Conversion Conference Blog

By Brian Massey

Conversion Scientist, Conversion Sciences, LLC

Whether you design mobile apps, make chimichangas or provide investment advisory services, your copy writing always has to start with the same two questions:

1. Why is my reader here? Why did he or she click on this website, open this email, download this white paper?
2. Now that my reader is here, how can I make the experience of being here so delightful that the reader will consider his quest fulfilled and seek no further (i.e. on someone else’s website)?

You start with those two questions in your mind and you hold them there the whole time you’re creating copy.  You start every paragraph and edit every version with those two questions floating in the front of your brain.

That seems pretty simple, right? It’s a little more complicated than that—which explains why really great content stands out in all the millions of bytes of content out there.

Sometimes you’re in a situation where instead of one inspired, customer focused copy writer, you have a committee. In the worst scenario, you have a committee in a culture where kissing up is expected and the top level kissers have to kiss up to really old institutional practices. These august bodies do not write quick, responsive copy. They write heavy copy full of venerated jargon. The last time they read anything about writing for the web, they learned about Search Engine Optimization and their content is so full of keywords it looks like it was assaulted by an automatic weapon that shoots the same five words, over and over.

It is very difficult to get this kind of group to pay any attention to the two questions that must be asked repeatedly of every piece of copy.  But you must try.

Show them evidence by experts like Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute or Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, authors of Call to Action about the scientific work supporting the power of conversion writing. Focus on the benefits to the company. This is your only hope.

First you must convince them to answer the first question: “Why is my reader here?” and then you must make an even more difficult case. You must get them to answer the question “How can I make my reader’s experience delightful?”

The tricky part about this is that the only way to make your content experience a delightful conversion experience is to write in Human. To write the way people think. Those heavy, jargony, SEO-laden sentences are not how people think or speak. Words like “leverage your capabilities” and “utilize your CMS to maximize benefits” or “experience of a lifetime.” These are not things normal people say. These are words used almost exclusively in content that’s trying to make you do something you may not want to do. As such, your brain rejects these words. These words are like oil to water. They slide over the brain and out the ears with no impact.

A delightful experience connects with people on an emotional level. Not sappy, but human.

So here’s the thing. Next time you’re creating a piece of copy for your business, pretend you’re telling some people about in conversation and that you’re doing it on one of those days you have a lot of passion about what you do.

Write what you’d say. Nuke any unnecessary jargon, any overused ad words or anything that would make you shut down if it was in someone else’s copy.

What you’ll wind up with is a piece of copy much more likely to hook people who click on your content and turn readers into buyers.

About the Author

Brian Massey is the Conversion Scientist at Conversion Sciences and he has the lab coat to prove it. His rare combination of interests, experience and neuroses was developed over almost 20 years as a computer programmer, entrepreneur, corporate marketer, national speaker and writer. Conversion Sciences was founded to fill the Web with helpful, engaging and entertaining online Web sites that convert visitors into leads and sales. The company has helped dozens of businesses transform their sites through a steady diet of visitor profiling, purposeful content, analytics and testing. “There are places on the Web that make you feel like they were built just for you,” he says. “Is yours one of these? It could be.

See Brian Live!

Brian will be talking more about copy and its role in persuasion and conversion at the Conversion Conference 2012 on March 5^th and 6^th in San Francisco, California. Join him in his session on “Creating Killer Conversion Copy: Emails, Landing Pages, PPC Ads and More.” See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference Registration? Follow Brian on Twitter to say hello and request for a discount code!

By Arnie Kuenn

President, Vertical Measures

If your business has been stalling right along with the economy, you might get a much-needed boost from content marketing.

Content marketing is the creation, sharing, and distribution of information that’s relevant to customers you want to attract, engage and retain.  Content can be informational, educational, promotional, or entertaining, and if presented properly, it can help you spread your message, enable dialogue between you and your customers, and increase business revenue.

Customers no longer just want standard products and services; they want more engaged vendors.  They want to know that the companies they buy from will go the extra mile to provide advice and information.  This has led to an explosion in content marketing.

However, the process of content marketing can be confusing.  Businesses know they need to do it, but they don’t necessarily know where to start.  Answering six basic questions will give you the insight you need to get your plan off the ground.

What are you presenting?
The type of content you create depends on what your customers want to hear.  You can provide details about your products or services, but you also need to present content that isn’t necessarily about you, but help your customer make an informed decision.

Your content can include industry trends, advice, or an overview of the benefits of buying a particular product or service.  You can also be more direct and talk about your particular products and services, and include a call to action to buy or call for more information.

Why are you presenting it?
The content you publish will depend on what you’re trying to achieve.  Do you want to position your business as knowledgeable?  Helpful tips look like free advice for customers, which makes them come back for more. Talking about trends in your industry makes you appear in touch with a changing market.

