Design your website around the strategies that drive leads and sales and avoid the marketing strategies that don’t convert.
I had one of those meetings this week; a meeting with a company that has really come to understand the significance of online conversion in their business. I predict good things for them.
They’d taken advantage of a Conversion Sciences home page review, and had attended my workshops. It’s a good feeling to know that I’m making a difference.
They wanted to be sure spent their Web budget on the things that were going to help their business grow faster.
This is going to sound obvious, but take a good look at your own site before you dismiss this statement: They decided that focusing on strategies that would generate leads would alleviate the need to invest in things that didn’t. They would save money and sell more.
That makes sense, doesn’t it?
So what should you be investing in?
Find out which conversion strategies you should be building your web marketing programs around and avoid marketing strategies that don’t convert.
Design your website around the strategies that drive leads and sales and avoid the marketing strategies that don’t convert.
The Five Core Patterns Of Conversion Marketing
How many basic web patterns are there? If you were to boil every web site down to a set of core species, how many would you list? Would there be 500 basic types? 100? 50? How about five?
Conversion scientists require some categorization and classification to do their job well. This allows us to simplify rather complex concepts, easing communication with each other and with you. It gives us a common vocabulary with which to work.
For example, if you can tell me which of five patterns your web site fits into, I can tell you with some accuracy which three strategies you should implement first to maximize your conversion rates. From one word springs an entire online marketing plan. That is the power of classification.
Over my next five posts for Conversion Sciences, I’m going to help you identify your core web site pattern and tell you what disciplines you can’t get wrong if you want to turn visitors into leads and sales.
The ground rules
Before I define the five web site patterns, let’s lay some ground rules for the ensuing debate.
We are focused on business-oriented web sites designed to increase sales for a business, no matter how indirect the effect.
A web site pattern is distinct from its implementation. A blog is not a web site pattern, since many patterns could be implemented using a blog structure.
A new pattern is defined as a type of web site that requires a set of online strategies substantially different from the existing patterns to be successful.
I welcome your input on new web species that may exist in the wild. Here is the first of the five basic patterns which I look for when advising a client.
The Brochure pattern
Also known as the “sales support” pattern, the brochure web site is modeled after the glossy print publications that have been created by businesses for decades, and ignored by 99.99% of those who have received them.
Often presented in tri-fold fashion, the brochure is the appetizer of marketing. Its sole purpose is to provide enough information to whet the desire of a prospective customer and tell them how to get more information.
Likewise, its online counterpart is designed to provide little truly valuable information, but to make the sponsoring company look like it has its act together. In this sense, the primary quality of a brochure site is safety.
You have, or desire a brochure site if you answer yes to the following statements:
When you decided to create or refresh your web site, you called a web designer first.
You spent a great deal of time huddled over a tree-like map of your future web site. This is called an “information architecture.”
The copy for the site was reviewed and edited by several people, most of whom were not professional writers. This copy inevitably declares you as the “leader” in something or espouses the ethereal “difference” you offer.
Your site contains at least one stock photo of a very happy or very serious person, whom your designer thinks your visitors will admire.
Your site avoids the words “you” or “your,” but talks incessantly about what your company and products do. This feature culminates in the ever-popular “News” section of the home page with more information about you.
You get your sales leads from anyplace but the web and you have no need to change this.
Don’t be fooled by my snootiness. The Brochure pattern is an important pattern for many businesses. Just because everyone uses the web doesn’t mean that every business should be trying to generate leads and sales there.
The Brochure site has only to make the visitor feel comfortable sharing the site with their boss and with others who are a part of the any purchase decision. No controversy should ever enter into a brochure site. It has to look good. It has to present benefits and features. It has to provide contact information. That’s about it.
The primary goal of the brochure site is to make sure the prospect can find you when they are ready to make a decision. A “conversion” is a phone call or an email.
The three “must get right” conversion strategies for a Brochure business are:
The design must be what the visitors want to see. Your design must be professional for people who ware suits to work. It must be fun for creative businesses. It must look unprofessional if you sell hand-crafted products. It must be exciting for adventure-oriented businesses. This is why you call the designer first.
It should feature logical tree-like navigation. Since your visitors aren’t really trying to solve a pressing problem, and since they really don’t care that much about what they’re reading, you should organize the content in as logical a manner as possible, so you don’t look sloppy. Those irritating menus that “fly-out” when your cursor accidentally rolls over them are also fine on a brochure site.
The contact information must be easy to find. The primary role of a brochure site is to support a sale after the salesperson has been contacted. Think of it as a “leave behind.” Put your phone number on each page and have a simple, clear “Contact Us” page.
The Brochure site is the primary pattern found among business web sites. This is unfortunate, because too many businesses put up brochure sites when they really are counting on the web for sales leads. The result is a site that isn’t a good brochure site, and isn’t a good lead-generation site either.
For example, marketers will optimize their brochure site for search, but see little positive effect because a brochure site is a terrible tool for cold visitors. What these marketers want is a site built on the considered purchase pattern, which we will discuss in part four of this series.
Brochure sites are efficient. Marketers only need to update them when their product lines change, when new news is published, or when they get a new VP of Marketing, who will inevitably want to refresh the site to show how quickly they’re making progress.
The four remaining web site patterns
I’ll next venture into the Portal pattern, a site in which the content takes center stage, and then explore the key conversion strategies for the eCommerce Pattern, the Considered Purchase Pattern and the Site as a Service Pattern. Read on in The Portal Pattern: Core Conversion Marketing Strategies.
I’ll be posting to the Conversion Science column every four weeks, so you should subscribe to the Conversion Science email.
Many of you are going to be surprised at which pattern you end up choosing for your business.
Summarizing
The first pattern is “The Brochure.” Most of the business sites on the Web are like an online brochure. But “The Brochure” is not designed to convert. It’s purpose is to support sales, often after the visitor has already spoken with a salesperson.
If you have a brochure site, you may discover that you really need a site based on one of the other four patterns: a Portal, an eCommerce site, a Considered Purchase site, or a Site as a Service.
Over the next four months, I’ll be digging into each, helping you choose the right pattern for your business, and highlighting the conversion strategies that you must get right for each.
The next installment is coming next week. I’ll send you an email when each of these go live if you subscribe to The Conversion Optimization Blog.
How to build a marketing database that keeps prospects engaged
It sounded like the perfect market:
A large and growing marketplace
A need so critical that it strikes at the very foundations of the family
Increasing competition for scarce supply
A marketplace actively using the Internet to solve the problem
JobCannon for Job Search.
