I was on the hot seat at the Austin Content Marketing Meetup.
This isn’t your “play nice and listen while the guy reads his slides” sort of presentation. In the hot seat, the room is actively trying to destroy you, lobbing lit questions from across the room and questioning your every word.
Yes, it even got a little ugly. I think I held up OK.
You’re invited to sit back and enjoy the occasionally heated conversation on how to make your content convert visitors into sales.
The common wisdom among social media marketers is “put links to your social media everywhere.” The idea is that you should build as big a social media “tribe” as possible. As it turns out, this isn’t always a good plan.
If you’re paying for traffic to your Web site – and what traffic doesn’t require some cash, blood, sweat or tears to earn – then why would you send it off to Facebook or YouTube or LinkedIn to disappear forever?
You wouldn’t. But you might be.
In my Search Engine Land article How Mark Zuckerberg Stole Your Search Traffic & What To Do About It, I show you how your social media advertisements may be costing you conversions.
I also show you how to use social media in a conversion-safe way. Read the entire article
Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist teaches businesses of all sizes how to get more leads and sales from the traffic coming to their Web site.
We have a little fun with Copywriters in my newest Content Marketing Institute post, How to Find the Right Copywriter for your Landing Pages. If you could only hire one professional that would increase the number of people who buy or become a lead on your site, it would be a copywriter.
They can paint more detailed pictures than a photographer.
They can use more colorful language than a designer.
Communicate with humans and search engines.
If you’re going to dominate your competition online, it is because they write their copy themselves. I suggest you find a good direct response copywriter and let them do their work.
To help you get familiar with the kinds of copywriters you might meet in a dark alley, I’ve described five that I’ve run into on a regular basis.
The Styrofoam Sandwich Writer
The SEO Substituter
The Frustrated Novelist
The Soviet-era Propagandist
The Persuader
Most copywriters you meet will be a combination of some of these.
Tell me about your favorite copywriter in the comments. Let us know what combination of the above he or she exhibits.
Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist teaches businesses of all sizes how to get more leads and sales from the traffic coming to their Web site.
Landing Page Basics: Don’t let your content go out without a strategy to draw readers back to your site and a landing page to get them to convert – even if that conversion is to get your next content offering.
In this article I’ll show you an example of how content can drive a reader to action. I also talk about landing page basics like these five important landing page strategies:
Pitch the offer, not your company
Remove distractions
Let the visitor know where they are in the process
Make forms the right length
Only ask for information you will use
Content marketers sometimes focus on the content and forget about the marketing.
Yes, we want to inform.
Yes, we want to educate.
Yes, we want to be seen as the thought leader in our space.
But, we also want more traffic to our website, more leads and more sales.
One of the easiest yet most often overlooked marketing tactics is the call to action. I recently gave you ideas on how to include calls to action in your content marketing, but where should you send people and what do you say?
Landing pages: Where visitors like to land
A landing page is a page on your site dedicated to delivering on promises made by the offers in your content. The goal is to get a consumer of your content to take another step toward becoming a customer.
Your home page is not a good landing page. Instead, you want to send your prospects to a page where they are asked to do something specific and logical.
So what makes a good landing page? Reader Sarah Mitchell responded to my last call for samples with a web page that illustrates how to integrate content marketing and landing pages.
She wrote the product page for ezytire.com. I like this example because businesses tend to use this space to talk about themselves and their products. They forget about the visitor.
A visit to your product page is a “buy sign,” making it a great place for calls to action. Mitchell does a good job of keeping the copy focused on the prospects, their businesses and their customers. She is also not shy about giving the prospect opportunities to take action.
ezytire about page with markup.
Landing Page Basics: Calls to action
In 12 Ways to Get Readers to Take Action, I implore content marketers to put calls to action, also called Conversion Beacons, in their content marketing. Mitchell’s ezytire page is the poster child for in-content and ad-based calls to action.
Notice that there are not one, not two, but five calls to action on this page to start a free trial. In addition, she has secondary offers to start a chat, “register your interest,” and watch a how-to video.
The bottom line is this: You never know when a prospect finally gets enough information to feel comfortable taking action, so you must always be offering ways for them to do so.
Is this a bait and switch? It isn’t, and we should never attempt to mislead our prospects. The page offers details on the product. Contact information has been moved to a dedicated “Contact” page.
Mitchell’s links go to a landing page that starts the trial enrollment process right away. It should be obvious that sending visitors to the home page here would have been disastrous for ezytire.
ezytire landing page trial.
We know this page is working. The bounce rate is very low, with only 14 percent of visitors leaving the page immediately. That means the page isn’t scaring people away despite having a total of eight primary and secondary calls to action.
Fully half of the visitors are starting a free trial, and 15 percent of them will purchase the service when their trial is over.
That’s a beautiful bottom-line conversion rate of about 6.45 percent. Many businesses are proud of a two percent or three percent conversion rate from landing pages.
Landing page basics
Here are five things this page does well, things that you should consider when you develop your landing pages.
Pitch the offer, not your company
The page is all about the trial, not about Ezytire.
No distractions
All of the content on this page is designed to help the reader get through the trial process. Ezytire should consider removing the top navigation as well to keep from distracting visitors.
The visitor knows where they are in the process
If it’s a pretty long conversion process, it’s considered a best practice to always let the visitor know where they are. You can see the “Step 1,” “Step 2,” etc. on the page that will provide the visitor with this feedback.
Forms are the right length
Long forms can be more daunting to visitors than multiple steps. For a “soft” offer like a trial, I recommend shorter forms and more steps. You should try different approaches with your audience.
Only ask for information you will use
The first step is pretty efficient: Name, email address, password. Ezytire could ask some qualifying questions, and may be tempted to ask for a phone number. Additional fields will, in general, decrease your conversion rates, so don’t ask if you won’t’ use the information.
The ezytire page Sarah Mitchell inherited only generated nine conversions in three months before Sarah reworked it. If you’re not thinking, “I need someone like Sarah to look at my pages,” you’re not really a business person, or your pages would have bottom-line conversion rates above 7 percent.
In my next post, I’ll share some ideas on how to find a great landing page copywriter.
Online services are making things so easy for online marketers, but they’re also creating an enormous number of blind spots. These are the services that host our webinars, sell tickets to our events, let people buy our products, manage our appointments and almost everything else we do as online marketers.
Sometimes, these services behave as if they don’t want us to know the conversion rates of their services. They are unmeasurable, opaque to analytics.
I wrote an open letter to them at Search Engine Land.
Dear Service Provider:
I expect to be able to measure you. I expect to have transparency into what my visitors are experiencing inside your systems. I pay good money to bring prospects to my site and I don’t want to send them off to a black box when they buy my products or sign up for an event.
It’s time for you to prioritize measurement and to give me control of the signup, subscription, or purchase process.
Here’s what you need to do if you want me to use your service. These features are going to appeal to the largest users, those customers that you really want because they will pay for a lot of your services.
Analytics Reporting & Integration
Eventbrite is running away with the event ticket sales market. Do you know why? Because they know what works and what doesn’t. They know what features sell more tickets for their customers. They eliminate those things that reduce ticket sales.
