A Day in the Life of a Persuasion Architect

Some Google Advertisers Cutting Spending

From Dow Jones MarketWatch...

Keyword inflation, low conversion rates sending merchants elsewhere

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A growing number of online advertisers are bidding a partial goodbye to Google Inc.

Frustrated by the soaring price of Internet-search advertising and diminishing returns from the ads they buy, mid-sized advertisers say they plan to reduce how much business they do with Google this year -- in some cases, significantly.

Last year, for example, eBags.com co-founder Peter Cobb spent between $5 million and $8 million to peddle suitcases, handbags and other carrying cases online. Google got 75% of that amount.

But this year it will get "significantly less," Cobb said. "The Google percentage has got to go down," he said.

In many cases, the cost of an eBags.com ad placed on either Google's own Web site or one of its affiliates now equals 45% of the price of the product it promotes. That's crimping the company's own profit margins and forcing it to look elsewhere to market its bags.

"We're testing print ads right now," said Cobb, whose company will spend up to $8 million on ads in 2007.  Read the rest of the article

The article continues...

Keyword search prices on many terms rose between 40% and 60% last year, according to advertisers like Dan Sackrowitz, chief executive of Bare Necessities, which sells lingerie online. He saw his Google ad budget soar 50% last year.

The problem is obvious, traffic costs are puffing up like a marshmallow in a microwave and advertisers are having a hard time finding ways to increase traffic and lower costs.  Simply put, Google advertisers are hooked.

Instead of looking for ways to increase return on traffic investment, the average marketer will  look for another traffic fix.  We've said before that the marketing battleground of the future is not traffic acquisition, it will be traffic conversion. 

The exceptional marketer is looking for ways to optimize their keyword and landing page conversion rates. 

Optimizing landing pages is something we've been doing with our clients for quite some time.  We are a premier channel partner with Google and their new testing platform Google Website Optimizer beta.  If you are interesting in our landing page optimization coaching service, we are going to take on a few  testers over the next few weeks to participate in this beta with us.  Contact us if you want to know more.

Preparing for Panama: another case for Persuasion Architecture

A new Ad-Age article offer strategies for winning at Panama, namely:

Instead, marketers' focus will shift from managing their bids to managing the entire conversation with their customers. By improving attributes such as the relevance of keywords, ad copy and landing pages, advertisers provide a better user experience while having an positive influence on their own ad costs.

Panama certainly raises the stakes for all those who have yet to realize how critical true Customer-centricity has become (let's not forget transparency either).  With the added competition, it's nice to have a methodology to follow...

Roy on Customer Experience...

From today's Monday Morning Memo:

Your website architecture dictates your customer's experience. Architecture has nothing to do with graphics. Did your website have an architect? Or was it designed by the programmer? By the graphic artist? By you?

A programmer asks, "Does it function?"
A graphic designer asks, "Does it 'feel right' and represent us well?"
An owner asks, "Does it say what I want it to say?"
An architect asks, "Did the customer find their answer?"

Read the entire memo (and while you're there, you just may want to subscribe and start every Monday with 5 minutes of insights that will quite simply knock you on you @ss)

Call To Action - Take Two

We just noticed Amazon is now fulfilling orders for the softcover version of our bestselling Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results (it was due out the end of the month). This isn't just a reprint of the hardcover, this is more the book we wanted to write when we released Call to Action in May 2005, but had to rush it out early for our friends at WebTrends for their seminar series. We stripped out over 30,000 words and put back 11,000 new words. All in all, it is a much better book and we are certainly proud of the extra work Lisa T Davis and Bill Drew put into it to make it a more cohesive narrative.

The Cat Whisperers

You've seen Cesar Millan, the infamous 'dog psychology' dude.  Cesar works miracles with unruly canines in 24 short minutes on the National Geographic Channel show "The Dog Whisperer". 

Now meet Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, the Cat Whisperers.

The authors of "Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing" have set forth an intriguing set of principles which they call Persuasion Architecture. The formula is not for the faint-hearted -- it involves hard work to navigate a complicated matrix of psychological, technical and demographic approaches in order to develop a customer-centric marketing focus. In the process, it requires a business to be willing to relinquish control of information about its product or service; indeed, transparency is key to the entire process. But the authors guarantee results, whether your target clients are individuals or other businesses. Read the entire review over at Wharton School Knowledge @ W.P. Carey.

Have an unruly marketing situation? Will travel.

Utterings of the Truly Desperate

From USA Today "Product Placement - You Can't Escape It"....

"Marketers are saying, 'We must be more innovative — to zig when others zag,' " says Richard Notarianni, executive creative director of media at ad firm Euro RSCG.

"The industry is desperate to find clever ways to reach people, whether or not it has any legitimate value. ... When someone says, 'Let's put advertising in bathroom stalls,' another says 'That's great. It's a captive audience.' "

More...

No space is too odd. US Airways (LCC) is in talks to sell ads on airsickness bags, spokeswoman Valerie Wunder says. It already makes about $10 million a year from ads on tray tables and napkins, she says.

"The game has become one of finding the next blank space that hasn't been covered," says Yankelovich's Smith.