Add to these the fact that existing solutions were failing miserably, and you’ve got a market ready for an effective online solution.
I’m describing the unemployed job seeker marketplace. Few marketplaces have the natural alignment of trends that this marketplace does. JobCannon (formerly CardboardResume) sought to create an online job search solution that actually worked, and build a business in the bargain.
First, let me disclose that JobCannon is a client of Conversion Sciences.
You might have thought that this would be an easy sell. We knew it wouldn’t be. We needed to keep skeptical, frugal job seekers engaged and informed. Here’s how we did it.
Before you read any further…
If you’re on Twitter, please visit and play along.
Building the Battery with Informational Marketing
Since no tag line was going to help JobCannon rise above the noise, and since new job seekers needed advice as much as the software, we lead with an informational approach.
JobCannon commissioned an eBook to help break job seekers of their job board habit. It turns out that spending hours a day on Monster and CareerBuilder was the least effective way to find work, especially in a crowded job market.
I wrote the eBook for them. My primary qualification was my fundamental inability to hold a job. Get your copy of The Market for Me.
A book blog was setup to catch job seekers searching the Internet. I began speaking at job clubs on to help seed the marketplace promoting the book heavily.
Charging the Battery
To receive the book, prospects provided a name and email address, and asked the prospect why they wanted to read the book. About 10% of the attendees to a live presentation requested a free copy.
Of the people who visited the book request page 30% completed the form. This is a relatively high conversion rate.
The presentation model was not easy to scale, as I could only speak so many times. But the pipeline proved that we could engage and educate an audience with informational marketing.
The book/blog strategy was proven when one of my presentations was featured on applicant.com, an influential blog. It was subsequently picked up by Slideshare as a featured presentation. Over the space of three weeks, almost 30,000 people viewed the presentation. A link to the free eBook in the description drew viewers to our educational content.
This one presentation doubled the size of our email database. It charged our battery.
This is proof that high conversion rates amplify all of your online marketing efforts.
Tapping the Battery’s Energy
Informational posts generated for the blog became email newsletters that were sent to the book database.
This was an efficient battery. When we sent educational emails to the list, open rates were astronomical, between 77% and 98%. I’m usually ecstatic at 30% open rates. Click-through rates were as high as 22% and unsubscribe rates were near zero.
Because this market was bombarded by solutions to help them find work, we were dealing with a skeptical group. We found out it took as many as seven relevant contacts to generate a JobCannon trial: One reference from a friend, one presentation, one free eBook, and four informational emails.
Without our marketing battery, we would never have been able to generate the number of “touches” necessary to make prospects feel comfortable trying the software.
Like batteries marketing databases “lose charge” over time
As a rule of thumb, we assume that 25% of the contacts become invalid over the course of a year.
Prospects become customers
Email addresses change
Prospects choose to stop receiving email (opt-out)
Prospects choose alternative solutions
Prospects just stop paying attention to your emails
Many marketers drain their battery by sending promotional content. Discounts, feature-oriented posts and irrelevant information drain the battery very quickly.
In our case, many of our prospects find work, even though they’re not using JobCannon. Hopefully, they’ll continue to network and search for new opportunities even though they have found work.
Build your own battery with informational content
You may not have an eBook available, but your business generates informational content every month. Press releases, product descriptions, old blog posts, and sales presentations all can be transformed to charge your marketing batteries.
Join us on December 10 in Austin for BYOContent: The Extreme Conversion Makeover Workshop.
We’re going to transform a blog, a white paper, some video and an email newsletter into lead-generating and sales-generating tools.
When I first started doing conversion science back in 2006, I ruined several laptop screens. You see, it is very important that I be able to markup pages for my clients.
I started with crayons. However, it became more and more difficult to get the colors off of my laptop screen. Plus, the markup didn’t travel with the image.
Eventually, the crayons left ghosted images on the screen, like a burned plasma display.
Then, I found the pen computer. Now, I can create, markup and take notes analog style, with instant conversion to digital.
A Snapshot of Pubcon
One benefit of the modern pen computer is the ease with which analog input can be shared. So, I thought I would share some of my notes with you.
I chose these based on the following criteria:
1. I took notes
Many presenters don’t realize this, but you have to be “note-worthy.” You have to tee us up to take notes. You’re presentation has to be somewhat logically organized. You can’t throw too much at us too quickly, because we’ll just give up.
2. I was able to take notes on my computer
Props to PubCon for providing extension cords and power strips for us.
3. My notes are somewhat legible.
You be the judge.
Some People Prefer This
Some people prefer this mix of visual cue and text. You may find it helpful.
Click on any of the images to see a full-resolution version.
Some People Prefer Summaries
Here are some of the things I gleaned from notes that didn’t pass the three-point test:
Video
OneTrueMedia Video Editing and hosting
TrafficGeyser (use with care)
TubeMogul
12Seconds.tv
YouTube Insight
Google TV
YouTube Wonder Wheel
Handbrake Video Compressor
Why would I pay to advertise free information? Does it make sense?
The answer is, “Yes.” On December 10, I’m going to show you the techniques marketers use to make it pay, and I’m going to do it with your content.
Why, you might ask, does it make sense to use your scarce marketing dollars to advertise free stuff? The answer is this:
At any given time, more people are considering a product or service like yours than are ready to buy a product or service like yours.
Many more.
Thus, if you can get the attention of someone while they’re still thinking about how to solve a problem, you can expect more of them to visit you when they ARE ready to buy.
The key is content that converts, the kind of educational, helpful, informative content that your business generates all of the time. You may say, “My business doesn’t generate any online information.” Oh, but it does.
It’s hiding in plain site. It’s in the product specifications you write. It’s in the sales presentations you’ve created. It’s in the blog posts that you’ve written. It’s in the emails that your most grateful customers have written you.
Is it smart to advertise free stuff? It’s not actually free if you’re generating leads
If you are doing lead generation, your information isn’t free. The consumer of this helpful and informative knowledge pays with their attention, with a little information about themselves and by extending you some permission – on credit – to continue conversing with them.
The key is content that converts, the kind of educational, helpful, informative content that your business generates all of the time.
The results may well be better than your benefit-oriented ad copy
If I have decided to solve my problem with a product or service like yours, a benefit- or discount-oriented ad will do the trick. However, if I am part of the much larger audience that is still “in the question,” I won’t even know how to process your offer.
Content can help me decide. It can help me make cost tradeoffs. It can help me sell a solution to my boss. It can help me understand the real cost of not solving the problem. It can help me rationalize a purchase.
