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Sales Marketing: Ten Magnificent Marketing Ideas To Amplify Your Business
You can magnify and expand your business if you have these magnificent sales marketing ideas below: 1. Create a directory of web sites on a specific topic. Give people the option of adding the directory to their web site by linking to it. Put your business advertisement at the top of the director's home page. This technique will get lots of people to linkto your web site and give you free advertising. 2. Do you have a product or service that doesn't sell good? Offer it as a free bonus for someone else's product or service. Get free advertising by placing your web site or business ad on the product or in the product package. 3. Trade autoresponder ads with other businesses. If both of you send out information with auto- responders just exchange a small classified ad to put at the bottom or top of each other's autoresponder message. 4. Start a free tip line. Offer a free daily, weekly, or monthly tip recorded on your voice mail. The tips should be related to your business. Include your ad for your web site or business at the beginning or end of your message. 5. Exchange content with other web sites and ezines. You could trade articles, top ten lists, etc. Both parties could include a resource box at the end of the content. 6. Offer to insert ads into your product package for other businesses. Just ask, in return that they do the same for your business. You should only trade insert ads with businesses that have the same target audience. 7. Offer a free daily class in your web site's chat room. The class should be related to the subject of your business or web site. This will get people to visit your web site everyday. 8. Do you have a product that doesn't sell good? Offer it as a free bonus for another businesses product or service. You'll get free advertising by placing your web site or business ad on the free bonus. 9. Place different emotional response ads for the same product or service all over your web site. One ad may hit their hot button to buy more than another ad. 10. Publish your e-zine in e-book format. You could offer a larger number of articles per issue. It also allows you to include graphics with your ezine. Your advertising revenue would increase because you could charge businesses for large color ads. May you succeed in your sales marketing and make a lot of money. Warmly, I-key Benney, CEO I-key, a Millionaire CEO from New York City is the creator of "Mscsrrr: Millionaire Secret Cash System", (home business) program, which has helped thousands of ordinary people from all over the world to attain financial security and shining success during the past 2 yrs. Mscsrrr Millionaire Cash System helps you to generate $1,500+/Week for life, from home or office, part time or full time. No large investment or hassles. Win $1000-$2000 free "cash"?
While the original plan for the RSS Diary blog was leaving on hiatus until the 2007 edition of the RSS Marketing e-book is done, the FeedBurner acquisition by Google is a story just to important to pass up ... especially all the implications it might bring into the world of RSS Advertising, and RSS Marketing as a whole as well. So, yes. FeedBurner, a leading RSS metrics and RSS advertising company was just acquired by Google. Finally confirmed after weeks of speculation. I won't go into the details of the acquisition, as you can read more about it at the FeedBurner blog and just by following the news at Google News. Here, we'll take a look at the implications this brings to the world of RSS Marketing. Just my predictions of course:) 1. RSS Metrics Will Finally Become Integrated With Web MetricsIn my book, all marketing/communications channels should be judged using the same metrics, such as conversions, cost-per-order, cost-per-subscriber, sales etc. Although you could already do all of this with RSS, it required some tinkering. But, as FeedBurner gets assimilated into Google Analytics, tracking the key marketing metrics should become a breeze, giving everyone access to crucial internet optimization data. 2. RSS Metrics Moving Closer to the MainstreamWith RSS Metrics being integrated directly into Google Analytics (which I'm sure will happen very soon), marketers might finally start actually measuring their RSS feeds. Means better RSS Marketing, finally. 3. RSS Advertising Going CPCAlthough FeedBurner is cautions to provide any details about how their CPM pricing model might change with the integration of their ad services into Google, I'm quite certain that RSS advertising will move the way of cost-per-click. Means less revenues for RSS feed publishers, but better ROI for you, the advertiser. 4. RSS Advertising Moving Closer to the MainstreamRSS Advertising will finally reach the mainstream, utilizing Google's massive advertiser database. Prices will go up, and RSS content monetization will again start becoming the talk at industry events. On the plus side, it also means Google will be able to attract more RSS feed publishers, meaning more RSS ad inventory for you. Your RSS advertising reach potential is about to explode, finally enabling you to reach the masses using RSS Advertising. 5. Trouble for Other RSS Advertising CompaniesI love Pheedo, another leading RSS Metrics and RSS Advertising company, but the FeedBurner acquisition makes me wonder what's in store for them as Google starts pushing RSS advertising to their massive database of advertisers, especially as part of an integrated online advertising service. It's certainly not the end of other RSS Advertising companies, but they might all soon see themselves transforming from RSS ad networks to RSS media planning & buying consultants. Which would be a shame, especially considering the advancements in RSS Advertising developed by Pheedo. 6. Better Targeting for Google AdWords Advertisers (We Wish!)Advertiser demand seems to be growing quicker than the inventory offered by Google. The obvious choice for Google (in addition of course to increasing ad inventory through additional reach, media expansion through the content network, and expansion to new ad channels, like RSS and banner inventories) is to offer better targeting, for a premium price. As a marketer, I clearly want to place my ads in front of the most relevant prospects. Keyword targeting is OK, but adding behavioral on top of that introduces another filtering element to my media planning, enabling me to really pin-point the users I want to see my ads.