And more...

"I've never seen things changing as much as they are now," says Rance Crain, editor-in-chief of trade magazine Advertising Age and a 40-plus-year observer of marketing. "Advertisers will not be satisfied until they put their mark on every blade of grass."

And finally...

The more consumers ignore ads, the more ads marketers spew back at them, says Max Kalehoff of marketing research firm Nielsen BuzzMetrics. "It's like a drug addiction. Advertisers just keep buying more and more just to try to achieve prior levels of impact. In other words, they're hooked."

This year, marketers will spend a record $175 billion on ads in major media, such as TV, radio, print, outdoor, movie theaters and the Internet, says ad-buying firm ZenithOptimedia. That's up 5% over 2005. Add direct mail and other direct-response ads, and the total will hit $269 billion.

Advertisers are becoming that loud mouth annoying guy at the bar who's flashing his expensive watch, bragging about his job, and buying every prospective girl a drink.  Sorry bud, buying even more drinks, or putting your picture up in a lady's stall isn't gonna increase your chances, you are probably going home alone...again.

$269 billion can buy you alot of stuff, but it can no longer buy you a desirable magnetic personality that people want to buy.  It won't buy you a barking cat.  If you think it will, then I have a 41,723 blades of grass in my front lawn that I will be happy to whore out to a desperate advertiser. 

Buy one blade get one free, captive audience for canines and occasional jack rabbits, 25% more traffic in growing subdivision,  this offer won't last long, call now.

 

Web Interaction Optimization Software

It's been fun seeing how focusing in on customer conversion rate optimization has become the 2006/2007 Rallying Cry for Marketers, according to independent research firm Forrester Research Inc. In a report titled, "Marketing Technology Adoption 2006," June 2006, Forrester interviewed 371 marketing technology decision makers and influencers, and more than 40 percent say their organizations "have plans to implement Web interaction optimization software by the end of 2007."

We are glad to see the market catching up with what we have been preaching since 1998 and are looking forward to releasing more features of our Persuasion Architecture MAP^TM suite of software and releasing little micro apps to make the software available to many more interested customers in 2007.

Jeffrey Eisenberg's column in Target Marketing Magazine

My brother has joined me in writing a regular column. This month his article "Online traffic cost inflation is coming to an SEM budget near you" is the featured column. He will be writing for Target Marketing Mag every 2 months. We'd love to hear your feedback.

The Future of Consumer Research

No sooner than Jeffrey Eisenberg posts his rant about the state of consumer surveys do we get another authorative glimpse into the future of research from our brilliant strategic partner Michele Miller.  Check out what she writes over at Inc.

Companies like Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), Pepsi (NYSE:PBG), and Best Buy (NYSE:BBY)  now realize the methods they used to mine  for information in the past were often unproductive and inefficient. The pressure-cooker atmosphere of a group of strangers in an unfamiliar setting, combined with questions skewed to obtain answers favorable toward a product, is often a dangerous (if not deadly) concoction. Over the years, countless products that should never have been introduced made it to market, and vice-versa.

Today, major advancements in science, technology, and human-behavior studies offer new tools for studying consumers that are more natural and provide greater insight into what a customer wants. What techniques should you consider?  Read the entire article.

Late Stages in the Buying Process of Purchasing a Video iPod

Last week, I had the unfortunate experience of having my car broken into and let me just skip to the most horrific part of this story… my video ipod was stolen!

With the time I spend wandering around airports and getting restless in airplanes, you can imagine my panic attack when I realized that my Podcasts, audiobooks, movies, tv shows and music would no longer be accompanying me on my travels.

I’m scheduled to leave on my next trip on October 18^th. That gives me three weeks minus a few days to purchase my video ipod, have it shipped to me and transfer all of my entertainment files onto my new best friend!

My quick solution was to hop onto Google, search for ‘video ipod’ and make my purchase. I am specifically interested in finding out one critical piece of information before making my purchase this time. My old video ipod was lacking substantially in battery life when watching any video. It would die after only 1 ½ hours of playing video and I wanted to find out if this feature had been improved and how much battery life I could expect with a new video ipod.

 

I clicked on the paid advertisement at the top which is the Canadian store. The keyword ‘video ipod’ is not found anywhere in the description or title but I assumed that I would find what I’m looking for simply because I was going right to the source.

 

There was a long description of the 80GB video ipod. I know that I previously purchased the 30GB and I truly didn’t need anymore storage. My only concern was whether the 30GB battery life had been improved.

The copy on this page clearly describes the features of the 80GB and we can see that this model is expected to have 6 ½ hours of battery life for video. I clicked on ‘Compare Specs’ to try and find out the answer to my question for the 30GB.

Once I scrolled down the page to see the comparison, I was offered a price comparison, the storage space available for songs and the expected battery life in hours when playing music. There is no spec comparison on battery life in hours for video play time. I still needed to find this out so I clicked on the ‘select’ button under the 30GB to see if I could find the answer to my question.

There are no features listed here at all! I didn’t care about engraving my ipod! I simply needed to find out if the new battery life of the 30GB video ipod would meet my needs.

