Category Archives: marketing optimization

Six Ways to Sell Your Expertise Online

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Many of my clients over the years have been in the business of being “Experts.” Some are consultants, some are advisors, and some highly-skilled professionals within their field. The challenge with using Digital to market one’s expertise is that the online world is full of charlatans, and most people who’ve hired a few “experts” have had at least one of them not live up to their claims.

Selling expertise face-to-face is quite a bit easier. The true Expert’s skills come across in their body language, their confidence, their humility, and how they carry themselves. Most of this non-verbal communication isn’t accessible online, so how can you use the Web to market and sell your expertise?

Here’s six ways I’ve seen work, in no particular order:
1. Persuasive Copy – One of the biggest (unspoken) challenges of selling expertise is persuading the prospect that it’s OK for her to give up control. How do you know that the Expert will make you look good to your bosses instead of bad? No one wants to feel stupid, and no one wants to lose face, so overcoming this objection online is very tricky. Persuasive copy is probably the best way to solve it. Look at this copy from Jeff Sexton:

p.s. Once, a very long time ago, when I had just gotten my license, I was with my father in a rather [expletive] of a snow storm in the mountains of North Carolina in my new car. The weather was awful and I was scared to death… and I’m not ashamed to admit that. We were seriously in danger of sliding off the edge of the mountain. Then, I remembered something he had told me years ago when I was a kid.

He taught me that if you’re ever in a situation where you happen to be traveling in a DANGEROUS situation, give the controls of that vehicle to the person with you who is most skilled at operating a vehicle under those types of conditions. That means you should not necessarily take control yourself… or to give them to the person that’s been driving the “longest”… or to the person that has the most driving “certifications”…

You should give the wheel to the person who is BEST at navigating that car through that particular dangerous terrain.

So, rather than let my pride possibly take my car away from me:

I gave the controls to my new car in that dangerous situation to my father!

In this situation… ask yourself… “Who should I give the navigational controls to?”

See how the copywriter used a parable to let prospects learn it’s OK to give control to an expert who can handle a particular situation?

2. Video Testimonials – Text-based testimonials are intrinsically “fake-able,” and some skeptical prospects may dismiss them as less than real or authentic. I’m not sure why more companies aren’t leveraging video testimonials, which are a lot harder to fake. When someone believes in their heart that you’re an Expert, and they’ve placed their trust in you, that emotion should come across in a good video.

3. Search Engine Optimization – Let’s face facts…buying a Pay Per Click ad to tell me you’re an expert isn’t very persuasive. Seeing you (or even your name) a few times on the first page of organic search results is. There aren’t many businesses that don’t need to be working on their SEO, but if you’re selling expertise, you’d better be putting some resources towards showing up organically for your target keywords. NOTE: Proceed with caution – overly-aggressive search optimization practices can hurt your credibility with searchers AND search engines!

4. Have a credible web presence – there’s a whole field of study around online credibility, so I won’t spend much ink on this, but it’s worth mentioning that the credibility of your design, content, and even your social networking accounts will definitely have an impact on your ability to market your expertise.

5. A Good (Accessible) Track Record – Maybe this one goes without saying, but make sure your prospects can find your “track record” — your case studies, before and after comparisons, etc. And please don’t make them submit a lead form to get to them. Put the content out there, and if they’re interested, they’ll reach out to you.

6. Publish or Perish – Somewhat related to numbers 3-5, what I mean by “publish or perish” (apologies for jargon from Academia) is that you have to be constantly proving and re-proving your expertise. Especially in the technology space, just because you were an Expert 18 months ago doesn’t mean you are now. So make sure that your case studies stay fresh. Keep updating your website to deal with hot topics in your field, and when you don’t have time to do either one, you’d better be blogging or micro-blogging. If you give out a strong, consistent signal, prospects gravitate towards you. If you get lazy, they’ll flounder around for a bit, then follow the newer, stronger signals.

In summary, it is absolutely feasible to sell your expertise online, but the skills you have as an expert won’t necessarily allow you to sell that expertise in a digital space. You may need to rely on the expertise of others!

[A version of this post was originally published August 19th, 2009 on GrokDotCom.com, an award-winning, but now defunct, Marketing Optimization blog.]

 

4 Steps To Optimization Success

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Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about why certain organizations succeed with Optimization, and why others succeed “less.” To use the exercise regimen metaphor, many people start exercise programs with goals of losing weight or a better physique, but not everyone sticks with it and achieves their goals.

I thought I’d share some insights so that if you’re thinking about an optimization program, you can avoid the pitfalls and reap the rewards.