This may either be science fiction or Google's actual long-term masterplan. As more advertising budgets rush to the internet, available quality ad inventory will continue shrinking. By introducing such targeting, integrating the metric and capabilities of all of their properties, Google could come as close as possible to total ad targeting, the holy grail of marketing we are all striving towards. Things will get much more interesting ... and soon. If I were an ad agency, I'd start developing a targeting department, focusing on targeted media buying.
Just got a notice from Amazon (thank you) that they soft-launched RSS feeds for tags. But first, how do their tags actually work?
The good part is that Amazon now added RSS capabilities to their tags, available through most tag pages.
An excellent RSS e-commerce application from Amazon!
In part 3 of the RSS interview with Greg Reinacker of NewsGator find out how Enterprise RSS makes information management easier within a corporation.
Click here to listen to the interview [MP3; 13 min.]
In part 2 of the RSS interview with Greg Reinacker of NewsGator find out how online media can take advantage of RSS beyond publishing RSS content.
Click here to listen to the interview [MP3; 14 min.]
I interviewed Greg Reinacker of NewsGator end of January, as part of the interview series for the 2007 edition of the RSS e-book. NewsGator is one of the leaders in the Enterprise RSS space, a provider of top-breed RSS Readers and also a branded RSS Reader vendor. So, you can imagine we had alot to cover. In part 1 of the interview, find out about how Windows Vista and Internet Explorer are changing the RSS landscape ...
Click here to listen to the interview [MP3; 8 min.]
Only a few more weeks until the ACCM (Annual Catalog and Multi-Channel Merchant Conference) event in Boston, one of the best DM conferences of the year. If you're in Boston or are coming to the conference, drop me a note. I'll be speaking on RSS and other new internet marketing media, together with Scott Voight of Silverpop. If you're at the conference, definetly reserve the Monday 3 PM slot to come hear us. The last presentation we did together with Scott in London was a huge hit, and we promise not to dissapoint:)
What works best in RSS marketing? How are RSS subscribers different than e-mail subscribers? RSS publishing best practices if you want to sell? These and other practical questions are all revealed in the 2nd part of the RSS interview with Bryan Eisenberg. Without doubt, this is one of the best and most practical RSS marketing interviews we've done so far. In part 1 of the Bryan Eisenberg RSS interview we focused on how the GrokDotCom.com is going beyond traditional RSS Radars by employing intelligent content aggregation tools, instead of relying just on contextual filtering, and what kind of results they are achieving. In part 2 of the interview we move beyond RSS Radars to their overall RSS marketing strategy. In this interview find out about ...
Click here to listen to the MP3 file [8:33 minutes; 2 MB]
I have to apologise to Amazon for missing on two of their RSS content delivery options, which I previously missed. Sorry guys, and thank you for the heads up. 1. Product Discussions The first one that comes to mind is TV.com and their community show reviews. 2. Customer Reviews by Author
Part of the upcoming 2007 edition of the RSS Marketing e-book are also the interviews we are doing with various internet marketing experts and RSS practitioners. In the following days and hopefully not too many weeks, we'll be posting those interviews here. I'm sure most of you have heard of Bryan Eisenberg before. Bryan is the leading worldwide authority on internet marketing optimization and website persuasion architecture. He was also one of the few marketers that got on the RSS Marketing bandwagon early on. Recently, Bryan started exploring RSS Radars as a tool to increase the traffic to their optimization portal GrokDotCom.com, increase visitor loyalty, position the website as the key news source for internet optimization ... and naturally facilitate online sales of their books and consulting services. Take a look here. But while most RSS Radars are based on contextually filtering content from selected third-party RSS feeds, the GrokDotCom.com RSS Radars go far beyond anything else we have seen on the market so far. Instead of relying only on contextual content filtering to select the most relevant third-party content, they are employing a number of additional filters, such as the amount of linkage the story is receiving, source relevance and credibility, and so on ... and they're calling it a discovery engine.
All of these answers, and more, available in the audio interview. Click here to listen to the MP3 file [14 minutes; 3 MB]
Defining Online Conversion: Combining Action and Exposure Elements Conversions aren't just about new sales or subscribers versus your website visitors. First, let's review the conversion rate definition from Defining Online Conversion: What Is It?:
The conversion rate metric can be used to measure anything you want to track, analyze and optimize, and is by no means linked only to sales or subscribers and your website. Here are just some quick examples of conversion rates not used as often as the standard sales/visitors CR:
There are countless combinations available, depending on what specifically you want to measure and optimize. Let's return to our conversion rate definition for a second:
As you can see from the definition, the conversion rate is a combination of actions and exposures, with a simple formula of:
Consequently, conversion rate optimization begins first with defining what you want to measure and optimize, and then by defining the action and exposure elements that help you get to the numbers you need. Let's presume you want to measure the overall effectiveness of your e-mail e-zine in driving sales.
