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Use Video to Add “Wow” to Your Website

Doug Williams @ 7:07 am

This blog entry was posted on November 29, 2009.

How do you transform your website from ordinary to extraordinary? What is it that will so improve your customer’s experience on your website that they will stop and say “Wow.” Video is one answer. Use video to help web visitors to engage, visualize, learn and better imagine how to use your product.

Use videos to get customers to understand and relate to your offering. Demonstrate your product’s features and benefits. Keep videos short and to the point, under one minute is best. Examples of how video can add another dimension.

  1. Fashions: show fashion accessories or clothing being modeled by professional models. This adds a deeper interaction than just a photo.
  2. Fishing lures: show underwater videos of lure in use so fishermen can see the product in action.
  3. Toys: Parents buy toys to give joy to kids. Show toddlers actually playing with the toys. People love to watch the facial expressions.

Video is being consumed at ever increasing rates by Internet audiences according to Comscore studies.

  • 81.6 percent (US) online visitors watch web videos (Aug 2009). This is up from 77 percent just 9 months earlier (Nov 2008).
  • The average video watched was 3.7 minutes(Aug 2009). This is up from 3.1 minutes 9 months earlier (Nov 2008)
  • The average video viewer watched 582 minutes of video (Aug 2009). This is up from 273 minutes 9 months earlier (Nov 2008)

Videos work because they communicate complex ideas very quickly. Adding a video to a landing page can greatly increase conversions because they communicate so much and create such good understanding.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing,Web Usability



Putting the “Wow” into Your Customer’s Experience

Doug Williams @ 5:26 am

This blog entry was posted on November 27, 2009.

Retailers both online and offline are looking for ways to separate themselves from their competition. One of these ways is to create the “Wow” customer experience. Delivering superior service and focusing on the customer experience.

A great example of this is Zappos that grew their merchandising sales from being a startup in 1999 to over $1 Billion in 2008. Zappos is known to be “Powered by Service.” Their goal is to provide the best online shopping experience possible. Go to the Zappos website and you will immediately see:

  • Free shipping
  • Free 365 day returns
  • Free return shipping

Companies that focus on the “wow” shopping experience stand out from the rest. According to research by Wharton, “35% of shoppers have had an extraordinary — or wow — retail experience in the past six months.” According to a survey from the Verde Group, a “Wow” shopping experience generates four times more word-of-mouth.

5 elements of a great shopping experience (from the retail council)

  1. Engagement: genuinely caring, being interested, helping and listening.
  2. Executional excellence: Patiently explaining, advising, deep product knowledge, providing unexpected quality.
  3. Brand Experience: Exciting store design and atmosphere, consistently exceptional product quality and making the customer feel special.
  4. Expediting: Provide a fast and easy shopping process, and a speedy checkout process.
  5. Problem recovery: Quickly resolving and compensating for any problems, upgrading quality or delivery with a focus on complete satisfaction.

Businesses are realizing that the better the shopping experience, the greater the customer loyalty. By being creative and by listening to customers, you can create your own “wow” experience for your customers.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing



Getting Your Email Through the Spam Filters

Doug Williams @ 4:52 am

This blog entry was posted on November 25, 2009.

You can carefully follow CAN-SPAM rules using only legitimate opt-in methods only to find your emails not making it past the spam filters. Many sophisticated Internet providers use Anti-Spam protection that scores your email based on a point system. The more things you do wrong, the more likely that your email may never actually be received.

These are 10 common mistakes people make that cause email to appear as Spam.

  1. Trigger words: Spam filters scan for certain trigger phrases in detecting spam. These include phrases like free, amazing, congratulations, great offer or order now. 20 common spam words
  2. Subject line: Capitalization can be risky, especially entire words or acronyms. Capitalize a trigger word like FREE and you are sure to be ejected.
  3. Attachments: Don’t send attachments. Many attachments carry viruses and are more carefully scrutinized.
  4. Images: Most of your message must be text. Spam filters eject emails when the image / text ratio is too high.
  5. Punctuation: Using punctuation to create exaggeration will also be picked up as spam. Be careful of too many exclamation points!!!!!!!
  6. Color: Avoid playing with colored text to get your message across. If you really want to catch a spam filter’s attention change both the text color and the background color.
  7. Bcc distribution: Keep bcc to less than 10 names. Long bcc lists are frequently used by spammers.
  8. SMTP: Use an SMTP server to launch your emails instead of using unauthenticated email.
  9. Text format: Avoid using large fonts, different fonts, italics or text with large gaps in the words.
  10. HTML: If you send out emails as formatted HTML, also send out as a plain text alternative version of your message. HTML versions are filtered out at a higher rate than plain text versions.