I was in the late stages of my buying process and I simply needed one small piece of information to click the buy button! Why couldn’t they answer my question?!

I attempted one last thing and I clicked on add to cart just to see if the features would be listed once in my cart.

Nope, they failed to answer my question! They are just trying to sell me accessories on this page.

Although it was very difficult to find contact info, I finally found the phone number and was able to find out the answer to my question through speaking with a customer service rep. I made the purchase over the phone and was told that I should expect to see my ipod in 8 days. The confirmation email I was sent upon purchasing said that delivery could take up to 12 days. It’s unfortunate that the info that the rep told me was not consistent with the confirmation email information regarding delivery time but at least the purchase has been made and I will get my video ipod in time for my travels!

Wouldn’t it have been more efficient to just have me purchase online? Perhaps you have customers who weren’t ready to call in an order but who were ready to purchase online. I had my credit card in hand and wouldn’t have had to speak with a customer service rep. All I needed was a point of resolution link somewhere in my buying process that would bring me to the information that would answer my question!

You likely have visitors who are in the late stages of their buying process and they probably have some specific buying decision questions. You must provide these potential customers points of resolution to bring the visitor to the information they are searching for in order for them to complete the sale.

What questions are people asking your customer service reps? Are you tracking this information? Are you updating your content online with the points of resolution to the answers to these questions?

Secret Ingredient for a More Persuasive Website

While this secret ingredient is not a requirement for a good website, it certainly doesn't hurt.  We are always on the lookout for it when we consider taking on a new client.  This ingredient brings focus, energy and authenticity to marketing efforts and customer communications.    It is infectious.  Sometimes it is subtle, other times it is in your face.  Most visitors can sense its presence, but few can articulate what they are sensing. 

This ingredient cannot be bought.  It cannot be manufactured or manipulated. Either you have it, or you don't.

The only thing worse than not having it at all is having it and hiding it from view of your customers.

Can you tell me what the secret  ingredient is?  Here is a hint.  One of these two sites has the secret ingredient, and one doesn't.

Site one
Site two

Creating A Customer Experience - The Online Advantage

I just ran across this article at USA Today.

Retailers know how you'll approach a store, where you'll hesitate, how to affect your mood, how to pique your desires, how to play to your aspirations. Everything in a store, from lighting to floor color to music to how goods are displayed, is meant in some way to get you to not just shop, but spend.

"It's like a Broadway musical," says Deborah Mitchell, a marketing expert at the University of Wisconsin. "Nothing was put into that musical that wasn't thought through. It's the same in a highly orchestrated retail environment." Read the entire article.

Here is a cold harsh reality: The most beautifully designed website, the most stunning 2D visual product photos or otherwise simply look weak compared to to a well orchestrated onslaught of your 5 senses at a brick and mortar retail outlet.  Online your visitors can't experience depth, texture, lighting, smells, noise ambience, and the list goes on.

Now don't take this as me telling you not to use images and pretty graphics, I am simply stating that focusing heavily on design may not deliver the conversions you hope for.

JPEGs, GIFs, PNGs, even flash presentations are still only 2d, flat, and when compared with a broadway musical, they are boring.

So why do so many spend so much time debating, and hand wringing about their site's visuals and graphics?  Maybe they haven't heard.

Your biggest advantage online is your ability to create atom-splitting mental images.

How?  With WORDS.

How much time are you spending with design vs. relevant copy?

What mental images are you building about your products/services in the mind of your visitors?  Are you using a series of planned mental images to create an online customer experience not bound by a physical reality? 

Novelists do it everyday,and the methodology exsists to plan this online.

What are you waiting for?

Landing Page Guidelines - Provide relevant and substantial content

If users don't quickly see what they clicked on your ad to find, they'll leave your site frustrated and may never return to your site or click on ads in the future. Here are some pointers for making sure that doesn't happen:

Link to the page on your site that provides the most useful and accurate information about the product or service in your ad.
Ensure that your landing page is relevant to your keywords and your ad text.
Distinguish sponsored links from the rest of your site content.
Try to provide information without requiring users to register. Or, provide a preview of what users will get by registering.
In general, build pages that provide substantial and useful information to the end-user. If your ad does link to a page consisting of mostly ads or general search results (such as a directory or catalog page), provide additional information beyond what the user may have seen in your ad or on the page prior to clicking on your ad.
You should have unique content (should not be similar or nearly identical in appearance to another site).

Starting with your ad, each interaction you have with your potential customers and customers should be geared towards building a trusting relationship. To avoid leading users astray:

Users should be able to easily find what your ad promises.
Openly share information about your business. Clearly define what your business is or does.
Honor the deals and offers you promote in your ad.
Deliver products, goods, and services as promised.

The above is not ground breaking advice from a Conversion Rate specialist. The above is taken directly from the Google Adwords help center.

Basic, common sense, and sound advice for any Adwords advertiser to increase their conversion rate, right?

All these guidelines sound simple, not impossible, and stir up a resounding "Duhhh, of course we should be doing that" thought in your head right?

But why are so few doing it?