Much like everything else in series so far, this is just a simplistic demonstration, here primarily for the purpose of helping you see how to combine action and exposure elements. In the case of e-zine optimization for sales, you would also need to measure relevant clicks (since only relevant clicks will increase your sales), different CTAs, open rates and so on. The point is, combine different actions and exposures to come up with conversion rate formulas that will impact your bottom line.
RSS Radars are not just a tool to help you enrich your website content and allow you to easily conduct business intelligence, but can also be used as a B2B Customer Relationship Management tool to help you maintain customer loyalty and provide your customers with some additional added value. Just recently I received an e-mail from David Koopmans of Mokum Marketing, who gave me the idea for this post. David's idea is simple:
This is how David sees the usefulness of such an application: But, there are two problems:
This is where RSS Radars can come in, enabling you to aggregate dozens or hundreds of RSS feeds, filter them for the relevant keywords to get only the most relevant content for a specific client, and provide that client with his own customized RSS feed, using a service like MySyndicaat.com or pipes.yahoo.com. Plus, using .htaccess you can easily password protect each feed for each individual client. More details in the 2007 edition of the RSS e-book:)
While RSS has certainly become well-established with most marketers, few are using it to its full advantage. Now, while the original Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS e-book focused on explaining RSS marketing in a world where RSS was just starting out, the 2007 edition will focus on optimizing your RSS marketing and getting as much as possible from it. The 10-step plan is one of the tools we will be introducing in the 2007 edition, once it's launched (getting there:). Going through this plan will help you get as much as possible from RSS, on all levels. It will help you bring your RSS marketing to the same level as your e-mail marketing, and more. But for now, here's a very quick summary of the steps from the process view point. 1. Develop your RSS marketing strategy 2. Start using RSS for business intelligence 3. Plan your overall outbound RSS content strategy 4. Define your RSS marketing requirements & select your RSS marketing vendor 5. Plan your RSS content strategy on the content-item level 6. Promote your RSS feeds internally 7. Promote your RSS feeds externally 8. Measure and optimize your RSS feeds 9. Use RSS to syndicate your content to other online media 10. Use RSS to enhance your website and brand
Online conversion is not only the result of online activities. Rather, the conversion process can be initiated by an offline channel, such as direct mail, catalog, flyer, TV advertising, mobile, print advertising and even radio advertising ... or even prompted by brand or retail. On the other hand, the conversion doesn't really need to happen online, but it could happen in a physical retail store, over the phone or even using a mobile phone. Consequently, measuring and optimizing conversion for multi-channel merchants, as well as for B2B marketers, where conversion is most often achieved in a live meeting, is a complex issue. What Initializes Conversion?Why do we even care which channel initiated the conversion?
So far so good. But it gets even more complex. Imagine this scenario:
Or in graphic terms ...
This isn't a sci-fi scenario, but rather a reality we're seeing in our webstores every day. For example, in my own experience I'm finding that in our case e-mail e-zines don't convert the majority of subscribers directly, but rather facilitate the conversion indirectly. Subscribers receive the e-zine, which builds their trust, builds demand and gets them ready for the purchase. But when making the purchase, that same subscriber still enters the website through a Search Engine. While looking at the conversion from this complex viewpoint does present difficulties, it simply needs to be done. Just take a look at the number of steps outlined above. Each of these steps represents an optimization opportunity, enabling you to further increase sales. And every step also represents a threat that decreases conversion. But in addition to the question of how to measure this process, the next logical problem is how you actually attribute conversion to the appropriate channel. It is clear in this scenario that TV started the process. So while each of the following steps assisted in achieving the conversion, the TV advertising needs to be attributed for starting the sales process. The problem here is that the above scenario is really a simple one. In a multi-channel environment, the paths are much more complicated and can shift from channel to channel, including offline channels, before the purchase is concluded. Also in many cases it will be difficult to establish the initial channel that started the sales process. If for example you're conducting a full-scale offline campaign through TV, print, outdoor and radio, all at the same time, all of these media will generate online search, consequently making it impossible to determine from which media exactly the prospect came. Furthermore, we must not forget that an offline media cannot be taken out of the equation once the sales process has already started. Even while the consumer is receiving our e-mail campaigns, he may be exposed to our offline advertising, further facilitating the purchase decision. Where Conversion is Achieved?As if measuring the impact of various sources of traffic and conversion were not enough of a challenge, we also need to take into account that the conversion can be completed using an offline channel.
Unfortunately we can never expect to be able to measure the multi-channel environment with 100% precision, but we certainly can get close enough. What we have to understand though is that measuring multi-channel conversion is not a one-time deal, but rather a long-term process that will slowly enable you to increase measurement precision. We will return to these issues in more detail in many of the future posts on this blog.