Are you trying to generate leads or sales?  A how-to guide about installing a specific product with a link or contact number gives readers an immediate way to respond, and it gives you an opportunity to see who’s interested in your offers, whether they become customers or not.

Match your content to your business goals and you’ll get the results you want.

Who are you presenting to?
Your target markets will affect the way you present content.  If you’re talking to customers, you can talk about new products they might like, or new service delivery methods that make life easier.  If you’re talking to prospects, take a less familiar approach, touting the benefits of your products and inviting them to learn more.

Your audience will also impact the tone you take.  Consumer content can be presented in an informal or even humorous style, but some business content needs to be more professional and objective. Consumers will respond to more emotional benefits, but businesses need more rational facts to see the benefits to their bottom line.  Both audiences will respond equally to calls of action, but make sure there’s enough information to keep them reading.

Where will you present it?
Ideally businesses will present their content on their own sites, to reduce the number of extra steps for people to get there.  The question is where to go to find these new readers. You can advertise online or you can post content to social media sites like Facebook or Twitter to link people to your site. However the very best approach is to optimize your content to give you the best chance to rank at the top of a search engine results page. That’s the vast majority of people will discover your content.

When will you present it?
A website should never be idle for long, and the last entry on a blog shouldn’t be too old. Otherwise, you end up looking inactive, which will drive away people who are looking for up-to-the-minute information.  Search engines love fresh, new content too. That’s why you need to keep your content as fresh as possible.

There’s no set rule for how often you need to post, but the general rule is between once a day and once a week.  However often you decide to publish, the content needs to be relevant to your readers.

How will you present it?
The answer depends on what kind of information you’re providing.  Blogs tend to be the most popular form of content, because they can be short or lengthy, and the topics can be pretty open.  But there are other formats that can drive business as well.

White papers and e-books are great for presenting detailed information, and as downloads, they make great take-aways.  Product sheets and press releases are great for sharing news about your business in a quick, concise format. Video is a booming, highly consumed type of content and is easier to produce than most people think.

Content is the new marketing, especially in the online world, so put together a plan to consistently produce engaging content to keep your business alive and thriving.  To do this, create an editorial calendar. Set modest goals like writing two blog posts per week, sprucing up 5 product pages per week and creating one video per week. Then get started and stick to it!

About the Author

 Arnie Kuenn is the president of Vertical Measures, a search, social & content marketing company helping their clients get more traffic, more leads, and more business.  Arnie has held executive positions in the world of new technologies and marketing for more than 20 years. He is a frequent speaker and author of Accelerate! Moving Your Business Forward Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing available on Amazon.

See Arnie Live!

Arnie will be presenting a session on “9 Powerful, Low Cost Content Ideas to Grow Your Business in 6 Months or Less” at Conversion Conference West 2012 in San Francisco, California. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference Registration? Follow Arnie on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and contact him to request a discount code!

By Phillip Klien
Owner & Chief Innovation Officer, BTBuckets

As analysts we tend to use our systematic left side of the brain for optimization strategies. We apply multivariate testing and the Taguchi Method, breathe the confidence interval, and digest the funnel reports in our analytics platforms. Sometimes we are so focused on conversion metrics that we forget that we the people visiting our sites are human beings and not just integers in our reports.

A right-sided brain approach

There are different ways to optimize based on human behavior. One of my favorite experts on this subject is Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” – which sold over 2 million copies and has been listed on Fortune Magazine’s “75 Smartest Business Books.” Dr. Cialdini is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on social influence. and actually spent years going “undercover” applying for jobs and training at used car dealerships, fund-raising organizations, telemarketing firms to observe real-life situations of persuasion.

Dr. Cialdini’s principles are based on fixed action patterns (instinctive behavioral responses) that are triggered by specific stimuli. All animals have these – a mother tiger will go crazy when she hears her cub crying. An yes, we humans are also born with some instinctive triggers that is so hard-wired we will be influenced by them.

The six magic triggers

Dr. Cialdini identified six “weapons of influence” and how to leverage these to persuade people. These triggers are:

1) Scarcity – When we think an item is scarce, we will want it more.

2) Social proof – We determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct.

3) Authority – We tend to obey authority figures – even if the acts are objectionable.

4) Reciprocity – We should try to repay in kind what another person has provided us.

5) Commitment (consistency) – Once we make a choice or take a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment.

6) Liking – We most prefer to say yes to the requests of people we know and like.

On the web

When you optimize your headlines, images or call-to-actions – do you consider persuasive messaging? I have seen different sites using different triggers. Here are some good examples of ”
scarcity:”

So, how are you using persuasive marketing to increase conversion rates based on these “weapons of influence”?