There are many nuances of course, but I’d boil it all down to 4 basic steps.

Step 1 – Get Help

Those who get a personal trainer are more likely to accomplish their fitness goals. In the world of online marketing, those who get expert help are far more likely to achieve their business goals than those who try to “DIY.” The help you need is cross-disciplinary: you need expert eyes looking at aesthetics, usability, copywriting, marketing strategy, A/B split testing, personas, pay per click, search engine optimization, and more.

Step 2 – Get Out of Project Mentality

There is a tendency to think about improving a website, or any marketing, as a one-time project with a beginning and end. I believe this is the wrong approach to optimization. You may think you can join a gym for 3 months, lose some weight, then cancel your gym membership and still maintain your improvements. But only a true lifestyle change can help you accomplish fitness goals. Same goes for Optimization, also known as Continuous Improvement. The shift out of project mentality needs to be addressed within your organization (culture), with your vendors, and especially with those who are going to “own” the implementation of your continuous improvements.

Step 3 – Budget For It

Closely related to Step 2, Step 3 is to budget for a process of ongoing optimization. Since it’s not a project that ever should “end,” it should always be in the budget, right? If you join a gym and see improvements (you drop a few pounds, keep them off, and feel better in general), why wouldn’t you budget that gym membership for at least the next couple years? Also keep in mind that “budget” doesn’t just mean a line item in a spreadsheet. Budgeting your internal resources’ time is important, too.

Step 4 – Celebrate the Wins, Learn From the Losses

I’ve already written about celebrating the wins, even if they’re small. Part of the celebration process is stepping back from the day-to-day process of Optimization and acknowledging that the process as a whole is effective. And publicizing wins is probably the most effective way to make sure Optimization costs stay in the budget no matter what! As far as losses go, I define a “loss” as a tested optimization change that decreased a KPI. One of the great things about digital changes is that if they don’t work, un-doing them is pretty quick and painless. But, too many clients back away from testing, changing, and optimizing because of a loss or two. Again using the weight loss analogy, weight fluctuates, and just because you gain back a pound that you lost, doesn’t mean you quit exercising. The key is to learn from the failed change, and inform your next round of optimization. That way, it just feeds back into your cycle of continuous improvement.

Hope this is helpful, and would like to hear your thoughts in the comments on if you think there are other Steps to Optimization that deserve a future post.

[Originally published May 27th, 2009 on GrokDotCom.com, an award-winning, but now defunct, Marketing Optimization blog.]

 

For Every Optimization, There’s a Hierarchy, So Get Started

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I sometimes wonder why more companies aren’t busy optimizing their websites and digital marketing. Or why those who are “on board” with the concept don’t always commit the right amount of resources towards the effort.

I’m not a mind-reader, but I think it’s due in part to an all-or-nothing mentality where nothing short of a full optimization ‘project’ is worth putting effort into. Most companies are more interested in redesigning their websites all at once instead of incrementally, even though incremental optimization is far less expensive, less risky, and more accountable!

Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One bite at a time.”

Sometimes, I tell clients to redesign and optimize a small design element of their site; their call to action buttons, for example. And they seem tentative and slow to implement the recommendation. Why? Maybe because they think it has to be 100% optimized right away, or they want some sort of guarantee that it will be perfect in order to devote resources to the task.

A useful model to get past this mode of thinking is to use the Hierarchy of Optimization. It’s a great mental framework to think about a roadmap of how businesses should be optimizing their digital assets, and with what priority. I learned a ton of great concepts from working with Bryan Eisenberg, but the Hierarchy of Optimization might be my favorite.

Take a quick look at Bryan’s hierarchy video linked above, and then I’ll apply the model to real-life design elements that most sites should be taking a look at. Note that the Hierarchy has 5 levels:

  • the Persuasive
  • the Intuitive
  • the Usable
  • the Accessible
  • the Functional

While you can apply the 5 levels at a “macro” level on your entire site, you can also apply them at the “micro” level on a single landing page or even small design elements.

Example 1 – Call to Action Buttons

  • Persuasive – Do all the layers of the pyramid work together as a cohesive whole? Are you actively testing your buttons? Do all your calls to action pair an imperative verb with an implied benefit? Do they answer WIIFM?
  • Intuitive – Do your buttons look like buttons? Do they look “clickable”? Do they feature 3-d effects, shading, or rich surfaces?
  • Usable – Are your calls to action always located in a consistent position on pages? Do they follow the prospect’s eye path as it travels down the page? On your forms, do the buttons line up with the “scan line“?
  • Accessible – Is there alt text behind your calls to action? If you use graphics, do they load and render in all your supported OS/Browser combinations?
  • Functional – Do all your pages even have a primary call to action button? Are any of them broken? Is anyone responsible for occasionally testing them?