I just returned from Wiesbaden, Germany, where I gave a presentation at the 4th German Teleshopping Conference. The topic was teleshopping in Central and Eastern Europe, the revolution that is taking place in teleshopping and multi-channel integration. Really one of my favorites. Here are the key points ... 1. IntegrateWith the media evolution that is taking place, our view and expectations of teleshopping must change as well. Without doubt, TV is still the strongest mass advertising channel, and in many cases, especially in Direct Response Television [DRTV], also the least expensive one when it comes to generating direct sales. However, while our direct response TV advertising still needs to sell directly at a profitable Cost-per-Order [CPO], its key power can no longer be found primarily in direct sales, but rather in being the key demand driver and the key "lead generation" channel, while the sale may happen somewhere entirely else. Consequently, it is becoming increasingly important to fully integrate our teleshopping activities with internet marketing, direct mail, retail sales, wholesale sales, print, mobile and of course telemarketing. These channels not only capture the demand generated by direct response TV advertising, but also enable you to (a) increase your customer conversion through complex follow-up activities, (b) increase purchase frequency and (c) grow your reach through various viral components. Furthermore, integrating additional channels into your mix delivers new audiences, extends the life-cycle of your products and enables you to sell products with a longer purchase cycle. If however you do not have these channels in place and fully optimized to capture the demand and convert it into sales, you are not only losing money, but are instead driving money towards your competitors. Essentially, direct response TV advertising is still at the center of the marketing mix, but needs to be integrated with a full spectrum of other channels that enable it to fully achieve its sales potential. 2. BrandBrand and direct usuall don't seem to go together hand in hand. The brand creative people don't have much love for the DM crowd, and the same goes in the other direction as well. But, brand is crucial for direct marketing. (a) Positive brand perception and recognition drive conversions up. (b) Brand increases customer loyalty and satisfaction. (c) Brand extends the product life-cycle, enabling you to spend less in the long-term to sustain or grow your sales. The good part is that direct response TV advertising builds the brand ... as long as you are willing to suffer through higher CPOs at the beginning and then watch them decrease gradually through ever-increasing sales through all of your channels. It goes without saying of course that the advertising creative folk should remember that adding direct response elements to brand advertising will always increase sales:) But that's a story for a different time ... Anyway, brand is becoming a key issue for direct marketers. The problem is, and most of the creative folks won't admit this either, that brands are no longer created through visual impressions, but rather through experienced impressions. And building brands today goes in both directions. The marketer might start with the brand building, but the consumers are the ones that are going to actually build the brand online and through word of mouth ... good or bad. Essentially, branding is becoming alot more Public Relations than anyone would like to admit ... except of course the PR people, who've known this all along. The simple solution? Well, there are no longer any simple solutions. The right solution is to fully integrate brand, direct and PR. 3. Test EverythingThis one is easy. Test everything, then go back and test everything again. And again. There are literally hundreds of elements for you to test. But here's a quick one for US DRTV marketers --> stop relying only on your product-focused mini sites but rather consider testing "the good old webstore" model, with dozens or hundreds or thousands of products ... with smart merchandising of course. Doing so will drive your short-term sales conversion rates down, but it will drive your long-term sales conversion rates and profitability up. Remember, even with DRTV the game is no longer about making the first sale, but about making a series of consequtive sales to the same consumer. Even if he doesn't buy the exposed DRTV product ... 4. Go ViralThe internet provides unprecedented viral marketing opportunities, especially for direct response TV marketers. And smart viral campaigns will enable you to generate leads for less than 10 Dollar Cents per lead ... 5. Social Media Is Here... and it's not going anywhere. For direct response TV marketers, social media is both an opportunity and a threat. (a) Everyone has a voice ... and they’re not affraid to use it online. Got a faulty product or long delivery times? They'll find you, expose you, talk about you and demolish your brand. (b) Price comparison is easy and quick. Consequently, your pricing strategies have never been more important. (c) Dozens of competitors are just an “online search away", and often Google loves them better than you ... even for your own product keywords. (d) Watch the likes of eBay and other online auctions --> it's never been easier for a small-time entrepreneur to compete with the big advertiser, actually piggy-backing on his ad spend. 6. DiversifyCapture the product long tail by both expanding your product mix and repackaging your product combinations to cater to different target audiences. Nothing new, right? But how many are actually doing it?
Conversion rate measurement and optimization must also take the time component into consideration. A conversion can happen instantly or over a longer period of time. If you're measuring your purchase/visitor conversion rate, the purchase might happen on the first visit, after a few visits or even months after someone has visited your website, subscribed to your e-zine and received weekly communications from you. I usually define the time component as
There is no rule of how you define the time component ... as long as you understand it, adjust it to your internet marketing processes and use it. The time component is one of the more important aspects of measuring the conversion rate.
The Conversion Time Component Example: E-zine Subscription BoxTo better understand this, let's take a look at a quick example of the largest Slovenian webstore, Enaa.com. The owner wanted to increase their e-zine subscriber/visitor conversion rate. Their first test was to move the e-zine subscription box from below the left-hand detailed navigation box to the top position in the left-hand column, putting it above the search box and above the left-hand detailed navigation box.
