Author: Atlantic BT

Open Office Hours Friday With Marty

When: 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Where: Atlantic BT Center (across from Macy’s Crabtree)

RSVP: First come, first served – tweet @Atlanticbt #FreeFriday & your date

Don’t Forget: Free Internet Marketing Saturdays

.

First Free Internet Marketing Open Office Hours Friday

Just concluded our first Open Office Hours Friday. Spent a couple of hours discussing my friend Doug Kaufman’s website AlleyDog.com. AlleyDog.com is a cool website Doug built when he was in college as a resource for psychology students.

When anyone asks me about a website, I want to know these things:

Marty’s Website Scorecard For AlleyDog.com

AlleyDog.com HomePage Google PageRank (PR): 6 (this is excellent, 10 is top)
Inbound Links: 407 (this is a tad anemic for a PR6, explained below)
PageSpread: 7,000 pages (use site: on Google to see pages indexed)
Google #1 Listings (absolute, i.e., no float): AlleyDog.com has many #1 listings.

I can know everything an Internet marketer needs to know from these numbers. For example, I see AlleyDog.com’s PR6 and only 407 inbound links (Alexa), and I know that some of those inbound links are very special. I’ve been an Internet marketer long enough to know why 407 inbound links (root domains, not total inbound links) can generate a PR6 too – educational links.

AlleyDog.com lives in the .edu space. It doesn’t get more authoritative or trusted than .edu for Google. One PR5 .edu is worth an army of non-.edu’s PR4’s. The more trusted the websites linking to you, the more trusted your website is for Google.

I also know with that many Google #1’s that Doug understands the Q&A goldmine. Nothing stronger than a glossary to rocket your pages to the top of the listings. His glossary is rocking traffic and has many, many top listings. We discussed how to make those pages more social to preserve the rank even when under attack.

We also discussed how to build revenue for AlleyDog.com. I made a few points that regular readers of ScentTrail Marketing or my posts on Atlantic BT will recognize:

• User Generated Content (UGC) – the “More, Faster, Better“ thing.
• Platforms vs. Websites – have to have a place, a HIVE, for UGC to multiply and grow strong.
• Authority Content – AlleyDog.com is solid here, but MORE would be good (see UGC).
• Social Support – Social signals confirm and elevate  content.

Becoming a Social Business

“My head is spinning,” Doug said at the end of our two hours. I get that reaction frequently (lol). One of the most interesting discussions was how AlleyDog.com can become a social business. We discussed the overt vs. covert signals websites send, a favorite topic (See “Your Website Communicates Non-verbally Here’s How” on ScentTrail Marketing).

AlleyDog.com is currently a lecture site. No email subscription form and only a Facebook Like widget below the fold means AlleyDog.com wants to share information more than create community. I shared how dangerous it is to be a lecture website, even a great one, in a social and mobile age.

I suggested Doug tip his toe in with a contest like our Curation Contest from last year. Here is the phased approach I used to create Atlantic BT’s Curation Contest last year (and that I’ve used many other times) :

I. Call for Entries – need a landing page outlining contest terms and criteria and an entry form.
II.  Curate entries into a group of “semi-finalists”.
III. Social Competition Phase – use wisdom of crowds community voting to curate down to a handful of finalists.
IV. Some Expert Board picks winners.
V.  Memorialize in some permanent way (profiles on your website – I still owe our semi-finalists this, sorry guys).

I learned some important B2B Marketing Tips from our successful Curation Contest including:

• Include a “Download the Content” landing page so you don’t lose qualified leads.
• Develop relevant “white paper” or video content that move qualified leads off the contest and into your nurture track.
• Never let community voting award Grand Prizes (too much spam, and you miss another marketing opportunity to market the experts. We fixed this in our $25,000 Mobile Grant Contest).
• Mobile is CRITICAL, especially in the voting stage.
• Moneyball happens at the social voting stage, so make sure your website is ready to FLY when 10,000 people are all trying to vote at one time. May want to double or even triple the size of your pipe and be sure to test the page under LOAD. An alternative is use an edge network like Amazon’s or Akamai to cache the VOTE NOW page).
• Most valuable, long term, is the permanent home of winners via profiling. I fell down on this, but you shouldn’t, because it sets the stage to repeat and continues your strong connection to players.

1:10:89 Rule

If you Google “1:10:89 Rule”, I think ScentTrail Marketing still comes up first (depending on the float). The rule is simple and frustrating but beyond important if you are a content marketer (and who isn’t, now). 1% of your traffic will contribute meaningful content, 10% will vote on the content created by you, and the 1% and 89% are important but form the silent majority of your website.