About the Author

Phillip has an active role with web analytics and adserving in Latin America. He is also co-founder of Predicta, an adserving and web analytics software/service provider in Brazil that placed 1st in the 2009 WAA Waalter awards and 2nd in the first WAA Championship. Phillip is also a tutor for the award-winning UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics and helped develop measurement guidelines for the IAB. He is the founder of BTBuckets – a free on-site behavioral segmentation and targeting platform and SiteApps – app store for websites..

See Phillip Live!

Phillip will be speaking with Carloyn Nye, from USAData, in a session titled, “Triggers & Targeting: How Getting Personal Increases Conversions” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference Registration? Follow Phillip on Twitter and contact him to request a discount code!

By Mike Volpe
Chief Marketing Officer, HubSpot

This past week, I was visiting San Francisco to speak at Dreamforce 2011 and support HubSpot’s marketing campaigns there. While I was there, I had many opportunities to speak with marketers from different organizations and learn about their struggles and marketing challenges. Of course, I was also able to offer them suggestions on how to get more leads from their website and better their inbound marketing strategy. After recording many of these ideas and common problems marketers are facing on their websites, I am sharing some of the most common issues and ideas with you all.

1) Surface great content across your entire website

A number of marketers that I spoke to had already bought into the content creation dream of inbound marketing, and were regularly producing stellar blog content all the time. Many of them also had decent traffic to their website already, but the blog was slow to take off and bring in new visitors and leads – For every 100 visitors their website received to the homepage, only a handful clicked through to the blog.

The ideal solution here is to promote your blog more effectively across the other popular destinations of your website. Put a listing of 2-3 of your best blog posts on a certain topic on your Product or Services pages, or add an RSS module to your homepage if your CMS software supports it.

That way, people who are browsing other sections of your website have a chance to bump into your latest news & content, and become more engaged or learn something interesting. You can see how Apple effectively does this on their homepage below – Out of 6 items on their homepage, a rotating news feed is below. If Apple had an editorial blog, I’m sure that they would share that content there as well. It’s also worth noting that in the mobile version of Apple.com, the only two items that show up immediately are the top-placed product listing, and the “hot news” box. Apple must consider this a crucial item to their web presence.

2) Develop many landing pages to test different offers and landing page systems

According to data from my colleague Anne Holland in last week’s post, in 2010 only 35% of marketers could say that they ran conversion testing on their website pages. It’s surprising – Modern CMS tools should include software or functionality to help marketers test their calls to action and content offers and understand which ones are performing best. Even if they don’t, you still try to make this functionality yourself by having your different versions of the page, and then linking to each version from different pages. It’s less scientific than real testing functionality, but in a pinch it will help you do well.

To try this out, develop two similar landing pages – Try changing the color scheme on one page for example, or including a longer form, or a different content offer. Try out just one change to minimize the number of variables, so don’t change all of these things. Then, be very consistent in how you link to each version. For example, link to one version when linking from your blog, and then the different version when linking from your Products section. Watch the conversion rate and traffic generated, and see if there’s a significant difference present or if people respond similarly to your different pages. If you have a marketing automation tool, they may help do this for you as well.

If you’re in the 35% of marketers already doing this kind of testing on your website, try testing out a new factor that you had not tried before. We’ve had some real wins come at HubSpot by trying out changing things that you might overlook at first, such as the color of buttons on your landing page, or changing the page title.

3) Use real marketing analytics to understand different sources of traffic

There are many packages that you can choose from when looking for marketing analytics. This shouldn’t be a surprise to you, but make sure that you have a good way to tie in the success of your work and marketing campaigns to the leads or customers that you generated. Out of everyone that I spoke to at Dreamforce, very few people had a quantifiable way to justify the success of particular marketing campaigns or if particular sources did better than others.

One major mistake that was made to cause this was that they used the same landing page for all their promotion without any way to separate the sources of traffic. As a result, the same landing page was used for email marketing, paid search, and on the website’s blog, and they don’t know at the end which source actually generated the lead. Good marketing analytics platforms can pick apart that issue for you, but they could have also created separate landing pages and used them for particular sources of traffic in a pinch. This kind of knowledge can seem like a common thing to have sometimes, but few marketers are doing it to a degree that helps them understand how to save money.

What challenges does your website face in the modern age of marketing? Are there other tips that you’ve tried to apply besides the above to help confront these issues? Let me know in the comments.

About the Author

Mike Volpe is VP of Inbound Marketing at HubSpot, a marketing software company, where he leads the company’s lead generation and branding strategy through inbound marketing, including blogging, search engine optimization, video marketing, and social media. Since Mike joined HubSpot, the company has grown from 10 to 3,900 customers, from 5 to 200 employees, and raised $33 million of venture capital. Under Mike’s leadership, HubSpot’s marketing has won more than 30 awards and been featured in over 20 marketing and business books. Mike is a cutting-edge B2B inbound marketer who speaks at numerous conferences, hosts a weekly live marketing video podcast called HubSpot TV, is one of the 100 most popular marketers on Twitter, and blogs frequently. Mike holds an MBA from MIT Sloan and a BA from Bowdoin College and appears frequently as a marketing speaker.