Now consider what this modification can cause:
Have you noticed that we mentioned three different conversion rates?
One simple website modification (moving the e-zine subscription box to the left-hand column top) caused a change in three macro-action conversions! While increasing the e-zine subscribe/visitor conversion rate was our goal, we also need to understand that this simple modification also changed our sales conversion rates. This is where the time component comes in.
The lesson here is that certain modifications might show their true results only after a certain period of time, and may be linked to many of the other activities we are doing.
As far back as 2001, Bryan Eisenberg of GrokDotCom broke down conversion rate measurement and optimization by action type: [BTW - check out Bryan's optimization e-books, which are an amazing resource for online optimization]
Bryan argued that each micro-action is a potential leak, where you might be losing macro-actions. By measuring the conversion only at the macro-level marketers are missing the real optimization potential of the website, since in order to optimize the macro-action conversion, you first need to optimize the micro-level conversions. Consequently it should be clear that measuring just the macro-action conversion rate won't take you far enough. You need to start measuring and optimizing on the micro-level. Now, to better understand this concept and to add a third dimension, let's take a quick look at a model I've been presenting at seminars in Europe for a few years now: Internet Processing. This is also the model I've tried to implement in any company I worked with, with varying success, since fully working under this model requires alot of measurement and optimization. But not to worry, you can also implement very basic variations of the model, which don't take that many resources. Quick Internet Processing OverviewInternet marketing is a process, not an activity. Hence, measurement and optimization cannot take place only on a single activity level, but should be done for your entire internet marketing process. I'd need alot more space and time to really explain all the aspects of this, so we'll just take a look at the simple version right now. Internet Processing consists of five distinct elements:
Consequently, Internet Processing demands that you measure your conversion and optimize it on each of these five levels. Today we'll just take a look at the 3 parts that are most important for conversion rate measurement, and leave the details of the model for a later time. Macro-ProcessImagine the macro-process as a sequence of all of the big steps you need to complete with a user to reach your ultimate goal, converting him from one user status to another. The macro-process will be different for every company, based on your internet marketing strategy. The macro-process needs to support the strategy. Let's take a look at a quick example:
The image represents an overall macro-process, with the boxes representing the micro-processes within the macro-process, and the lines showing the current status of the user. When measuring the macro-process conversion, you are measuring your conversion of getting the user from one stage to another, as displayed here:
For example, the 10% conversion rate from first-time visitor to e-zine subscriber tells you that 10% of your first time visitors are converting into e-zine subscribers. And then, 10% of your e-zine subscribers are converting into loyal subscribers. What happens if we add some numbers?
Micro-ProcessNow, to understand the power of this model for optimization, consider what happens if you increase your overall conversion from first-time visitors acquired to e-zine subscribers acquired, keeping all the other numbers the same. Let's say that you manage to increase this conversion to 30%:
Instead of 1,000,000 e-zine subscribers you now have 3,000,000, and this eventually converts to 30,000 customers as opposed to 10,000 customers ... just by optimizing your e-zine subscription process. It needs to be admitted that this demonstration is taking a much to simplistic view of the conversion process, but it should be enough right now to show you the power of taking an overall look at your internet marketing process. But, in order to get this kind of increase, you actually need to optimize the lead generation micro-process, which in this case is also 10% when we start with it. So, we need to take a look at the lead generation micro-process:
What does this process tell us?
To optimize this micro-process to achieve the increase of the e-zine subscriber/first-time visitor conversion rate to 30%, we have two optimization routes, and one of them takes place on the overall micro-process level. The simplest thing to do --> remove the confirmation micro-action:
By removing the confirmation micro-action, the total conversion rate for the lead generation micro-processes jumped to 18%. This is optimization on the micro-process level. Micro-ActionThe other optimization route is optimizing the actual micro-actions that form the micro-process, for example optimizing the whitepaper banner in such a way that a higher % of first-time visitors take notice of it and click on it. At the same time, we optimize the field for entering additional information, perhaps removing some required fields to make things easier for our visitors.
This was optimization on the micro-action level. Again, all of these examples were fairly simplistic and did not take the entire complexity of the issue into account, but they should be enough to demonstrate the Internet Processing model, which we will cover in greater detail in the weeks and months to come.