Which desk drawer is your gold hiding in?
You’re invited to spend a day with me and a panel of smart marketers as we transform plain, everyday information into content that sells.
Join us on December 10 in Austin, Texas for BYOContent: The Extreme Conversion Makeover Workshop.
By the time you leave, you will know:
How to identify ordinary content that your visitors will find extraordinary
How to present it in ads and on your website so that visitors can’t miss it
How to use it to generate leads with it
How to use it to entice prospects to buy
Where to find the free and inexpensive tools needed to transform and deliver your content
Join me, Apogee Search’s Alissa Ruehl, online marketing expert Jane Dueease and a room full of smart people like you as we turn ordinary information into online content that will grow our businesses.
Act before Thanksgiving, and we’ll knock $50 off the price. Breakfast, lunch, and a snack are on us.
If the Web is important to your business, this will be one of the most eye-opening events of the year.
Of course, I’d appreciate you sharing this email with other businesses, but don’t send it on until you’ve secured your own seat. I like to keep my workshops somewhat intimate.
Get the details and reserve your place in the room. This is going to be a fun one.
About eighteen months ago, the SEO agency of which I was then a member was hired by a company in the travel industry. Their websites were seeing a 20% drop in traffic from Google. Even more worrisome was the nearly 25% drop in sales from Google.
Meanwhile, their keyword monitoring tools were saying everything was fine. Their tools watched several thousand keywords on a monthly basis, and the rankings had not substantively changed. If a keyword was third last month, it was third again this month.
We were tasked with determining the cause of the drop and prescribing a remedy.
The culprit was the new Google Maps business listing. These are the seven (at that point ten) listings that come up with the Google Map on queries with locational intent.
Austin plumber Sample Google Maps business listing.
Note: The example image is from a different industry than the client in order to protect the client’s identity.
These Google Maps had begun popping up for a large number of the client’s search terms. A keyword that was third in the organic listings was likely to be pushed below the fold. As a result, the traffic from Google was dropping precipitously.
And conversion was dropping at an even higher rate. Clearly, it was the best traffic that was being lost.
I would posit that this represents the biggest change to Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) since they began including paid listings above the natural listings.
Does Local SEO Matter for You?
If your business needs to generate website visitors, phone calls, or foot traffic from people in particular geographies, then local SEO is likely appropriate for you.
Do your keywords include a city (or neighborhood in them)? When you search on them, is the so-called 7-pack (or any Google Map) returned?
Google is constantly enlarging the universe of keywords that generate map results. So if the map is not returned today, it may begin doing so in the future.
Google is even assuming local intent when none is expressly stated.
For instance, if you search on [coffee shop], Google will determine your location from your IP address, and return you a list of coffee shops your area.
Impact on Conversion Rate
The impact of this change by Google can hardly by overstated. Even if you’ve worked your website to the top of the organic listings, the addition of the Google Map listings will have a substantial impact on Click Through Rate (CTR) and post-click conversion rate.
Which begs the question, what impact does placement within the 7-pack have on CTR?
While no studies have been published on this topic as yet, the assumption is that the curve of traffic decline within the seven maps listings is not as steep as it is for the ten organic listings.
Also, the company name within the Google Maps listing can have an effect. Known, branded companies certainly have an advantage. And those that are nothing but a list of keywords are likely at a conversion disadvantage.
Reviews and Their Impact on Conversion Rate
The Google Maps business listings very prominently list the reviews a company has received. These reviews may have been placed directly with Google, or may have been pulled into Google from third-party systems such as CitySearch.
The number of reviews greatly impacts the ranking of the business listings. If all else is equal (which it never is, of course), the ranking with the greater number of reviews will be higher. A large number of reviews can overcome many other deficiencies in Google Maps optimization.
I have not seen any studies on the impact of the number of reviews on conversion, but I expect they are positively correlated. If there are two listings, one with twenty-five reviews and one with no reviews, people will tend to look at the business with reviews first.
And while the quality of reviews has little to no impact on rankings, it can certainly have a significant impact on conversions.
This is not to say that an occasional bad review is going to drive you out of business. We’ve all read reviews from clearly unreasonable people, and most people will give a company the benefit of the doubt.
But if the preponderance of reviews are negative, and the reviews seem reasonably written, you had better work to improve your product/service quality, and encourage happy customers to write reviews for you.
Brian Combs is the founder of ionadas local, a provider of Google Maps optimization in Austin, Texas. ionadas local 13359 N Hwy 183, #406-245, Austin, TX 78750, (512) 501-1875
It was a room full of very smart, inquisitive and curious communicators. We spent two days immersed in the challenge of giving our Web site visitors what they need, and in doing so, knew we’d be growing our businesses.
Brian Massey presenting at DMA 09.
You know the experience: you’re engaged in a conversation or a training or reading a book, and you KNOW everything you’re taking in is true. In fact, you already new much of it.
But, at work, where you’re supposed to be exercising these truths, conversations like this don’t happen. What is that all about?
We covered a lot of ground in my DMA 90 pre-conference intensive “Optimizing Your Web Site for Conversion and Business Success.” I learned a great deal from my audience.
But underneath the energy was an undertow dragging us away from shore. It was the knowledge that we would be returning to marketing departments that are understaffed, under budgeted, and — worst of all — focused on the wrong things.
I heard it from many attendees.
We don’t have the resources to do the things we need to do
Dear CMO, have you considered building an organization that doesn’t have the resources to NOT do the things you need to do? What would that look like?
Let them communicate
It would be a group of people so focused on delivering content that the prospect needs, that they wouldn’t even consider wasting time on the self-aggrandizing, posing communication that so many brands seem to treasure.
Clear the obstacles
They would sweep obstacles out of the way (this is really your job, CMO) so that they could communicate faster, with better data and known results.
They would have ways of working with IT and legal so that their communications are frequent, human and transparent.
Let them experiment
They would make many mistakes, but they would only make them once. They would know which half of their advertising wasn’t working.
Think of an entrepreneurial product development group.
Let them publish
They would produce a volume of content far greater than they do now, with greater accuracy, consistency and efficiency.
Think of a world-class newspaper.
Marketers, take the reigns
A little of the Schwag I collected at DMA 09
If you want to see the most amazing collection of schwag, go to a marketing conference. What surprised me was the amount of goodies that were given away without any qualifying activity.
This is not lead generation or even demand generation.
If you get the freedom to communicate, do so with all of your heart, knowledge and art.
If you want to join a group of marketers and business owners bent on communicating, join us on December 10 in Austin, Texas for the BYO Content Extreme Conversion Makeover. You’ll soon have the leads and revenues that prove you’re a communicator.