See Mike Live!

Mike will be presenting a session with John Lawson, of 3rd Power, Inc, titled “Monetizing Your Traffic – Turning Blogs & Social Media into Conversion Gold” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session. Also check out Mike on Hubspot.com and attend one of their free webinars.

Follow Mike on Twitter (@mvolpe) or find him on Facebook and request a discount code to Conversion Conference?

By Justin Rondeau
Director of Marketing, TemplateZone

Last time I spoke at the Conversion Conference, I was in the camp of ‘If you are asking what the ROI of social media is, then you are asking the wrong question’.  Obviously this was not a particularly popular stance, being among some of the top eMetric and web analytic minds today.  So let me revise my previous stance, with some tips that will help you reap the benefits of Facebook in a clear and measurable way.

First and foremost, when you start using Facebook (or social media in general) you need to have clear goals.  These goals should be clear and precise, nothing like ‘I want to increase my social presence’.  Define what about your social presence you want to increase, such as Like Count, increase engagement, decrease unsubscribes, etc…  As a rule of thumb, I wouldn’t be so concerned about increasing your like count to enormous degrees. I would be much more concerned with the percent feedback on each post.  I stress this percentage for two reasons:

1. The more engaged your fans are, the higher your EdgeRank.
2. Whenever a fan interacts with your page, this activity is placed into their network’s news feed increasing your social reach.

Obviously you cannot interact with fans if you don’t have any, so you need to increase your like count to a reasonable degree and then nurture your fan base. I would suggest driving traffic from your website with a ‘Like Box’ or other various social plug-ins.  If you don’t mind spending a little money use Facebook ads to drive targeted traffic to your page.

Fan-Gated Custom Tab

One of the single most important factors for companies who cannot rely on brand identity for an increased like count, is a custom landing tab.  A custom landing tab will increase your like rate by roughly 50%, per a study comparing an identical Facebook ad where in one case the user landed on the wall and the other on a custom page. The landing tab on Facebook is essentially the same as any other landing page, have a clear call to action that entices your unique visitor with an offer and visual cues.

It is not enough to have a single custom tab, you want to take part in Fan-Gating, the act of one design being served up for non-fans and as soon as the fan likes your page a new design is served up.  Some great Fan-gated pages can be found on Red Bull’s and Coca-Cola’s Facebook Page. Below is an example of a Fan-Gated page on the High Impact Designer Facebook Page.

Notice the first design uses the arrow as a visual cue and the semi transparency as a teaser of the content underneath. We also utilize a lead generation form to get more information about our fans, namely their email address.  In this campaign, when we email a user a Facebook audit, we ask if they would like to get promotional materials and more tips about Facebook with a double opt-in link. After a user clicks this link, we have successfully turned a Like into a marketable lead who is genuinely interested in our brand.

Fan-gated content can be difficult to create if you are not a coder.  There are free applications on Facebook, but they require you to have a completed design and HTML code completed prior to using the application. You then take the code and copy and paste it into the application and it develops the page.  If you come to my session at Conversion Conference I will have a handout reviewing this process in great detail.

What does Social do for You?

There is a lot of work that goes into creating a great looking Facebook tab, and sense there are still no real direct ways to measure the path from Like to Conversion people are claiming either ‘You don’t need to know the ROI’ or the opposite ‘There is no ROI so I won’t use it’.

Well both camps are completely wrong, when did we get so lazy? There are so many tools out there for measuring social media metrics, and there are some very BASIC tricks we can use to see where the conversions came from.

Personally, I use social media to build my list and generate qualified leads. I have, and until something drastic changes in the minds of Facebook users, will always oppose direct sales on Facebook.  There are some outliers, as there always are, where a page developed a successful eCommerce platform on Facebook. However, as we all know, just because a company is the exception to the rule doesn’t mean your company will be (The Amazon Outlier anyone?)

So you still want to sell?

Alright, so some people still want to sell on Facebook. Though I always suggest against this, here is a tip you can use to verify that your sales came from social.

First, if you are going to sell, create a fan-gated page with an offer ‘Like us and get X% off your purchase’. Once the user likes your page the coupon will be served up.  If you really want to get more out of Facebook, require them to fill a form out to get the coupon. Make sure you make a coupon that you can easily distinguish from any other promotions, e.g., FB25.  Now when someone purchases and uses this coupon (assuming it doesn’t leak out to coupon sites) you can attribute the sale to Facebook.