Example 2 – Testimonials

  • Persuasive – Are your testimonials architected to answer questions and overcome objections throughout the prospect’s buying process? Are your testimonials as ‘real’ as possible, using pictures of the customer? How about video testimonials? Are you constantly testing to find the right testimonial content/format for your business?
  • Intuitive – Do your testimonials follow common design patterns for displaying quotes? Are relevant testimonials placed on key pages to answer your prospects’ unanswered questions? Do you attribute quotes with name, location, and other relevant information?
  • Usable – Are your testimonials readable? Are they an appropriate font size and contrast? Do prospects have to go hunting for them, or are they spread throughout the site?
  • Accessible – In this case, Accessible and Usable can be thought of as essentially the same layer of the pyramid. See Usable.
  • Functional – Do you have testimonials? Are they legitimate? Do you have permission to attribute the author with at least a first name and last initial?

Besides what I hope are useful questions to ask yourself, the point of all this is to encourage everyone to start today on optimization, take baby steps, and work your way up the Hierarchy. As the old saying goes: You can’t eat an elephant in just one bite!

[Originally published June 29th, 2009 on GrokDotCom.com, an award-winning, but now defunct, Marketing Optimization blog.]

6 Stages of Developing an Optimization Culture

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One of the things that makes being a Digital Marketing Optimization expert/consultant fun is watching clients » partners » friends grow as professionals within their organizations. Many start off skeptical about the process of site optimization, or unrealistic about what can be gained in a given time frame. But after working through some of the challenges, it’s great to see them thinking about their marketing and their businesses in completely different (read: better) ways, and subscribing to a culture of continuous improvement.

Here’s my breakdown of 6 stages in developing an optimization culture:

  1. Acceptance – this is the stage where a business realizes that Optimization has value, and in order to reap the rewards, the status quo isn’t going to work. Something additional has to be done, which calls for some combination of the following:
    • shift in focus
    • additional resources
    • new tools
    • working with outside experts
  2. Testing the Waters – this is the stage where the business starts testing and optimizing, and often gets some big wins just by making minor changes to their site, or removing basic conversion roadblocks.
  3. Infatuation – after getting some wins from “low hanging fruit,” clients sometimes become fixated on testing and optimization. They check their test dashboards multiple times a day, they cheer when they see green in their testing tool’s dashboard, and they wring their hands when they see any yellow or red indicators. The less-disciplined business will often lose focus at this point and miss out on all the fun (and profit.)
  4. Thinking About Resources – after things have settled down, there have been a few wins, and a few inconclusive tests (inconclusive changes still give you incredibly valuable data and piece of mind), the business starts to think about how to support an optimization process long-term. They realize that this process isn’t free; it takes hard work and resources to create, administrate, and analyze tests. It takes even more work to take action on the findings of all those tests. They evaluate their current teams and whether they can properly support a culture of continuous improvement. This is a magnificent stage to witness, and once an organization knows their resources, it’s much easier to stay on target.
  5. Getting Analytical – once in the habit of optimization, I start to see clients question their assumptions, their vendors’ assumptions, and generally why the data is the way it is. This is when things get fun! Often, clients write me with test ideas or analysis of their very own, and I know that the “training wheels” have officially come off. 🙂
  6. The New Way of Doing Business – this stage shows clients becoming calm and nonchalant when a site change gives them double or triple-digit improvements. More impressive is that they are equally happy when a test has a negative or inconclusive impact, because it’s all part of the continuous improvement process. They realize that even single-digit increases achieved on a regular basis will have incredible effects on their bottom line, kind of like compounding interest in a financial investment!

I hope this proves helpful in developing an optimization culture within your organization. These stages are ones that I’ve observed occurring naturally. You could of course try to “encourage” a different course of development if you’re up for more formal organizational change management. How are things developing for you?

[Originally published March 19th, 2009 on GrokDotCom.com, an award-winning, but now defunct, Marketing Optimization blog.]

Buying Stage Mismatch In Your Customer Experience

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Every visitor comes to your site in their own “stage” of their individual buying process. The buying stages are actually a wide spectrum, but I generally break them into Early, Middle, and Late buying stages:

  • Early stage means that the visitor has a problem, and is looking for a solution. They may not know who you are, or that your product/service solves their problem.
  • Middle means that they have an intention to buy a product or service that solves their problem, but not necessarily from you.
  • Late means that they’re persuaded to buy from you, and intend to “close the deal.”