They recently did a study and can tell you (to the penny) the average revenue generated by a Facebook share or a Twitter tweet or an email invite.
Most importantly, they share the analytics love with people like me, their customer. This allows me to be as good in my marketplace as Eventbrite is in theirs.
I know where visitors to my Eventbrite page are coming from, and how many of them buy a ticket. If the copy on my event page isn’t working, I know it right away.
Dear everyone else: let me measure the visitors I am sending to your service. Tell me who is bouncing, who is completing the process, and make it easy for me to get to that information.
Your Service Providers Should Help You With Your Conversion Rate
Customizable Steps
I can’t recommend a shopping cart to my clients. I haven’t used them all, but I refuse to work with carts in general. They are universally inflexible and opaque. It’s as if the Shopping Cart Guild has decreed that only engineers can design them, and if those engineers don’t really understand the buying process, all the better.
I want to setup many different shopping carts on my site. I want to split test them. I want to test a three-step shopping cart against a ten-step shopping cart. I want all of this and I want to know which step is causing people to abandon the process. See above.
I expect to control the placement of the buttons, the location of trust symbols, the appearance of product images and the treatment of tax and freight charges.
I demand that you let me collect a name and email address on the first step, so that I can use email retargeting, but I do not want my visitors to have to create an account.
Dear shopping cart vendors: shopping cart abandonment rates are atrocious across the web and you aren’t helping. Please start thinking about the shoppers a little more.
Control Of The Thank You Page
When I complete a purchase, signup for a webinar, download a white paper or sign up for a trial, my eyes are assaulted by the bright white blankness of the “thank you” page. Usually those words and a logo are all that appears.
This is one of the biggest missed opportunities in all of conversiondom.
What could be used in this space?
First, I need to add some copy that tells the new customer what to expect in my brand’s words.
I want to add links to my social networks. Genius.
For my events, there needs to be a link that adds an event to a prospective attendee’s calendar.
I want to list some of the other good content I have on my site.
Dear GotoWebinar: you won’t think of everything I will want on my “thank you” page. Send them to me when the signup process is complete. I know what to say to them.
This will also let me measure conversions in the software of my choice. That makes the first item on this list easier for you.
Subdomain Support
Unbounce, a online landing page platform knows that conversion rates go down when visitors are taken to a different domain to buy. It feels phishy to them. So, Unbounce enables me to send people to their landing pages using my domain. It’s called a subdomain.
Unbounce tells me exactly how to create a domain like “offer.buyschtuff.com” and point it to their system. When my visitors go from my site at www.buyschtuff.com to a landing page on their site, they see “offer.buyschtuff.com,” not “wp2.unbounce.com/id=8fdire*#$#.”
Thus, they don’t feel like they’ve been handed off to spammers. They feel at home. People who feel at home don’t abandon me.
This strategy also makes it easy to integrate Unbounce pages with my analytics package. Again, see above.
Dear online service company: don’t we all want higher conversion rates? Support subdomains, please.
Control Of Emails
The emails sent in the 24 hours following a purchase or signup will determine in large part the success of my product or the attendance at my event. It will determine how much social sharing will occur.
Unfortunately, dear service provider, the notification emails that come out of your system seem to work against me. The language seems to deter the very actions we want them to take.
I need to determine what goes into every email that gets sent out. Don’t tell me you’re trying to thwart spammers. My customers may like spam for all you know. My email service provider deals with spammers all day and night and seem to be doing just fine in the spam department.
I won’t use you if you’re going to subject my customers and prospects to your drivel written by the same guy that programmed the email delivery software. He doesn’t’ understand my business or my prospects.
In Closing, Dear Service Providers
You are benefiting and profiting from a time of great decentralization. Online marketers are using a different service for their meetings, another for their webinars, another for shopping carts, another for subscriptions, and yet another for appointment scheduling. There has never been a better time to be a provider of services.
However, if you want to be the leader in your space, you need to understand how we are using your service. You must provide measurability, customizability, domain support, and effective email tools. Then you need to watch us do our thing. What you learn will put you ahead of the competition.
Our social media avatars don’t have to be boring, and in fact they can be quite instrumental in engaging with visitors to our Web site, Facebook profile, Twitter stream and more.
We are well into the digital publishing world. I am fortunate to have my work appear several times a month in a variety of places.
Yet, I still love to see my mug in print, I don’t know why.
So, my digital friend, I thought I would share my mention from Chief Content Officer Magazine (free subscription) and fill in a few more details on the method to my headshot madness.
Your Social Media Avatar and Conversion Tips.
The Conversion Scientist’s Social Media Avatar Tips
1. Include something unusual in the image, something representative of your personal brand.
I wear the lab coat in every shot, even if it isn’t showing much. The human mind remembers such things.
2. Control the viewer’s eyes with your eyes.
Eye-tracking studies have shown that our gaze is drawn to faces that are looking at us. In fact, we may stare at a pretty girl long enough to forget why we came to your page in the first place. Have several versions of your headshot and aim your eyes at things you want people to see: calls to action, content, headlines, etc.
3. Be unexpected.
One of the things we want to do is engage the mind of the viewer. Things that will light up someone’s brain activity are the unexpected, off-center and the need to “fill in” an image.
4. Consider integrating action.
You can tell a story with a one-frame headshot. So, tell it. What am I doing in this shot?
I’m talking to an audience. I must be a presenter. Why, yes, I am! But, what am I holding (unexpected)?
I’m going in for the hug! That means I’m a connector, right??
Other avatar actions: Being passionate, banging a table, thinking deeply, contributing at a homeless shelter.
Our avatars don’t have to be boring, and in fact they can be quite instrumental in engaging with visitors to our website, Facebook profile, Twitter stream and more.
Jeffrey Eisenberg is not afraid to ruffle a few feathers.
He gave us his unique view on Social Media as only a expert with his experience can at the Keynote at PubCon Austin 2011. Here are my notes from his presentation captured as a real-time Instagraph.
Every site has one visitor in common: Googlebot. Googlebot is an unusual visitor that few of us understand. Understand the persona profile of Googlebot and use it to your advantage.
If you follow The Conversion Scientist, you know that a failure to understand your visitor is conversion suicide.
So how do we get copywriters, designers, developers and marketers to configure their site for this powerful king-maker visitor? The same way we do this for our human visitors: We personify them.
Building Empathy For Googlebot
Personas are a challenging topic. Personas are, well, personal to every business. You can’t cheat off of anyone else’s paper when putting them together. Whether you’re going to spend 30 minutes dashing off what you know about your online visitors or invest in a full workup to hack your company’s intelligence, you have to do the work. You can’t borrow from someone else’s case study.
There is one exception, and this visitor may be on your site as you read this.
I’m going to use a persona to help you relate to Googlebot. All of the components are here.
Building empathy for Googlebot.
Note: I’m sure those of you experienced in SEO could add to this persona. Please do so in the comments.
My Search Engine Land column “Building Empathy for Googlebot” this month is a persona profile of Googlebot, and any site should be able to use this to their advantage.
Put it somewhere everyone on the Web team can see it; print posters, put it up on Basecamp, add it to your war room.
It should go right next to your other personas. Don’t have any? Contact us and we’ll help you understand if personas will move your online business forward.