‘Bring your most tired white papers, your most mundane articles, and your raw video. We’ll show you how to weave it into a conversion scenario that will generate leads and sales for your business.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Teach a woman to fish and you feed a village.
Every entrepreneur should come to understand what microcredit is teaching us. This movement is teaching us about the very foundation of our free enterprise system. It is teaching us where compassion lives within our framework of self interest. It is showing us that we are right to believe that opportunity brings out the best in us in ways that charity does not.
In terms of providing “aid” to struggling countries, the US is quite generous. However, the results of our aid are often heart breaking, with much of it being wasted by the governments that are supposed to get it to their people.
Charity has its place. Opportunity, however is the jet engine that moves charity to increase a person’s standard of living. As Americans, we believe that opportunity is the seed from which freedom springs.
Microcredit is opportunity. It is the process of making small loans to individuals in countries that do not share our freedoms… yet. These loans are given to individuals who wish to build businesses in their communities. Initial loans are often no more than US$50.00. Payback rates are well above 90%, and typically approach 100%. It is women who are taking the most advantage of microlending opportunities. This is good, because they tend to invest their profits in their children and their community.
Discover Hope uses music to foster entrepreneurship for export
DiscoverHope is a “blended” microcredit organization headquartered in Austin and focusing on South America. I support DiscoverHope because they don’t just loan money, but have built education centers to teach their clients how to build and run a business.
I love the thought that my donations to DiscoverHope will create value over and over and over. This is what we want in our businesses. Why not demand it of our giving?
DiscoverHope is home-grown goodness, started right here in Austin, Texas. In classic Austin tradition, DiscoverHope is using music to express their gratitude and raise more funds for sprouting entrepreneurs in Peru. It’s Saturday, September 26.
You should buy a ticket. The $25 you pay goes right to DiscoverHope activities.
You should also plan to come. You’re going to meet people who have a positive, expansive vision for how we can give back some of the bounty we enjoy here in America.
Do you give out of guilt, or give out of gratitude? Come mingle in a room full of the grateful, and see if you don’t start the next day with a fresh attitude.
Conversion Sciences is a proud sponsor of Band Together for Hope and a donor to DiscoverHope.
Would you believe that e-mail marketing is still in its infancy?
A couple of graphs from MarketingSherpa drive an important point home about the use of e-mail for marketing. It works, it has always worked, and it will continue to work. You just have to know how to use it.
House list email continues to outperform third-party email in 2009.
In this graph, “Emailing to house lists” falls behind “Pay-per-click search ads.” However, since fewer marketers are reducing the use of house list email, it should be #1.
I’ll go so far as to state this:
If you don’t have your email marketing efforts nailed, you have no business investing in social marketing.
Social marketing has its place, and is not a fad. But, we know so much about good, permission-based email marketing, that it is criminal to ignore it. Don’t let email superstitions drive your marketing strategy.
The more sophisticated a marketer you are, the more likely you are to use house list email marketing.
MarketingSherpa has some choice interpretations of this graph:
Those that see the effectiveness of their email programs diminishing are much more likely to have short-sighted organizational attitudes toward the tactic.
Organizations with investment-oriented views of email reap the rewards. They have higher open, click and conversion rates. In addition, they are much more likely to have a metrics-based grasp of how email works for them. Those with the “email is free” view, on the other hand, are more likely to fall into the group that doesn’t track conversion.
It is so easy to measure email’s effectiveness, that I would argue that you can’t call yourself a marketer if you’re not watching your results. We call you a spammer.
You’re not marketing if your not measuring.
Essential for any Considered Purchase
If all of your customers buy spontaneously on their first visit and never buy again, then you may not need to invest in email marketing. I don’t know of any business like this.
If your customers take weeks or months to come to a purchase decision, you cannot ignore email. Email is the biggest social network on the planet. Even retirees use email.
Your House List is the list of people who have given you permission to enter their inbox. This means they want what you have, and should be given every opportunity to opt out.
Email Isn’t Promotional, It’s Social
Don’t use email purely to promote sales and discounts. Use it to educate, inform and entertain. If you have a blog, send your most interesting posts via email. Most of us aren’t using RSS. Email is your ticket to growing your blog readership.
Then simply advertise in your own emails.
It’s Time to Get Your Email On: Get Started Now
It does take time to build your house list, so start now. Email can be fun if you’re sending content that reflects your passion for your company, your industry and your brand.
Then you can start investing in the smaller, less intimate social networks out there.
Personas provide three powerful points that will help you focus your marketing and advertising dollars, and justify more spending.
This is why Personas can mean bigger online projects.
The power of fake people
Imagine your most important customer, let’s call her Melissa, walking into your meeting room and laying the law down to your manager, telling them exactly what she wants from your Web site.
Now imagine that she’s not just your most important customer, but a representative of hundreds or thousands of your customers. Would she be able to change minds and influence decisions?
This is the power of Melissa. She is your Market Segmentation Study personified. She is your analytics report in a skirt. She is legal counsel for your creative team and a force to be reckoned with.
Melissa is an example of a persona. She represents the desires and fears of a large number of your prospects and customers in the most human and compelling way.
She isn’t real, but she will seem more real than any chart you can concoct.
Personas provide three powerful points that will help you focus your marketing and advertising dollars, and justify more spending. This is why Personas can mean bigger online projects.
Why Personas Have So Much Power
Roy H. Williams puts it best.
“Your business has three or four customers living at thousands of different addresses.”
Get to know them and they will lead you in the right direction.
Personas provide three powerful points that will help you focus your marketing and advertising dollars, and justify more spending.
1. You can Relate to People More Than Data
Melissa has a name, a face and a story. She is the perfect age, has the right income, and the ideal home environment to represent large numbers of your customers. With each little decision that marketers and business people make each day, you can ask, “What would Melissa do?” Each time you’re asked to make changes to your messaging, media, or offers, you can ask, “Would Melissa want this?”
You will relate to her as a marketer, manager, owner, CEO, Vice President or agency. This means better decisions, defendable positions, and consistent execution. Melissa is good.
2. Personas Create Consensus
The process of creating personas must involve anyone who would “know” Melissa. She is the personification of data, sales experiences, product research, customer support calls and personal experience. To make her whole, you must involved these functions in her creation.
Then, when budget time comes around; when knee-jerk initiatives seek to copy a competitor; when programs are proposed that are questionable, everyone will remember Melissa when you invoke her name.
