (beautiful) design. It’s very image and Flash-oriented and, despite the demand of would-be customers in search of Puma’s sneaker-line, the visitors’ eyes are immediately drawn to the center Flash animation, then to the bottom icons. The small red bag representing the online store is lost amid all the colors and commotion, and the link to the online store in the left navigation is effectively hidden because it’s surrounded by colorful banners. The small, light-gray text — although cool-looking — makes it difficult for visitors to shop.

Current Homepage:

So, what can Puma.com do to be a more effective e-commerce site? They need to provide a clearer driving point (define) to their online store. A simple A/B test on the homepage will have a big impact. How simple? Well, Google makes it free for all and the only thing you’ll lose is time spent learning a valuable advantage over competitors and opportunity cost of course. To be most effective when making changes to a website, proper A/B testing on Google Website Optimizer is recommended.

My Test Page Suggestion:

Which page do you think would convert better?

Copyblogger’s Brian Clark concludes, “Not only should you use actionable anchor text if you really want someone to click, but you should also tell people to take the exact action you want them to perform in order to get the best response.”

Sure, but there’s more to this story than just telling people to “click here” all the time. Absolutely. Keep in mind, though, that just because “Click to continue” won this time, in this particular context, doesn’t necessarily mean using “Click [whatever]” works best in all cases. Clark’s point about using “the exact action you want them to perform” serves as a solid guideline — and a strong place to start when deciding which verbiage to test.

Here’s what Jared Spool, CEO and Founding Principal of User Interface Engineering (UIE), has to say about links:

UIE research showed that when a link and its associated text comprised seven to twelve words, people could successfully follow the links 50 to 60% of the time, with the optimal length being 9 to 10 words. Jared quipped, “One of the things you do in a usability test is you try to use your psychic powers to get people to do things.”

However, he said, “It’s not just the size of the link.” Links should include trigger words or “they’ll fail. …You have to be careful what words you choose. A one-word link is fine if you know it’s a trigger word.”

Whereas “click here” can work as a call to action — or anchor link, as it’s often used — these one-trigger-word links Spool’s referring to are called Points of Resolution (define), and the greater context has a lot to do with how effective they are. The context is what we call “scent,” and it’s up to you to provide your visitors with a scent trail worth following. As Spool explains, “when they are on the right track to finding their content—they follow the scent of information.”

As an aside, AdvertisingLab hints at one of our favorite factoids: Adobe ranks #1 for the term “click here“. (It is hard to resist even though you know the answer, isn’t it?)

Oh, and here’s a link to the Marketing Sherpa study, if you’re interested. (Just mind the persuasion gap with that extra free trial sign-up step they don’t warn you about if you’re not already a member.)

If the links on your website suffer from bad scent, don’t wait around as would-be customers politely excuse themselves. Test the verbiage, and see what converts best. We can help.

[P.S. -- Tim, does this answer your question?]

But first, a little background…

One of our seminar attendees helped us notice something interesting about “Corporate DNA”. Something wasn’t “write” with her company’s messaging. They’re large, well-known, and have spent decades projecting themselves as a Humanistic culture, with massive, ongoing radio and TV ad campaigns. So, the first thing we noticed on their website was that the copywriting was tailored for Methodical types. (To read more about how we classify personality types into Competitive, Spontaneous, Methodical, and Humanistic, click here.)

Where did this disconnect come from? Were they really a Methodical company, after all? According to our guest, they were. OK, then why not just say so in the TV and radio ads? It’s a bit jarring to have one impression of a brand through its multi-channel advertising, only to go to their website and find it’s something completely different. This is the friction that causes customers to bail. Customers want a consistent relationship and tone from their brands, whatever the channel may be.

When I came across this banner on Technorati this past week, I was intrigued:

Step #1 — The Banner / Advertising Campaign

Since we’d been talking about how to create messages that appeal to different personality types, I thought it would be a good idea to see what my team had to say about the experience Geico created from banner ad, to landing page, to getting an insurance quote.