Sometimes, websites seem to be doing everything right, but the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) just aren’t as high as everyone expects. Their sites are functional, accessible, usable, and intuitive. Their look and feel is credible, and their content is high quality. So why do their visitors not behave as we expect? Why do well-planned and well-executed scenarios (e.g. PPC ad → landing page → lead generating form → thank you page) not always convert?

You guessed it: Buying Stage mismatch.

Buying Stage mismatch is when your selling process doesn’t jive with the visitor’s buying process. It’s when your conversion funnel is designed for a buying stage that the visitor isn’t in. Take a look at your site’s conversion funnel…it’s most likely designed for Late Stage buyers, right? Take a look at one of your PPC campaigns…are you showing Early Stage searchers a Middle Stage ad that sends the visitor down a Late Stage funnel? Poor visitor 🙁

The key point is to be aware that multiple buying stages are traversing your designed scenarios. It’s fine if your funnel is fine-tuned to Late Stage buyers, but do you have easy navigation paths to let an Early or Middle stage visitor branch out and get more information? It’s fine if your PPC landing pages are perfect for a Middle Stage searcher, but can an impatient Late Stage searcher “Buy Now”?

How do you identify buying stages to improve your scenarios?

A few ways, using basic analytics tools and skills, are:

  • Look at your keyword lists (in-site search, organic keywords, and paid keywords) and start segmenting by buying stage. Guessing is OK.
  • Look at click paths and navigation (which pages would be attractive/informative to the various stages?)
  • Look for those who bail out of conversion funnels (it could be that they’re not ready to buy)
  • Look at entrance sources (organic vs. PPC vs. referrals vs. direct visits)

[Originally published February 18th, 2009 on GrokDotCom.com, an award-winning, but now defunct, Marketing Optimization blog.]

 

Don’t Dismiss the Base Hits

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[Originally published September 3rd, 2008 on GrokDotCom.com, an award-winning, but now defunct, Marketing Optimization blog.]

Readers of my blog, and especially those involved in testing, know that conversion rate optimization is the goal we’re after. It’s a great feeling to know that a test you worked on increased conversion or some other KPI, especially when it’s a “Home Run.” I define Home Runs as triple-digit increases in conversion rate.

But one of the dangers of early testing efforts is the problem that some baseball players have: “swinging for the fences.” (Apologies for the baseball references, but it’s getting to be that time of year.) What if your test, or series of tests, doesn’t appear to raise conversion rate? Do you dismiss the tests as failures because they’re not home runs?

Of course not!

Worst case scenario is that you’ve learned something about executing meaningful tests, and about what does or doesn’t resonate with your customers. But more often than not, you are affecting your website in more subtle ways. Remember that conversion rate is often a blended, averaged, blunt instrument. Especially when it’s averaged across large volumes of organic search traffic, SEM traffic, email house list traffic, different product lines, etc.

Here are some things you can monitor when your tests aren’t having huge impacts on your overall conversion rate:

  1. Micro-conversion rates – If you’re testing product detail page layouts and “Add to Cart” buttons, check if those test variables are having an effect on the micro-conversion rate of adding products to the cart.
  2. Funnel conversion rates – If you’re testing lots of minor copy changes to your shopping cart, check for changes in your funnel conversion rate.
  3. Bounce rates – If you’re testing images, copy, or other changes designed to build up the credibility of your site, watch for changes in bounce rates.
  4. Conversion rate by segment – If a key traffic source’s conversion rate goes up in a test, but is “averaged down” by other less important traffic sources, that may in fact be a successful test.

These types of incremental improvements are test results to get excited about! If your micro-conversion rate increases, and your funnel conversion rate stays the same, that’s still more money in your bank account. If you reduce the bounce rate, you’ve gained the chance to convert that customer later, instead of your competitor.

So don’t dismiss the base hits because you’re disappointed about not hitting a home run (this time.) Take it from a patient analyst who’s favorite baseball player was famous for lots of base hits and not all that many home runs 🙂

Information Overload: Why Less is the New More

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[Originally published June 24th, 2008 on GrokDotCom.com, an award-winning, but now defunct, Marketing Optimization blog.]

A new report entitled Information Overload: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us was written up recently in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Commissioned by Basex, it details how information overload, particularly task interruptions, costs the Enterprise $650 billion a year in lost productivity.

That’s a very large price to pay for having everything at our fingertips, all the time, in any format.

Our decision-making processes can’t always keep up with our choices. The same challenge applies to website design and content. The Web is a fantastic place to shop, research, and be entertained, but sometimes when I’m online, I notice physical fatigue when I’m trying to figure out where to go next!

