Deadliest Online Warrior: Marketing Tactics Battle for Budget
September 21, 2011
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been pulling together data and screen shots for a presentation to CMA Ottawa (the Canadian Marketing Association – Ottawa Chapter) on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at the Hampton Inn and Conference Centre.
I’m presenting “Deadliest Online Warrior: “Marketing Tactics in a Battle for Budget” to fellow marketers in the national capital region. My plan is to present online marketing campaign results in a case study format so that the audience can get a feel for how different tactics performed. Until then:
“Instead of a TV show that pits historic and modern warriors to battle to the death, how about a conversation that pits historic and modern online marketing tactics in a battle for budget?
As customers spend more time in social networks and less in their email boxes and traditional websites, how should organizations adjust their online acquisition strategies? Join Kelly Kubrick of Online Authority for insight into the effects of combining paid search and social advertising with the power of social media marketing. Kelly will take you through a head-to-head result comparison between tactical legends of the online battlefield:
• Paid Keyword Search vs. Social Network Advertising’s Demographic / Psychographic Targeting?
• Banners: Behavioural Targeting vs. Search Term Targeting?
• Email Buy vs. Social Media Content Marketing?”
I’m very pleased to report that CMA Ottawa now has online registration available. Event details are:
When: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 from 11:45 a.m. to 2:15 p.m.
Where: Hampton Inn and Conference Centre, 100 Coventry Road, Ottawa, K1K 4S3
Cost: $ 40.00 for CMA members, $ 55.00 for non-members
As always, there’s plenty of free parking and the cost includes lunch, coffee, dessert, and a great opportunity to network with many other local marketing professionals.
For those of you who may not be familiar with CMA Ottawa, they “host monthly networking and educational luncheons and seminars throughout the year. CMA Ottawa is a place of dynamic exchange among direct, interactive and customer contact marketing users, creators, managers and suppliers.”
I hope to see you there!
Landing Page Lessons from Optimization Summit 2011
June 20, 2011
Earlier this month, I attended MECLABS‘ inaugural Optimization Summit in Atlanta, Georgia. As MECLABS is the parent of MarketingSherpa and MarketingExperiments, I was curious as I’ve been a fan of the former for years. I have only recently come across the latter but have already found their “Best of” monthly emails very useful. I expected case studies to be at the core of the conference material and was not disappointed. As a side bonus, I was introduced to an unexpected and entertaining cast of characters including Dr Flint McGlaughlin and “the Pool Guy”, aka Marcus Sheridan, the Sales Lion.
Landing Pages Should Reflect the Rituals of Good Conversation
Dr McGlaughlin kicked off the pre-Summit Landing Page Optimization Workshop by suggesting that landing page optimization is akin to a successful conversation, whereby certain rituals and patterns need to respected before value can be exchanged. The geography of the landing page provides you with the opportunity to anticipate and manage the chronology and sequence of a conversation with your prospects. The entertainment value arose from the irresistible temptation to act out how a flawed landing page contains the same landmines encountered in a flawed pick up attempt at a bar…
My favourite comment related to marketers’ mistaken need to slam product or lifestyle ‘hero shots’ and aggressive calls to action front and centre on their landing pages (guess who’s making that mistake on the home page right now?). According to Dr McGlaughlin, those hero shots are like meeting someone at a bar and immediately asking them to move in with you. Who wouldn’t turn tail and bolt? At best, it’s overly enthusiastic and misguided, and at worst, predatory. Instead, as marketers, we need to take a step back to map the sequence of a successful conversation, and plan our landing pages accordingly.
Consider the Source: Understand Channel Relevance
Start by thinking through the traffic source or channel your prospect arrives by, whether it be via organic or paid search, advertising on social networking sites, or via your own email newsletter, etc. Depending on the source, your visitor may be completely new to your product or service or have already been sold on it, and may simply want you to get out of their way. If the former, assume more copy might be needed and if the latter, less is most definitely more.