Over email, I asked my fellow Future Now consultants what they thought about the campaign:

1. The banner appeals to which personality type(s)?

“The fast-paced types; Spontaneous first, then Competitive.” –Cinde Johnson

2. Would the brand itself cause other personality types to click through anyway?

“Geico is a brand that’s known and trusted. People who recognize that it’s a Geico ad, and have a positive association with them, will likely click.” –Dan McGuigan

“Humanistics will like the friendliness of the gecko from other ads they may have seen/heard, and the cup of tea makes it a bit more personal, more human. A Methodical, on the other hand… I’m not so sure. There’s not a lot for a Methodical to go with in the banner, except that it says that it’s ‘easy’. But they’re generally too deliberate to be moved by branding alone.” –Cinde Johnson

3. How does this banner connect with their brand, and your expectations of it?

“The little lizard with the Aussie accent (using “mate” in the messaging) helps us connect with a brand we already know. Their branding has always expressed how Geico makes it ‘easy.’ so this is continuing that perception.

“The problem is I forgot what they did; I just knew they made it easy! Although I like the banner, and it probably connects well with the other marketing communication spots that they have out there, I actually don’t know anything about Geico besides seeing this lizard on ads — and that he’s got an accent. I’m probably not the typical American, but I actually forgot what they did.” –Melissa Burdon

“Geico positions itself as the easy way to save money on insurance in 15 minutes, so this ad does reinforce their branding.” –Ron Patiro

4. What’s your overall impression of the banner?

“Not bad. I’d say a solid B.” –Anthony Garcia”

“One of the only times I’ve seen ‘click here’ work in a Call to Action. People can’t say it, but well-branded talking geckos can.” –Ron Patiro

“If I just saw this banner ad, and didn’t know they offer insurance, I wouldn’t be enticed to click. Even changing it to ‘Geico makes insurance easy,’ would have cleared that one up for me. They need to be thinking of the different stages of the buying process as well.” –Melissa Burdon

Step #2 — The Campaign’s Landing Page

I am glad Geico continued the scent from banner and landing page by reinforcing and repeating the logo, the imagery, and copy tone. Remember, our friend the talking gecko has promised us it would be easy. But once I clicked through, I had even more expectations.

Here’s what they had to say about the landing page:

5. Does the landing page reinforce the banner’s message?

“If one were to ‘think’ about the connection — which most people don’t do consciously — they would see that ‘Would you like cream…” does inject a message of how easy Geico makes getting a quote or rate.” –Peter Lee

“I didn’t notice the little mug and tea bag in the banner. I actually wondered what was in the lizard’s hand, but, when I clicked, I noticed the mug. Instead of just telling me Geico can save me money, they specify they could save me ‘hundreds,’ so I have a better idea of what we’re talking about. ‘Would you like cream or sugar with that?’ tells me it’s a commodity; something we need in our everyday lives. We treat ourselves well without Starbucks, so how are we treating ourselves with insurance? We could also be saving some money on insurance to put toward our coffee fund!

“I’m going off on a tangent, but there are quite a few messages that could be taken out of this add.” –Melissa Burdon

6. Would you do anything to improve this page?

“They might want to provide a bit more information for Methodical types. People often switch to a methodical choice when shopping for something like insurance.” –Mal Watlington

“The ‘continue’ button gives me no sense of what I get if I enter this information. What’s the payoff? How much more information am I going to have to give you? My inner Methodical side isn’t happy at all.” –Holly Buchanan

Be prepared. Geico chose the the word “just” fill in your zip code. That word has meaning. As in there is really nothing much more to this than “just” filling in your zip code.

Finally, let’s see what happens when we click through to get an insurance quote…

Step #3 — A Disconnected Form Process

When a Spontaneous type lands on this page, one of the first things that stand out is the big “0% Complete” in the progress indicator. They don’t jump right to the form. Instead, their eyes scan the progress indicator, thanks to the disconnect between the first landing page/banner and the green “0%” — and everything else on the form.

Here are their impressions of this crucial third step:

7. What would the personality type(s) you chose — the ones driven by the banner — think of this first step in the quote process?

“I’ve already given you my zip code. You mean, there’s a lot more to getting this quote!? This isn’t easy.” “You said this would be easy, but I’m not sure this is going to be easy.” “Why do you need my name and phone number to give me a quote?” “Wow–six pages of forms to complete to get a quote! This is easy?” (”Where’s my little gecko buddy and his little cup of tea?”) –Cinde Johnson

“Then complete disconnect. I hit a page with a completely different design, asking for lots of information. I’m looking for the lizard, but instead I see the typical white chick, offering help. I don’t want to talk to the white chick. I want to talk to the lizard.” –Holly Buchanan

8. What would you do differently to appeal to each of the personality types on this page?

The primary persona driven by the ad, the Spontaneous, most likely never spent the time filling out a long form like this – they just don’t have the time. They might call, but like everyone else in the world, the would never admit they “need help.” What if they had the Gecko right there and in his tone said something like, “If filling it out ain’t easy, call me.”