Is it the Diet Coke diet phenomenon? Are some advertisers thinking that if they order a triple deck burger, super large fries and a DIET coke that they are actually on diet?

Is PROVIDING RELEVANT AND SUBSTANTIAL CONTENT really that hard?

Well improving conversion IS alot like dieting, easy in concept(eat less, burn more calories), but a little bit more difficult in practice. Planning relevant, persuasive scenarios from an Adwords ad(driving point) to the landing page(funnel point) on through to the final conversion process(conversion beacon) is tough, daunting, and often complex work. Anything worthwhile usually is.

Well if you just needed a little more incentive to improve your Google Adwords campaign, I've got good news for ya! Google is going to start charging you more for low quality landing pages.

Get relevant or get broke.

Customer Retention Strategy

Everyone knows it's cheaper to keep a customer you already have than it is to earn a new one.

For many businesses customer retention is key to profitability.

So when I ran across this potent customer retention tactic the other day, I had to share it with you.

;-)

Stray cats barking throughout the office!

Well forgive the shameless plug, but we're finally 100% publicly shipping our latest book Waiting for Your Cat to Bark: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing.  Amazon, BN and Sam's Club jumped the gun a bit, but we forgive their exhuberance.  After all, there's probably no better time to start shipping than when a book is recommended in the Sunday edition of the New York Times.  We couldn't be more proud of it, and the reception we've received thus far.  There's been far too much feedback to share here, but a random sampling shows podcasts, newspapers, tv & radio stations, and online reviews getting into the mix.  Here's a few of our personal fav's: (feel free to add your own ;)

• Craig Danuloff from Commerce360, leads an insightful chapter by chapter discussion of the book.
• Mike Grehan recently podcasted his fireside chat with Jeffrey & Bryan, and wrote about it on ClickZ
• The good folks behind 800-CEO-READ offer their thoughts (and free books)
• WonderBranding's own Michele Miller donating her own charitable dollars to inspire future readers
• Chuck McKay, of Advertising Made Simple, offers the Small Biz take on the value of Cat

There's been plenty of pub for the release, I gave you five, and in a variety of formats.  I hope there's something in there for everyone.  Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who's enjoyed the Waiting for Your Cat to Bark experience, and to those of you who haven't... what are you waiting for?!

Probability and Persuasion

Here's a partial case study for Persuasion Architecture. It has a "before" scenario, but I'll leave out the after. The numbers are real, the company is real. The name of the company has been changed to protect the blind.

Company B sells one product (just one) through their web site. They are driving traffic to their site via targeted network radio. Virtually ALL of their traffic is coming directly as a result of this offline radio campaign. These visitors heard about the product, entered the url directly and have come to the site seeking more information. (Don't you wish all of your traffic was this motivated?) Not surprisingly, Company B does quite a bit better than the industry average of 2.6% conversion. Yes, they convert around 4% of their traffic and they're making money. A 4% conversion rate pays the bills (including close to $100k/month on radio) and puts some money in the owners' pockets as well. It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that each percentage increase in conversion would be worth nearly 6 figures of additional income.

Now, let's apply some Persuasion Architecture Probability Analysis Sooper Dooper Number Crunching.

FACT 1. The probability of a visitor buying the product is 24:1 Against. (4% conversion rate).

FACT 2. If I owned a brick and mortar store and I only stocked ONE simple, inexpensive product, and 24 out of 25 potential customers (who came to my store because they already knew what they wanted) left empty handed, I would be mathematically proven to be a poor shopkeeper. AND, the ONE person who managed to buy, was probably desperate and made the purchase in spite of my worst efforts.

OK, FACT 2 is laden with opinion and isn't much of a fact. I'll try to be more factual from here on out.

Here's the Persuasion Architecture Persona Probability based on the Keirsey Temperament sorter statistics: The estimated distribution of temperaments of US general population are 40-45% Guardian (we Persuasion Architects call them Methodicals), 35-40% Artisan (Spontaneous), 5-10% Idealist (Humanistic), 5-10% Rational (Competitive).

Let's assume that the visitors to Company B's web site are a normal cross-section of the general population. We have no reason to believe otherwise without analyzing the radio campaign.

Looking at the same visitors through the lens of a Personality Temperament Sorter tells us that these visitors are NOT all alike. In fact, if Company B were to redesign their site to speak directly to the desires of just the two biggest groups, I think we could throw away the math. If 25 Methodicals came to the site and found that the designers and writers had anticipated their every need and answered their many questions in the logical and linear manner that they prefer, there's no doubt in my mind that quite a few more than ONE would buy the product. Math and probability be damned...I know they would sell to more of these people!

What if we did the same thing for the Spontaneous folks? Made it easy for them to get in, pay, download, install and go on their merry way in search of their next experience? Do you think more than 1 in 25 would buy? Me too.

That accounts for up to 85% of the population and we still have some other types of people out there who would like us to accommodate their needs as well. No problem.

This is what Persuasion Architecture does. The biggest misunderstanding people have is when they see PA as a technological solution when it's really a psychological solution.