This means ANYONE who votes, shares or comments is beyond valuable to your revenue dreams. Five years ago, User Generated Content (UGC) was important; now it is beyond critical. UGC and social signals are the game you play. How YOU feel about something matters some, but how THEY (your customers or visitors) feel about you, the products you sell and the content you create is THE GAME.

Social signals are important for many reasons BEYOND Search Engine Optimization (SEO) such as:

• Social signals (LIKES, Shares and other people who like X also like Y) create LIKE ME connections.
• Social signals confirm or deny what you are saying, so they legitimize your marketing.
• Social signals are the fastest feedback loop you’ve got.
• Where social signals go, MONEY follows.

4 Levels of Social Signals

There are 4 Phases to becoming a social business online:

• Create a cool UGC Contest to get your feet wet and drive traffic.
• Add in a social share widget.
• Solicit UGC via comments and reviews.
• Gamify it all.

If creating a cool UGC contest as describe above is Phase One social, then making sure every page has the ability to be liked and shared via a social signal widget such as AddThis.com is Phase Two Social. Best application of social shares for my money is Mashable.

Mashable added a “total” number, and that is masterful (Mashable Total Social Shares Example).  Slap a SHARE widget all around. Remember you want the POST shared and your website LIKED and SHARED too, so set up places to do both.

Phase Three Social is  actively seeking reviews and comments. WordPress does a good job, and I’m sure there is a plugin to take your comments and reviews to the next level. I used PowerReviews and Bazaar Voice as a Director of Ecommerce and liked them both. As Doug pointed out, those are SaaS applications he can’t afford. I don’t have direct experience with a good SaaS to help here, so will look into it and then curate an answer in.

Phase Four is adding a gamification layer to use social incentives to drive engagement and content creation (read “Gamification: Winning Hearts, Minds and Loyalty Online“ for more).

Not hard to see why Doug’s head was spinning, but becoming a social business and then, almost at the same time, a mobile business is critical to success. Social and Mobile have been combined into SMobile because everyone wants something to do while standing on the Starbucks coffee line.

If AlleyDog.com can gamify its User Generated Content creation via mobile, all the better.

Mobile tends to go drip, drip, drip and then FLOOD. This means if your mobile traffic is less than 5% and so you think the mobile revolution doesn’t apply to you, you are WRONG (read our drip, drip flood Mobile story “The Mobile Revolution Arrives at Atlantic BT“).

Two Last Notes

Doug was frustrated that his Q&A area didn’t get more traction. Q&A areas are like a garden. They need a lot of tending before they bear fruit. Critical components of Q&A include:

• Contributor Profiles – who is providing what input and how legitimate are they?
• Social Rewards – Must gamify Q&A, see my friends at AnswerHub.com for a great SaaS to help.
• Seeded Content – If Q&A is a ghost town, it is on YOU not THEM, but make sure you seed content in.
• Consistent Social Support – Be sure to Tweet and curate cool things that happen in your Q&A area as that drives more engagement and content.

The Silver Bullet Problem

The other thing we discussed is the lack of a silver bullet (See “Think Like an Internet Marketer: Silver Bullets and Barking Dogs” for more). Doug really wanted me to tell him the ONE THING he can do to win.

Sorry, Internet marketing is about spreading the board, hedging your bets and diversifying your digital assets. Once you see a vein of gold, by all means MINE IT, but if I could tell Doug or anyone reading this post where the gold was…. Well, I would be on a beach with a frosty beverage, a well dented lounge chair and a big guy named LARS bringing whatever my many friends and I needed (actually, I would NEVER spend money this way as long as cancer isn’t cured, but you get the idea).

Now your head is spinning too, right? Cool, then my work here is done.

Rock on and have a great weekend. We are going to have a ROCKING time tomorrow at my Free Internet Marketing Consulting Saturdays with @1918 (Phil Buckley) talking SEO and Mark Traphagen discussing Google AuthorRank.

			Origins of Tech Cures Cancer: Falling in Love with Technology In 1982 I was 24 years old. I remember sitting across from a loan officer at Marine Midland Bank in Buffalo, New York explaining why I needed $5,000 to buy this new thing called a Personal Computer. Would you make that loan? No, I wouldn’t either. . Thankfully, he did. I purchased a PC with 640K of memory, two big floppy drives, and a monochrome green monitor. I worked days selling M&M’s, and at night I worked my second job learning software and operating systems. . My goal was to eliminate paperwork that took a day a week. The irony of spending hundreds of hours to save a day a week escaped me. My life’s journey took its first left turn. . I was in love with technology.
			My Year For Curing Cancer I will donate my 2013 Atlantic BT salary to the Elizabeth Martin and Duncan Smith Story of Cancer Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit named for my parents. . The Foundation’s mission is to identify and build technology to help cure cancer and provide support for cancer patients, their families and friends. . Tech Cures Cancer!
Want To Help? There are thousands of ways you can help, such as by hiring Atlantic BT to design your website or mobile application or by sharing your ideas, enthusiasm and support. . Join the Tech Cures Cancer Movement through the “Yes, I want To Help” form on the right. . * Privacy Protected and double opt in. Look for the confirmation email to confirm your membership.

