ProFlowers is a conversion-rate heavyweight. Its top-line conversion rate has been in the double-digits for the past few years, and it consistently appears in the top 10 converting Web sites according to the folks at Nielsen Online.

This is not an accident.

ProFlowers.com is committed to a culture of ongoing optimization. A recent promotional email demonstrates its commitment to go beyond the Web site, extending into other touch points, specifically its email marketing.

Look at this screen shot of a ProFlowers email as it…

...continue to read "Email Secrets of a Top Converting Website"

Chris Anderson, editor in-chief of Wired and author of the bestselling book-turned-Web 2.0-buzz-phrase, The Long Tail, launched a juicy cover story today.

In “Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business” — which, as one might expect, is available for free at Wired.com* — Anderson argues that, across industries, businesses are baiting new customers with free stuff.

Of course, that’s nothing revolutionary. But it is evolutionary in the sense that we’ve come to expect some level of “free” something. In fact, we’re…

...continue to read "WIRED Sees a Future in “The ROI of Free”"

Time flies in the Internet world. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I wrote my first ClickZ column.

Over the past seven years as a columnist and marketing practitioner, I’ve continued to be impressed by how dramatically the Internet has changed our lives and our world. Blogs have become a major voice in society. Social media and online video have become giants. Google’s revenue is growing like a major leaguer’s biceps on steroids. New technologies continue to barrel at…

...continue to read "Seven Years of Change, Seven Years of Staying the Same"

B2C, B2B, impulse purchases, straightforward purchases, considered purchases, nonprofit, lead generation…Your ability to persuade depends more on your audience’s key qualitative factors than on your business category and, many times, audience demographics. If you understand all the elements that make up your unique persuasive process — a marriage of how you sell and how your audience buys — and if you understand your audience’s needs, you’ll be able to create persuasive copy that dramatically improves online conversion.

Selling and Buying: “I…

...continue to read "The Complexity of Closing a Sale"

Are you a business-to-business (B2B) marketer fishing for leads? Chances are, you bait many of your online hooks with some sort of digital download.

This very page may have a hook with a nice PDF document dangling from it, waiting for some business fish to eyeball the banner, click, fill out the form, and finally hit “download now.”

Let’s scope some advertisers and see if we can’t learn some B2B optimization lessons…

Continue reading my column on ClickZ…

...continue to read "Optimizing B2B-Demand Generation"

Is traffic cost inflation stalking you, or has it fully violated your 2007 marketing budget? No online marketer is exempt; online traffic costs will increase. It’s the nature of supply and demand.

This relatively new Internet economy is settling into familiar patterns, and the costs of doing business online are beginning to resemble those of our brick-and-mortar brethren. In the brick-and-mortar world, there’s no such thing as low-cost traffic.

The corner of 57th St. and Fifth Ave. in Manhattan is one of the…

...continue to read "The Value of Online Traffic"

Would you like to lose $863 million in 365 short days? Too much? How about $667 million? Is that a bit more palatable?

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…

...continue to read "Satellite Radio and Listening to Personas, Part 1"

An open, efficient line of communication is beneficial to customers and the bottom line. Yet judging by many “contact us” pages, you’d never think this is the case. Much like “about us” pages, many “contact us” pages seem like throwaways. They receive little love and even less effort.

This is easily remedied with a little thought and some planning.

Common “Contact Us” Mistakes and Solutions

Problem: Prospects don’t know whom they should contact. Many companies do a great job of listing all the different…

...continue to read "Building More Effective “Contact Us” Pages"

Part one of this series explains why and how word of mouth gained supremacy. Now that traditional advertising techniques are losing potency and customers wield more control, what’s a marketer to do?

This column explains the three factors that fuel word of mouth and offers suggestions on what forward-thinking companies can do to fuel word of mouth.

The Three Word-of-Mouth Triggers

Recall the last few times you personally participated in word-of-mouth culture about your experience with a product or service. The product either exceeded…

...continue to read "Ruling the Roost: Word of Mouth, Part 2"

Word of mouth has always had strutted around the modern marketing yard, but now it rules the roost.

When “Gigli” was released in the fall of 2003, Americans’ fascination with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez was at its peak. Everyone was talking about the duo, their mugs and hugs were on every magazine cover. The movie studio was banking on that hype to buy the box office.

Then, the movie hit the theaters.

Within minutes after the first showing, word of mouth began…

...continue to read "Ruling the Roost: Word of Mouth, Part 1"