What's the math now? No way to know for sure, because Company B can still drop the ball in quite a few ways, but I'll bet you a new Vault Zero that the conversion rate would be higher than 4%. What do you think?

Complimentary Conversion & Persuasion Goodies

If you missed the Santa Barbara Emetrics Summit, Bryan Eisenberg wrapped up the event in his most recent ClickZ article .

Our GrokDotCom newsletter is also out.  The martian writes about the maturity (or immaturity) of the online channel.  Are you settling for poor conversion rate increases because you think this is as good as the online channel gets?  Find out.  The newsletter also features an article from one of our newest staff additions, Robert Gorell, who generously spills some help about online copywriting.

Podcastin'

We are podcasting. 

You can subscribe to the GrokDotCom newsletter podcast. All the refreshing goodness of our newsletter poured right into your iPod or mp3 device.

-and/or-

you can catch a podcast of our weekly radio show "Wizards of Web" on Webmaster Radio.  Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg dishin' out weekly critques and Persuasion Architecture education and rants. Neato.

Life takes Better Planning

Visa has just dumped their tagline of more than two decades from "It's everywhere you want to be" to "Life takes Visa".

As they made the move they unvealed a new mutimedia ad campaign utilizing TV, print, billboards, and of course, online ads.

At the center of the online campaign is a so called 'viral' site chock full of over produced video 'snippets' of life. These video snippets while cute and occasionally entertaining are not the stuff of viral marketing, the reasons why are topic for an entirely different discussion. Needless to say, if they were viral, Visa did a horrific job of planning this viral online campaign, so many aspects of it simply fail.

In my most recent Grokcast, or video critique, I show you where and why their persuasive scenario falls apart.

Watch our Grockcast "Life Takes Better Planning" (Flash Move, 12mg, 13 minute)

Superbowl Ads throw a Hail Mary...but is there anyone there to catch it? Part 2

ClickZ news reports the following...

Traffic to advertiser sites spiked in the fourth quarter and continued in the hours and days following the game, according to Web services provider Akamai, which hosts more than half of the advertisers' Web presences. The company registered a peak 782,679 visitors per minute to its client's sites during the fourth quarter as users added the Web to their personal media mixes.

"There is a convergence between TV and the Web," Akamai Director of Marketing Kieran Taylor told ClickZ News. "Madison Avenue has been looking for the notion of closed loop marketing. The Web delivers that. In real time, they can gauge the efficiency of an ad based on the visitors to a Web site." Read the entire article Superbowl Viewers Swarmed to the Web

Closed loop?  Effeciency of an ad?  What about effeciency to top line sales?  What about conversion rate effeciency?  What about ROI?

As we pointed out in part one of these posts, some of the Superbowl ads generated traffic, but did they convert visitors into sales, into leads, into future prospects?  GoDaddy.com suceeded in getting peoples attention, but clearly dropped the conversion ball.

So we wanted to take a look at a 2006 Superbowl advertiser that actually did a decent job planning the scenario and the scent trails that visitors must follow.

Watch our critique of Blockbuster.com's Superbowl campaign (4mb Shockwave Flash movie, 7 minutes)

Note:  We want to thank the super folks at TechSmith, especially Betsy Weber and Travis Stoliker for their assistance in using Camtasia to create and post these flash movies.  We are all big fans of SnagIt and obviously Camtasia will make any amatuer video presenter look like a pro.

Superbowl Ads throw a Hail Mary...but is there anyone there to catch it?

Most ads are a result of Marketers giving their best creative effort and throwing them out to an unsuspecting world to see if it sticks.  The mother of all advertising  Hail Marys is the Superbowl ad.  Most of this years superbowls ads were entertaining, funny, and compelling.  But did they get the job done? Will they return the advertisers gargantuan investment.  Will their websites give us any indication of the campaign(not JUST the ad's) success?

So today I took some time today to give the official Future Now slant on how well companies are using their Superbowl Ad exposure to convert prospects.

Whether they are planned or not, when a company advertises they create a scenario that potential customers must traverse to reach a conversion.  Some persuasive scenarios are planned and help customers convert, others not so much

Our first analysis is of the GoDaddy.com campaign.

Watch the analysis (8mb Shockwave Flash video 8:00 minutes)

Note -This is not a streaming video and may take a few moments to download and play in your browser

Sony's Not Too Subtle Upsell

I was shopping for a laptop and found something interesting while configuring one that I liked. Take a look, at the upper right had corner of the image after clicking on it, at the title of this page. It is obviously labeled correctly. I'm just not sure it was appropriate to share it with the public. Do you agree?

Persuasion: The Art Of Getting What You Want

A friend of ours, Dave Lakhani, just sent me a copy of his new book Persuasion: The Art Of Getting What You Want . He has an interesting website www.askthepersuader.com to promote the book. It's worth exploring because it is different. Let us know what you think.

Customer Service in a Can

When canned customer service happens to good people.  Here is a recent exchange one of our friends had with Target customer service.