Here’s an excerpt:
Demographics
Name: Googlebot
Education: Ph.D. in Kindergarten
Gender: Male. Definitely male.
Description
While Googlebot is one of the most pervasive presences on the Internet, little is known about him. It is widely believed that he has an undiagnosed combination of savant syndrome and autistic disorder.
This condition is marked by super-human analytical powers combined with an inability to connect basic concepts or understand simple social norms. Googlebot does not have a sense of humor.
Another reason for this diagnosis is Googlebot’s amazing but selective memory. Googlebot has an unwavering fascination with words and an uncanny ability to remember the links that connect the Internet’s far flung pages.
It is widely believed that Googlebot is also good at counting large sums of money.
Googlebot can identify and recall a seemingly unlimited number of images and videos, but has no understanding of their meaning.
Mode Of Persuasion: Methodical
Googlebot analyzes information slowly and logically. Methodical visitors need lots of detailed information.
Visitor Commentary
These are Googlebot’s needs in his own words:
I’m an excellent surfer. I come to your site on Tuesday… definitely Tuesday afternoon. I read your pages. I see your words. That tells me everything about you. You use some words over and over and I can tell what you talk about. Of course there are the meta tags. Descriptions, descriptions are good; and the page title. Headings have words and I like to count the words in headings and see if they are in other places on your site too.
Links. I like links, definitely. Link text has words and I like to compare them, compare them to the other words in the other places. The link text words tell me about the place they link to. Must … resist … urge … to … follow … until … done … here.
Of course, you have links back to your site, 497 links — definitely 497 – and the words on those links – they call it anchor text, but anchors are on ships and ships float on water and I don’t see many sites about ships and water — and I can compare those link words to the words in the other places on your site.
I’m an excellent surfer, you know.
Uh-oh. Your site doesn’t change much. 99.93% of text is the same as last time I visited, 99.93%, definitely 99.93.
Uh-oh. Images. Video. Strange blobs of pixels. Of course, I can’t see them, but sometimes they have words, alt text words and then I know everything about them and I can compare those words to the other words on the site.
Sometimes people try to trick me with invisible text or wrong keywords meta tags or funny links from sites with very different words, and then I stop visiting and stop counting words and stop tracking links and then the site disappears since I don’t like lying liars.
Of course, I’m an excellent surfer.
Questions To Be Answered
What questions Googlebot is trying to answer on your site.
Which pages to index (sitemap.xml)
Which pages to skip (robots.txt)
Primary domain (canonical info)
Words that define each page site (title tag, description meta tag, keyword meta tag)
Words that readers can see: Heading tags, body copy
Words that readers cannot see: Image alt text and title text
Links to other sites
Links from other sites telling Googlebot what the site is about
Calls To Action
This is how we ask Googlebot to take action. For Googlebot, a “conversion” can be defined as getting a page on our site indexed in the Google database.
Sitemap.xml tells Googlebot which pages to index and how to prioritize them.
Internal links with keywords in the anchor text helps Googlebot find pages and associate words with those pages.
Recommended Strategies on Converting the Toughest Visitor of All
Do not attempt to sell Googlebot anything or invite him to join your email list.
Change content frequently. Googlebot loves blogs.
Don’t attempt to contact Googlebot or Google support.
Use video. Googlebot seems to like video, even though he can’t understand it.
Create content that makes other sites link to you.
Link to sites that have words similar to yours.
Put transcripts of videos on the page.
Is All Of This Necessary?
While it may seem unnecessary to experienced SEOs to have a persona for Googlebot, think of the copywriters who must write for the site, but don’t have SEO experience. Think of the designers that may not understand the search implications of their media choices. Think of the executives who don’t understand why they should invest in SEO.
All of these people will gain a better understanding of Googlebot and the challenges we face when designing a site for him (or her).
Now think about the human visitors to the site. How would a few personas help everyone communicate with real people?
As you might expect, I work with a number of eCommerce sites. Companies that sell things online is a faaaaaast moving target, so I’m glad to have folks like Willo O’Brien to keep me up to date on best practices.
Warning: You’re being left behind by some very innovative companies.
Which companies? Check out my notes form her SXSW presentation Social Shopping: The Future of Selling Online.
Increase your email open rates. Get inspired by these 165 great email subject lines from the SXSW catalog.
The amazing SXSW conference has kicked into full swing here in Austin. I haven’t been to a single session yet, and I’ve already learned something of great value I can share with you.
It came in the SXSW session catalog.
The session selection process is very competitive. Every summer, SXSW puts out a call for session and panel ideas. People vote on their sessions and then the crew at SXSW passes final judgment.
If your session gets accepted you will find yourself competing for attendees with some of the most interesting, influential and innovative professionals. Your session title has to really grab attention in a sea of hundreds of choices.
It’s kind of like the competition for your inbox. All of this competition has created perhaps the most creatively named agenda in conferencedome. The SXSW conference has always been known for the quirky session titles it inspires. The competition for panel slots is intense, with 2500 ideas were submitted in 2011 and 3,000 panel submissions presented for 2012 alone. Part of the selection process involves voting by the public. So, an effective title gets attention when garnering votes for a panel.
We have the same problem with email.
We need attention grabbing email subject lines that pull inbox scanners from their numbed slumber in which most emails are unceremoniously deleted. If our email is to be read, our subject lines must save our recipients from mindless autonomy.
Your email campaign would enjoy significantly greater open rates if you used SXSW email subject lines. No one’s going to click through from your email if they don’t open it and read it.
165 best email subject lines from the SXSW catalog.
Email Subject Lines Must Wake Up the Mind at Any Cost
To use these techniques, you must believe that you can use almost any premise in your subject line to engage the reader and entice them to click.
To prove this point, I am going to take the most abstract title from the following list, use it as a subject line, and create an email that will get readers to click through to my site.
First, the list. Yes, these are actual SXSWinteractive session titles. I’ve grouped them by the strategies the presenters used in naming their sessions, strategies that you can incorporate into your email subject lines.
Best Email Subject Lines on Sex and Relationships
Even the “oldest profession in the world” required some persuasive messaging. Your reader may see sex as the most base or most exalted activity humans can engage in. This is the risk and the reward for bawdy banter in your email subject lines.
Brands That Believe in Sex After Marriage
Sex, Lies and Cookies: Web Privacy EXPOSED!
Sex in the Digital Age
Big Brands and You: Make the Love Connection
Social Media Comes of Age Without the Help of Porn
Nudity and Online Journalism
Sex Nets: Pickup Artists vs. Feminists
Sex on the Web – The Sabotage of Relationships?
The Sexual Survival Guide for Geeks: Healthy sex and relationships
Sausagefest: Getting More Women into New Media & Tech
Fun with the Lights Off: Interactivity Without Graphics
How Social Media Fu@k’d Up My Marriage (Learn how not to have your relationship ruined by the online world)
Subtle Sexuality: NBC.com Adds Spice to Shows
Things that Don’t Fit Together (non sequiturs)
Our brains are wired to discard the familiar faster than a bear can spell Constantinople. It is the unexpected that gets the attention of our conscious and prepares us for action. These titles demonstrate the use of twists to pull readers out of their inbox apathy.