A Quick Caveat
I am NOT a graphic designer, nor do I play one on TV. Never think that what you see in one of my blog posts comes out of our design group. I tend to brute force ideas visually and then let talented artists clean, tune and improve them. Caveat stated, here is why AFTER MARTY has a chance of converting readers to customers while BEFORE MARTY has little chance.

Homaro Cantu Food Genius

I love revolutionaries, no matter where they are and what they are doing. Homaro Cantu is a “food genius”. His MoTo and Ing restaurants are on the forefront of a cooking revolution. Creating great email marketing is like cooking. Too much of anything ruins the dish. Homaro’s newsletter (on the right above and linked below) arrived in my inbox needing some help from an Internet chef. Here is how I tuned Homaro’s newsletter so his audience could convert (do what he wants them to do such as buy his book and make reservations).

Ing Newsletter

1. The 7 Word Headline Rule

Emails are like billboards. They are scanned FAST and visually. Flying by at 70 mph, you don’t have time to read more than 7 words on a billboard by the side of the highway. Whose life isn’t flying by at 70 mph now? No one reads anymore. Marketing is becoming more visual and less text.  Create a 7 word headline. Here are some quick off the top of my head 7 word headline ideas for presenting Homaro’s cookbook:

Homaro’s Miracle Berries Cookbook Arrives 1.1.2013

Miracles In Them There Berries, New Cantu Cookbook

Chef Cantu’s Miracle Berries Cookbook – FREE

Not going to fully brainstorm the headline now, but of these ideas, FREE crushes the others in clicks and conversion. Seth Godin proved the only way to “sell” a new book is give it away, get people talking and then curate their chatter. The world is about to be awash in diet books since January is “diet season”, so Homaro should create a User Generated Content (UGC) contest and ask potential customers why it is important to win a copy of the Miracle Berries Cookbook. The value of such a campaign vs. what is there now is beyond calculation.

 2. Don’t Oversell the Click

This email is set up as a “Newsletter” and thus its length, impossible size and flood of text. Even in a newsletter, the format of your emails should be highly visual and tease the click. I call the BEFORE MARTY marketing Chinese Army Marketing. This email floods the reader’s senses with information in the hope they will comply. No one ever does.

I thought the BEFORE MARTY email was spam at first glance. Even when creating monthly Newsletters, do so in a Pinterest-like, highly visual way. Use images and sub-headlines to tease the click into a landing or product page. You can’t convert on email so don’t try, and don’t oversell the click.

3. Use Occam’s Razor & Friendly CTAs

One of the problems with being an Internet marketer is you can’t see your own work after a bit. You have what the Heath brothers defined as a “Curse of knowledge” in their book Made To Stick. Things my email marketing team and I thought we had razored down to the thinnest, most minimal components were still never simple enough or clear enough.

If you want to be a successful email marketer, form a partnership with a team like the friendly dinosaurs at Bronto and let them teach you how to email market. If that is too big of a commitment, look at emails that motivate you to click: I bet there is an offer you can’t resist from a trusted source.

CTAs Are Email Marketers’ BFFs!
Call To Actions (CTAs) may be the most important missing element in the BEFORE MARTY example. There are CTAs in there, many of them, but they are so swamped with TEXT and messages that the chance of any one CTA being acted upon is zero. The Seth Godin Rule applies: One is fine, Two is pushing it and Three is insane. I pushed AFTER MARTY to 3 CTAs just to show you can fudge a little.

I like BIG, highly contrasting buttons because after years of testing, they always won. I move the second and third CTA’s down in graphical attention-getting (size and color and moved the 3rd CTA Meet Homaro to a simple text link). I want to focus response where it is needed MOST (selling the book).

FREE is the best CTA, so find a way to use it. In my example I envision a sign-up form where users share why they need miracle berries. Put the User Generated Content received from such a contest into a voting stage to really amp traffic because people competing for the book will drive their social traffic to your website (or Homaro’s).

