Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [114]
Review and Hands-On
Review your website and advertising content for statements of fact. Eliminate overstatements or unsubstantiated claims that do not have proof of fact or information readily available to back up your claims. Answer these questions:
What logical, factual claims are you making in your marketing?
What logical, factual claims are you making on your website?
How do those claims align to your primary marketing message?
Do you have client testimonials that provide proof as well as a primary marketing message?
Redevelop any promotional claims into factual statements that will provide a logical or emotional basis for prospective customers or clients to form an accurate opinion and basis for judgment. Ask yourself the following questions:
How can you translate the “need beyond the need” you identified for your business in Chapter 7 into an emotional draw that is larger than your business or your product?
What emotion or need can be satisfied or met by using your business?
How can you rewrite your advertising message with that emotional message?
To figure out how you can build a connection with your visitors that will keep them as a loyal customer rather than a one-time transaction, evaluate your pages on the following criteria:
Are the fonts consistent? Are they readable?
Is the level of contrast between the text and the background sufficient?
Is your color scheme pleasing? Is it consistent?
How effectively does the page use font size when presenting headlines, headings, and content?
Is your link text consistent in appearance and behavior?
Is the information designed for easy scanning?
In comparing your website marketing against some of the examples used in this chapter and in Chapter 9, what are steps that you can take to develop a more credible approach with your website?
Chapter 11
Week 8: Improve Conversions
Now it’s time to convert visitors to customers, subscribers, and registrants, or they simply take an intended action on the site. The science of conversion deepens every day as new technologies are continually developed to help marketers better understand the digital consumer. The technologies seek to understand both the mind-set of the consumer and the technology of the online medium. On average, the conversion rate for all types of websites is 2 to 3 percent, which is a very small number of people. However, it is important to remember that this is only an average—the number is not great, just average. It is easy for businesses of all types to exceed this average number by focusing on the conversion process and continually measuring, analyzing, and optimizing the process.
Chapter Contents
Monday: Call Visitors to Action
Tuesday: Make It Attractive
Wednesday: Overcome Obstacles
Thursday: Promote the Next Step
Friday: Implement Testing
Monday: Call Visitors to Action
The goal of marketing your website is to get visitors to your site. The second goal is to get them to do what you want them to do; otherwise, the first goal has been for naught. The number-one problem with website conversions is that people are not able to find the appropriate place to convert. In testing, the primary hindrance is the ability for the visitor to find the contact form, purchase link, or “next step” in a process. It is imperative that visitors find what they need on your website. To do that, there has to be a number of clearly visible options available to them. Such options are called calls to action.
The call to action on your website should be the most obvious and logically placed link or object on the page. The call to action must be clear and specific. Anything else will dramatically reduce your ability to do business online.
Understanding the Three Kinds of Visitors
Regardless of the intentions or decisions made by