To Recap

Facebook is a great way to generate leads and build up a community of brand evangelists through customer interaction. Currently, the trend in social media is that community building is the most important part of your social campaign. I hold that it is impossible to build a community without first bringing people together.  A great looking action oriented Fan-Gated Facebook page is the most important part of your social media campaign.

It is worth noting that 90% of the people who like your page never return to your Facebook Page. Instead of visiting your page, they only interact with your page through status updates. This statistic and the below points are why social media specialists are honing in on interaction:

1. If your fans interact with your page, your EdgeRank will rise
2. If your EdgeRank rises, the more your fans see later statuses
3. If your fans see later statuses and are intrigued by the content, then they are more likely to interact with your page
4. If a fan interacts with your page, then your status is seen by their personal network
5. If your status is seen by your fan’s personal network, then your social reach increases
6. [Conclusion] If your fans interact with your page, your social reach increases

By increasing your social reach, your company’s messages are now viewable by people who are not directly fans of your page. On top of your company’s message being seen by more users it is seen juxtaposed to a trusted friend’s name. Essentially you are getting a personal testimonial to a particular audience who trust the person giving the testimony.

However, you can’t just expect to reach all sorts of new connections immediately. The ambiguity in the latter half of the third premise is a gigantic wildcard. You need to post content that people want to interact with; further interaction is what increases your social reach giving you the coveted ‘viral’ effect. I would suggest going to Byron White’s session about Content marketing to learn to create content that people want to read.

If this peaked your interest, come to my session where William Leake and I will go over tips for a great looking Facebook Page, Facebook ads, and how Facebook can not only drive traffic to your website but build your brand through a zealous group of brand evangelists.

About the Author

Justin Rondeau graduated Suma Cum Laude from the University of New Hampshire in 2009 with a BA in Philosophy. Though Justin studied Philosophy he found his niche in marketing while doing the copywriting for TemplateZone and found great success in analyzing social media trends. Justin believes that philosophy is what has made him so successful in the marketing field because philosophy, like marketing, requires rigorous analysis and an ever evolving approach. Justin directs social media strategy and email marketing for TemplateZone and its suite of services, including High Impact Designer. His expertise on landing pages and Facebook page layouts was instrumental in shifting the product mix offered by TemplateZone, in addition to setting a new course for the company’s marketing and branding.

See Justin Live!

Justin will be presenting a session with William Leake, of Apogee Results, on “Social Success: Using Facebook as a Landing Page & Converting in the Social Eco-system” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session. Also check out Justin’s new product site High Impact Designer.

Want to save $700 on Conversion Conference? Contact Justin to request a discount code!

By Boris Grinkot
Associate Director of Product Development, Marketing Sherpa

Having worked both in the Landing Page Optimization (a.k.a., Conversion Optimization) and Social Media sides of marketing, I am amazed how quickly the latter stole our hearts and minds, while the former continues to be a mystery for most marketers.

When I set out to write the LPO Benchmark Survey for MarketingSherpa this January (publication date: May 4), I naturally—and erroneously—assumed that just like all the past research partners I worked with at MarketingExperiments, and our workshop attendees, and our webinar audiences, the marketers that hear about our survey would be at least accustomed to LPO as a category.

The survey is out now (Editor’s note: the survey closed on Mar 1), but what has surprised me is the response rate, compared to the response rate to the Social Media Marketing benchmark survey, which was fielded only a month earlier.

One simple metric

I will not go too deep into the data we are gathering on survey response and completion patterns, but one simple metric (and I know, nothing in analytics is ever “simple,” but let’s pretend) is the bounce rate. On the LPO survey, it’s a steady 20% higher than it was on the Social Media one among MarketingSherpa’s subscribers.

Drop-off at the first substantive question (once the respondent gets past the initial “demographic” questions) is also higher. All this indicates that at least as a category, LPO is still not as hip and cool as Social, even though—unlike Social—it has some spectacular successes to boast, backed with concrete ROI figures.

Triple-digit conversion rate improvements

Since the initial printing of the Landing Page Optimization (LPO) Handbook by Marketing Sherpa in 2002, LPO has steadily gained momentum as an opportunity for marketers to improve the performance not only of their Web pages, but also of related marketing activities that drive traffic: from search and email to social media.

Growing sophistication and decreased cost of measurement (Web analytics and CRM) tools, availability of primary research from LPO thought leaders, and emerging testing expertise, have increasingly allowed marketers to justify their investment into LPO.

Triple-digit conversion rate improvements are still not infrequent in LPO, even a decade after optimization practices have started being applied systematically. As in other areas of marketing, demonstrating ROI has been the overriding concern, which LPO-savvy marketers have consistently met, numbers in hand.