3. Personas Turn Your Focus Outward
In any organization, it is easy to turn inward; to focus on the next product or the next campaign. Too many marketing conversations begin, “How can we get our message out more?”
Melissa changes the conversation.
“What could we do to get Melissa interested faster?”
“Why isn’t Melissa visiting the site?”
“What does Melissa need to know to go ahead and buy?”
These questions are fundamentally different. They are outward looking. Everything from strategy to copy to design will open to Melissa like a flower, and she will react.
The Key Components of an Online Persona
I’ll be covering the key components of an online persona in my SXSW Panel, provided you vote for it and it gets accepted.
I’ll also show you some of the decisions personas have influenced for my clients.
Avoiding the Marketing Strategies that Don’t Convert
Conversion-Centered DesignI had one of those meetings this week; a meeting with a company that has really come to understand the significance of online conversion in their business. I predict good things for them.
They’d taken advantage of a Conversion Sciences home page review, and had attended my workshops. It’s a good feeling to know that I’m making a difference.
They wanted to be sure spent their Web budget on the things that were going to help their business grow faster.
This is going to sound obvious, but take a good look at your own site before you dismiss this statement: They decided that focusing on strategies that would generate leads would alleviate the need to invest in things that didn’t. They would save money and sell more.
That makes sense, doesn’t it?
So what should you be investing in?
Find out which conversion strategies you should be building your web marketing programs around and avoid marketing strategies that don’t convert.
Design your website around the strategies that drive leads and sales and avoid the marketing strategies that don’t convert.
The Five Core Patterns Of Conversion Marketing
How many basic web patterns are there? If you were to boil every web site down to a set of core species, how many would you list? Would there be 500 basic types? 100? 50? How about five?
Conversion scientists require some categorization and classification to do their job well. This allows us to simplify rather complex concepts, easing communication with each other and with you. It gives us a common vocabulary with which to work.
For example, if you can tell me which of five patterns your web site fits into, I can tell you with some accuracy which three strategies you should implement first to maximize your conversion rates. From one word springs an entire online marketing plan. That is the power of classification.
Over my next five posts for Conversion Sciences, I’m going to help you identify your core web site pattern and tell you what disciplines you can’t get wrong if you want to turn visitors into leads and sales.
The ground rules
Before I define the five web site patterns, let’s lay some ground rules for the ensuing debate.
I welcome your input on new web species that may exist in the wild. Here is the first of the five basic patterns which I look for when advising a client.
The Brochure pattern
Also known as the “sales support” pattern, the brochure web site is modeled after the glossy print publications that have been created by businesses for decades, and ignored by 99.99% of those who have received them.
Often presented in tri-fold fashion, the brochure is the appetizer of marketing. Its sole purpose is to provide enough information to whet the desire of a prospective customer and tell them how to get more information.
Likewise, its online counterpart is designed to provide little truly valuable information, but to make the sponsoring company look like it has its act together. In this sense, the primary quality of a brochure site is safety.
You have, or desire a brochure site if you answer yes to the following statements:
Don’t be fooled by my snootiness. The Brochure pattern is an important pattern for many businesses. Just because everyone uses the web doesn’t mean that every business should be trying to generate leads and sales there.
The Brochure site has only to make the visitor feel comfortable sharing the site with their boss and with others who are a part of the any purchase decision. No controversy should ever enter into a brochure site. It has to look good. It has to present benefits and features. It has to provide contact information. That’s about it.
The primary goal of the brochure site is to make sure the prospect can find you when they are ready to make a decision. A “conversion” is a phone call or an email.
The three “must get right” conversion strategies for a Brochure business are:
The Brochure site is the primary pattern found among business web sites. This is unfortunate, because too many businesses put up brochure sites when they really are counting on the web for sales leads. The result is a site that isn’t a good brochure site, and isn’t a good lead-generation site either.
For example, marketers will optimize their brochure site for search, but see little positive effect because a brochure site is a terrible tool for cold visitors. What these marketers want is a site built on the considered purchase pattern, which we will discuss in part four of this series.
Brochure sites are efficient. Marketers only need to update them when their product lines change, when new news is published, or when they get a new VP of Marketing, who will inevitably want to refresh the site to show how quickly they’re making progress.
The four remaining web site patterns
I’ll next venture into the Portal pattern, a site in which the content takes center stage, and then explore the key conversion strategies for the eCommerce Pattern, the Considered Purchase Pattern and the Site as a Service Pattern. Read on in The Portal Pattern: Core Conversion Marketing Strategies.
I’ll be posting to the Conversion Science column every four weeks, so you should subscribe to the Conversion Science email.
Many of you are going to be surprised at which pattern you end up choosing for your business.
Summarizing
If you have a brochure site, you may discover that you really need a site based on one of the other four patterns: a Portal, an eCommerce site, a Considered Purchase site, or a Site as a Service.
Over the next four months, I’ll be digging into each, helping you choose the right pattern for your business, and highlighting the conversion strategies that you must get right for each.
The next installment is coming next week. I’ll send you an email when each of these go live if you subscribe to The Conversion Optimization Blog.
Originally Published: Five Core Patterns of Conversion Marketing for Search Engine Land’s new Conversion Science column.
Build a Marketing “Battery” that Stores Purchase Power
Conversion Marketing StrategyIt sounded like the perfect market:
JobCannon for Job Search.
Add to these the fact that existing solutions were failing miserably, and you’ve got a market ready for an effective online solution.
I’m describing the unemployed job seeker marketplace. Few marketplaces have the natural alignment of trends that this marketplace does. JobCannon (formerly CardboardResume) sought to create an online job search solution that actually worked, and build a business in the bargain.
First, let me disclose that JobCannon is a client of Conversion Sciences.
You might have thought that this would be an easy sell. We knew it wouldn’t be. We needed to keep skeptical, frugal job seekers engaged and informed. Here’s how we did it.
Before you read any further…
If you’re on Twitter, please visit and play along.
Building the Battery with Informational Marketing
Since no tag line was going to help JobCannon rise above the noise, and since new job seekers needed advice as much as the software, we lead with an informational approach.
JobCannon commissioned an eBook to help break job seekers of their job board habit. It turns out that spending hours a day on Monster and CareerBuilder was the least effective way to find work, especially in a crowded job market.
I wrote the eBook for them. My primary qualification was my fundamental inability to hold a job. Get your copy of The Market for Me.
A book blog was setup to catch job seekers searching the Internet. I began speaking at job clubs on to help seed the marketplace promoting the book heavily.