Block Party Capitalism: Where Analog and Digital Intersect
What Comic Books Can Teach Mobile Application Designers
Your Mom Has an iPad: Designing for Boomers
Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better
Why New Authors Should Think Like Indie Bands
Why my phone should turn off the Stove – Mobile monitoring of energy consumption
Building Fences in the Sky: Geo-fencing Has Arrived
I’m so productive, I never get anything done
Your Computer is the Next Wonder Drug (Improving interactions with the medical community)
What Digital Tribes Can Learn from Native Americans
A Penny Press for the Digital Age
Philanthropy Is Not the Future of Journalism
Cloudy with a Chance of Gaming
Multiple Personalities–Not a Disorder but the Norm
Does Your Product Have a Plot?
Meat is Might: Epic Meal Time Rules the Web
Social + Location + Mobile = The Perfect Beer
When Goliath Tries to Steal Your Lunch Money
Can Growing a Mustache Change the World?
Bootcamp for a UX Team of None
Explorations in Corporate Zoology
How to Be Strategically Unlikeable Online
Sunspots: The Promise and Pitfalls of Gov 2.0
Dreams of Your Life: A Darkly Playful Experience
Help, My Avatar Is Sick
Being Considered Obsolete Is Awesome
The Science of Good Design: A Dangerous Idea
Why Karl Keeps His Shades On: Style & Social Media
Great Email Subject Lines out of Left Field
Help! A Giant Meteor is Headed Our Way! Cause Shift, Things that need to change
OMG – My Pancreas Just Texted
Metaphors and Similes
Similes are like can openers for the mind. Metaphors are the batteries in the flashlight of your email. The technical term for this style of messaging is “transubstantiation,” using the characteristics of one thing to add meaning to another in the eyes of the reader.
Rev Up Your Product Design, the “Concept Car” Way
Online Personality Disorder: Resumes & Profiles
Knitting a Long Tail in Niche Publishing
Snackable Content: Working in a Bite-Sized Future
Hunt or Be Hunted: Get the Design Job You Want
Keeping Kids off the Street: Wall St. vs. Startups
Death of Digital Downloads: MP3s the New 8-track?
Target an Audience with the Best Email Subject Lines
Right-handed marketers, take note! Targeting your audience can significantly increase the relevance to two groups of people: those to whom you are speaking, and those who feel left out by the fact that you aren’t speaking to them (you left-handers felt a twinge of anger at being left out, didn’t you?). This approach takes guts, as you are consciously ignoring part of your audience in the hope of truly engaging another.
Why Women Fail to Rule the Social Networks
Greek to Geek: Classical Rhetoric & the Modern Web
Blogging: Why So Many Women Are Doing It
Digital Divas: How Girls Rule the Digital Universe
Monetizing Mommy
Lists of Three
There is something memorable, readable, and easy-to-count about lists of three. This method is especially successful when the third item is overly specific or doesn’t fit. See “Things that Don’t Fit Together” above.
Drugs, Milk & Money: Social & Regulated Industries
Credits Coins Cash: Social Currency & Finance 2.0
Free Coffee, Bad Apples & the Future of Currency
Clouds Here, Clouds There, Clouds Everywhere
Pop Culture References Can Make Awesome Email Subject Lines
If you know your audience, you slip them some “Funky Cold Medina” in the form of a pop-culture reference. For your geeks, “Star Trek” or “Star Wars” will do. For the younger generation, something from the “Harry Potter” series might make a connection. Music is usually a sure bet. Can you name the sources of the following references?
Star Trek and Social Media
Do Gamers Dream of HTML5 Sheep?
The Cloud as Skynet: Conquering Digital Overload
Get Smart! Hack Your Brain for Peak Performance
Wall-E or Terminator: Predicting the Rise of Al
Gimme Shelter from the Storm Clouds
Defense Against the Dark Arts: ESAPI
The Field of Dreams Manifesto
Is That Your Final Offer? Mobile Dynamic Pricing
Not Your Mommy’s Blog: The Evolution of Dad Blogs
Why Doesn’t Congress Grok The Internet?
LEAN STARTUP: Baby Got (Feed)Back – Putting the Lean in Learn
So Long, and Thanks for All the Babelfish: Automated Translation
U.S. Military’s Mad Science Revealed: DARPA Projects predict the future
Dear Miss Manners: the Social Web, WTF?
Social Media and the NBA
Zombies Must Eat: How Genre Communities Make Money
Minority Report: Social Media for Decreasing Health Disparities
My Prototype Beat Up Your Business Plan
Geppetto’s Army: Creating International Incidents with Twitter Bots
#FAIL: Infamous social Media PR Disasters
Contrarian Email Subject Lines, why not?
Stop Listening to Your Customers: Researching customer needs without asking them.
I’ve Never Met My Coworkers: Running International Teams
Who Are You and Why Should I Care? Personal branding
When Facebook Falls: Future-proofing Your Social Media Efforts
27 (Fun!) Ways to Kill Your Online Community
HTML5? The Web’s Dead, Baby.
A World without SXSW
Fail big, Fail Often: How Fear Limits Creativity
Congratulations! Your Brand is About to Become Obsolete
The End of Reading in the USA
Science or Science Fiction References
The Next Rocket Scientist: You
Do Tablets Dream of Electric News?
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
Pure Shock and Awe Email Subject Lines
Boring subject lines make me want to poke needles into my eyes! Sometimes it makes sense to hit readers over the head with something that is just plain shocking. Sometimes.
How Not to Die: Using Tech in a Dictatorship
How Mexico’s Drug Traffickers Harness Social Media
Language of Mutilation: Grammar for Ads & Life
Demographics Are Dead: Unlocking Flock Behavior
Everyone Is Gay: Social Media As Social Action
Media Measurement: Science, Art or a Load of Crap
Please Touch Me! Enterprise Delight via Multitouch
Your Social Media Job Is Dead: Now What?
Avoiding Bulls**t Personas: A Case Study
Eat, S**t, Sleep: Enlightenment Through Unemployment
Bordering Incest: Turning Your Company into a Family
Baby’s Gotta face For Radio: Web Based Radio?
Grow some balls: Build Business Relationships
Social Media and Comedy: F**k Yeah!
Kill Your Call Center! Bring Your Support Home
Bend Over? Surprise! Agencies Are Screwing You
How Blogs with Balls are Saving Sports Media
How to Personalize Without Being Creepy
Conflict
Bloggers vs. Journalists: It’s a psychological Thing
Seven Reasons Your Employees Hate You
Influencer Throwdown: Proving Influence Once and For All
Email Subject Lines with Invented Words
If you find yourself with subjectlinitis, tossing a memebomb or two may be your best hope. New words can turn a deletophile into a reader.
Adprovising: Agile Marketing Made Easy
The Making of Twittamentary
Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas
Discover the New Frontier of the Glocal Internet
The Local Backbone of the SoLoMo Revolution
Coolhunting and Coolfarming with Social Media
Wireless Wellness: App-tastic or Just Fun & Games?
The Hyperlocal Hoax: Where’s the Holy Grail?
Radically Onymous: How Ending Privacy is Awesome!