When I’m evaluating a vendor’s Services page, should I:

  • Sign up for their newsletter?
  • Read about the awards they’ve won?
  • Look at a list of clients?
  • Read the CEO’s blog?

When I’m shopping for a health supplement, should I:

  • Read about related products?
  • Read about their latest “green” program?
  • View my empty shopping cart?
  • Become an affiliate?

Even though we come to a website with the best intentions, we’re by nature drawn to the shiny distractions that marketers and designers put along our path. We go down rabbit holes in websites and sometimes by the time we find our way back to the trail, we’ve lost our momentum . . . or maybe we’ve been interrupted and have to go back to work 😉

So I’m wondering: How much money is lost each year because we overload our potential customers with information on our web pages? How many visitors are driven away by cluttered designs, too many messages, too many offers, and too many choices?

Here’s the problem: Marketers naturally want to use messaging, offers, promotions and more to persuade web visitors. But in their efforts, they often contribute to information overload, which is proven to hamper the decision-making process. Also, companies tend to add more content to their websites over time and rarely retire content that’s outdated or irrelevant.

The solution: Most web pages should have only one primary goal. If there are alternate options, offers, or next steps, that’s fine. But don’t interrupt the task at hand, and don’t overload your visitors with distractions.

The one exception I can think of is the homepage, which should, at a minimum, a) communicate Unique Value Proposition, and b) route visitors.

Should you remove these secondary goals and choices? Maybe, but sometimes making them less prominent is enough to move the needle. It comes down to a business decision whether your “Sizzlin’ Hot Summer Giveaway” promotion is worth distracting a certain percentage of visitors from their primary goal.

What if you don’t know the goal of all of your site’s pages? You could start with rediscovering who your customers really are, or some analysis of your website’s “data dump,” or you could hypothesize and run some tests. Sometimes the purpose of a page is simply to present options. That’s fine, but don’t distract visitors from understanding their options and making a decision.

So let’s get practical here:

  • Category page primary goal = route visitors to sub-category or product page
  • Product page primary goal = persuade visitors to purchase
  • In the News page primary goal = build brand credibility
  • Shopping cart page primary goal = get the cash!
  • General content page primary goal = build persuasive momentum

Although it seems hard at first, it’s actually pretty easy to find a single, primary goal for most pages on your site. Then you have the harder task of deciding how to do away with unnecessary distractions, get rid of design clutter, and allow visitors freedom without information overload.

Sometimes having a new pair of eyes look at your site can really speed this process up.

If you’re overloading customers with info, you’re not alone. Many world-class, million-dollar sites are guilty of information overload, and even the best online marketers need to work on it constantly.

Best of luck. To avoid information overload, let’s focus on answering three essential questions of site Optimization:

  • Who is your visitor?
  • What action do you want them to take?
  • What will persuade them to take that action?

9 Reasons Your Conversion Rate Fluctuates

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conversion rate trend lineAs a practitioner of Web Analytics and Optimization, I’ve spent a fair amount of the last seven years of my career focused on tracking and improving Conversion Rates.This is a noble pursuit for any business, but intense focus on the conversion rate metric can have negative implications – people in your organization (or your clients) may obsess about changes in conversion rate, pester you about them, and even blame you for them!

To avoid this risk and/or annoyance, it helps to have simple, educational “sound bites” for stakeholders explaining why they are maybe/possibly freaking out for no good reason. This is NOT to say that you shouldn’t diligently investigate what you believe to be causes for concern to your business or client, however. Strike a balance, as in all things.

Let’s say someone in your company comes to you with some data about a change in conversion rate. That is a good thing (coming to you with data), right? So, first off, don’t brush them off. Encourage data-driven behavior, even when it might be off-base!

They’re concerned because in a week-over-week report, conversion rate has dropped by 25%. That’s usually a bad thing, so it’s worth some respectful, diligent investigation. Assuming you’ve looked at various data points, and are of the opinion that it’s not a cause for immediate concern, here’s how you might frame the conversation as it continues.

Hi, [Stakeholder], thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ve dug into the data, looking at YoY behavior, key segments, etc. and I recommend we take a “wait and see” approach. I’m attaching a trended report, so you can see beyond the week-over-week view.

The Stakeholder will almost inevitably ask some follow-up questions about why conversion rate is down. While you will likely have some data points and explanation of your own, here are 9 of my favorite reminders of why your conversion rate may fluctuate from time to time, instead of the constant “up and to the right” trend that we all strive for: Continue reading →