Beyond the hype

Yet social media leads in one key area – the hype. This in no means is intended to suggest that the hype is not warranted: the nature of social media marketing is that is builds its own momentum. Perhaps if there were LPO platforms that created the world’s youngest billionaire out of a college dropout, we would see fawning coverage of bottom-line metrics on the cover of Time magazine.

In lieu of that, how can you combine the potential of social media with the proven ability of LPO to generate measurable profits for your organization? Here’s what I have observed in my past research (and look forward to learning more in my current research):

• Social media as channel: If you ultimately want customers to do something on your website, look at social media as a traffic driver, not as an island in your marketing strategy
• Measurement matters: Track visitors from different social media platforms, and from each social media link separately, just as you would for email/PPC/and other traditional channels of traffic
• Go with what works: Apply LPO principles of relevance, continuity, friction, and value proposition to social media landing pages

Of course, we’re learning more every day…

About the Author

Boris is part social scientist, part techie, and part philosopher. With an academic background in social science research and a technology resume, he combined his passion for discovering human motives and the digital medium in conversion optimization. Boris’ work with Fortune 500 and international research partners included experimental design, business intelligence, competitive strategy, and lead generation. He has led optimization projects each generating tens of millions of dollars. Shifting his focus to writing in 2011, he has completed MarketingSherpa’s LPO Benchmark Report and continues to contribute to various blogs and webinars, as well as to teach LPO workshops across the country. Boris holds an MBA from the University of Florida and a! B.A. in Religious Studies with a cert. in International Relations from Cornell.

See Boris Live!

Boris will be presenting a session on “What Your Peers are Doing: Best-Practices, Strategy & Tactics in LPO” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save $700 on Conversion Conference? Contact Boris to request a discount code!

By Todd Barrs
Sr. Manager, Website Optimization at Webroot Software
& Founder of VisitorCentric.com

QR codes (quick response codes) are a great way to quickly move potential customers from the offline world to the online world where we have far more ability to track and provide a targeted and relevant user experience. Unfortunately, many QR code implementations fail when it comes to conversion; Be it the micro conversion action (e.g. scanning the code) or the macro conversion action (e.g. become a customer or buy the product/service). Solid usability techniques are critical to improving STRs (scan through rates) and getting users to complete the desired conversion action.

Clearly Explain the “Why and What”

The first goal with any QR code is to simply get the user to scan the code. The success (or failure) of your QR code STR is largely tied to user trust due to the user’s loss of control of the experience when scanning a QR code. In other words, users don’t actually know what they will be presented with on their mobile device after they scan a QR code. In most cases this refers to users tapping on the URL that is presented to them after the scan, although QR codes can contain other data beyond URLs including text and images.

It is critical that the ad messaging clearly explain why the user should scan the QR code, and what they should expect when they do scan it. This includes a clear call to action (CTA), value proposition, and in most cases, the URL that visitors will be directed to after they scan the QR code. See the example below.

Don’t Disguise the “Where”

It is critical that the information presented after the QR code is scanned (in most cases a URL) be relevant to the original ad content and messaging; Also known as scent or continuity in the conversion industry. Third party URLs and URL shortening services are often used in conjunction with QR codes, which fundamentally disrupt a continuous user experience. Many QR code scanning apps, such as Google Goggles, let users view the URL that they are about to go to before actually visiting the page. The anxiety of a user increases dramatically if they are presented with a URL that is not related to the ad’s original message or CTA.

For example, combining the following CTA “Scan the QR Code to Get 13 Free CRO Tips from VisitorCentric.com” with a QR code that corresponds to the URL, http://QRShortener.com/?k23mk4 disrupts the continuity in the user experience since the URL mentions neither VisitorCentric.com nor anything regarding 13 free CRO tips.

One solution to the third party URL issue is to use simple and relevant vanity URLs to redirect your QR code traffic (e.g. A vanity URL on your domain). It is important to keep the URL short, but ensure that the URI maintains continuity with the original ad content in order to provide a consistent user experience. Let’s use the same example from above to illustrate the point.

A note about third party QR code analytics: There are a lot of great QR code generating services out there that include tracking and analytics as part of their service. In particular the analytics services track QR code scans. However, such tracking services come at a cost, and are usually unnecessary since most web analytics systems can track mobile device page views. The QR code analytics services require users to be redirected through their system first (usually their domain with a query string) in order to track the scan. Unfortunately, the user is often presented with an ambiguous URL that neither contains the advertiser’s domain name nor a relevant URI.

It is also important to note that some QR code tracking systems are useful in tracking the geographic location of a scan, which can be helpful if you need the geo information of where a QR code scans occur (e.g. a t-shirt campaign). In these cases, a series of vanity URL redirects can be used to maintain a consistent user experience:

Create a user-friendly and relevant vanity URL (e.g. mydomain.com/OfferDescription).
Redirect the vanity URL to the third party QR code tracking URL (e.g. 3rdpartyQRcode.com/?34k53) that corresponds to the final destination URL (e.g. mydomain.com/ALongerDestinationURL.