4. What Is Goal of This Email Marketing Communication?

If you are confused about what you are trying to accomplish, your customers will be hopelessly lost. What is it Homaro and his team want their readers to do? Buy the book? Make a reservation? Both? Neither? Confused customers do many things, conversion is rarely one of them.

Notice I said “goal”, singular. Seth Godin taught me that one conversion goal on a page is a lot, two is bordering on too many and three is beyond the pale (now known as the Seth Godin Rule). Focus your communication to what you want and you may get it, don’t and you are guaranteed not too.

5. Tell a Story & Respect NOW Is Only Email Time

Funny that Homaro has created a diet book, since the diet archetype is endemic to Internet marketing. The best way to sell things online is to tell a BEFORE and AFTER hero’s journey via testimonials. Before Homaro’s book I was 50 pounds overweight, after I drive fancy sports cars and am married for the second time (lol).

The key in the lock of much of the best internet marketing is a BEFORE story full of angst and despair, then the journey (use of the product) and the return of a changed and heroic person. The “diet convention” is so strong online it is one of the few conventions you flout at your own risk.

The most powerful way to sell online is to have the confidence to let others carry their experience onto your platform. If you have a mission-critical website that doesn’t promote and seek User Generated Content (UGC), then you should read Platforms vs. Websites TODAY!

Time Is Always NOW Online
Homaro’s Ing newsletter was confusing. I didn’t know about Ing. I know his other restaurant, MoTo. If Homaro wants to discuss both restaurants, he should name the newsletter the Homaro Cantu Weekly Newsletter, as that covers all bases.

Never put edition numbers and other time codes on emails. There is only ever one time online and that is NOW. Emails are not going to be archived and looked at again, so don’t worry about edition numbers and dates. Say want you need to say and stress taking action NOW.

BONUS TIP – Tune Emails for Mobile

If your emails look like junk on someone’s phone, your clicks and open rates are plummeting and you may not know why. I know why. Since it is easier to delete mounds of spam using mobile phones and pads, these tools are becoming the gatekeepers of our inboxes and lives.

If your emails look bad on mobile, they never make it past that gatekeeping stage. Homaro’s email looks bad on my desktop, horrible on my pad and unreadable on my phone. I believe in the “mobile first’ movement. Create emails that look amazing in mobile and grow to be more and more as my screen space expands.

Hope following these 5 simple rules make your email marketing will do what you want them to do – convert and contribute profits to your bottom line.

How about you? What are your 5 email marketing secrets, tricks or rules? Share your favorite emails with a story about why you love them, and we will curate in here.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.

When Ashley Verrill and the team at Software Advice shared their fascinating “Social Service” study, I asked if we could post their results on our blog. They upped my offer by suggesting a guest blog post sharing Dos and Don’ts learned during their Twitter customer service study. The study asked major brands such as McDonald’s, Starbucks and Apple for help via Twitter.

Twitter is a proxy for social media here. We are confident that Ashley and her team’s results are accurate to the state of customer service via social media. The Social Customer Service Race Study results were surprising, shocking and a clear indication that “Social Customer Service”, meaning using social media to connect with customers, has a long way to go. The first brands and companies to embrace using social media marketing for customer service will win big, as the MasterCard team showed in this excellent study, and as Zappos proves daily. Here is Ashley Verrill’s guest blog post for Atlantic BT:

Ashley Verrill, Software Advice

Customer Service Support via Twitter Study
Once viewed exclusively as a marketing tool, social media is emerging as a popular channel for customer service. Whether you know it or not, instant-gratification customers are looking for support from your company or brand via Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks.

Are brands and companies paying attention on social media?

This question and the growing importance of an active social presence prompted our recent four-week research project. “The Great Social Customer Service Study Race” analyzed 14 top brands such as McDonald’s and Starbucks for customer service responsiveness on Twitter. The study revealed interesting customer service and social media strengths and weaknesses. This post shares a list of dos and don’ts for customer service via social media.

The Great Social Customer Service Race Study

Four Software Advice team members used personal Twitter accounts to send customer service tweets to 14 leading consumer brands in seven industries. Each company received one tweet per weekday for four consecutive weeks. Tweets used the @ symbol with the company’s Twitter account half of the time; the other half of the study’s tweets mentioned the company or brand by name. Use of @TwitterName triggers a notification to a Twitter account holder they were mentioned in a tweet. Using a company or brand name isn’t automatically shared.

Tweeted questions fell into five categories:

• Urgent.
• Positive.
• Negative.
• FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).
• Technical.

