Strategy

Conversion Rates Report 2011 - Nothing's Changed

Econsultancy has just released its Conversion Rate Optimisation Report for 2011, and sadly the rates are still stuck around 2% to 3%. The same as they’ve been for the past decade and more.

So Econsultancy asks the question: “...why are conversion rates not better than they are?” and it suggests it’s “...because conversion rate optimization is complex.”

I disagree.

While conversion rate optimisation undoubtedly takes work and discipline, it’s not like we don’t know what to do.

Leading Conversion Rate Optimisation consultants such as Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, Tim Ash, Steve Krug and others have been proclaiming the techniques and benefits of conversion rate optimisation since the 1990’s.

Yet marketers and businesses still do almost nothing about it.

Why? Read on...

Marketing as Theatre

Does your marketing entrance, engage, enrapture and encourage your customers to want more?

Because it’s not how good (or not) your product is, what matters is how you sell it.

The company or salesperson that puts on the best performance wins.

A clear reminder of this occurred the other day when I was attending the Perth Home Show at the Exhibition and Convention Centre.

I bought something didn’t even know I wanted because the salesman’s show was so good - The World’s Most Advanced Broom

Step right up folks, because of all things, he was selling rubber brooms, supposedly a technically superior alternative to the normal hair broom.

Certainly unique and different, I’d never even heard of, or could imagine a broom made of rubber; I mean it just sounds ridiculous.

But the sales guy was good; it was like watching a finely tuned performance, which is exactly what it was. I knew it, and I paid more out of admiration for his “game” than for the actual product.

Read how to up your marketing performance level...

eGroup Association, Perth Western Australia

eGroup WA Association provides a forum for Perth and Western Australian based online entrepreneurs to confidentially discuss issues particular to their business, and to share advice, solutions and ideas in a supportive, informative and educational manner.

It was established October 2009 and includes some of Perth's leading online business people. 

Its charter is to support, encourage and provide education to new online ventures (at all stages of development) in Western Australia; and to provide an organised voice to industry, government and the wider community by which we define, disseminate and promote ideas, findings and issues that are common to members.

You can find out more at their website

Incredible India's Unique Value Proposition

Sometimes you can break all the rules and get away with it.

If you've read my blog or spoken to me you'll know that I'm always banging on about the need for a USP/UVP (Unique Selling/Value Proposition), a big idea and the need to address the WIIFM (What's in it for me?) question.

These issues are always at the top of any potentail customer's mind: "What is this place, what can I do here and what value can I get?"

When I saw this latest ad from the long running and very successful Incredible India campaign I was sharply reminded that we don't always have to be so obsessive about our USP's.

A unique value can often be implied, and left to the customer's imagination to fill in the rest.

And with something like India, the imagination can run rampant.

But what is it about this campaign that allows it to ignore the rules and yet still succeed?

Click to learn more...

Always Call When The Customer is Hot

How to Remarket for Maximum Results

If you have any sort of online shopping cart, registration, sign-up or customer enquiry process you must complete that interaction within a few minutes.

This is especially so if they abandon the process.

Whether it's responding to a customer enquiry for more information or re-marketing to customers after they have failed to complete the shopping process, all benefit from rapid response.

The research continues to show that the quicker you respond the higher the likelihood of closing the deal.

And that makes sense.

If the customer has just been on your website, tried to register or buy something, or filled in a contact form, then that is when their interest is at its highest.

That's when you should call them. That's when you should remarket to them.

Call Me Now or Lose Me

read more...

Online Marketing Success in One Easy Step

Online Marketers Still Clueless

The Insanity Continues

Most online marketers are still clueless as to where to spend their money, or your money more to the point.

For every $80 spent online to get a prospect to just come to your website, only $1 is spent on actually turning them into a customer once they get there, according to Omniture.

This is madness, and unfortunately it's been going on for over a decade.

According to Omniture in 2008

•  $23 billion was spent on online search and display ads

•  But only $250 million was spent on site optimization

I'm sorry, let's read that again, that's billions vs millions.

read more...