Put yourself in your prospect’s frame of mind and remind yourself of the value proposition you implied in that source channel. MarketingExperiments defines your value proposition as “the primary reason why your ideal prospect should buy from you rather than your competitors” (expressed in 10 words or less).
Your Headline Should Keep the Promise You Implied
Ensure that you keep that promise by opening your landing page with a headline that initiates the conversation between the two of you. Your only task here is to intrigue the prospect enough to keep him or her from immediately clicking on the back button. You can do that by ensuring your headline provides the connection between the source channel and the landing page itself. Be sure the visitor is able to orient him / herself by providing clarity about where they are and what to do next. To illustrate, Dr McGlaughlin provided the following examples of original vs. alternate treatment headlines:
Original: Why Try BRAND Online?
Treatment: Get Unlimited Access to all 32 Volumes of BRAND during your FREE TRIAL..
Original: Searching for the Most Accurate Mailing Lists? Your Hunt is Over!
Treatment: We Make 26 Million Phone Calls a Year to Ensure You Get The Most Accurate Mailing Lists Available!
Next, draw your visitors’ eye further into the page by offering a few brief sentences that expand on your headline. Do that well, and you can entice the visitor to scan a sub-heading that leads into a handful of bullet points that reinforce the value proposition promise. The reinforcement comes from the provision of key quantitative data (in your bullets) that validates any claims you’ve made to date.
At this stage, the conversation should be rolling along well enough that you are now in a position to suggest a call to action. As you make the ask, you also need to provide an incentive to convince the visitor to actually take the action. Further, that incentive needs to be directly related to your value proposition, and you should include a visual to illustrate the incentive. As an example, include an image of the charts or tables from the report you’re asking the visitor to register to receive.
Avoid Landmines: Don’t Require Your Visitors To Submit
Be careful of the classic landmine, also known as the “submit” button. I wish I could play a recording so that you might hear Dr McGlaughlin’s booming southern preacher voice as he lacerated this bad habit of ours: “I SUBMIT TO THE GODS OF MARKETING!” Instead, the wording of your call to action needs to describe what is expected of the prospect. Some examples (besides “click here”!) include:
- Help Me Choose
- Become a Member
- Get Instant Access
- Download a Free Trial
Anticipate Anxiety and You Will Reduce Friction
MarketingExperiments‘ research identifies the call to action as a point of “friction”, or “the psychological resistance to a given element in the sales process”. Knowing that your ‘ask’ inevitably causes anxiety, anticipate that anxiety and counter the friction through reassurance. How?
Perhaps you might limit the length (number of) or difficulty of fields you require the prospect to complete. Or, you might use “seals” that illustrate policies such as “100% Satisfaction Guaranteed” or “No Hassle Returns”. You can also create a “backstop” by offering a single, powerful testimonial from a respected third party. Ensure these assurances are in close proximity to the source of anxiety.
Anticipating your prospect’s anxiety gives you an opportunity to “intensify the positives” in order to reduce friction. Do that well, and you’ve got yourself a conversion which results in a value exchange between you and your prospect.
The Value You Offer Must Outweigh the Cost to the Visitor
That value exchange might include critical credit card information or simply a valid email address. Regardless – you will have convinced your prospect that the your offer is worth the exchange of their valuable information. Nicely done!
In summary, we end up with a landing page layout that follows the conversation flow illustrated in the chart below:
Optimized Landing Page Flow – or “The Ritual Of Conversation”
As a web analyst, I was most intrigued with the idea that these conversational elements and related landing page layout recommendations are represented by MarketingExperiments Conversion Heuristic”*, which states C = 4m+ 3v + 2(i-f) – 2a© where:
c = conversion
m= (Your prospect’s) motivation
v = the clarity of your value proposition
i = incentive
f = friction and
a = anxiety
*Source: MECLABS Landing Page Optimization Summit Study Guide, Landing Page Certification Workshop
Using MarketingExperiments’ Conversion Heuristic, you immediately notice that the most important elements of your landing page are reflected in the relative value of the coefficients. Thus, at 4, the highest coefficient, your prospect’s motivation (4m) has the highest impact on the success of the conversion. MarketingExperiments defines motivation as the “magnitude and nature of of the customer’s demand for” your products / services.