“The Competitive is going to think “OK, you said you can save me money, but now you’re asking for information, and there’s nothing to tell me how much more you’ll need or how filling out this form is going to accomplish that goal. All I see is “continue” (really weak Call to Action). What’s the benefit in continuing?

“The Humanistic, like me, is going to feel like “I want to talk to the lizard, not that white chick. What happened to my milk and sugar? You went from warm and fuzzy to cold and impersonal. You just lost that wonderful rapport you worked so hard to establish.

“The Methodical is going to think (since they don’t feel) “How many steps are involved? You don’t indicate the exact number of steps involved in this process. What is this process? Exactly what information do you require? How long will this take? How will you use this information to save me money? Will I be here for a minute, or two hours? I can’t plan ahead because you give me no way to understand the process, how long it takes, or what the process even is. And what’s with that annoying icon with a foreign accent about, anyway? My 3 year-old daughter thinks it’s cute. Want to sell car insurance to 3 year-olds, do you? Great. Want to sell car insurance to me? Get a life.” –Holly Buchanan

The Brand & Landing Page Campaign Challenge:

Perhaps it’s not so easy…

Please let us know what you think of the Geico brand, its ad campaigns, and its landing pages. How would you answer the above questions?

Is creating the right brand and landing page experiences so “easy” a caveman, of any personality, could do it? What will you do to insure your brand and landing pages connect with customers? Let us know if you need help.

As we look at how Cabelas.com and BassProShops.com prepare to catch the Early Bird customer, consider the following:

• Relevance — If they’re not ready yet, don’t get carried away. (Is your website proposing marriage on the first date?)
• Screen Space — Early Birds need to know that they’re welcome, right from the homepage. Give them enough space, and combine relevance with scent to lead them in the right direction. (Use the battleship grid to protect the Early Bird from winding up in irrelevant worm holes.)
• Scent Trails — Not even the brightest of basset hounds can help you with this one, but creating the right scent for the customer to follow is key; particularly when they’re early in the buying process, and may not even have the vocabulary to know what they should be asking. If they come in with the wrong questions, and don’t buy, they should at least leave with the right ones. Help them find their way.
• AIDAS — Awareness. Interest. Desire. Action. Satisfaction. If customers aren’t aware of you, there’s no place to move forward. If you haven’t grabbed their interest, forget it. If there’s no emotional desire to lure them in, they won’t bite. If it’s difficult for them to take action, they’ll run away. And if they’re not satisfied, they won’t return.
• Inside-the-Bottle Syndrome (the other “IBS”) — “When you’re inside the bottle, you can’t read the label.” This is the biggest challenge marketers face. They know too much about their own products, too much about their own companies. It’s the “Curse of Knowledge” and you must overcome it to persuade.

Once again, it’s time to go huntin’ for Early Birds…

(If you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click here for video.)

If you have a moment, share one of your early-stage buying experiences with us in the comments. Which sites have done a particularly good job of persuading you to buy, or turning you off, when you were only pecking around?

Take hunting, for instance. While an experienced hunter may know exactly what she’s looking for in terms finding the right gear, a novice hunter might be more worried about his friends laughing at him for not knowing the first thing about it.

As we look at how Cabelas.com and BassProShops.com prepare to catch the Early Bird customer, consider some of these finer points:

• Scent Trails — Not even the brightest of basset hounds can help you with this one, but creating scent for the customer to follow is key; particularly when they’re early in the buying process, and may not even have the vocabulary to know what they should be asking. If they come in with the wrong questions, and don’t buy, they should at least leave with the right ones. Help them find their way.
• AIDAS — Awareness. Interest. Desire. Action. Satisfaction. If customers aren’t aware of you, there’s no place to move forward. If you haven’t grabbed their interest, forget it. If there’s no emotional desire to lure them in, they won’t bite. If it’s difficult for them to take action, they’ll run away. And if they’re not satisfied, they won’t return.
• Inside-the-Bottle Syndrome (the other “IBS”) — “When you’re inside the bottle, you can’t read the label.” This is the biggest challenge marketers face. They know too much about their own products, too much about their own companies. It’s the “Curse of Knowledge” and you must overcome it to persuade.

Once again, it’s time to go hunting for persuasion…

(If you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click here for video.)

Check out Part 3 to learn how to catch the Early Bird before the competition does.