Mobil Avenue accuses me of 20th century marketing thinking. I'm not quite sure what he has in mind, but it seems that my Second Life posts ticked off some people. Now, don't get me wrong, I see alot of development potential in virtual worlds, but Second Life as it is simply does not cut it. I won't go into the details again, but the sheer lack of economy of scales shows that something is wrong when you compare the investments in Second Life and the actual virtual world penetration. Not to mention the difficult user interface. Second Life is a good beginning, but virtual worlds have a far way to go before they deserve to be treated as seriously as some are treating them today. Yes, Second Life should certainly be treated as a marketing/communications playground, but not as a high importance marketing channel. If you want to call this 20th century thinking, go ahead. It is. As are economies of scale, profitability, sales conversion, cost per order and other business "relics". And as you'll notice, 20th century thinking still works, even in 2007. We've all heard stories of the demise of advertising, the death of PR, the death of e-mail, the death of postal direct mail and so on ... but they're all alive, well and kicking still today, and will remain so. Actually, intrusive direct response TV advertising is still one of the most effective tools to generate sales. And it gives you more bang for the buck than almost any other marketing channel, including online. Do I like this? No. I'd love to believe that the internet is the alpha and omega of marketing. But it's not. It's the key connector, but not the key driver. That's the way things are, and as markters we need to employ 20th century thinking and use what works best ... and the numbers tell us that. But this doesn't mean we shouldn't play and test. Quite on the contrary. OK, this conversation is getting somewhat beyond the original topic, and it's quite possible I'm not even getting what Mobil Avenue is trying to say:) And please don't get me started on 3D virtual webstores ... Of course, I might be wrong. And if I am, I'll be the first to change my stripes the next day. It's what marketers do. If a new thing comes up and works better than what you're doing, change. But every change first demand proof. Unless you're just testing ... because when you're testing, the rules of the game change.
In previous articles we covered the conversion benchmarking problems and misinterpreting conversion data without understanding the entire picture. But we never really got around to taking a look at what conversion actually is, what it tells us and why it's important for interactive marketers. If you're thinking "Nah, I already know all of this", give me a few more minutes. The conversion isn't just about knowing what % of your traffic is turning into buyers or comparing test variables against each other. And, if interpreted incorrectly, it leads to many mistakes that make a dent in the bottom line. But first let's define the conversion rate ... What is Conversion Rate? Wikipedia defines the conversion rate as ...
While this definition is a good start, a broader definition is needed: The conversion rate is a % of unique actions that result from unique exposures. The keywords here are:
How is this different from the Wikipedia definition (which comes closest to how marketers view conversion)?
The Conversion Rate Formula The conversion rate formula is simple: Conversion Rate = Unique Actions / Unique Exposures Two quick examples to make this easier to understand:
This is of course a very simplistic conversion rate formula. In most cases you would need to go into much more detail to get any usable numbers. What You Are Actually Measuring With the Conversion Rate?
How Precise is the Conversion Rate? Due to multiple internet technology issues, the conversion rate is not a precise measure. It should not be viewed as an absolute metric, but rather used as a trend indicator. The more focused your conversion rate measurements, the more precise trends you will get.
How You Can Use the Conversion Rate?
OK, enough for the start. If this article seems a little technical in nature, don't run away. I promise the next one will be more practical, as we start looking at the various types of conversion rate you can measure.
If I keep this up, I might actually get the reputation of picking on Amazon.com as a hobby [just take a look at Is Amazon Missing the RSS Advertising Opportunity?, Why is Everyone Missing the RSS Transactional Messaging Opportunity? and Get the Most from RSS Marketing ... Take Your DM Hat Off!]. It's just one of those things. You see a company that could really go above and beyond with RSS and really use it to drive revenues, but they just don't do it. But at least they're showing some activitiy lately ... a) Gold Box But, unfortunatelly, the RSS feed only provides brief information about the product, instead of also giving you a direct purchase link, some of the latest product reviews and other information that could facilitate the sale. Also, there's no personalization, or so it seems. Why not give me an RSS feed with just the special deals for me, based on my previous purchases? b) Plog Also, Amazon is promising that we'll be soon able to track latest releases, changes to our orders and "much more" through our plogs, which will presumably also come be published in our targeted RSS feeds. Amazon, please keep this up. Make us happy:) c) The Amazon API Here are some examples: RSStalker.com - provides a variety of Amazon product tracking options via RSS, such as a 10% price drop feed that lets you know when a product that RSStalker is tracking via Amazon drops 10% in price; RSS feeds from your wishlists; last 25 price changes in a selected Amazon category, and more. Baebo - provides a persistant search RSS feed for Amazon products, based on your keywords. More great examples floating around ...
WebProNews has a short summary from Amanda Watlington's tips for SEO optimization of your RSS feeds: 1. Subscribe to your own feed and claim it on blog engine Technorati Now, let's add some tips from Stephan Spencer and continue with the numbering: 10. Full text, not summaries And to round this off, a summary of my own tips [part 2 here] for using RSS to drive traffic to your site: 19. Get your RSS content (proactively) syndicated on other relevant websites [just the headlines and summaries of course] Do you have more tips? (a) Post them in the comments form below. (b) E-mail me at info@marketingstudies.net and let's set-up an interview
How does EzineArticles.com, one of the largest websites to help you syndicate your content, use RSS for their marketing? To answer this question, we interviewed Christopher Knight for the 2007 edition of the RSS marketing e-book (coming shortly). But if you want to know more, click here to read Christopher's summary. BTW - did you know that EzineArticles.com publishes more than 40,000 RSS feeds?