> Date: Wed Sep 07 18:18:27 UTC 2005
> Subject; Other questions and comments
> To:  guest.service@Target.com
> From: Brandon
> ---------------
> 09/07/05 11:18:13
> Comments: I work in the ecommerce marketing/conversion industry
and I expected that you guys would have a pretty decent checkout.
Boy was I wrong. The issues I had trying to purchase a $100 stereo
were so numerous that I can't elaborate on all of them because I now
need to find another store that sells it. Who gives an error message
at registration that says "Please try another password for your
Target.com

account"? Why would I try another, I already tried
one? Shall I type it with one finger, shall I chant while I type,
shall I close my eyes when I hit the submit button? What are you
asking of me? I don't get it? A longer password? One with numbers?
One without letters? Maybe you don't like the letter 'h'? It could
be anything! Once I got past that issue, I entered a  shipping
address, then later changed my mind on where to ship it. You mean
once I enter data, you won't let me edit it during checkout? Wow,
I've wasted enough time. I'm going somewhere else.
> First Name: Brandon
> Email Address:
> Phone:
> Subject; Other questions and comments
> Order #: ya right
> estar: ~Brandon~Other
questions and comments~

And here is the response...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Target.com

  Guest Services < guest.no-response@target.com

>
Date: 7 Sep 2005 20:10:00 -0700
Subject: Your Target.com

Inquiry
To: Brandon

Greetings from Target.com

.

I've reviewed your account and I'm sorry that your first experience
ordering from our Web site was not a positive one.

We pride ourselves in convenience and efficiency at Target.com 

, but
this time we fell short of our goal.  Please accept my sincere
apology for the events which led up to your most recent e-mail.

I sincerely hope you'll give us another chance to prove the quality
of our service.  I assure you that we'll do everything we can to
help make your next experience a better one.

How Did We Do?
Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
http://www.target.com/rsvp-y?comm_id=ryreaqer3274181853
If not, click here:
http://www.target.com/rsvp-n?comm_id=ryreaqer3274181853

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.  Please use the appropriate link above if you need
to contact us again about this matter.

Best regards,

Jon B

Target.com

  Guest Service
http://www.target.com

ref_id:=tbdwaqer1126714783

How helpful. 

I really love the line in this canned email "I sincerely hope you'll give us another chance to prove the quality of our service.  I assure you that we'll do everything we can to help make your next experience a better one"

LOL

Yeah, you did such a great job doing 'everything' this time around, I am sure to come around again.  NOT!

I suppose the only thing worse than a canned email response is not sending your customers any response at all.  And in light of a response like this, I am not sure how much worse it actually is.

Your thoughts?

Personas, Women & Stereotypes

Michele Miller has a great post in her blog today ( "A View thru the Windshield of Life" ) and it is a must read for anybody who is creating female personas. Michele helps to strengthen our point about why stereotypes are dangerous when you are trying to architect a persuasive system.

Words Words Words - Learn Persuasive Online Copywriting

What are you doing right now? 

Reading.

What are you reading? 

Words

Reading is the primary activity people perform on the web, so why do so many folks spend so much time on design and so little time crafting the words on their site?

In our Persuasive Online Copywriting Seminar you will learn how to maximize results from persuasive copy and how to save your customers time, satisfy their needs and increase their pleasure by writing persuasively and laying out content in a way that works best for the Web.

Our two day workshop, led by Lisa T. Davis (aka The Grok and co-author of Persuasive Online Copywriting) and Holly Buchanan (VP for Client Services), gives you the foundational and advanced concepts you need to get the most out of your copy and offers hands-on experience.

Attendance for both days is US $795.

Plan to join us - the first day or both - in our colorful offices September 15-16, 2005.

Small Business Beware of The Internet

Many small/ local business owners, knowing I'm a marketer who focuses on Internet, have told me that their businesses "don't sell on the web". As long as they believe that they'll be right. Nevertheless, their customers are  comparing them to Internet competitors, using the web to find them or simply trying to engage with them in a meaningful way online. In those cases a poor website is worse than no website.

The tragedy is not that small business owners are making their own beds to sleep in. The true tragedy is that if and when they do wake up and realize they have a problem they'll call someone with technical expertise, or their nephew who "knows some html". Those people will have little in the way of marketing expertise and their traditional marketers will know less. I know some of my Wizard of Ads Partners, like Dave Young, are making some headway but they can't possibly help every small business and our clients tend to be larger. It's a real shame.

The evidence that this is true has become overwhelming for those that know how to read the handwriting on the wall. These are two more omens I became aware of this week:

• Small-business services provider Interland polled 1,032 leaders of small businesses nationwide for their Interland's Spring 2005 Business Barometer report (available as a PDF download). Nearly a quarter (24%) said that 26% to 100% of their revenue was attributable to having a website. 

• Forbes reports that: "Mobile search is poised to become the next big offshoot of the profitable pool of Internet search. The numbers are there: The U.S. has 180 million cell phone users compared to 125 million PCs." Will local businesses get found, would they know how to make sure that they do, would they know what to display?

Wordtracker Keyword Research Guide

The folks over at Wordtracker just released an e-book , The Wordtracker Keyword Research Guide as a free download.