In the meantime, share one of your early-stage buying experiences with us in the comments. Which sites have done a particularly good job of persuading you to buy, or turning you off, when you were just trying to educate yourself?

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."]

In a moment, I’ll explain why “Surprising Broca” is so important to both advertisers and comedians. But first, watch this video.

Regardless of whether it cracks you up or annoys you, show it to some friends and see what they think. I guarantee you’ll be puzzled by the reactions you get. I was.

I loved the video, as did my mother and the colleague who sent it to me in the first place. But my wife, sister, and father found it baffling, annoying — hardly worth the attention spent watching, trying to understand it.

So what’s this have to do with Web copy? Well, the creators of this ad did two things brilliantly:

1) They chose a unique angle and frame.
2) They kept viewers watching through intrigue. Most viewers, even those annoyed by the ad, are compelled to watch all of it in order to resolve the mystery.

And yet the ad raises some interesting questions: How disorienting and unique an angle can you take before they turn off? How long can you keep readers guessing? And is this technique ever appropriate for Web copy, where skimmable and scannable text offering near immediate comprehension are the rule*?

The short answer: It differs by personality type, current intentions, motivations, and scent. People who are task-oriented by nature or by current circumstance will dislike ambiguity. Ambiguity gets in the way of task-completion. People who are browsing, looking for insight, or looking to be entertained will more readily tolerate or embrace ambiguity and intrigue because it’s, well, intriguing. And this is important it has a lot to do with when and where you’ll want to take advantage of these techniques.

Similarly, people who fall into the Judging end of the Judging-Perceiving of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator continuum will generally have far less tolerance for prolonged ambiguity. (For instance, if you didn’t like the Sopranos finale, you might be Type-J.)

Unfortunately for Perceiving types, the world of commerce is predominantly Type-J. The world of fashion, art, design, etc, tends to be more of a Type-P world. As such, the very nature of your business will affect the degree to which you can profitably engage customers with P-style intrigue.

Finally, scent has a lot to do with it. The seven-second rule is generally directed to home and landing pages where establishing and maintaining scent is most crucial because you are just starting to build trust with the visitor. The more your links promise something and deliver on it, the more trust you build with the visitor. Once you’ve built up some good faith, then dabble in a bit of offbeat-yet-cool copy until it reaches a payoff.

A friend or colleague can get away with asking you to close your eyes for a surprise. A stranger generally can’t.

Where does that leave us? Well, based on what we’ve covered, I can come up with some relatively specific rules of thumb. But before I make them, I’d like to poll you, our fine Grok readers, about your experiences with off-beat web copy. What have you seen that worked? What annoyed the living daylights out of you? Did you like the commercial?

[*Author's Note: Maybe now's a good time to tell you that "Surprising Broca" is all about having fun with your audience's expectations. This technique stems from Broca's Area of the brain, where patterns are recognized. When these patterns don't come full-circle for whatever reason, we can't help but get angry, frustrated, laugh, smile, or nod.]

In his ClickZ column, Search Engine Marketing expert Mike Grehan–already pounced-on for declaring that “SEO is Dead”–explains why universal search is another nail in the coffin for Search Engine Optimization.

[...] I’ve written many times over the years that the term ["Search Engine Optimization"] is more suited as a description of a search-engine engineering function than the intermediate page-tweaking this industry provides.

Instead of trying to “optimize universal search” as the title suggests, Grehan recommends blogging and podcasting as the best ways to rank universally high:

[...] Google will be able to detect (with the tons of analytics and metrics data) which blogs and podcasts (audio and video) have large subscription bases. It could then integrate those elements into the SERPs along with the regular results, just as it’s doing with elements from Google Base and YouTube.

I have a feeling the really rich content sites, such as the 800-CEO-Read bookstore, with its focus on becoming a resource site full of books, blogs, podcasts, and other great editorial content, will become very popular with Google’s Universal Search.

Consider these Google results for “Web Analytics Demystified” (click thumbnail for full image). The organic links show everything you might want to know about Eric T. Peterson’s book by the same name. The paid links, by contrast, are a hodgepodge of stuff about “Web analytics.” Why would I click one of the paid links when my search was so specific?

Anyone care to demystify this for me?

Sure, it makes sense that SEO and Analytics firms might want to associate themselves with Peterson’s book. It just seems telling that nobody’s bidding on “Universal Search” (see thumbnail). And if “blog postings” aren’t important, as Jakob Nielsen insists, why would a single Search Engine Land post rank higher than everything Google’s ever written about Universal Search?