Charging the Battery
To receive the book, prospects provided a name and email address, and asked the prospect why they wanted to read the book. About 10% of the attendees to a live presentation requested a free copy.
The presentation model was not easy to scale, as I could only speak so many times. But the pipeline proved that we could engage and educate an audience with informational marketing.
The book/blog strategy was proven when one of my presentations was featured on applicant.com, an influential blog. It was subsequently picked up by Slideshare as a featured presentation. Over the space of three weeks, almost 30,000 people viewed the presentation. A link to the free eBook in the description drew viewers to our educational content.
This one presentation doubled the size of our email database. It charged our battery.
This is proof that high conversion rates amplify all of your online marketing efforts.
Tapping the Battery’s Energy
Informational posts generated for the blog became email newsletters that were sent to the book database.
Because this market was bombarded by solutions to help them find work, we were dealing with a skeptical group. We found out it took as many as seven relevant contacts to generate a JobCannon trial: One reference from a friend, one presentation, one free eBook, and four informational emails.
Without our marketing battery, we would never have been able to generate the number of “touches” necessary to make prospects feel comfortable trying the software.
Like batteries marketing databases “lose charge” over time
As a rule of thumb, we assume that 25% of the contacts become invalid over the course of a year.
Many marketers drain their battery by sending promotional content. Discounts, feature-oriented posts and irrelevant information drain the battery very quickly.
In our case, many of our prospects find work, even though they’re not using JobCannon. Hopefully, they’ll continue to network and search for new opportunities even though they have found work.
Build your own battery with informational content
You may not have an eBook available, but your business generates informational content every month. Press releases, product descriptions, old blog posts, and sales presentations all can be transformed to charge your marketing batteries.
Join us on December 10 in Austin for BYOContent: The Extreme Conversion Makeover Workshop.
We’re going to transform a blog, a white paper, some video and an email newsletter into lead-generating and sales-generating tools.
Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist
P. S. Get more conversion tips by subscribing to The Conversion Blog.
One Million Things I Learned at PubCon Las Vegas
News & EventsBrad Geddes, bgTheory.com
Tim Ash, SiteTuners.com
Kristine Schachinger, S@schachin
Heather Lloyd-Martin, SEOCopywriting.com
Mark Robertson, ReelSEO.com
Gillian Muessig, SEOmoz
Books to Read
I started with crayons. However, it became more and more difficult to get the colors off of my laptop screen. Plus, the markup didn’t travel with the image.
Eventually, the crayons left ghosted images on the screen, like a burned plasma display.
Then, I found the pen computer. Now, I can create, markup and take notes analog style, with instant conversion to digital.
A Snapshot of Pubcon
One benefit of the modern pen computer is the ease with which analog input can be shared. So, I thought I would share some of my notes with you.
I chose these based on the following criteria:
1. I took notes
Many presenters don’t realize this, but you have to be “note-worthy.” You have to tee us up to take notes. You’re presentation has to be somewhat logically organized. You can’t throw too much at us too quickly, because we’ll just give up.
2. I was able to take notes on my computer
Props to PubCon for providing extension cords and power strips for us.
3. My notes are somewhat legible.
You be the judge.
Some People Prefer This
Some people prefer this mix of visual cue and text. You may find it helpful.
Click on any of the images to see a full-resolution version.
Some People Prefer Summaries
Here are some of the things I gleaned from notes that didn’t pass the three-point test:
Tools to Check Out
Organic Keyword Search
SEO “Quake” Plugin
SEO for Firefox
Yahoo Site Explorer
Adwords Preview Tool
ExcellentAnalytics.com (Excel)
Tatvic
SEM Rush (Mark Jackson)
Google Trends
MSN Commercial Intention Tool
validator.w3.org
Bing Webmaster Tools
Landing Pages
RingLead.com Lead Management
Social Evaluation
Quarkbase
Woopra
Trackur (Andy Beale)
Brandseye
Twitter
Twitalyzer
WeFollow
Tracking Twitter
Twellow
Twilert
Facebook Apps
Sprout Publisher
AppBank
Involver
Facebook Notes
Site Design
MeasureIt Firefox Plugin
Aardvark Firefox Plugin
Colorzilla Firefox Plugin
Firebug Firefox Plugin
Headspace2 WordPress Plugin
WordPress Themes
Thesis ($)
Flexibility 2
Corrington
Affiliate Theme
eArtisteer (random theme generator)
Video
OneTrueMedia Video Editing and hosting
TrafficGeyser (use with care)
TubeMogul
12Seconds.tv
YouTube Insight
Google TV
YouTube Wonder Wheel
Handbrake Video Compressor
Is it smart to advertise free stuff?
Conversion Marketing StrategyThe answer is, “Yes.” On December 10, I’m going to show you the techniques marketers use to make it pay, and I’m going to do it with your content.
Why, you might ask, does it make sense to use your scarce marketing dollars to advertise free stuff? The answer is this:
Many more.
Thus, if you can get the attention of someone while they’re still thinking about how to solve a problem, you can expect more of them to visit you when they ARE ready to buy.
The key is content that converts, the kind of educational, helpful, informative content that your business generates all of the time. You may say, “My business doesn’t generate any online information.” Oh, but it does.
It’s hiding in plain site. It’s in the product specifications you write. It’s in the sales presentations you’ve created. It’s in the blog posts that you’ve written. It’s in the emails that your most grateful customers have written you.
Is it smart to advertise free stuff? It’s not actually free if you’re generating leads
If you are doing lead generation, your information isn’t free. The consumer of this helpful and informative knowledge pays with their attention, with a little information about themselves and by extending you some permission – on credit – to continue conversing with them.
The key is content that converts, the kind of educational, helpful, informative content that your business generates all of the time.
The results may well be better than your benefit-oriented ad copy
If I have decided to solve my problem with a product or service like yours, a benefit- or discount-oriented ad will do the trick. However, if I am part of the much larger audience that is still “in the question,” I won’t even know how to process your offer.
Content can help me decide. It can help me make cost tradeoffs. It can help me sell a solution to my boss. It can help me understand the real cost of not solving the problem. It can help me rationalize a purchase.
Which desk drawer is your gold hiding in?
You’re invited to spend a day with me and a panel of smart marketers as we transform plain, everyday information into content that sells.
Join us on December 10 in Austin, Texas for BYOContent: The Extreme Conversion Makeover Workshop.
By the time you leave, you will know:
Join me, Apogee Search’s Alissa Ruehl, online marketing expert Jane Dueease and a room full of smart people like you as we turn ordinary information into online content that will grow our businesses.