What Australian Business Must Learn From the Gerry Harvey Fiasco

We should all thank Gerry Harvey for giving us one of the best case studies on online shopping and social media for a long time.

His New Year attack on online shopping was over almost as soon as it began. While there has been a mountain of criticism over Harvey's ill advised campaign, there are lessons from this one act tragedy all Australian businesses to heed.

1: Respect the Customer

Harvey's first mistake was to treat shoppers and the wider public as fools. Telling people to buy goods from his stores where they are 30-40% dearer, rather than buying them online was never going to wash. Even mainstream media could see this was nonsense, and he was deservedly castigated for this.

If shoppers want to save money don't attack them for it, it won't win you any friends or new customers.

If shoppers want to shop online, then make sure you're online store is the one they go to.

Respecting the customer is one of the golden rules of business and marketing. It shouldn't be necessary to restate this rule, but obviously it is as Gerry Harvey was merely the public face of a campaign supported by other Australian retailers.

What ZZ Top Can Teach You About Branding

Think ZZ Top and immediately you picture a host of images from beards and furry guitars to hot rods and girls, all backed by a growling, irressistable Texas boogie.

Their brand is unique, almost timeless.

But it wasn't always so. ZZ Top always had the sound and the attitude, but the iconic image came much later.

It was the legendary and infamous Ike Turner who told the Reverend Billy F Gibbons that he needed to get his look together.

If Google Analytics is Free, Why Does it Cost So Much?

"Google Analytics is not free. It costs $10k. You pay that amount to a competent consultant to implement it and train your company. And you also have to follow my 10/90 rule and invest $10k times 90 in a competent Analyst."

Leading web analytics expert, Avinash Kaushik

Lately there's been a fair bit of discussion about what Google Analytics actually costs.

Many people have been quite surprised about what a proper implemtation of Google Analytics really costs, or that it even costs anything.

So let's look at what's involved and what you can expect to pay for professional advice and why you should most defintely do so.

Neuromancing the Stone

A thought piece I posted over at Stone Soup on how the pace of the online world is leaving all of us behind. Even those of us who are already highly active in cyberspace. Businesses and individuals can't afford to wait anymore, we must all dive in and start paddling like hell.

It’s No Longer About Websites

And Why Current Online Marketing Techniques Are Already Outdated

See http://stonesoup.com.au/website-development/neuromancing-the-stone/

Does Online Advertising Work?

The Best Report I've Seen in Awhile

Adage has just released a report that basically sums up the state of online marketing advertising.

Titled Building Brands Online, it actually provdes a very detailed look at all the arguments of branding vs direct response, the results of various research into the effectiveness of online advertising, the problems and opportunites faced not just by online marketers but by the marketing and advertisng industry as a whole.

It's not a light read, but it is an essential one. Sort of like an online marketing and advertsing primer for 2010.

Some of the interesting points are:

Traditional offline advertsing still accounts for the vast majority of marketing and advertising spending accounting for:

Two Google Marketing Goodies

SEO Cheat Sheet

Marketing Rules To Live By

In case you missed them, here are two Google goodies that will help you in your online marketing.

The first is the recently updated Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Starter Guide. It's called "Starter" but there's a lot of good stuff in here that will help you optimize your site for the search engines.

Download the guide here: Google SEO Starter Guide Updated.

The second is Google's Philosophy. Like many of you I was vaguely aware of what was in it, but until today I'd never actually read it.

The "Ten Things We Know To Be True" and the "Ten User Experience Aspirations" contain great business and marketing advice for anyone operating an online business.

Check them out, I'm sure you'll be impressed and maybe even inspired.

Ten Things We Know To Be True

Ten User Experience Aspirations

Enjoy.

What Italian Ice Cream Can Teach You About High Conversion Rates

Conversion Rate Optimization - Tip # 3

Uncle Benny was famous in Western Australia for introducing irresistible Italian ice cream to the locals.

In the early days he used to make his delicious concoctions at home before taking them down to the port city to sell on the street corner from a frozen tin.

According to Benny: “If at the end of the day, I had an empty tin and a pocketful of change, then I knew it was a good flavour. If the tin was still nearly full and my pockets empty then not so much. That was my market research.”