By targeting motivated prospects by source, you have control over a key lever leading to your conversions. Translation – don’t bring prospects with low motivation to your landing page as you are setting yourself up for failure. This is, of course a core tenet of marketing — target your primary audience / market segments or suffer the wrath which results from a blown budget.
Next in importance is the clarity of your value proposition (+3v). The clarity comes from an articulation of the “appeal, exclusivity and credibility” of your offer. If well articulated, you can overcome, or subtract, possible friction your prospect might be feeling by “adding” an incentive appropriate to your value proposition [+2(i-f)].
Only then can you address the final issue that could deter the prospect from completing the conversion: anxiety (-2a). Notice that anxiety is a negative coefficient and that it is equal to the value garnered from your “incentive minus friction step”. To overcome your prospect’s anxiety, you must intensify the positives and reassure.
Avoid Symmetry
Dr McGlaughlin also made a point of reiterating that their research shows that easing the “eye path” in relation to landing page layout is also critical. Of utmost importance, don’t make the mistake of seeking balance by equalizing page components in your design. Avoid equally weighted columns which are another source of friction as they encourage indecision.
Instead, use a 2/3rd left hand column to contain all of the elements described above – headline, copy, subhead, bullets and calls to action. However, use the right hand column to support the content on the left. Examples of support content could include additional testimonials.
Be Clear About The Objective of Your Landing Page
If you’d like to try assessing your existing landing pages, use the framework offered by MarketingExperiments’ Conversion Heuristic, and then see how well your page performs in relation to the critical elements. Before you do so, however, ensure you have consensus on the goal of that page so you can be sure that you maintain your focus throughout the assessment. This offers the added benefit of helping you identify any conflicting objectives you may have inadvertently allowed on the page.
Just to make sure the audience was taking everything in, MECLABS hit us with an exam at the end of the day. Due to the amount of caffeine consumed, I am pleased to say that yours truly did make the grade:
Evidence of my Membership in MarketingExperiments Certified Professional Members Directory
What do you think of MarketingExperiments proposed framework? Would you consider amending your landing pages to reflect the proposed approach?
Ottawa Web and Social Media Events May 2011
May 13, 2011
Ottawa’s marketing community continues to impress me with its increasingly rich offering of web and social media related events. I’m sure I’ve missed several, but the month is flying by me and I wanted to get these one published:
- “Better Leads. Richer Insights. Bridging the web analytics and CRM divide“, presented by Zone5ive, OCRI‘s Tech Marketing Forum on May 12th, 2011 at the Marshes Golf Course. Kudos to Alex Langhshur and Tyler Gibbs of PublicInsite who presented a valuable case study on exactly how they’ve helped Ottawa’s own Dragonwave Inc to convince their sales team of the worth of the web channel by integrating web analytics data into Dragonwave’s CRM
- “Content Strategy from A Global Perspective“, presented by Content Strategy Ottawa Meetup. Billed as an informal night of networking, the group meets at Blue Cactus Bar & Grill in the Market on May 13, 2011 at 6pm
- Now SOLD OUT – “People Before Pixels“, a one-day user experience workshop offered by Follow the UX Leader, on May 16, 2011 at the Courtyard Restaurant
- “Between the Lines of Privacy“, a breakfast with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart, presented by WXN. the Women’s Executive Network on May 17, 2011 at the Rideau Club
- “Results, not more Reports“, a free web analytics seminar offered by Unilytics also on May 17th, 2011 at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier Hotel
- “Designing for Humans“, a presentation by Martin Gomez of Sparkart from SMBOttawa (Social Media Breakfast Ottawa) at 7:30am on May 18, 2011 at the Great Canadian Theatre Company
- “Stop Searching. Start Finding.” a full day of information architecture training provided by Follow the UX Leader at the Courtyard Restaurant on May18, 2011
- “Creating Web Content that Clicks“, a one-day web writing course also from Follow the UX Leader on May 19, 2011, also at the Courtyard Restaurant
- Ryan Short from Teknision will be the speaker at the next Web Analytics Wednesday at the Heart & Crown ByWard Market, hosted by PublicInsite on May 25, 2011 at 6pm
- FUN for Tech Women event to be held at DiVino’s at 225 Preston Street on May 30th, 2011 from 6pm-8pm. To register, call DiVino’s at (613) 221-9760
- Canada’s Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, or SEMPO Canada, is holding its first SEMPO Ottawa Members Only Meetup on May 30th, 2011 at 6pm at Johnny Farina on Elgin Street
- “New Era Marketing Mosaika: A Spectacular Multimedia Creation” with Guy Laflamme from the National Capital Commission, presented by CMA Ottawa on May 31st, 2011 at 11:15am at the Hampton Inn and Conference Room
If I’ve missed any, comment away, and I’ll be sure to add it to the information.