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Filed under: Email Marketing



How to Design Your Site to Convert

Doug Williams @ 5:24 am

This blog entry was posted on November 23, 2009.

Successful websites do two things. First, they attract a regular flow of visitors who are interested in what you offer. Second they are designed to get these visitors to take action. To convert your flow of traffic from interested lookers to buyers or at least get them started into your conversion process. This could be building your email list, quote requests or signing up for a webinar.

There is a science to building a website that gets your visitors to take action. These are some of the smart design techniques that convert visitors into customers.

  1. Memorable: Create a design that is memorable and that will stand out from your competition. This does not mean highly graphical or artsy. It means having a style or attitude that people will like and remember. It is a design appropriate for your industry.
  2. Information: Internet buyers and searchers are in a hurry. They are looking for companies that can quickly deliver what they are after. Make it quick and easy for them to find the information they are seeking. This is done on your website through formatting, clear navigation, and a clear writing style.
  3. Sales funnel: Guide your prospects through a well thought out selling sequence. Grab their attention, build their interest and then get them to take action. Your best selling sequence should be built into your website. More on sales funnels.
  4. Prevent surprises: Give your customer all the information they need to make their buying decision before they start to pay. A common mistake in ecommerce is not revealing shipping costs until the payment step.
  5. Communicate progress: If you anything in your site that can some time to complete, let your visitor know how far they have gone with a progress bar. This includes ecommerce checkout, a survey they are completing or even downloading a file.
  6. Build trust: People are cautious buying online with good reason. Make it easy to contact you with a phone number and an actual street address (not a PO Box). Post your privacy policy, shipping procedure and your refund policy.
  7. Keep improving: Be prepared to make changes to your site based on actual experience. Measure your website’s bounce rate. Bounce rate is the number of visitors who visit a particular page and then leave your site, without going on to other pages, divided by the total number of visitors to the page. Other key measurements include visitor counts, traffic sources and conversion rates.

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Filed under: Web Usability,Website Design



How to Maintain Your Reputation in the Digital Age

Doug Williams @ 8:48 am

This blog entry was posted on November 21, 2009.

Complaint sites like RipOffReport.com or ComplaintsBoard.com have very high rankings. This means complaints placed on these sites come up very high in Google searches for your company name, your brand or even the names of your key executives.

Upset customers have easy access to review sites or can set up a blog for free and then vent to the world. The big problem is that these complaints stay on the Internet forever. Sometime legal action can get these removed, but this is difficult. So what should you do?

Monitoring:  Every business should set-up tracking systems that will report back to them anytime their name is used anywhere on the Internet. Google Alerts is a free tool that will send you an email any time they detect something new being said about you or any phrase you specify.

Responding: Start by taking a little time to watch and gauge the reaction.  Criticism of your product should not bring a strong response or an argument. This is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. Instead, be concerned, be helpful and try and resolve the issue. Try and turn the situation around, perhaps turning someone who is a foe into an advocate.

Repair: You may not be able to erase what has been said, but you can take steps to minimize the damage. The goal should is to push the damaging statements down in the organic search results and replace these with positive information.  Don’t begin until after you done damage control and stopped new negative things from being said.

The key is to be focused on a specific phrase such as your company name. You will want to launch a series of articles, blogs, press releases, videos on YouTube and even possibly an article in Wikipedia. Use the exact phrase you want prominently in the title of each and in the body of the text, the search engines generally give these good rankings.

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Filed under: Blog Marketing,Internet Marketing



Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Have a Website

Doug Williams @ 2:16 am

This blog entry was posted on November 19, 2009.