Use Mobile Optimized Landing Pages

Mobile phones are the primary set of devices used to scan QR codes, so it is critical to provide users with with a quality and consistent mobile experience that is relevant to the original CTA and messaging. Sending mobile users to a non-mobile optimized page only degrades the user experience and makes it it difficult for users to complete the macro conversion action. Be sure to follow LPO best practices with your mobile landing page. A few include:

• Don’t simply send users to the home page. Create a custom page that maintain a consistent offer and messaging with the original ad
• Provide a clear CTA with trust elements (e.g. testimonials) in close proximity.
• Make sure that the links and buttons on the page are large enough to be easily clicked/tapped with a finger. There are countless mobile pages where the links are too small and close together, making it nearly impossible to tap on the desired link.

Note that in the examples above, we offer users a free app that allows for mobile viewing rather than presenting a true mobile optimized page. Yes, we know it’s not ideal, but certainly better than sending users straight to a full sized page.

Good Usability = Higher QR Code Conversion

QR codes a great way to tie offline and online marketing efforts when done correctly. Understanding and providing a clear and consistent user experience will ensure higher STRs and higher conversion rates in the end.

Lastly, keep in mind that much of the advice presented above also applies to URL shortening practices since the user experience is very much the same (i.e. users don’t know for sure where they will be directed when they click the shortened URL.).

About the Author

Todd Barrs is Senior Manager of Website Optimization at Webroot Software, Inc. a leading security as a service (SaaS) provider. Additionally, Todd is the co-founder of VisitorCentric.com, one of the world’s first and largest website conversion optimization communities that hosts live and web-based educational events sponsored by companies such as Google, Usertesting.com, and Unbounce.com.




See Todd Live!

Todd will be presenting a session with Keith Hagen on “All Together Now: Integrating Conversion Optimization into Your Marketing Strategy ” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save $700 on Conversion Conference? Contact Todd to request a discount code!

by Patrick Bultema, CodeBaby

Much of the focus on optimizing website results has been around “clicks.” For instance, we’ve focused on how to make a landing page more effective at getting a visitor to click on the desired button, to get that crucial first click. Similarly, we’ve focused on how to make an eCommerce page more effective at getting a customer to click the Add-to-Cart button. Now let me say, this focus on these key points, these key clicks is appropriate. After all, if a person doesn’t make that first click, you don’t have any chance of getting to the desired outcome with a site visitor. But this focus on clicks is only part of the story.

The broader, more complete picture is that one click leads to another. In fact, rarely is a desired outcome achieved with one click, with one action on the part of a customer. Instead, these crucial first-clicks typically lead to a whole series of clicks that result in a desired customer outcome, or conversion. That’s why more and more attention is getting paid to not simply tracking clicks at key points, but identifying, analyzing, and optimizing these click streams. And there are an emerging range to new products and capabilities that help you identify and analyze these click streams.

But there is something more fundamental about all of these than even thinking about click streams. In reality, what stands behind these clicks is a human experience. It’s this bundle of experience that grabs attention, engages, and motivates a real human to take action and follow a particular behavioral path. So it’s more than just a click stream, it’s an experience stream. It’s less about clicks and navigation of technology, and more about what motivates a real human, in the context of personal experience, individual motivation and human dynamics to take a series of human actions … that just happen to be clicks.

The real opportunity to to focus on this larger, more holistic experience streams. And in fact, that is the core innovation behind the approach of micro-sites for instance. Here, the organizing principle of each of the  individual micro-sites is a focus on human experience streams. To start, you identify the personas, the characteristics of a particular group of people you know are coming to a site, interested in a particular product or service you have to offer. Next, you identify the specific and distinct interests and motivations of a particular persona group. Then, you map your particular offer and desired outcomes to that persona. Finally, you create an optimized experience stream that best matches your interests as a company and those of the persona group. The entire micro-site, then, is built around these optimized experience streams with a limited number of branching options based on individual interests and behavior. In short, a micro-site is build around a complete customer experience plan. Of course, all this means you need to create tens if not hundreds of separate micro-sites.

Regardless of whether you’re inclined to move to this micro-site approach, I think the principles are generally applicable.

1. Identify specific and distinct Personas
2. Map human interests and motivations to your offer
3. Design optimal and distinct customer experience streams
4. Implement web processes and technologies that bring these experience streams to life

So the key question is: What are the desired experience streams you need to enable and optimize on your site? In many cases, there may be tens if not hundreds of potential experience streams on a website, but only a  handful of experience streams account for most of the interest on the part of the company and it’s customers. Is your site optimized for these key experience streams? At the very least, you need to be asking this key question. And better, what can you do to optimize and bring to life these key experience streams? For therein lies the bigger picture and path to success beyond just focusing on the click.

