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Cup of Joe: Strategize With Pretty Pictures!

Written on January 30, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

So the other day, I was talking to a client about a new project they want to begin in the next couple of months. From their mindset this project is going to be huge and may redefine their organization in the coming years. As part of this new project they want a sophisticated web presence. They read off a list of different social networks and services that they want their new site to engage. My first thought was Wow I am going to bill them out the ying yang for all this! But, then my conscience kicked in (yes, I have one), and I had to ask, “do you think all of this is necessary?” They were kind of surprised with my question and responded, “well yes, why wouldn’t it be?”. I then asked them, “well. what are your goals with each service?” They didn’t really say much after that.

We are all quick to jump the gun and want our brands to be engaged with every network, every outlet, and be plugged into every gadget. But, sometimes we loose sight of our goals and dive right in head first. Some believe that you can define your goals later, after you have built your brand. But others understand that having too many points of contact can confuse your base and scare away those that want to engage.

Building a clear and concise strategy is key to every successful internet marketing campaign. Without a strategy you risk wasting resources and missing the folks that matter.

I am a very visual thinker. So when I am building a new strategy I like to create a “mind map”. A mind map is basically a diagram of thoughts. By putting your thoughts in a visual format you can see parallels and patterns that might reveal your strongest ideas. Below is an example mind map that I created just for this post. I like to start with a main idea like “Brand Building” and then work on supporting ideas. You can see from the example mind map below that Twitter will play a large roll in this strategy. Which means that I need to put more resources into managing the brand’s Twitter account versus starting a LinkedIn account. By building this visual strategy I am preparing myself to succeed by identifying the strongest areas and eliminating the others.
(click to enlarge)

Building mind maps are a quick and easy way to see your thoughts and minimize wasted resources as the campaign grows. However, it can also serve as an excellent brainstorming activity for team of people that need to manage branding efforts as a whole. By doing this you can get everyone on the same page and develop a framework for moving forward. So before you start your next project consider mapping out your thoughts first! I guarantee doing so will create a more efficient and targeted strategy!

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Cup of Joe: Strategize With Pretty Pictures!

Who’s In Charge of Your Conversions?

Written on October 8, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

Who’s in charge of conversions in your company, or at your clients’ companies? Anyone? Maybe it’s time to get on that—a new study by Econsultancy and RedEye, published today, indicates that companies with at least one employee directly responsible for conversions are more likely to improved their conversion rates over the last year.

And it’s not because they’re fudging the numbers to make themselves look good (well . . . probably not). But when you have one person directly responsible for conversions, you have someone you can go to at any moment to know how you’re doing—and what you can do to improve.

What tends to improve conversion rates?

• Regular website testing—those satisfied with their conversion rates were conducting over four times as many monthly website tests as those dissatisfied with their conversion rates.
  • Testing types included multivariate testing, user testing, cart abandonment analysis and A/B testing—even though 95% of those surveyed agreed A/B testing was either “quite” or “very” valuable, only 32% were doing this (46% planned to).
• Segmenting customers—those with improving conversion rates have twice as many segments as those without improving conversion rates. Popular segment types included demographic , geographic and behavioral.
• The four practices with the strongest correlation to client satisfaction:
  • Removing bottlenecks and blockages to conversion
  • Identifying key performance indicators
  • Aligning keywords, calls to action and landing pages
  • Using compelling and effective calls to action

None of this is groundbreaking—who among us doesn’t know that testing what users are actually doing is a good way to find out whey they’re not buying and fix it?—but it does highlight the discrepancy between knowledge and action.

As we see in this survey, most of us already know the best practices for improving conversion rates. But we’re not doing them. The survey found that most clients (47%) say that lack of resources is holding them back, but only 33% of marketers and agencies claim the same (this isn’t the same as lack of budget—which 40% of marketers and 39% of clients cited as one of the top three problems). After budget and resources, the most popular problem among the “supply-side,” as the survey calls them, is lack of strategy.

Well, this survey might be able to help a little in that area. The suggestions here include better education and training—but all of the above data also makes clear suggestions: have someone (or someones) responsible for conversions. Engage in testing. Craft your landing pages and calls to action. Remove barriers to conversion. Segment customers. Look at the data.

70% of client respondents said their conversion rates had increased, but nearly 40% of digital marketers are dissatisfied with their conversion rate, getting someone to be in charge might be a little hard—but it can certainly pay off.

However, the biggest reason that having one person responsible for conversions helps conversion rates is probably that when one person (or a team) is the go-to person for that topic, then s/he will actually get down deep in the data. If it’s their responsibility, they’ll work to improve it.

The full report is available from Econsultancy.

What do you think? How have you improved your conversion rate? Could you (or your company) learn more about conversion rate enhancement strategy?

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Who’s In Charge of Your Conversions?

By a Show of Hands, Who Would Like 1,500 Brand Evangelists on Facebook?

Written on October 8, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing, seo

Talk to me long enough about online reputation management and we’ll likely get to the topic of managing online reviews. I truly believe that more of your happy customers would be willing to post a positive review of your business, if only you’d ask!

Well, Emphatica has launched a new Facebook application that does just that–encourages your raving fans to tell the world. Called GoRecommend, the app starts as a simply customer survey. Those that demonstrate a favorable experience with a business are prompted to share that positive feedback on Facebook.

Here’s how it looks:

I know it sounds somewhat “icky” but there’s a war going on with your online reputation–and many of you are losing. Your detractors don’t need any prompting to tell their Facebook friends about their dreadful experience with your business. Consider this your chance to level the playing field.

And GoRecommend appears to work!

Since testing GoRecommend, popular hamburger chain Red Robin has received more than 1,500 recommendations on Facebook! Who here would love just 150 positive recommendations–let alone 1,500?

Even if you don’t have the budget to utilize GoRecommend, let this be a wake-up call that you don’t get, if you don’t ask!

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By a Show of Hands, Who Would Like 1,500 Brand Evangelists on Facebook?