Hope to see all of you at one or more of these events!
eMetrics Toronto 2011 agenda posted
February 6, 2011
I’m very pleased to share the news that the agenda for the 2011 Toronto eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit agenda has been posted. It’s looking good, and I’ve already got my eye on several of the sessions including:
- Stéphane Hamel, famed analytics Immeria blogger on “Establishing your Web Analytics Maturity”; I’ve had the bad luck of conflicts at past eMetrics Summits when Stéphane has presented his web (now online) analytics maturity model. However as a long-time fan – that’s it this is my year!
- We’ve got a double serving of Canadian business icon Research in Motion (RIM) as Dan Quinn compares panel notes about “How Decision Makers Consume what Analysts (and Agencies) Produce” and Simon Austin will be tackling Social Media Metrics – more of that is always better…
- Anne Nash from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will share stories about “What Happens when the Home Page is NOT your front door”
We’ve got attribution sessions, managing multiplicity (multiple data sources), measuring mobile, measuring video, best practices of testing, the value of data and more – tons of great topics. As usual, there’s far more sessions that I’m hoping to catch than I expect time will allow.
I’m also very honoured to announce that I’ll be speaking this year, with my web analytics compadres, Alan K’necht from K’nechtology and June Li from ClickInsight. We’re part of the eMetrics Campaign and Acquisition Optimization track where we’ll be answering audience questions on the Fundamentals of Acquisition Optimization. Our session will be held from 1:15 – 2:00 PM on Thursday April 28th, 2011. Hope to see you there!
Mobile Marketing: Ten Ways to Make an Impact
November 5, 2010
Zone5ive, OCRI‘s technology speaker series, has announced session details for the upcoming Wednesday November 10, 2010, event entitled:
10 Ways to Make an Impact with Mobile Marketing
Rob Woodbridge from Untether.tv will be speaking about using mobile marketing to help businesses grow. Right now.
Session details from the folks at Zone5ive:
“Whether your business is high tech, low tech, consulting or selling ice cream, your marketing plan should include mobile. Never has it been easier or cheaper to extend your brand and measure its impact through the most personal of all impersonal items, the thing we both covet and hate but won’t leave at home: the cell phone.
Do you want to know what is beyond Foursquare? Interested in learning about context-driven commerce? What about predictive analytics or the latest location-based marketing services? Come and discover tactical ways in which you can begin to embed mobile into your marketing execution.
What do you want to know about how to leverage mobile marketing in your industry? Submit your questions now to rwoodbridge@gmail.com or via Twitter using hashtag #zone5ive.”