What makes this resource a bit of a standout is the unique and useful way it is written.  This is not just some step by step manual or numbered list of 'things to do'.  The folks at Wordtracker created a fictional Vegitarian Dog Food company and then asked Marketing and SEO experts to give this company some specfic advice on using Wordtracker.

Of course, I would be remiss to mention that there is a contribution from our own Bryan Eisenberg.

Download a Free PDF of Wordtracker's Keyword Reseach Guide

Too Clever by a Half...

This should come as no surprise:

"More than 70% of consumers told Hostway they’re unlikely to purchase from, or even return to, a web site after encountering a pet peeve. And, because only 25% of consumers say they’ll complain to the companies about their pet peeves, the use of features that annoy consumers may be having a negative impact that’s difficult to trace or measure, Hostway says."

Read the full article at Consumers get turned off—literally—by top consumer turn-offs at web sites

Do You Have Any Women Visiting Your Site?

Then here is a blog you're gonna need to subscribe to.

Future Now's very own VP of Client Services, Holly Buchanan,  has officially entered the blogosphere.  You'll find plenty of examples and  practical nuggets that you can implement in your online efforts to sell and market to women.  Holly knows her stuff, but please don't take my word for it, just take some of her advice and your improved conversion rate will convince ya.

Check it out!

Marketing To Women Online - How To Shatter Stereotypes and Understand what She Really Wants

Call To Action - The Seminar

We still have seats available. But not for long

September 8th & 9th Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, the guys who wrote Call To Action (the NYT, WSJ, and USA best-selling book), will be leading and instructing Call To Action - Secret Formualas to Improve Online Results Seminar!

This is the seminar for any man, woman, child, or sentient being that needs help souping up the performance of their website. You will learn how to persuade your visitors to:

• Complete purchases, subscriptions and forms
• Qualify themselves as leads
• Recognize your brand and understand its value
• Decide to visit you to buy face-to-face

Step by step, the Eisenbrothers will walk you through the five phases of web site development and optimization:

• Planning: the most vital phase (and least understood)
• Developing structure
• Creating momentum
• Providing relevant communication
• Articulating value

This is the stuff we've been doing for our clients for years and years with enviable results.  Sound good?  Then get registered.

Pricing for the 2-day course is $2200 per person.

Bring a Friend, Co-Worker, Partner FOR FREE

We don't want cost to be an issue for a select few that could benefit and desire take their site to the next level.  So we have decided to extend our companion offer. 

Offer is simple, just send us a brief case study of how you have successfully implemented a strategy or tactic you learned from our book Call To Action. We will be selecting a few of our favorites and giving their companions a free seat at the seminar.  So get your case study to us quickly, this window of opportunity is likely to shut in mere days.

The Wizards of Web leverage the power of the web to market web marketing book

Book Hits NY Times, USA Today & Wall Street Journal Bestseller Lists in Two Weeks With No Advertising

New York, NY - June 1, 2005 – How does a web marketing book make the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Amazon.com bestseller lists without advertising, national bookstore distribution, a major publishing house, radio interviews, television interviews, or print interviews? Ask the co-authors, web marketing experts

Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg, who proved their expertise when they accomplished this feat with their new book “Call To Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results”, released May 9, 2005 by Wizard Academy Press.

Call To Action” may be the first book to become a national bestseller without nationwide bookstore distribution,” said

Jeffrey Eisenberg explains, “We created a buzz by pricing it lower than any 326 page hardcover has been priced in over 30 years. Then we asked all our online colleagues to mention us in their newsletters and blogs by offering a pre-release 3 for 1 special so that people would gift the book”.

Sales skyrocketed dramatically when uber-blogger Seth Godin wrote in his blog: “… don't wait even one minute before checking out: Call to Action: How to Improve Your Conversion Rate… Despite the godawful cover, this book is an astonishing bargain. The book is straight forward and gives you direct, clear insight into what's wrong with your site and what to do about it. No fancy metaphors or engaging banter. Just the nuts and bolts and the facts to back them up. I can't conceive of a website that won't benefit from the ideas inside. Still reading this blog? Stop! Go check out this book.” "

Word of mouth is incredibly powerful for great products," said Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.  "The strategy here was perfect. They got the book into the hands of the people who could and should be talking about it."

Bryan Eisenberg and Jeffrey Eisenberg are co-founders of Future Now, Inc., a marketing boutique focused on helping clients convert their website's traffic into leads, customers and sales by applying Persuasion Architecture, copywriting, usability and web analytics to design, redesign and optimize websites and other online marketing efforts. The book chronicles some of the successful techniques Future Now, Inc. has used to help clients like; Dell, GE Volvo, Overstock & Disney.

Bryan Eisenberg, best known for his ClickZ.com column.  “We knew we had something special going on when we were up to #5 on Amazon.com on the release date.” To date, over 90% of the sales for the book were placed online.

A Worthwhile Freebie

Nick hasn't written much, except for clients, since releasing his excellent book: Net Words: Creating High-Impact Online Copy. However, Nick does publish his own newsletter where I became aware of a valuable offer. If you already subscribe to Excess Voice then you know how you can get your hands on a copy of the Excess Voice Guide to Writing for the Web: 7 Challenges every Writer and Copywriter faces when writing for the Web. If you don't subscribe I suggest that you do so immediately since this publication is FREE for subscribers only. It won't cost you a penny but you could make a fortune with Nick's advice.