RSS Specifications point to the F Train from NYC and their RSS feed, which lets you watch traing schedules and changes. The essential idea of course is good --> use RSS to get your latest and most important content to your prospects and customers. Train schedules certainly seem relevant enough for someone in NYC to subscribe to them. But again, someone is missing the point. If I want to know about traing schedules and changes, I don't care about all schedules and changes. I just care about the routes I take. If I'm only taking the Queens-bound route, don't talk to me about Manhattan-bound trains. F Trains, great idea, but now makes this a little more usable and allow people to select which routes they're interested in and then give them an RSS feed just for those.
... but someone certainly is, using a non-existant MarketingStudies.net e-mail address. If you receive an e-mail with the subject "Got It, I Think" from tahaseggdzf@marketingstudies.net, or something simillar, it's spam. Not from us though ... This is how it works: (a) The spammer finds a number of open relay e-mail servers, which allow the spammer to send e-mail using an e-mail address that's not "hosted" on the e-mail server and often without even having a user account at the server provider. (b) He or she then uses your e-mail address as the "Reply To" e-mail address in the spam messages and sends out the spam blast. (c) Everyone receiving these e-mail messages will now think they are coming from your domain, unless of course they have enough knowledge about the subject to check the headers of the e-mail messages received. Those show that the e-mail is in fact not coming from MarketingStudies.net. The funny thing about this spam is that the spammer didn't include any links in his spam e-mail. Looking for ways to stop this, but I'm affraid it might be impossible ...
After a rather painful week, MarketingStudies.net is back with its full functionality, including comments. As already noted, we started the move to a new hosting provider about a week ago, when the comments on this blog were again turned off by the old hosting provider without notice. The move went relatively smoothly, thanks to the great MovableType architecture and excellent cooperation from both the old and the new hosting providers. Plus, we're now running on MovableType 3.3, which really is light years ahead from the old 2.x versions. The only thing that really went wrong with the move were the sub-domains. Everything else was smooth. Quick Steps for Changing Your Hosting Provider and Installing a New MovableType Version If you're thinking of doing the same, here are the quick steps: a) Sign-up for your new hosting package and contact your new hosting provider. Contact them in person and explain to them what you're doing and that you might need a little more assistance from them to finalize the transfer. b) Make a replica of all of your files from the old hosting provider and upload the exact folder structure with all the files to the new hosting provider. c) Export the SQL database with your MovableType data, directly from the SQL interface. You want a full copy of your database with practically everything. d) Install your current MovableType version on the new server. Do not just copy the files from the old MovableType installation, rather do the installation again on the new server. e) Import your old SQL database from the old server into the new SQL database on the new server. Make sure you import it into the new database created by MovableType. You should now have all of the data and settings from MovableType on the old server in MovableType on the new server. f) Log-in to MovableType on the new server. You will probably need to modify the server paths for storing files, so open the settings for each blog and change the server paths if needed. g) Rebuild your files on the new server. h) Install a new MovableType version on top of the current one, of course on the new server. i) Once everything is working, ask your domain host to point your domains to your new server IPs. This is it. Good luck!
Pheedo just released a new RSS advertising concept, called FeedPowered Advertising, that helps you generate new subscribers to your RSS feeds using RSS advertising, through Pheedo's RSS advertising network or through other ad networks. The Key Facts Their new RSS ad format ... [a] Displays the latest content items from your RSS feed, including video content with direct "watch" links [b] Allows the user to also add your content (directly from the ad) to del.icio.us, digg, Reddit, Furl or e-mai it to a friend How the New Format Integrates DM, PR and Brand The implications of this are quite strong. [a] The ad format allows you to syndicate your RSS content to targeted online media, displaying your content there directly to generate more brand awareness, build your credibility and get new readers by actually demonstrating your value [b] Furthemore, the ad itself contains further syndication options that will virally spread your content through the key social networking sites [c] The ad functions as a direct subscription generation tool, enabling you to quickly capture new subscribers through other sites ... and actually works towards increasing your conversion rate by first demonstrating the content and so making the subscription decision easier and more educated, thus generating better qualified subscribers/prospects In essence, the ad format integrates PR, direct marketing and brand advertising. Is it perfect? While it is an amazing idea, it does need some further refinement. Further Improvements Needed [a] Looking at their example on their site using Internet Explorer 7 shows that the feed subscription option in the ad is not highlighted through the IE7 native RSS Reader, making it less intuitive to subscribe [b] The existing example is clearly targeted to RSS Aware users. But data shows that more than 80% of RSS users are not actually aware of using RSS. The ad format also need to include other subscription options, in addition to the RSS button, such as Add to MyYahoo! [c] The ad also needs some space at the bottom to better entice viewers to subscribe, using enticing copy and perhaps bribing the viewers to subscribe by offering them a free whitepaper [d] For direct marketers, the ad format should also allow an in-between data capture window, allowing the direct marketer to capture prospect information prior to being given access to the feed [e] The next step would be for Pheedo to add additional metrics for advertisers, such as new subscriber retention and long-term customer conversion, and perhaps even the CPO. If you want to check it out yourself, here's the screenshot (working version available here):
I'm a little biased here, because I've always dug Pheedo work, but in my opinion this is the best RSS advertising development yet ... and finally an RSS advertising tool to generate real results by taking advantage of the power of RSS.