Social Service Do: Use a Placeholder If Response Delayed
Several times during the Social Customer Service Race Study companies took several days to respond to a tweet. This lag between tweets seeking connection and company response is a huge misstep. Many consumers expect a response in two hours, according to a recent Oracle Study.

One helpful strategy we discovered was requiring agents to post a placeholder response if a question required escalation or a management reroute. Some immediate recognition is a good idea.

Example of a Social Service Placeholder Tweet:

“Thanks for your tweet @customername! We are looking into [topic] now and will be back to you by [date].”

Social Service Do: Leverage Customer Service Tweets for Marketing
MasterCard was the clear winner in our credit card group. Mastercard posted better-than-average response times, and they capitalized on opportunities to add marketing and sales to a customer service interaction.

When one of our test tweets asked if MasterCard is accepted globally, the MasterCard Social Service Team responded AND Re-Tweeted our message. This shows MasterCard’s 30,600 followers Mastercard listens and responds. The MasterCard Social Service Team used another tweet focused to customer service to proactively pitch a related product.

Social Service Don’t: Never Be Lazy, Solve the Problem, Create WOW
In one interaction with McDonald’s, the Social Service agent didn’t provide a good answer to the tweeted problem. The response didn’t make it clear she was with the world’s largest fast food chain. The test Tweet asked about placing a regular weekly order for a business. The McDonald’s Social Service Agent’s reply said we should contact our local store.

The McDonald’s Social Service Team missed a chance to use social media to WOW. Sharing the number of the nearest McDonald’s or calling them for us could create WOW customer service worthy of a social share. Companies shouldn’t be lazy or overly canned in social media interactions. Look for chances to WOW, and build WOW into social media support systems.

Social Service Don’t: Respond to Negative Sentiment Before Storm

Most “listening software” or Online Reputation Management (ORM) tools such as Radian6 or Google Alerts can be customized. Business rules and filters can move social communication with certain keywords to the front of the line. During our Social Customer Service Race, it was clear that some brands prioritize “thank you” messages. One company responded in about 13 minutes to a “thank you” tweet.

Messages with important sentiment words or phrases such as “mad,” “help,” and “thinking of switching” went unnoticed.
.
Companies should program software to prioritize messages with important emotional words. Negative words and feelings can go viral if a frustrated customer doesn’t feel heard, recognized and corresponded with.  Small storms can brew into difficult to counter negative reviews on Google Reviews or Yelp.

Confused and angry customers do many things; advocacy and conversion are rare.  The best way to quiet a negative review or blog post is to take proactive steps so negative PR storms don’t happen. Stopping a storm before it becomes viral and powerful is our best advice. Tuning systems to recognize negative sentiment prompting immediate response is the best tactic.

Social Service Do: Listen for Your Brand, Product and Company Names, @ or No @
Less than 8 percent of responses during the Social Service Race came when we didn’t use the @[TweetName]. Companies and brands must listen to social media for positive or negative mentions. Just because the customer doesn’t address your company specifically, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t respond. Consider this example:

Each team member in the Social Customer Service Race Tweeted this message:

“I’m thinking of buying a new laptop today. It’s Macbook vs. HP? What do you think?”

Both brands missed this high purchase-intent tweet on four occasions.

Your listening software should alert for mentions with the @ and mentions of important brand names and keywords.  Mine social media for intent and sentiment to generate return.  Those questioning social media Return On Investment (ROI) should read our study carefully. Perhaps ROI is more related to how social media is being used.

Summary – Time for a Change in Social Strategy

Brands responded to a mere 14% of the 280 tweets sent during the Social Customer Service Race.

Social Customer Service remains a new concept for most brands. Brands did not meet minimum customer expectations on Twitter during the Social Customer Service Race Study. We hope our social media customer service Dos and Don’ts help Social Customer Service Teams respond better in the next race.

About Ashley Verrill

Ashley Verrill is a market analyst with Software Advice. She spent the last six years reporting and writing business news and strategy features. Ashley’s writing has appeared in Inc., Upstart Business Journal, the Austin Business Journal and the North Bay Business Journal.  Ashley is a University of Texas graduate with a bachelor’s degree in journalism..

What Women’s Magazines Can Teach Content Curators
I have a secret. I learned how to curate content, at least partially, from women’s magazines. You remember those colorful monthly blasts of perfume samples and 8 Ways To Shock Your Lover? Idea-starved, we would hit Barnes and Noble and pick up $100 worth of magazines such as Elle, Redbook, Vogue and Cosmo. Women’s publications know how to SINK a hook, such as these recent hooks from Allure:

* 31 Party Hairstyles (note seasonality).
* 10 Sexiest Fragrances Right Now.
* 12 Beauty Gifts Under $50.
* 3 Beauty Tips To Survive Hangovers.