Act before Thanksgiving, and we’ll knock $50 off the price. Breakfast, lunch, and a snack are on us.
If the Web is important to your business, this will be one of the most eye-opening events of the year.
Of course, I’d appreciate you sharing this email with other businesses, but don’t send it on until you’ve secured your own seat. I like to keep my workshops somewhat intimate.
Get the details and reserve your place in the room. This is going to be a fun one.
Best regards,
Brian Massey
Conversion and Google Maps Optimization
Conversion OptimizationThis is a guest post by Brian Combs of ionadas local.
About eighteen months ago, the SEO agency of which I was then a member was hired by a company in the travel industry. Their websites were seeing a 20% drop in traffic from Google. Even more worrisome was the nearly 25% drop in sales from Google.
Meanwhile, their keyword monitoring tools were saying everything was fine. Their tools watched several thousand keywords on a monthly basis, and the rankings had not substantively changed. If a keyword was third last month, it was third again this month.
We were tasked with determining the cause of the drop and prescribing a remedy.
The culprit was the new Google Maps business listing. These are the seven (at that point ten) listings that come up with the Google Map on queries with locational intent.
Austin plumber Sample Google Maps business listing.
Note: The example image is from a different industry than the client in order to protect the client’s identity.
These Google Maps had begun popping up for a large number of the client’s search terms. A keyword that was third in the organic listings was likely to be pushed below the fold. As a result, the traffic from Google was dropping precipitously.
And conversion was dropping at an even higher rate. Clearly, it was the best traffic that was being lost.
I would posit that this represents the biggest change to Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) since they began including paid listings above the natural listings.
Does Local SEO Matter for You?
If your business needs to generate website visitors, phone calls, or foot traffic from people in particular geographies, then local SEO is likely appropriate for you.
Do your keywords include a city (or neighborhood in them)? When you search on them, is the so-called 7-pack (or any Google Map) returned?
Google is constantly enlarging the universe of keywords that generate map results. So if the map is not returned today, it may begin doing so in the future.
Google is even assuming local intent when none is expressly stated.
For instance, if you search on [coffee shop], Google will determine your location from your IP address, and return you a list of coffee shops your area.
Impact on Conversion Rate
The impact of this change by Google can hardly by overstated. Even if you’ve worked your website to the top of the organic listings, the addition of the Google Map listings will have a substantial impact on Click Through Rate (CTR) and post-click conversion rate.
While no studies have been published on this topic as yet, the assumption is that the curve of traffic decline within the seven maps listings is not as steep as it is for the ten organic listings.
Also, the company name within the Google Maps listing can have an effect. Known, branded companies certainly have an advantage. And those that are nothing but a list of keywords are likely at a conversion disadvantage.
Reviews and Their Impact on Conversion Rate
The Google Maps business listings very prominently list the reviews a company has received. These reviews may have been placed directly with Google, or may have been pulled into Google from third-party systems such as CitySearch.
Both the number and the quality of reviews within Google have an impact.
The number of reviews greatly impacts the ranking of the business listings. If all else is equal (which it never is, of course), the ranking with the greater number of reviews will be higher. A large number of reviews can overcome many other deficiencies in Google Maps optimization.
I have not seen any studies on the impact of the number of reviews on conversion, but I expect they are positively correlated. If there are two listings, one with twenty-five reviews and one with no reviews, people will tend to look at the business with reviews first.
And while the quality of reviews has little to no impact on rankings, it can certainly have a significant impact on conversions.
This is not to say that an occasional bad review is going to drive you out of business. We’ve all read reviews from clearly unreasonable people, and most people will give a company the benefit of the doubt.
But if the preponderance of reviews are negative, and the reviews seem reasonably written, you had better work to improve your product/service quality, and encourage happy customers to write reviews for you.
Brian Combs is the founder of ionadas local, a provider of Google Maps optimization in Austin, Texas. ionadas local 13359 N Hwy 183, #406-245, Austin, TX 78750, (512) 501-1875
CMO, Let My People Go
Conversion Marketing Strategy, News & EventsIt was a room full of very smart, inquisitive and curious communicators. We spent two days immersed in the challenge of giving our Web site visitors what they need, and in doing so, knew we’d be growing our businesses.
Brian Massey presenting at DMA 09.
You know the experience: you’re engaged in a conversation or a training or reading a book, and you KNOW everything you’re taking in is true. In fact, you already new much of it.
But, at work, where you’re supposed to be exercising these truths, conversations like this don’t happen. What is that all about?
We covered a lot of ground in my DMA 90 pre-conference intensive “Optimizing Your Web Site for Conversion and Business Success.” I learned a great deal from my audience.
But underneath the energy was an undertow dragging us away from shore. It was the knowledge that we would be returning to marketing departments that are understaffed, under budgeted, and — worst of all — focused on the wrong things.
I heard it from many attendees.
We don’t have the resources to do the things we need to do
Dear CMO, have you considered building an organization that doesn’t have the resources to NOT do the things you need to do? What would that look like?
Let them communicate
It would be a group of people so focused on delivering content that the prospect needs, that they wouldn’t even consider wasting time on the self-aggrandizing, posing communication that so many brands seem to treasure.
Clear the obstacles
They would sweep obstacles out of the way (this is really your job, CMO) so that they could communicate faster, with better data and known results.
They would have ways of working with IT and legal so that their communications are frequent, human and transparent.
Let them experiment
They would make many mistakes, but they would only make them once. They would know which half of their advertising wasn’t working.
Think of an entrepreneurial product development group.
Let them publish
They would produce a volume of content far greater than they do now, with greater accuracy, consistency and efficiency.
Think of a world-class newspaper.
Marketers, take the reigns
A little of the Schwag I collected at DMA 09
If you want to see the most amazing collection of schwag, go to a marketing conference. What surprised me was the amount of goodies that were given away without any qualifying activity.
This is not lead generation or even demand generation.
If you want to join a group of marketers and business owners bent on communicating, join us on December 10 in Austin, Texas for the BYO Content Extreme Conversion Makeover. You’ll soon have the leads and revenues that prove you’re a communicator.
‘Bring your most tired white papers, your most mundane articles, and your raw video. We’ll show you how to weave it into a conversion scenario that will generate leads and sales for your business.
We’ll announce the details here shortly. Don’t miss the post.
Online Display Advertising Can Rock Your Marketing
Advertising CROEntrepreneurship – One thing the US could export to change the world
News & EventsEvery entrepreneur should come to understand what microcredit is teaching us. This movement is teaching us about the very foundation of our free enterprise system. It is teaching us where compassion lives within our framework of self interest. It is showing us that we are right to believe that opportunity brings out the best in us in ways that charity does not.