In the last 10 years, what works and what doesn’t work in marketing has completely changed. Traditional marketing with newspapers and print yellow pages no longer is effective. Yet most small businesses have failed to convert over to Internet marketing. This is according to a 2009 study.

  • 63% of consumers and small business owners turn to the Internet first for information about local companies
  • Only 44% of small businesses have a website.
  • Those with a website spend less than 10% of their marketing budget online.

Source: 2009 Report from WebVisible and Nielsen Online

The study shows a clear need for small businesses to be online, yet 56% of small businesses aren’t. Why do most small businesses fail to market themselves on the web? What is holding them back?

  1. Too busy: Small business owners wear many hats and don’t have time to focus on learning a new method of marketing. They spend their entire day keeping their business running. After all they are the expert in their business.
  2. Lack skills: Internet marketing is a new technology for most business owners. The Internet changes at light speed. Younger business owners have an advantage here because they have been around computers and the Internet for most of their life.
  3. Confusion: There is so much information, misinformation and opinions out there. If the experts can’t agree, how can an inexperienced novice succeed? It is hard to get a grasp on things.
  4. Fear: People are afraid of what they don’t understand. Afraid of looking foolish. Afraid of presenting a poor image using an unfamiliar technology. Afraid of being taken advantage of. Afraid of running afoul of the CAN-SPAM act. It can be tough jumping in where you don’t know the rules.

What to do? As a business owner you don’t need to become an Internet marketing expert. The basic marketing principles are the same ones that have worked for decades. It is just applied to a new technology.

Instead, start by learning the basics and how the strategies work. Then hire someone to do the technical work. This could be an employee or a web marketing firm.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing



Google 7-Pack Optimization Tips

Doug Williams @ 4:58 am

This blog entry was posted on November 17, 2009.

These are Google’s local directory listings that appear next to the eye-catching map during searches for local businesses. These are known as the Google 7-Pack (formerly the Google 10-Pack). Google displays 7 Local Business results (listed as A through G). These usually appear just beneath the sponsored ads at the top of the Google results page and just above the organic search results.

The Google 7- Pack is considered “prime real estate.” Best yet, it is free for any business to sign up for. Every restaurant, locksmith, dentist, lawyer, florist, hair salon, dry cleaner, plumber and car repair should have its own Google local business listing. A business does not even need to have a website to appear in these results.

You will require a Google Account (GMail, Analytics, or Adwords). From here you can access the Google Local Business Center. If you don’t have a Google account, it is easy to create a new one.

The Google 7-Pack local business directory has its own Local Search algorithm. Use these tips to optimize your ranking.

  1. Company: This is the title for your listing. Your listing should match the business name. Keywords here do help, but be careful. It is thought that soon Google will detect this and eject these listings. Do not include phone numbers or URLs in the business name.
  2. Categories: You can enter up to 5 categories to describe your business. Including keywords in the categories improves rankings dramatically
  3. Description: Use keywords in this 200 character text field to describe your services or products.
  4. Location: This is your actual physical location (not a PO Box) in relation to what Google considers the center of the city.Don’t expect to rank well for towns and cities where you don’t have a physical presence (service area doesn’t count). Do not create more than one listing for each business location.
  5. Other Directories: Sites like bbb.org are highly valued by Google and a listing here seems to improve your ranking.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing,Local Search,SEO Strategies



5 Steps in Launching Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

Doug Williams @ 6:43 am

This blog entry was posted on November 15, 2009.

Social Media Marketing is used to influence perception of your company or your brand. It is used to  interact with people who could be interested in your products or services. Use social media to  bring traffic to your website and through links and to gain better search engine rankings. You can use social media to do some or all of these.

Before you jump into using Facebook or Twitter, you should take some time to plan what it is you want to accomplish. How should you launch your social media initiative?