Source Segmentation
Here is how we learned to think about our sources:

EDGE: Cosmo

CULTURAL TRENDS: Elle,  Vogue 

MOMMY BLOGGER CONTENT: Redbook

WOMEN’S HEALTH ISSUES: Women’s Health

Lessons Learned
Here are just a few of the lessons we learned from women’s publications:

• Seasonality – riff on what is happening NOW.
• Creative Tie-Ins – to 3 macro themes: sex, health and love.
• Numbers – 8 Things To Do To A Naked Man is less exciting without the number (lifted from Cosmo, of course).
• Personas – Women’s publications are geared to certain personas.

It’s hard to understand how personas work in a vacuum. Here is an example of  very general personas for a women’s publication:

Gail, 20 – 29
Single, works hard, plays hard, dating and social. Cares about fashion, friends and romance despite cynical, tough exterior. Highly connected via mobile and social. Health-conscious and competitive. Not wedding obsessed, but has been to The Knot a few times and has ideas for the big day even if no one is on the horizon yet.

Pam, 30 – 40
Married and either thinking of having children or a mother already. Pam is also tethered to mobile and social but for different reasons. She coordinates much of her busy life via apps, friends and her iPad. Wants to keep spark in her relationship or marriage, but time compressed, not getting enough sleep and working hard. Some of this cohort may be working and managing a family, while new mothers may be working part time or focused on family. Some women make the lion’s share of the household income, so they may continue to work while dad stays home to raise children.

Rachel, 41 – 50
Children are established enough now that some of this cohort will return to work (if they left). Women who stayed at work want to achieve as much as possible in these years.

Paying for education and making sure she and her husband can retire is beginning to become a priority. May be on 2nd husband by now and managing an extended and combined family (some of his, some of hers). Not as restless or unsure in this period, worrying about fewer things but bigger things.

(etc…)

Personas are critical because they form a framework for your content curation and storytelling. Rachel needs different stories than Pam or Gail. Each persona is an archetype, a macro definition of characteristics shared by large portions of the cohort.

Age is a poor way of segmenting, but, as Passages author Gail Sheehy showed, we experience different things at different times in our lives. If you have buying data, you could form cohorts based on buying patterns.

You could also form cohorts on behavioral data. Basically, you can form a cohort, a segment or a persona on any data you have as long as there is some meaningful value. There is some argument that we live in a one to one time, making segments, personas and cohorts passé.

I disagree. We aren’t there yet. Soon we will be able to manipulate websites in real time (or near real time) based on predictive analytics and what is happening now. Until that day, personas help align marketers with customers, and women’s magazines teach the many tricks and secrets of content curation and content creation.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.

What Is a Landing Page?

A “Landing Page” is any page created to receive traffic from some other marketing effort and convert that traffic, i.e., to cause  visitors to take beneficial actions such as:

• Buy Something.
• Request a Demonstration.
• Download a Whitepaper.
• Download an Ebook.
• Join an Email List.
• Watch a Video.
• View Additional Pages.

This post shares 10 secrets to help your landing pages convert better.

Landing Page Secrets 1: Create a Great Call to Action

Asking visitors to do something beneficial on your website is a “Call to Action” or CTA. (G) “Download Ebook” on the Marketo landing page example above is a CTA. CTA’s are important, but less is more. If you ask landing page visitors to take more than one action, conversions are likely to decrease.

Since landing pages are fed traffic from Pay Per Click, partner or affiliate websites, emails, social media marketing or some other marketing effort, landing pages have to do both less and more than “normal” web pages.

Landing pages need to do LESS than other webpages in that too much information and too many options swamp attention, and conversions decrease. Read The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz for more on why presenting fewer choices and less noise converts better. Landing pages should be QUIET, easy to take in, digest and act on.

Landing pages have to do MORE in that they are built to promote an action, a conversion. Conversion is tough. Getting a stranger to know your company well enough to develop TRUST enough to fill out a form is a big deal.

A great Call to Action is key to conversion on a landing page. Great CTAs are short (no more than 7 words) and include keywords. Keywords create a sense of, “Yes I am in the right place and this is what I want.” Note the repetition of Marketo’s Call to Action (G) above. Marketo uses text, a large blue heading and a button.

I love the Marketo landing page pictured above, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a keyword in the main CTA. “Download Ebook” may be the only thing a visitor reads. Without a keyword such as “Download Social Marketing Ebook” or “Download SMM Ebook” in the main CTA, they risk losing some conversions.