Cause Seth Said So

This week has been tremendous .  With the release of the our new book Call To Action, Jeffrey and Bryan have been plenty busy.

We've caught a couple of glowing reviews for the book, but interestingly enough, the one that did us the most good in terms of sales was the review by Seth Godin.  It shows the power of transparency, and how just plain ol' honesty can sell like crazy.

First take a look at some of the kick butt reviews on Amazon.com .  Glowing huh? Five Stars!!!!  They almost sound too good to be true.

Now read Seth Godin's review...

Despite the godawful cover, this book is an astonishing bargain. The book is straightforward and gives you direct, clear insight into what's wrong with your site and what to do about it. No fancy metaphors or engaging banter. Just the nuts and bolts and the facts to back them up. See the rest.

Seth hated our cover, but loved what was in between.  Would you be surprised to know that when Seth posted this sales of our book spiked dramatically? 

And the results from those glowing "this book is a gift to mankind" reviews, well, not so much. 

Who around here thinks that if Seth hadn't been so blatently honest and wrote a five star review we still would have seen that spike?

Seems you can't judge a reviewer by his hair either.

Call To Action Countdown - On Sale Now!

Bryan And Jeffrey Eisenberg have unleashed their new book, Call To Action - Secret Formulas To Improve Online Results, on an eager and conversion hungry world.  Do you have a copy yet?

...what are you waiting for?

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

1-800-CEO-READ

How to Screw Up Live Chat

     Jack Aaronson does a great job in his column on ClickZ.com: "How to Screw Up Live Customer Chat (and How to Fix It)".  This is really worthwhile reading for anybody using or considering live chat on their website.

What Is Content? SEO and Conversion

So far, 2005 has been virtual blur of goings-on at Future Now.  In addition to keeping our clients happy, we have had many things that have been pining for our time and attention.  Thus the light posting here.

Of the many things going on, I was tapped to speak at the NYC Search Engine Strategies Conference back in early March.  I was a panelist on the "What Is Content?" session.

Frederick Marckini of Search Engine Watch, reporting on the panel,  sums up the great need for what we discussed...

How did the subject of "content" find its way onto the agenda of a search engine marketing conference? Because often, higher rankings in search engines go to websites with higher quality content that earn more links.

One of the most obvious, yet surprisingly overlooked, components of a search strategy is the creation of quality content.

In our search engine marketing practice, the number of companies we encounter that expect high rankings in search engines for Web pages containing pictures, but no text, amazes us. Attaining a top ranking in search on a particular keyword requires that the targeted keyword appear somewhere in the text of the page, and often it requires that the page contain some amount of text (read: content) far in excess of what the design folks think looks pretty.

Make no mistake, this law of search engine marketing is clear: less content, lower rankings.

As a Persuasion Architect, our stance is clear.  Search engine spiders don't have credit cards, so we never write content for search engines.  We write content for  customers.  As a result, sites designed with Persuasion Architecture rank in the top 10 among the major search engines for a majority of our targeted keywords. 

I watched alot of folks at the conference getting all giddy about the possibility of being ranked well on Google as if that was the most important part of the conversion battle( that excitement is obviously not exclusive to conference attendees).  Great search engine rankings will likely drive traffic to your site, but if your site can't convert your traffic into sales, what is the point? 

You can get a play by play of what was presented at the panel and read the forum discussion that ensued.  Mr. Marckini also outlined what was presented.

During the conference I also had a chance to hang with some of the members of the newly formed Web Analytics Association.  Way cool!

User Interface 10 Conference - October 2005

Bryan and I are honored that Jared Spool invited us to present an entire day on Persuasion Architecture at the User Interface 10 conference. Have you checked out the preview site yet?

Invisible Navigation

From GUUUI we read the following

Most web development projects put a lot of effort into the design of navigation tools. But fact is that people tend to ignore these tools. They are fixated on getting what they came for and simply click on links or hit the back button to get there. Read the entire article.

Why weren't we surprised? Could be that in 2001 our very own lovable persuasion guru Bryan Eisenberg wrote the following...

Clearly, the center area of the screen is prime real estate, the "active window" where you will either succeed or fail in persuading your visitor. This is the first place your visitor makes a conscious effort to engage with you. When her gaze returns across the screen from its preliminary scan, you want to make sure you present content that will capture her interest and motivate her through the conversion process. If anything on the page distracts her or requires her to disconnect from the center area, she is that much less likely to stay, rapt by your powers of persuasion. And if you've learned the Stanford-Poynter lesson, you'll understand that your copy is much more important than your images. (from the article Where Oh Where Did My Eyeballs Go?)

If you are truly focused on persuading folks on your site put the time and effort you are tempted to put into navigation and focus it on the 'active window'. Navigation is important, just not as important as everyone seems to think. The shortest distance between your customers and conversion is not the navigation, it's the embedded links in the active window. From May 2001 Bryan also wrote...

But from our work with cl