Cindy Arrives on Sirius

Cindy is a competitive, time-starved music aficionado. When she arrives on the Sirius home page, there are no enticing images or elements that provide an impression of the vast music choices she’ll have as a subscriber. The color palette is dark and masculine. The light grey “Music” button is almost invisible; Cindy never sees it. Instead she uses the top navigation and clicks the “What’s On Sirius” button.

On the What’s On Sirius page, Cindy becomes frustrated. She still doesn’t see genre listings in the active window. If she were a more patient persona, she might have noticed the rollover sub navigation near the top of the page, but she’s anything but patient. Underneath the main banner in the active window, she clicks on “Music.”

When she lands on the Music page, Cindy still doesn’t get any satisfaction. This page looks almost identical to the last one. At the fold, she spots the word “Pop” and scrolls, finally seeing a genre list. She clicks on a drop-down and finds an esoteric listing of names, which isn’t helpful. As she scans and scrolls down the entire page, she gets some resolve. Still, she’d like more mentions of specific artists she might hear. This page has no clear subscription call to action. Of course, there’s a free online trial button near the top, Cindy never sees it.

With no clear action to take, Cindy bails.

Continue reading my column at ClickZ…

In her article “Satellite radio runs into static,” Sarah McBride of “The Wall Street Journal” writes those numbers represent what satellite radio providers Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio lost respectively in 2005.

It’s proof positive that piles of money don’t buy business or marketing effectiveness.

Are You Sirius?

In his article, “Satellite Radio: Seriously, Folks, Are XM and Sirius Serious?” Denny Hatch of Target Marketing Group lays out more effective direct marketing tactics for these providers. About their Web sites, he writes, “Go to the Sirius or XM Web site, and you’ll find a lot of ‘it’ copy — radios, discounts, accessories, how to order, schedules and personalities, but not one single benefit of subscribing.”

Hatch doesn’t claim to be an expert in online persuasion, but he’s absolutely correct.

Satellite Radio Personas

As an experiment, I had one of my persuasion architects write up two very simple profiles (not quite full personas as neither Sirius nor XM is a client). These entry-level profiles may represent a couple of typical market segments for satellite radio:

Continue reading my column at ClickZ…

It’s fairly easy to sell online to folks who know exactly what they want. They’re eventually able to find what they’re looking for and seem willing to stumble over a road block or two to complete the deal. Word is these visitors convert well.Trouble is, these folks are only a small part of your audience. Far more of your potential customers are much earlier in their buying decision process. They are at the point where they sort of know what they want or they are still window shopping. Because they haven’t made a purchase decision, they are still gathering information, getting a feel for the lay of the land. Word is these visitors don’t convert well.

Au contraire. You simply have to understand how to help them. And that starts by thinking about the “driving points” you provide for them.

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Kudos to my heroine and comrade-in-words, Holly Buchanan, who recently presented an electrifying Shop.org teleseminar on persuasive online copywriting. We were reading through the impressive feedback when I came across this: “I would have liked more examples of scent.”Holly and I looked at each other (she still isn’t sure which of my eyes to gaze into), and smiled. What seems so obvious to us obviously isn’t obvious to others.

So I want to be crystal clear about scent, because scent is important. Understanding what it is and how to maintain it is critical to the success of your persuasive mission. Let’s start sniffing.
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When we talk about scent, we’re talking about setting up a trail of relevance. And as we are all (sometimes painfully) aware, businesses aren’t the sole creators of what folks find relevant. In fact, focused on maintaining the rosy frontal view for their products and services, businesses are not always considered the most credible resources for either relevance or truth.

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Sometimes you go to a website and you just know the business hasn’t got a clue. They’re doing everything so wrong, you don’t even know where to start. There are also those times you go to a site and think, on first inspection, that things look pretty good.Until you start dealing with the site’s process. In that moment you realize appearances can be deceiving. That’s why, through the use of personas and wireframed scenarios,� we always make sure� our clients are getting their processes squeaky clean first.� It’s basic Horse Before the Cart 101.

Our friend and colleague David Cross was trying to buy a long sleeved t-shirt from a company called C&C California. Here’s what happened.
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Every time customers initiate a search, they’re sniffing for scent. People hunting for data on the web behave remarkably like animals sniffing out prey. It’s the most effective means of finding a teeny-weeny squirrel in awfully biggish forest.

Preserving and creating intentional scent trails on your site translates to improved ROI for your paid and organic search terms. How well does your site preserve the scent trails your visitors are following?
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