Landing Page Testing Note
Every element on a landing page should be tested, especially something as important as the CTA. CTAs are so important that you should never STOP testing them. Move your winners into a “control position”, and then attempt to beat those. A new CTA beats control when it consistently converts better.

Examples of great landing page testing (get on email lists for these companies to observe great landing pages):

Dell.com
SalesForce.com
Marketo.com

Landing Page Secrets 2: Sell to the CTA No More

Perhaps the most common landing page mistake is SELLING a visitor with data. Many landing page creators try too hard to sell beyond the Call to Action. They load charts, graphs and novels of information into landing pages. Loading too much information on any webpage is selling beyond the action you need and is a common conversion killer.

On most landing pages, you ONLY need your visitor to fill out a form or share information for a white paper. Do only what is necessary to create that conversion. Landing pages should be quietly confident, have a single CTA and avoid overselling the Call to Action.

Landing Pages also need emotional hooks. Note how Marketo tells a short story (E) followed by bullets (F) with a Call to Action (text) pointing to the “Get Ebook” button and form (G).

Landing Page Secrets 3: Create Emotional Hooks

Humans have a primordial limbic system. Our “lizard brain” kept us alive when we lived in caves and could be dinner. Now, human limbic systems fire primitive “fight or flight” messages when challenged. Conversion is always a form of challenge. Amy Africa, in her presentation to the Conversion Conference in Chicago, shared research on how stressful visitors to websites find the act of conversion.

Emotional hooks tweak our ancient lizard brains in familiar patterns: fear, greed, sex, food, babies. Saw a great example of this today from Eloqua: The headline on the front page that linked to the article was “40 Must-See Marketing Charts”. The emotional hook is fear, the fear of being left out of the group of marketers who have seen Eloqua’s charts.

The fear of being left out is powerful online. We Internet marketers have all missed significant marketing movements in the last ten years. So much has changed so fast that no one could keep up with everything, so there is a collective Internet marketing sore spot about being left out. Creating great emotional hooks is about curating what is happening in the world and being consistent with content on the page.

Current Marketo Headline Hook Example: “Optimize Your Social Chanel for Lead Generation”

Here are some examples that are more emotional:

“Be a Hero, Optimize Your Social Channel for Lead Gen”

“Make More Money, Optimize Your Social Channel for Lead Gen”

“Don’t Miss SMM, Optimize Your Social Channel for Lead Gen”

“Q: Can Social be Used for Lead Generation? A: Yes”

Hooks are related to WHO the landing page is designed for. You need different hooks for Analysts, Managers, Directors and C levels. Actually, you rarely reach a C level with a landing page, so it’s better to create hooks for the people entrusted to find solutions (A,D, M levels). IT people need different hooks than Marketing, so know who you want to reach and create relevant hooks.

Landing Page Secrets 4: Create Mystery

When an Internet marketer doesn’t know the answer to a question, what do they do? They search for and find the answer. When we read unknown words and language in a context we understand, we invest in finding out what we don’t know. We don’t want to be left out. We don’t want to last in line. We don’t want to appear dumb (or to BE dumb).

There is a fine line between mystery and confusion when creating great landing pages. Mystery is, “I’m intrigued and feel I can answer the question with minimal effort.” Confusion is a different state.

Confused customers do many things, but buying is rarely one of them. Landing pages walk a fine line between creating the right amount of mystery without creating frustration or confusion.

You can call things such as Social Media Marketing by an acronym (ex, SMM) if you explain the use somewhere in your copy. But don’t feel like you must provide every answer to every question. The best landing pages are minimal; they sell to their call to action and no more.

Landing Page Secrets 5: Make Offers

Many B2B companies are nervous about making offers. Offers are key to creating effective and highly converting landing pages.

Offers have three elements:

• Something of value traded for something of value (time, money, information).
• Something relevant and segmented to the audience driven to the page.
• A DEADLINE

The Marketo example has implied benefits, such as more money from social lead generation and being up to speed on the latest in social media marketing, but Marketo’s landing page assumes a lot.

They assume “Marketo-speak” can be translated into language the audience cares about. “Generate leads outside your database” is a great example of “inside baseball” language. That may be the very definition of lead generation, but a more clear connection to universal benefits (more profits, less costs) wouldn’t hurt.

Existing Marketo Bullet: “How to use social activities to generate leads outside your current database and community.”

Making Marketo bullet more specific:
How to use social activities such as Facebook campaigns and Twitter posts to capture “new to file” names and the new bottom line revenue they represent.

This bullet is still wordy and may need to be two bullets instead of one, but by being a little more specific the claim gains weight and authority.  Pluck the universal benefits (more money, less costs) as often as possible.