Old Spice Resurrected: How Aging Icon Pwned Internet
The Future Enernet: a Conversion with Bob Metcalfe (Internet founder)
Technomadism: Becoming a Technology Enabled Nomad
Rhymes and Alliteration
Sensual subject lines supplement the bottom line. Alliteration is the repeated use of consonants. Rhymes grab your readers like a musical phrase. Don’t be afraid to add a little poetry to your prose.
Social Music Marketing: Bands, Brands & Fans
An Unusual Arsenal: Tech Tools to Topple a Tyrant
Invention & Inspiration: Building a Better World
Contextual Communication: Crowds and Coordination
Check Yo-Self Before U Wreck Yo-Self, Startup Metrics of the Masters
The Creative Collaboration Conundrum
Binary B****es: Keeping Open Source Open to Women
Teaching Touch: Tapworthy Touchscreen Design
Defining the Diaspora: Global Collaboration and Social Change
The Man in the Van needs Geo Location
Chatter Matters: Using Twitter to Predict Sales
People as Peripherals: The Future of Gesture Interface
Of Fanboys & Fidelity: Adopting Comics for Broad Audiences
Twisted Euphemisms
Cure for the Common Font – Secrets of selecting type
Influencers Will Inherit the Earth. Quick, Market to Them!
Create a Common Enemy
You may find your reader united behind you by identifying a common enemy – like the delete key.
When IT Says No: How to Create Fast Feature Flow
The Systematic Undoing of Copyright Trolls
Screw the Job Market: Young + Passionate ≠ Broke
Rise of the Social Spammers
Can Washington Make Your App Illegal?
Epic Battle: Creativity vs. Discipline in Social
Why Your 5-Year-Old Is More Digital Than Most CMOs
Has Twitter Made the Sports Reporter Obsolete?
Insult Someone
Don’t be a wimp. When all else fails drop the political correctness and tell the reader what you really think.
Advise THIS! Matchmaking Startups & High Profile Advisors
Shut Up & Draw: A Non-Artist Way to Think Visually
Flash: F Bomb or Da Bomb?
Big Ol’ Babies: Why Baby Boomers=Public Media FAIL
Your Marketing Sucks: Why You Need to Think Local
Powerful Email Subject Lines: Lead With a Number
Four session titles that use numbers. When we offer the reader a specific number of things, they know they are going to get a manageable set of tips or tricks that is easy to scan and digest.
11 Reasons QR Codes Are Not Engaging Consumers
3 Secrets to a Killer Elevator Pitch
100 Things Designers Need to Know About People
Enterprise Social Media: Five Emerging Trends
Big Email Subject Lines Make Big Promises
If you’ve got the goods, big promises will make you rich in as little as three days. Big promises make the reader ask, “So, how can you do that?” even if they are skeptical. Of course, if you can’t deliver on the promise with sufficient proof in your email, all is lost – including your credibility.
Expanding Our Intelligence Without Limit
How to Live Forever
We Are Legion: Digital (R)Evolution
Change the Course of History with Greasemonkey
UCB Comedy presents: The Best Damn Stand-up
New This Year: Add an “i”
Turn your subject line into an iLine! All it takes is one little vowel.
iVision Africa: New Media’s Role in Reframing Africa
iPlant: Advanced Computing to Feed the World
Any Email Subject Line Will Do
There you have it. Over 100 titles to tantalize and titillate your email mind like a jolt of electricity from an unlicensed nuclear reactor, guaranteed to help you get lucky and make your ex jealous – if you’re not a total iDiot. Did I miss anything?
Hit us with your favorite subject lines in the comments.
Even the most abstract subject line can be used to make a point. Here’s how I would tie one from the list to an offer for my business:
From: Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist
Subject: OMG! My Pancreas Just Texted
OMG, my pancreas just texted.
My Liver just phoned.
My stomach just tweeted.
My brain is sending smoke signals.
Every cell of my body is dying to tell you about a new video I’ve just released.
Why am I (and all of my bodily parts) excited? Because online video marketing is rocking conversion rates.
Search engines love it.
Visitors love it.
Businesses like yours are getting more leads and sales from it.
And I think I’ve made it easy for anyone to understand how to use video on their Web site.
In just 11 minutes, I’m going to show you how to present a video on your site that will significantly increase the number of leads you’re getting from the traffic you already have.
Skeptical? Maybe I’m crazy.
I challenge you to take a look and see. If you don’t come away with a better understanding of how to increase conversion rates with video, I’ll get my spleen to cut down the chatter and leave you alone.
If you DO get it, I invite you to join a very special mailing list in which you’ll start to understand how to make all of your marketing convert visitors to leads and sales.
Hot Seat Video: Content Marketing and Conversion
Conversion OptimizationI was on the hot seat at the Austin Content Marketing Meetup.
This isn’t your “play nice and listen while the guy reads his slides” sort of presentation. In the hot seat, the room is actively trying to destroy you, lobbing lit questions from across the room and questioning your every word.
Yes, it even got a little ugly. I think I held up OK.
You’re invited to sit back and enjoy the occasionally heated conversation on how to make your content convert visitors into sales.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Are You Sending Your Store-bought Traffic Off to Mark Zuckerberg?
Conversion Marketing StrategyThe common wisdom among social media marketers is “put links to your social media everywhere.” The idea is that you should build as big a social media “tribe” as possible.
As it turns out, this isn’t always a good plan.
If you’re paying for traffic to your Web site – and what traffic doesn’t require some cash, blood, sweat or tears to earn – then why would you send it off to Facebook or YouTube or LinkedIn to disappear forever?
You wouldn’t. But you might be.
In my Search Engine Land article How Mark Zuckerberg Stole Your Search Traffic & What To Do About It, I show you how your social media advertisements may be costing you conversions.
I also show you how to use social media in a conversion-safe way.
Read the entire article
Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist teaches businesses of all sizes how to get more leads and sales from the traffic coming to their Web site.
Five Copywriters That Can Make or Break Your Conversion Rate
Persuasion ScienceWe have a little fun with Copywriters in my newest Content Marketing Institute post, How to Find the Right Copywriter for your Landing Pages.
If you could only hire one professional that would increase the number of people who buy or become a lead on your site, it would be a copywriter.
They can paint more detailed pictures than a photographer.
They can use more colorful language than a designer.
Communicate with humans and search engines.
If you’re going to dominate your competition online, it is because they write their copy themselves. I suggest you find a good direct response copywriter and let them do their work.
To help you get familiar with the kinds of copywriters you might meet in a dark alley, I’ve described five that I’ve run into on a regular basis.
The Styrofoam Sandwich Writer
The SEO Substituter
The Frustrated Novelist
The Soviet-era Propagandist
The Persuader
Most copywriters you meet will be a combination of some of these.
Tell me about your favorite copywriter in the comments. Let us know what combination of the above he or she exhibits.
Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist teaches businesses of all sizes how to get more leads and sales from the traffic coming to their Web site.
Photo courtesy nkzs.
Landing Page Basics: 5 Strategies to Make Your Content Convert
Landing Page OptimizationIn this article I’ll show you an example of how content can drive a reader to action. I also talk about landing page basics like these five important landing page strategies:
Content marketers sometimes focus on the content and forget about the marketing.