About the Author

Patrick Bultema is CEO of CodeBaby, a new media, internet software company providing innovations for online customer experience and conversion metrics. Throughout his career, Patrick Bultema has been recognized as an industry and company maker. He has served as an executive, venture investor, board member, and advisor to tens of venture-financed startups. He was most recently a Venture Partner with vSpring Capital. He was CEO of XAware, and CEO of FrontRange Solutions, a global CRM software company. He was a founder and Executive Chairman of Knowlix, and was Chairman and General Manager of the Help Desk Institute, then a Ziff-Davis company.

A noted author and speaker, Patrick is recognized as one of leading experts in the customer industry … throughout his career bringing together technology and customer experience. He was founding Executive Editor of Customer Support Management Magazine, and has been a thought leader in the CRM space. Patrick holds a Bachelor’s degree from California State University and a Master’s from Princeton. He will be presenting on the value of rich media engagement at Conversion Conference West 2011.

By Todd Barrs, Webroot Software & VisitorCentric

It is old news that communication is critical in nearly every facet of business, and conversion optimization is certainly no exception. Conversion optimization, by nature, requires interdepartmental coordination to ensure strategic alignment with an organization’s overall vision and marketing efforts. Failure to communicate leads to divided efforts, mismatched marketing messages and missed opportunity. A “conversion optimization conversation” between teams and with coworkers and managers can go a long way to ensuring that every effort yields positive conversion results, and growing a conversion optimization program in your organization.

Aside from the end-user, websites often have multiple internal stakeholders, and lack of communication between those stakeholders can derail conversion optimization efforts and lead to uncoordinated and potentially disastrous marketing campaigns. The difference between success and failure often lies with a simple conversation – get everyone’s objectives on the table.  And, while communication is an obvious key to success, there is no question it is something many organizations struggle with. However, there are a variety of ways to open the channels of communication within an organization, and to maximize your optimization efforts.

Internal Training

Develop an introduction or series of conversion optimization training sessions for your team. This is your opportunity to show your team the tactics used to convert visitors, and help them understand the value of conversion optimization. They may understand the concept of “website conversion”, but rarely do they understand how it’s done. Share your knowledge of website usability, and plant the seed for growing a successful conversion optimization program. Keep the training interactive by asking team members to vote on the results of A/B tests, showing an eye-tracking model of a page, or even a usability video of visitors navigating the website. The idea is to show that there is a “method to your madness”. Explain how you analyze web pages through a “conversion optimization lens” and develop the strategy to optimize pages and launch conversion tests. A simple overview of conversion optimization can often be an eye-opening experience, and is a great way to pull it all together in an easy-to-understand package.

Show and Tell Sessions

Show and tell sessions enable the team to present their methodologies specific to their marketing channel and business objectives. Understanding the approach, goals, and success metrics for different marketing mediums can often remove the barriers of “our team” and “their team”, creating a more synergistic environment to allow a conversion optimization program to flourish. Internal groups often have little understanding of the nuances of the media channels in which other teams operate. It is critical for all teams to understand and embrace that what works for print and branding doesn’t necessarily work for online marketing and vice versa.

Round Table Discussions

Round table discussion can provide a more informal atmosphere. This works well for working with groups that have team members who believe they already understand conversion optimization and website usability. It provides a level playing field for everyone to discuss their issues and concerns with the topic. More importantly, it can give you the needed face time with other teams to get everyone on the same page regarding conversion optimization strategies. Furthermore, other teams often have great insight into other marketing tactics that you may not have thought about that can help boost your conversion optimization efforts. Round table discussions can be a great learning experience for everyone and highly productive in getting your conversion optimization message across to other groups.

Conversion optimization does not operate in isolation, and cannot be driven by just one person. It requires buy-in at many levels and across teams. Investing time on the front-end to communicate the premise of conversion optimization and good website usability can improve internal efficiencies, streamline marketing efforts and, ultimately, and best of all maximize conversion rates.

You can learn more conversion optimization strategies and “join the conversion optimization conversation” at VisitorCentric.com

About the Author

Todd Barrs is Senior Manager of Website Optimization at Webroot Software, a leading security as a service (SaaS) provider, and is also the founder of the Visitor Centric conversion optimization news and resource community. Todd has worked on web marketing projects with a wide variety of companies throughout his career including National Geographic, HD Radio, Key Equipment Finance and other Fortune 500 companies. He is a frequent speaker regarding conversion optimization and landing page optimization including Affiliate Conference, SEMPO events and Visitor Centric events.

Todd will present at the “Conversion Strategy & Team Building” session at Conversion Conference West 2011.