In terms of providing “aid” to struggling countries, the US is quite generous. However, the results of our aid are often heart breaking, with much of it being wasted by the governments that are supposed to get it to their people.
Charity has its place. Opportunity, however is the jet engine that moves charity to increase a person’s standard of living. As Americans, we believe that opportunity is the seed from which freedom springs.
Microcredit is opportunity. It is the process of making small loans to individuals in countries that do not share our freedoms… yet. These loans are given to individuals who wish to build businesses in their communities. Initial loans are often no more than US$50.00. Payback rates are well above 90%, and typically approach 100%. It is women who are taking the most advantage of microlending opportunities. This is good, because they tend to invest their profits in their children and their community.
Discover Hope uses music to foster entrepreneurship for export
DiscoverHope is a “blended” microcredit organization headquartered in Austin and focusing on South America. I support DiscoverHope because they don’t just loan money, but have built education centers to teach their clients how to build and run a business.
I love the thought that my donations to DiscoverHope will create value over and over and over. This is what we want in our businesses. Why not demand it of our giving?
DiscoverHope is home-grown goodness, started right here in Austin, Texas. In classic Austin tradition, DiscoverHope is using music to express their gratitude and raise more funds for sprouting entrepreneurs in Peru. It’s Saturday, September 26.
You should buy a ticket. The $25 you pay goes right to DiscoverHope activities.
You should also plan to come. You’re going to meet people who have a positive, expansive vision for how we can give back some of the bounty we enjoy here in America.
Do you give out of guilt, or give out of gratitude? Come mingle in a room full of the grateful, and see if you don’t start the next day with a fresh attitude.
Conversion Sciences is a proud sponsor of Band Together for Hope and a donor to DiscoverHope.
It’s Time to Get Your Email On
Conversion Marketing StrategyA couple of graphs from MarketingSherpa drive an important point home about the use of e-mail for marketing. It works, it has always worked, and it will continue to work. You just have to know how to use it.
House list email continues to outperform third-party email in 2009.
In this graph, “Emailing to house lists” falls behind “Pay-per-click search ads.” However, since fewer marketers are reducing the use of house list email, it should be #1.
I’ll go so far as to state this:
Social marketing has its place, and is not a fad. But, we know so much about good, permission-based email marketing, that it is criminal to ignore it. Don’t let email superstitions drive your marketing strategy.
The more sophisticated a marketer you are, the more likely you are to use house list email marketing.
MarketingSherpa has some choice interpretations of this graph:
Those that see the effectiveness of their email programs diminishing are much more likely to have short-sighted organizational attitudes toward the tactic.
Organizations with investment-oriented views of email reap the rewards. They have higher open, click and conversion rates. In addition, they are much more likely to have a metrics-based grasp of how email works for them. Those with the “email is free” view, on the other hand, are more likely to fall into the group that doesn’t track conversion.
It is so easy to measure email’s effectiveness, that I would argue that you can’t call yourself a marketer if you’re not watching your results. We call you a spammer.
Essential for any Considered Purchase
If all of your customers buy spontaneously on their first visit and never buy again, then you may not need to invest in email marketing. I don’t know of any business like this.
If your customers take weeks or months to come to a purchase decision, you cannot ignore email. Email is the biggest social network on the planet. Even retirees use email.
Your House List is the list of people who have given you permission to enter their inbox. This means they want what you have, and should be given every opportunity to opt out.
Email Isn’t Promotional, It’s Social
Don’t use email purely to promote sales and discounts. Use it to educate, inform and entertain. If you have a blog, send your most interesting posts via email. Most of us aren’t using RSS. Email is your ticket to growing your blog readership.
Then simply advertise in your own emails.
It’s Time to Get Your Email On: Get Started Now
It does take time to build your house list, so start now. Email can be fun if you’re sending content that reflects your passion for your company, your industry and your brand.
Then you can start investing in the smaller, less intimate social networks out there.
Personas Can Mean Bigger Online Projects
Conversion Marketing StrategyThis is why Personas can mean bigger online projects.
The power of fake people
Imagine your most important customer, let’s call her Melissa, walking into your meeting room and laying the law down to your manager, telling them exactly what she wants from your Web site.
Now imagine that she’s not just your most important customer, but a representative of hundreds or thousands of your customers. Would she be able to change minds and influence decisions?
This is the power of Melissa. She is your Market Segmentation Study personified. She is your analytics report in a skirt. She is legal counsel for your creative team and a force to be reckoned with.
Melissa is an example of a persona. She represents the desires and fears of a large number of your prospects and customers in the most human and compelling way.
She isn’t real, but she will seem more real than any chart you can concoct.
Personas provide three powerful points that will help you focus your marketing and advertising dollars, and justify more spending. This is why Personas can mean bigger online projects.
Why Personas Have So Much Power
Roy H. Williams puts it best.
Get to know them and they will lead you in the right direction.
Personas provide three powerful points that will help you focus your marketing and advertising dollars, and justify more spending.
1. You can Relate to People More Than Data
Melissa has a name, a face and a story. She is the perfect age, has the right income, and the ideal home environment to represent large numbers of your customers. With each little decision that marketers and business people make each day, you can ask, “What would Melissa do?” Each time you’re asked to make changes to your messaging, media, or offers, you can ask, “Would Melissa want this?”
2. Personas Create Consensus
The process of creating personas must involve anyone who would “know” Melissa. She is the personification of data, sales experiences, product research, customer support calls and personal experience. To make her whole, you must involved these functions in her creation.
Then, when budget time comes around; when knee-jerk initiatives seek to copy a competitor; when programs are proposed that are questionable, everyone will remember Melissa when you invoke her name.
3. Personas Turn Your Focus Outward
In any organization, it is easy to turn inward; to focus on the next product or the next campaign. Too many marketing conversations begin, “How can we get our message out more?”
Melissa changes the conversation.
“What could we do to get Melissa interested faster?”
“Why isn’t Melissa visiting the site?”
“What does Melissa need to know to go ahead and buy?”
These questions are fundamentally different. They are outward looking. Everything from strategy to copy to design will open to Melissa like a flower, and she will react.
The Key Components of an Online Persona
I’ll be covering the key components of an online persona in my SXSW Panel, provided you vote for it and it gets accepted.
I’ll also show you some of the decisions personas have influenced for my clients.
Give the panel idea your vote and then attend SXSW Interactive.
Meanwhile, check out Best Buy Customer Profiles or Personas.