Landing Page Secrets 6: DEADLINES

When something that is relevant to our jobs, lives or families is about to go away, we act. We BUY with EMOTION, but we justify with logic, and a deadline is a great piece of LOGIC to justify an emotional decision. Why do sales end? To create deadlines and a sense of urgency.

Sales end because, despite our higher level brains knowing another sale is sure to follow, our lizard brains kick into high gear in order to not lose out, to beat the deadline.

Internet Marketing Deadline Secret
The Marketo eBook offer would be stronger with a deadline. Even if Marketo brings the same book back in a few weeks, today’s offer is stronger with a deadline. CTAs without deadlines are half as effective as call to actions with deadlines. The problem with deadlines online is 3 days is a long time.

If your offer has a week or more to go, use general “offer ends soon” language. When you get into the last 3 days, change your copy to “Free eBook offer ends in 3 days.” Follow with 2 and then 1. CTA’s with deadlines are more work, but they convert BETTER, and they more than pay for the extra creative work you need to power the deadline.

Landing Page Secrets 7: Tag Your Brand, Create a Claim

Even if you don’t “tag” your brand, typically you should attach tags on landing pages. Tags are short descriptions, usually immediately below a brand’s logo, that illuminate a brand’s meaning and value.

Logos are usually top left on a page. Here is how I would tag Marketo in the example above:

Marketo (logo)
Leader in Innovative Inbound Marketing

Tags should tell a mini-story and support important keywords. Tags are constant, i.e., they don’t change with the creative on the rest of the page. Tags apply to Marketo’s core truth. You can create a brand tag out of anything, but here are powerful ideas to use in a tag:

• When your company was the first at something.
• When your company is recognized by authoritative voices as a leader.
• When your Unique Selling or Value Proposition is strong.
• Awards, if awards are rare in your vertical.
• Superlative-type values (biggest, best value, first, top, leader).

Landing Page Secrets 8: White Space Is Your Friend

If you have 5 elements on a landing page, test by reducing down to 3. I like forms on the right of “hero” images (a hero is the largest image on a webpage) and well above the fold. White space is one way a landing page projects quiet confidence, so use lots of it, as Marketo demonstrates in the example above.

Landing Page Secrets 9: Social Shares & SEO

Back in the day, we kept our landing pages OUT of Google, but this was before Google’s float and social shopping. I think allowing the search engine spider in has merit if the page provides value back to YOUR website, but we originally kept landing pages out because we wanted the freedom to modify, add to and replace them.

Post Google’s Panda algorithm, frequent page changes are good, but be sure to respect the rank you earn. If your landing page earns a PageRank3 about social optimization, you shouldn’t change the page to focus on ecommerce checkouts. Once rank is established, you must be true to how that rank was established or risk penalties. If you add social shares and social signals to your landing pages, as Marketo does in the example above, you will want to keep the page– So make sure you don’t change the content by more than 30% or so.

If you don’t want to keep the page, you will be doing way too many 301 redirects to keep up with the social shares into the page. If you are done with the page, eliminate it from any navigational support and watch the PageRank. Once you see PR decay to 2 or lower, you can safely ask Google to eliminate the page. Never GIVE things to Google and then TAKE THEM AWAY or substantially change them.

Other Social Signals
I would consider including a “Members Who’ve Viewed” section too. If I see people I know or gurus I trust have read the page and downloaded the paper, I am more likely to do so. Social shares express a desire to know you without going all the way to a demo or a download. I might even share your page BEFORE I download your paper, and such an action should be treated as a “soft conversion”.

Landing Page Secrets 10: More, Faster, Better & People

Once you start creating landing pages, you should set aggressive analysis and creation goals. If you are creating one landing page a week now, double it next month and then double it again the next. Keep on that MORE schedule, because landing pages teach you more faster when you create more of them.

Keep your content keyword silos clearly defined. You may create landing pages on Internet Marketing, Website Design and Mobile Marketing. Test within each silo to see what combination of Headline, Call to Action and Story receives the most conversions.

People Sell Better
The other big bone I would pick with Marketo is they never use people to sell their ideas. People sell better than things, as I noted in People Not Things Sell.  Marketo could add a picture of their CEO or a well-known analyst in the field. Landing pages with people command more attention, feel warmer and convert better.

People can also create confusion. If you primarily want engagement on the page (which you don’t on most landing pages), face any people looking out at the visitors. If you want conversion, face people at the CTA. For instance if Marketo’s CEO were on this page, he should be looking at the Download eBook CTA because visitor eyes follow his.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Follow @Scenttrail (me) on Twitter.