Website conversion rates are some of the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for measuring how well your internet marketing works. However, measuring conversion is daunting task, since conversion rates themselves do not tell us enough to really asses our performance adequately or benchmark our website against industry averages. One of such problems, covered in the previous example, is that a higher conversion rate may actually be costing you money. We took a look at a real DVD sales example where 2 price points were tested. The higher price point generated a lower conversion rate (CR), but greater overall profits due to a higher margin. In this case, looking at the CR, but not looking at overall project profitability, would lead us to making the wrong decision. Today I want to cover one last example of CR measurement problems, before we move into actually using CR to measure and optimize your performance. For this example, let's take a look at a single website that's testing two different elements to see which one generates a higher conversion rate.
With the above numbers, we're looking at the aggregate CR data for each element, trying to asses the one we should go with to reach the best possible results. Not looking at any additional data, Element #2 would be the clear winner. But in this case, the website did the test using two different traffic sources. Today we won't look at all of the traffic source specifics, such as costs, sales, CPO or profits, but just at the implications of what using different traffic sources means for your CR.
When evaluating these numbers let's presume that both the traffic sources:
This would of course never be the case, but adding additional data would just further complicate things at this point. So, looking at the data, it's clearly evident that Traffic Source #1 generates a high conversion rate for Element #1 and a lower conversion rate for Element #2, and vica verca. When doing your online advertising, this is a very realistic scenario. Each traffic source caters to different audiences, who will react differently to your marketing messages. In this case, each traffic source's audience responds better to an individual test element. Everything else being equal, this means that determining any of the two test elements in the test as a clear winner would be a big mistake, wasting you customers and money. What's the solution? Quite simply, if and when your tests prove that different traffic source audiences respond differently to your different test elements, the only solution is to implement a solution that allows you to display the winning element for that traffic source to the audience that comes through the source. Essentially, both of the test elements are winners. You need to select both.
Eric T. Peterson continues showing the practical implications of his visitor engagement metric by analyzing his own website, questioning what he can do to increase the sales of his books to visitors referred to his site by some of the bloggers that are delivering traffic with high engagement but low sales conversion. Now, I haven't studied his visitor engagement metric well enough yet to really comment it as it applies to this example, but let's try some basic optimization techniques to see how those could increase his book sales. 1. Establish a Call-to-Action at the Bottom of Each Blog Post I'm not familiar with Eric's clickstream paths, but the first question is, how many of his visitors from the referring blogs are actually exposed to his "Buy My Book" Call-to-Action (CTA). How many actually click to his first page, where the CTA is more exposed, even if below the fold? The first thing to do would be to add the CTA for the book directly below each blog post, actually building on the blog post to try to directly sell the book then and there. Basically telling them what to do, after they're done reading the post --> buy the book. 2. Provide Multiple CTA Options However, as Eric states in his post, a good deal of the visitors entering his site from the problematic blogs actually start the purchase process, but don't finish it. He is generating some interest, but not enough to have them to complete the purchase process. And then we still have the prevailing majority that don't even start the purchase process. This would demand some testing, but my first instinct would be to go with a soft offer, such as a free whitepaper, and then try to make the sale through the whitepaper and the additional 7-day, 14-day or more e-mail or RSS follow-up sequence. At least in my own tests adding a free whitepaper offer + follow-up sequence always increased total sales, CR and profits. 3. More Compelling CTAs Eric does offer free chapters of his book on the first page. However, to capture more leads, it might work to test offering a full free e-book VS just sample chapters. Usually, I wouldn't be interested in free chapters unless I was already in the purchase process ... but if you give me a "10 KPIs That Make or Break Your Internet Sales" free e-book, I just might budge. 4. Provide Multiple CTA Opportunities Following the steps above, Eric would put a CTA for the book below each blog post. But to really maximize the opportunities, I would also put a CTA (perhaps a different one, but one that would still lead to the book purchase in the end) in the top right hand corner of the website. 5. Optimize the Purchase Process
In parts 1 and 2 of Conversion Benchmarking Hell we discussed why benchmarking your conversion rates against industry figures just doesn't work, basically saying that conversion benchmarking is the one of the greatest hoaxes in internet marketing. The key message throughout the two articles was that conversion rates tell only a small part of your internet sucess (or failure) story, but never enough to enable you to come to any concrete conclussions, at least without taking a look at all the other relevant data. Today, to bring the final point home, we'll take a look at an example of when the conversion rate missleads you into making the wrong decision. I Want a Lower Conversion Rate The following data is from a real example we had a couple of months ago. When selling a DVD package, we split-tested two different price points againts eachother: $54.95 and $77. Here are the conversion rates (CR) for both of the tests:
Price point $54.95 generated 61% more sales quantity than price point $77. Just by looking at the CR, it would seem that $54.95 is the better way to go, right? The results stay the same even after we add the sales quantities and other data:
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