  1. Purpose: What is your topic? What are you trying to accomplish? Get inbound links? Sign-up subscribers? Improve brand perception? Settle on one primary purpose and 2-3 secondary ones. Now firm these into measurable goals such as attract 500 links to your company blog within 6 months.
  2. Audience: What do you know about the people most interested in what you have to offer? This goes well beyond age, education level and income bracket. What interests them? What are their passions? Where do they spend their time reading, learning and discussing?
  3. Where: Start by being a detective. Track down where the conversations are happening. Are they on blogs? In forums? Are discussions happening on social networks? Are answers being sought on YouTube or perhaps LinkedIn Answers? These locations are where you will want to start your campaign.
  4. Participate: Each day join the dialog and become part of the community. The amount of influence you exert will be based on how actively you join in the conversations and contribute. Comment on blogs, join in the forum discussions, follow and Tweet on Twitter and be active in the social networks. Set-up your own pages, blog marketing and YouTube channels.
  5. Monitoring: Set-up your own listening or monitoring system. Use Google Alerts (free) or some of the more sophisticated paid tools to track brand mentions, blog conversations, social media or tweets. If your goals are around SEO, measure and monitor links and rankings. What you measure and monitor will be based on you purpose and goals. Measure your progress toward your goals.

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Filed under: Social Media Marketing



FTC Has New Rules For Using Testimonials

Doug Williams @ 7:27 am

This blog entry was posted on November 13, 2009.

Effective December 1, 2009 new FTC rules take effect on how companies may use testimonials from their customers. The new rules affect the use of testimonials and endorsements in print, broadcast and Internet advertising. These guidelines have not been updated since 1980.

The FTC position is that an endorsement or testimonial is essentially a public claim by an advertiser. The advertiser is responsible for the accuracy and to ensure it does not mislead in any way.

Website owners will have to show the actual typical results that can be expected along with the testimonials that show spectacular results. It will no longer be acceptable to say “results not typical” or “your results may vary.” Advertisers will have to state what the typical results are based on actual research data.

An example would be a weight loss product that has a testimonial from someone who lost 100 pounds while typical results may only be 8 pounds.

Bloggers will have to disclose if they are paid to review or endorse a product. This could include not only direct payments, but also books received for review, advance screenings of movies for critics and even Amazon affiliate links when a reviewer does review a book and then supplies a purchase link for readers.

According to statements by David Vladeck, Head of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection “Disclaimers of guidelines are not working. Misuse has been especially prevalent in weight-loss products.”

According to attorney Kevin Houchin, the goal of these new guidelines is to keep marketers honest and responsible to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” It is expected that the FTC will contact you and give you a chance to stop using the ad or make changes to the ad to bring it into compliance before taking stronger actions.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing



The 5 Rules of Pricing: Price Psychology

Doug Williams @ 5:42 am

This blog entry was posted on November 11, 2009.

Pricing strategies are about encouraging predictable irrational buying behavior. Buying is an emotional decision while shopping is a rational activity. When people buy, they decide based on the relative advantages. Pricing is a key part the buying decision. This applies as much to Internet marketing as in traditional marketing.

  1. Rule of Odds: For some reason odd numbers seem more appealing in sales letters and pricing than even ones. “The Five Highest Earning Investments Ever” sounds more enticing than “The Six Highest Earning Investments Ever.” Books will tout 101 ways to… rather than 100. An odd number seems to leave you hanging and poised for action. Even numbers have balance while odd numbers seem unfinished and encourage action.
  2. Rule of 7s: Prices that end in seven will convert better than any other number. For whatever reason, response rates are higher and conversion rates are better for prices that end with a 7. If you are pricing your product near $300, then $297 will outperform $299 or $295.
  3. Rule of Price Influence: Consumers automatically assume that higher the prices mean higher quality. Sellers should use price to position their product within the market. Cheap pricing is usually interpreted as low quality.
  4. Rule of Decoy Pricing: People will buy the best deal, so make the choice obvious.  Introduce one product to stimulate the sales of another. If you add an inferior product at the same price or a much higher priced product that is only slightly better, people will flock to the better deal.
  5. Rule of Anchor Pricing: The very first price that a buyer sees becomes the baseline for all other comparison. The anchor price becomes the amount they are willing to pay. They will measure all other prices or products against this. That is why you always present the highest priced product first and less expensive versions afterward. This is why elevator pricing (show the lowest price item first) does not work.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing



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