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When you are working on your business you will be making a lot of decisions. Some of those decisions will have a bigger impact than others, but how you arrive at those decisions can influence the outcome, sometimes for years to come. Continue reading Are You Using Intuition, Assumptions or Data?
In discussions with marketers there are often heated exchanges about “what works”. The problem I have is when it becomes clear that one side is arguing on the basis of “everyone knows”, “this is how it has always been” or even worse “I read somewhere”.
OK, clearly we can’t be an expert in everything, and doing your research is a good idea. The thing is, especially in marketing, you don’t know until you have tried.
Most tactics are not expensive to test and give pretty immediate results. Everything from a headline through to pricing can often be tested quite efficiently giving you answers rather than ideas.
A great way to test is to use small PPC campaigns. In fact Google supplies tools to compare options even down to the page level with split testing. With just a hundred or so dollars you could test a landing page, call to action and price level.
I have to say, I am a real testing geek. Everything I learned about copywriting came from reading the masters and trying out the concepts they taught. Admittedly I had the luxury of using client budgets to test with!
In the vast majority of cases even a small amount of testing can provide huge results, in terms of click throughs, conversion rates and overall profit. It’s not a one-off process either, once you have a winning formula, try to beat it. Continuously.
If you are not testing now, get started right away. You might be shocked just how much better even your favorite campaigns could be!
Many beginner SEOs are being misled about search terms by forums and blog posts focusing on traffic.
Yes, of course, traffic is important, but only the right traffic.
The standard advice is to find keywords that are searched often but there is lower competition for. Seems like reasonable advice, right? Actually this advice is too simplistic, it is missing a vital ingredient.
While you can rank and get some nice traffic flow from these terms, if there is little competition it probably means the term is harder to monetize.
Now there is a big difference between terms that you monetize by selling a product and terms that you monetize with Adsense or any other arbitrage play.
On my own blog I have several terms that I rank for to attract people to my content, from the generic “New Media Consultant” through to specific terms like “Blog Meme“. Each term functions in a different way. Conversions for me though are RSS signups, I know from analysis that I rarely get consultancy work from a first visit.
My search terms are research, informational, “interest”. They are not purchasing terms, people on a mission.
What is on your prospects mind? Which terms match your prospects mission? That is the key to knowing which terms to optimize for.
The Invesp site is mostly about a problem facing businesses, increasing conversion rates. Invesp prospects will be looking for reasons why their conversion rate is poor or looking for advice on boosting conversions.
By contrast take a look at one of my favourite clients who I always pick on, Cogniview. Their products are very much in the “on a mission” category. People don’t look for PDF to Excel conversion software without being very serious. They have a problem and need to fix it.
Don’t optimize for traffic, optimize for psychology. Find people who are in the right mode that matches your offer, buying mode, research mode, conversational mode.
With the right optimization you can make more conversions with lower traffic, making your job much easier and your business way more profitable.
Time and again you see it. This isn’t just something new marketers do, it appears in the entire spectrum of business. I have seen marketing directors at Fortune 500 companies and one person operations do the same thing.
What is this mistake and why is it so devastating?
First a little history lesson. In the past there were not so many television channels and radio stations. Many more households bought a newspaper and it was pretty predictable which paper they would subscribe to. Advertising was a case of getting your message out and watching the sales come in.
With few distractions and fewer choices even the most mediocre advertising would find an audience. Like cattle at a trough, “consumers” had no option but to buy what was on offer and advertisers didn’t particularly have to engage or even be entirely truthful.
Fast forward to today and we have an ever-growing number of distractions, not just from a constellation of TV channels and the internet but in every facet of our daily lives.
We are constantly bombarded with marketing messages and todays word of mouth travels at light speed.
Old school prime-time broadcast just doesn’t cut it. The old TV ad man mentality of shoving whatever they want to sell in customers faces is getting more expensive and less effective. It’s the famous Superbowl spot. Or should I say, infamous.
Broadcast techniques from yesteryear might not work but there were marketers from the golden age that we can learn from. Direct marketing copywriters learned how to sell a ton of product by appealing to the true wants and needs of their market. Unlike the TV folks with their “because we say so” attitude, the direct marketers were persuading, influencing and offering solutions.
Which brings us to the number one mistake even modern marketers make; talking at prospects rather than to them.
Consider your marketing message:
If we do not tune in to our customers and meet them where they live our campaigns bomb.
At worst the campaigns are not just ineffective, they actually serve to damage future performance by teaching prospects the brand is irrelevant or out of touch with their needs.
Today more than ever before we have to be smart about how we speak to our customers. They are savvier and have many more choices than previous generations, and do not tolerate anything less than clear messages that address what they want.
People will not do just what you tell them, you have to explain what is in it for them in a way they will understand. If you want people to take interest in your offer you have to introduce it where it is most relevant and address what they need right now. Match the message and delivery to the audience mission. It is no good serving up music and games, no matter how beautiful and award-winning, if your prospect is searching for flash photography advice or for ways to convert PDF to excel files. On the other hand if your prospects are surfing, browsing or looking to be entertained they might prefer cartoons and humor rather than lectures and wordy articles.
Find out what your prospects think, want, need and deliver it to them where they hang out, in their language.
Do you see marketers making this mistake? How do you talk to customers real needs? Share your thoughts in the comments …
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