Yes, we want to inform.
Yes, we want to educate.
Yes, we want to be seen as the thought leader in our space.
But, we also want more traffic to our website, more leads and more sales.
One of the easiest yet most often overlooked marketing tactics is the call to action. I recently gave you ideas on how to include calls to action in your content marketing, but where should you send people and what do you say?
Landing pages: Where visitors like to land
A landing page is a page on your site dedicated to delivering on promises made by the offers in your content. The goal is to get a consumer of your content to take another step toward becoming a customer.
Your home page is not a good landing page. Instead, you want to send your prospects to a page where they are asked to do something specific and logical.
So what makes a good landing page? Reader Sarah Mitchell responded to my last call for samples with a web page that illustrates how to integrate content marketing and landing pages.
She wrote the product page for ezytire.com. I like this example because businesses tend to use this space to talk about themselves and their products. They forget about the visitor.
A visit to your product page is a “buy sign,” making it a great place for calls to action. Mitchell does a good job of keeping the copy focused on the prospects, their businesses and their customers. She is also not shy about giving the prospect opportunities to take action.
ezytire about page with markup.
Landing Page Basics: Calls to action
In 12 Ways to Get Readers to Take Action, I implore content marketers to put calls to action, also called Conversion Beacons, in their content marketing. Mitchell’s ezytire page is the poster child for in-content and ad-based calls to action.
Notice that there are not one, not two, but five calls to action on this page to start a free trial. In addition, she has secondary offers to start a chat, “register your interest,” and watch a how-to video.
The bottom line is this: You never know when a prospect finally gets enough information to feel comfortable taking action, so you must always be offering ways for them to do so.
Is this a bait and switch? It isn’t, and we should never attempt to mislead our prospects. The page offers details on the product. Contact information has been moved to a dedicated “Contact” page.
Mitchell’s links go to a landing page that starts the trial enrollment process right away. It should be obvious that sending visitors to the home page here would have been disastrous for ezytire.
ezytire landing page trial.
We know this page is working. The bounce rate is very low, with only 14 percent of visitors leaving the page immediately. That means the page isn’t scaring people away despite having a total of eight primary and secondary calls to action.
Fully half of the visitors are starting a free trial, and 15 percent of them will purchase the service when their trial is over.
That’s a beautiful bottom-line conversion rate of about 6.45 percent. Many businesses are proud of a two percent or three percent conversion rate from landing pages.
Landing page basics
Here are five things this page does well, things that you should consider when you develop your landing pages.
Pitch the offer, not your company
The page is all about the trial, not about Ezytire.
No distractions
All of the content on this page is designed to help the reader get through the trial process. Ezytire should consider removing the top navigation as well to keep from distracting visitors.
The visitor knows where they are in the process
If it’s a pretty long conversion process, it’s considered a best practice to always let the visitor know where they are. You can see the “Step 1,” “Step 2,” etc. on the page that will provide the visitor with this feedback.
Forms are the right length
Long forms can be more daunting to visitors than multiple steps. For a “soft” offer like a trial, I recommend shorter forms and more steps. You should try different approaches with your audience.
Only ask for information you will use
The first step is pretty efficient: Name, email address, password. Ezytire could ask some qualifying questions, and may be tempted to ask for a phone number. Additional fields will, in general, decrease your conversion rates, so don’t ask if you won’t’ use the information.
The ezytire page Sarah Mitchell inherited only generated nine conversions in three months before Sarah reworked it. If you’re not thinking, “I need someone like Sarah to look at my pages,” you’re not really a business person, or your pages would have bottom-line conversion rates above 7 percent.
In my next post, I’ll share some ideas on how to find a great landing page copywriter.
Originally published article I wrote for the Content Marketing Institute
Your Service Providers Should Help You With Your Conversion Rate
Conversion OptimizationOnline services are making things so easy for online marketers, but they’re also creating an enormous number of blind spots. These are the services that host our webinars, sell tickets to our events, let people buy our products, manage our appointments and almost everything else we do as online marketers.
Sometimes, these services behave as if they don’t want us to know the conversion rates of their services. They are unmeasurable, opaque to analytics.
I wrote an open letter to them at Search Engine Land.
Analytics Reporting & Integration
Eventbrite is running away with the event ticket sales market. Do you know why? Because they know what works and what doesn’t. They know what features sell more tickets for their customers. They eliminate those things that reduce ticket sales.
They recently did a study and can tell you (to the penny) the average revenue generated by a Facebook share or a Twitter tweet or an email invite.
Most importantly, they share the analytics love with people like me, their customer. This allows me to be as good in my marketplace as Eventbrite is in theirs.
I know where visitors to my Eventbrite page are coming from, and how many of them buy a ticket. If the copy on my event page isn’t working, I know it right away.
Dear everyone else: let me measure the visitors I am sending to your service. Tell me who is bouncing, who is completing the process, and make it easy for me to get to that information.
Your Service Providers Should Help You With Your Conversion Rate
Customizable Steps
I can’t recommend a shopping cart to my clients. I haven’t used them all, but I refuse to work with carts in general. They are universally inflexible and opaque. It’s as if the Shopping Cart Guild has decreed that only engineers can design them, and if those engineers don’t really understand the buying process, all the better.
I want to setup many different shopping carts on my site. I want to split test them. I want to test a three-step shopping cart against a ten-step shopping cart. I want all of this and I want to know which step is causing people to abandon the process. See above.
I expect to control the placement of the buttons, the location of trust symbols, the appearance of product images and the treatment of tax and freight charges.
I demand that you let me collect a name and email address on the first step, so that I can use email retargeting, but I do not want my visitors to have to create an account.
Dear shopping cart vendors: shopping cart abandonment rates are atrocious across the web and you aren’t helping. Please start thinking about the shoppers a little more.
Control Of The Thank You Page
When I complete a purchase, signup for a webinar, download a white paper or sign up for a trial, my eyes are assaulted by the bright white blankness of the “thank you” page. Usually those words and a logo are all that appears.
This is one of the biggest missed opportunities in all of conversiondom.
What could be used in this space?
First, I need to add some copy that tells the new customer what to expect in my brand’s words.
I want to add links to my social networks. Genius.
For my events, there needs to be a link that adds an event to a prospective attendee’s calendar.
I want to list some of the other good content I have on my site.
Dear GotoWebinar: you won’t think of everything I will want on my “thank you” page. Send them to me when the signup process is complete. I know what to say to them.
This will also let me measure conversions in the software of my choice. That makes the first item on this list easier for you.
Subdomain Support
Unbounce, a online landing page platform knows that conversion rates go down when visitors are taken to a different domain to buy. It feels phishy to them. So, Unbounce enables me to send people to their landing pages using my domain. It’s called a subdomain.
Unbounce tells me exactly how to create a domain like “offer.buyschtuff.com” and point it to their system. When my visitors go from my site at www.buyschtuff.com to a landing page on their site, they see “offer.buyschtuff.com,” not “wp2.unbounce.com/id=8fdire*#$#.”
Thus, they don’t feel like they’ve been handed off to spammers. They feel at home. People who feel at home don’t abandon me.