Date: Wednesday November 10, 2010
Time: 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for Registration/Networking/Light Lunch, 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. – Presentation
Location: Brookstreet Hotel, 2nd Level, 525 Legget Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K2K 2W2
Complimentary underground parking (3 hour limit)
Costs:
Early Registration (received by OCRI no later than 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday November 9, 2010)
$40.00 – OCRI members (plus 13% HST)
$65.00 – Non-members (plus 13% HST)
$15.00 – Students (plus 13% HST)
Students must register via fax or via email
Late / On-Site Registration
$50.00 – OCRI members (plus 13% HST)
$75.00 – Non-members (plus 13% HST)
$25.00 – Students (plus 13% HST)
Students must register via fax or via email
GTEC, Gerry McGovern deadline & Zone5ive @ Brookstreet
October 6, 2010
What do these have in common you ask? Apart from the usual web-ian theme, they are also three of Ottawa’s events this month (so far!). Have I missed any?
1. GTEC (Canada’s Government Technology Event) is in full swing – if not nearly done – at the Westin Hotel (search for GTEC on Twitter to get a sense of the conversation…). Very healthy exhibitor floor and I caught a couple of sessions, including the G20 case study on Canada’s lead role in “the world’s largest social media project”. Kudos to Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada for opening the kimono and sharing details on how the whole project got off the ground, how things went during and what’s likely to happen next.
2. Zone5ive’s next session, “The Bigger Picture: Taking your Product into Today’s Market” is set for Thursday, October 14, 2010. This month’s speaker is Corien Kershey, Director of Strategy at Marketing Magnitude. In case you haven’t attended this year, please note that Zone5ive has moved to the Brookstreet Hotel in Kanata (who put on a great lunch in September – thanks Brookstreet!).
3. Although technically not an October event, NeoInsight and OCRI are offering an early-bird discount (until 5pm on October 15th) for their Task Management Masterclass with Gerry McGovern in Ottawa on November 3rd (and Halifax on November 1st). Having attended a previous Gerry McGovern event, I expect this one will be a sell out too!
50 Ideas on Using Twitter and LinkedIn for Business
June 8, 2009
Looks like it’s going to be a great OCRI Zone5ive Marketing Forum session this week! Andrew Milne of bv02 Inc. will be moderating the following panel:
Kelly Rusk, Manager of Marketing and Communities, MediaMiser Ltd (Go Kelly!)
Scott Lake, Founder, ThinkSM and SWIX
Luc Levesque, Founder, TravelPod.com
Entitled “50 Ideas on Using Twitter and LinkedIn for Business” the pitch is:
“Listen to and engage this panel of social media experts to determine how, when and if you should be adding some of the world’s most influential social media networks to your marketing and communication mix. Benefit from their experience and research and discover how both local and international brands are succeeding, or failing, with the likes of LinkedIn and Twitter. Covering topics such as How to Build a Social Media Plan, Social Media ROI and Social Media Tools you’ll leave the session armed with a checklist of things to do and investigate.”
Date & Time: Thursday June 11, 2009 – 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Location: Ben Franklin Place, Council Chamber – Main Floor, 101 Centrepointe Dr.
CMA Ottawa Speed Networking Event
May 25, 2009
On May 26th, 2009, join myself and other members of CMA Ottawa for great opportunity to pitch yourself, your company or a new product and service to your marketing colleagues in the nationagl capital region.
The event is called “Speed Networking” and it will be held at the Hampton Inn at 100 Coventry Road in Ottawa, Ontario.
Be sure to arrive with your business cards & brochures, and be prepared for your three minute elevator pitch! To ensure you get the most out of the event, also be sure to tell others what kinds of services you’re looking for. There could be some great suggestions right across the table from you.
Due to the special nature of this event, space is limited, so be sure to register ASAP.
Event details:
- When: Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 from 11:45 a.m. to` 2:15 p.m.
- Where: Hampton Inn and Conference Centre, 100 Coventry Road, Ottawa ON offering plenty of free parking
- Cost: $ 35.00 for CMA members, $ 50.00 for non-members. Price includes lunch, coffee and dessert.
Presented by the Ottawa Chapter of the Canadian Marketing Association. CMA Ottawa hosts monthly networking and educational luncheons and seminars throughout the year. The CMA is a place of dynamic exchange among direct, interactive and customer contact marketing users, creators, managers and suppliers.
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