This strategy also makes it easy to integrate Unbounce pages with my analytics package. Again, see above.
Dear online service company: don’t we all want higher conversion rates? Support subdomains, please.
Control Of Emails
The emails sent in the 24 hours following a purchase or signup will determine in large part the success of my product or the attendance at my event. It will determine how much social sharing will occur.
Unfortunately, dear service provider, the notification emails that come out of your system seem to work against me. The language seems to deter the very actions we want them to take.
I need to determine what goes into every email that gets sent out. Don’t tell me you’re trying to thwart spammers. My customers may like spam for all you know. My email service provider deals with spammers all day and night and seem to be doing just fine in the spam department.
I won’t use you if you’re going to subject my customers and prospects to your drivel written by the same guy that programmed the email delivery software. He doesn’t’ understand my business or my prospects.
In Closing, Dear Service Providers
You are benefiting and profiting from a time of great decentralization. Online marketers are using a different service for their meetings, another for their webinars, another for shopping carts, another for subscriptions, and yet another for appointment scheduling. There has never been a better time to be a provider of services.
However, if you want to be the leader in your space, you need to understand how we are using your service. You must provide measurability, customizability, domain support, and effective email tools. Then you need to watch us do our thing. What you learn will put you ahead of the competition.
Originally Published on Search Engine Land.
Your Social Media Avatar and Conversion
Conversion OptimizationWe are well into the digital publishing world. I am fortunate to have my work appear several times a month in a variety of places.
Yet, I still love to see my mug in print, I don’t know why.
So, my digital friend, I thought I would share my mention from Chief Content Officer Magazine (free subscription) and fill in a few more details on the method to my headshot madness.
Your Social Media Avatar and Conversion Tips.
The Conversion Scientist’s Social Media Avatar Tips
1. Include something unusual in the image, something representative of your personal brand.
I wear the lab coat in every shot, even if it isn’t showing much. The human mind remembers such things.
2. Control the viewer’s eyes with your eyes.
Eye-tracking studies have shown that our gaze is drawn to faces that are looking at us. In fact, we may stare at a pretty girl long enough to forget why we came to your page in the first place. Have several versions of your headshot and aim your eyes at things you want people to see: calls to action, content, headlines, etc.
3. Be unexpected.
One of the things we want to do is engage the mind of the viewer. Things that will light up someone’s brain activity are the unexpected, off-center and the need to “fill in” an image.
4. Consider integrating action.
You can tell a story with a one-frame headshot. So, tell it. What am I doing in this shot?
I’m talking to an audience. I must be a presenter. Why, yes, I am! But, what am I holding (unexpected)?
I’m going in for the hug! That means I’m a connector, right??
Other avatar actions: Being passionate, banging a table, thinking deeply, contributing at a homeless shelter.
Our avatars don’t have to be boring, and in fact they can be quite instrumental in engaging with visitors to our website, Facebook profile, Twitter stream and more.
Headshots by Korey Howell Photography.
Social Media and Conversion by Jeffrey Eisenberg
Conversion OptimizationJeffrey Eisenberg is not afraid to ruffle a few feathers.
He gave us his unique view on Social Media as only a expert with his experience can at the Keynote at PubCon Austin 2011. Here are my notes from his presentation captured as a real-time Instagraph.
Social Media Conversion
INFOGRAPH: Jeffrey Eisenberg on Social Media and Conversion
Converting the Toughest Visitor of All: Googlebot
Conversion OptimizationIf you follow The Conversion Scientist, you know that a failure to understand your visitor is conversion suicide.
So how do we get copywriters, designers, developers and marketers to configure their site for this powerful king-maker visitor? The same way we do this for our human visitors: We personify them.
Building Empathy For Googlebot
Personas are a challenging topic. Personas are, well, personal to every business. You can’t cheat off of anyone else’s paper when putting them together. Whether you’re going to spend 30 minutes dashing off what you know about your online visitors or invest in a full workup to hack your company’s intelligence, you have to do the work. You can’t borrow from someone else’s case study.
There is one exception, and this visitor may be on your site as you read this.
I’m going to use a persona to help you relate to Googlebot. All of the components are here.
Building empathy for Googlebot.
Note: I’m sure those of you experienced in SEO could add to this persona. Please do so in the comments.
My Search Engine Land column “Building Empathy for Googlebot” this month is a persona profile of Googlebot, and any site should be able to use this to their advantage.
Put it somewhere everyone on the Web team can see it; print posters, put it up on Basecamp, add it to your war room.
Here’s an excerpt:
Demographics
Name: Googlebot
Education: Ph.D. in Kindergarten
Gender: Male. Definitely male.
Description
While Googlebot is one of the most pervasive presences on the Internet, little is known about him. It is widely believed that he has an undiagnosed combination of savant syndrome and autistic disorder.
This condition is marked by super-human analytical powers combined with an inability to connect basic concepts or understand simple social norms. Googlebot does not have a sense of humor.
Another reason for this diagnosis is Googlebot’s amazing but selective memory. Googlebot has an unwavering fascination with words and an uncanny ability to remember the links that connect the Internet’s far flung pages.
It is widely believed that Googlebot is also good at counting large sums of money.
Googlebot can identify and recall a seemingly unlimited number of images and videos, but has no understanding of their meaning.
Mode Of Persuasion: Methodical
Googlebot analyzes information slowly and logically. Methodical visitors need lots of detailed information.
Visitor Commentary
These are Googlebot’s needs in his own words:
I’m an excellent surfer. I come to your site on Tuesday… definitely Tuesday afternoon. I read your pages. I see your words. That tells me everything about you. You use some words over and over and I can tell what you talk about. Of course there are the meta tags. Descriptions, descriptions are good; and the page title. Headings have words and I like to count the words in headings and see if they are in other places on your site too.
Links. I like links, definitely. Link text has words and I like to compare them, compare them to the other words in the other places. The link text words tell me about the place they link to. Must … resist … urge … to … follow … until … done … here.
Of course, you have links back to your site, 497 links — definitely 497 – and the words on those links – they call it anchor text, but anchors are on ships and ships float on water and I don’t see many sites about ships and water — and I can compare those link words to the words in the other places on your site.
I’m an excellent surfer, you know.
Uh-oh. Your site doesn’t change much. 99.93% of text is the same as last time I visited, 99.93%, definitely 99.93.
Uh-oh. Images. Video. Strange blobs of pixels. Of course, I can’t see them, but sometimes they have words, alt text words and then I know everything about them and I can compare those words to the other words on the site.
Sometimes people try to trick me with invisible text or wrong keywords meta tags or funny links from sites with very different words, and then I stop visiting and stop counting words and stop tracking links and then the site disappears since I don’t like lying liars.
Of course, I’m an excellent surfer.
Questions To Be Answered
What questions Googlebot is trying to answer on your site.
Calls To Action
This is how we ask Googlebot to take action. For Googlebot, a “conversion” can be defined as getting a page on our site indexed in the Google database.
Sitemap.xml tells Googlebot which pages to index and how to prioritize them.
Internal links with keywords in the anchor text helps Googlebot find pages and associate words with those pages.
Recommended Strategies on Converting the Toughest Visitor of All
Is All Of This Necessary?
While it may seem unnecessary to experienced SEOs to have a persona for Googlebot, think of the copywriters who must write for the site, but don’t have SEO experience. Think of the designers that may not understand the search implications of their media choices. Think of the executives who don’t understand why they should invest in SEO.
All of these people will gain a better understanding of Googlebot and the challenges we face when designing a site for him (or her).
Now think about the human visitors to the site. How would a few personas help everyone communicate with real people?
As it turns out, personas help a lot.
For more on user personas.
Originally published on Search Engine Land.
How to Convert Social Shoppers into Online Sales [SXSW]
Ecommerce CROWarning: You’re being left behind by some very innovative companies.
Which companies? Check out my notes form her SXSW presentation Social Shopping: The Future of Selling Online.
Click to Enlarge
INFOGRAPH-Social Shopping: The Future of Selling Online
Also from SXSW: 63 Great Subject Lines from the SXSW Catalog
Brian
165 Great Email Subject Lines from the SXSW Catalog [updated]
Persuasion ScienceThe amazing SXSW conference has kicked into full swing here in Austin. I haven’t been to a single session yet, and I’ve already learned something of great value I can share with you.
It came in the SXSW session catalog.
The session selection process is very competitive. Every summer, SXSW puts out a call for session and panel ideas. People vote on their sessions and then the crew at SXSW passes final judgment.
If your session gets accepted you will find yourself competing for attendees with some of the most interesting, influential and innovative professionals. Your session title has to really grab attention in a sea of hundreds of choices.
It’s kind of like the competition for your inbox. All of this competition has created perhaps the most creatively named agenda in conferencedome. The SXSW conference has always been known for the quirky session titles it inspires. The competition for panel slots is intense, with 2500 ideas were submitted in 2011 and 3,000 panel submissions presented for 2012 alone. Part of the selection process involves voting by the public. So, an effective title gets attention when garnering votes for a panel.
We have the same problem with email.
Your email campaign would enjoy significantly greater open rates if you used SXSW email subject lines. No one’s going to click through from your email if they don’t open it and read it.
165 best email subject lines from the SXSW catalog.
Email Subject Lines Must Wake Up the Mind at Any Cost
To use these techniques, you must believe that you can use almost any premise in your subject line to engage the reader and entice them to click.
To prove this point, I am going to take the most abstract title from the following list, use it as a subject line, and create an email that will get readers to click through to my site.
First, the list. Yes, these are actual SXSWinteractive session titles. I’ve grouped them by the strategies the presenters used in naming their sessions, strategies that you can incorporate into your email subject lines.
Best Email Subject Lines on Sex and Relationships
Even the “oldest profession in the world” required some persuasive messaging. Your reader may see sex as the most base or most exalted activity humans can engage in. This is the risk and the reward for bawdy banter in your email subject lines.
Things that Don’t Fit Together (non sequiturs)
Our brains are wired to discard the familiar faster than a bear can spell Constantinople. It is the unexpected that gets the attention of our conscious and prepares us for action. These titles demonstrate the use of twists to pull readers out of their inbox apathy.
Great Email Subject Lines out of Left Field
Metaphors and Similes
Similes are like can openers for the mind. Metaphors are the batteries in the flashlight of your email. The technical term for this style of messaging is “transubstantiation,” using the characteristics of one thing to add meaning to another in the eyes of the reader.
Target an Audience with the Best Email Subject Lines
Right-handed marketers, take note! Targeting your audience can significantly increase the relevance to two groups of people: those to whom you are speaking, and those who feel left out by the fact that you aren’t speaking to them (you left-handers felt a twinge of anger at being left out, didn’t you?). This approach takes guts, as you are consciously ignoring part of your audience in the hope of truly engaging another.
Lists of Three
There is something memorable, readable, and easy-to-count about lists of three. This method is especially successful when the third item is overly specific or doesn’t fit. See “Things that Don’t Fit Together” above.
Pop Culture References Can Make Awesome Email Subject Lines
If you know your audience, you slip them some “Funky Cold Medina” in the form of a pop-culture reference. For your geeks, “Star Trek” or “Star Wars” will do. For the younger generation, something from the “Harry Potter” series might make a connection. Music is usually a sure bet. Can you name the sources of the following references?
Contrarian Email Subject Lines, why not?
Science or Science Fiction References
Pure Shock and Awe Email Subject Lines
Boring subject lines make me want to poke needles into my eyes! Sometimes it makes sense to hit readers over the head with something that is just plain shocking. Sometimes.
Conflict
Email Subject Lines with Invented Words
If you find yourself with subjectlinitis, tossing a memebomb or two may be your best hope. New words can turn a deletophile into a reader.
Rhymes and Alliteration
Sensual subject lines supplement the bottom line. Alliteration is the repeated use of consonants. Rhymes grab your readers like a musical phrase. Don’t be afraid to add a little poetry to your prose.
Twisted Euphemisms
Create a Common Enemy
You may find your reader united behind you by identifying a common enemy – like the delete key.
Insult Someone
Don’t be a wimp. When all else fails drop the political correctness and tell the reader what you really think.
Powerful Email Subject Lines: Lead With a Number
Four session titles that use numbers. When we offer the reader a specific number of things, they know they are going to get a manageable set of tips or tricks that is easy to scan and digest.
Big Email Subject Lines Make Big Promises
If you’ve got the goods, big promises will make you rich in as little as three days. Big promises make the reader ask, “So, how can you do that?” even if they are skeptical. Of course, if you can’t deliver on the promise with sufficient proof in your email, all is lost – including your credibility.
New This Year: Add an “i”
Turn your subject line into an iLine! All it takes is one little vowel.
Any Email Subject Line Will Do
There you have it. Over 100 titles to tantalize and titillate your email mind like a jolt of electricity from an unlicensed nuclear reactor, guaranteed to help you get lucky and make your ex jealous – if you’re not a total iDiot. Did I miss anything?
Hit us with your favorite subject lines in the comments.
Even the most abstract subject line can be used to make a point. Here’s how I would tie one from the list to an offer for my business:
From: Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist
Subject: OMG! My Pancreas Just Texted
OMG, my pancreas just texted.
My Liver just phoned.
My stomach just tweeted.
My brain is sending smoke signals.
Every cell of my body is dying to tell you about a new video I’ve just released.
Why am I (and all of my bodily parts) excited? Because online video marketing is rocking conversion rates.
Search engines love it.
Visitors love it.
Businesses like yours are getting more leads and sales from it.
And I think I’ve made it easy for anyone to understand how to use video on their Web site.
In just 11 minutes, I’m going to show you how to present a video on your site that will significantly increase the number of leads you’re getting from the traffic you already have.
Skeptical? Maybe I’m crazy.
I challenge you to take a look and see. If you don’t come away with a better understanding of how to increase conversion rates with video, I’ll get my spleen to cut down the chatter and leave you alone.
If you DO get it, I invite you to join a very special mailing list in which you’ll start to understand how to make all of your marketing convert visitors to leads and sales.
Watch Getting a Reaction from Online Video, and let me know what you think.
My heart will thank you for it.
Best regards,
Brian Massey