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Barack Obama has lead a very unique, successful online campaign that I believe has helped him achieve the popularity, excitement, and buzz this past year. However, last week, when I browsed to his website I found that his site may be falling into what we like to call: creating FUDs (fears, uncertainties, and doubts).
Continue reading Warning: Actions May Lead to a Severe Case of FUDs
Things are not looking too bright for Hillary. An 11 primaries losing streak is miserable. She is not able to converts prospective voters in her own camp to vote for her. I thought it would be fun to take a look at Hillary’s campaign from the perspective of conversion optimization. I was even more interested in looking at her campaign after I learned that her top marketing advisor had cost her as much as $33 million since the campaign start.
Every member in the democratic primary is a potential customer for Hillary. Her campaign has one job: to convert these members into people who will vote for her otherwise she loses them. But losing them isn’t so bad only that they convert to vote for Obama. Obviously, Hillary is suffering from a lower conversion rate compared to Obama. So, let me put my conversion optimization hat and see what she can do better, although it might a little too late for her:
Trust and confidence is the heart of converting a prospect to a customer. Obviously, Hillary is not instilling enough trust in those who are voting to win them over.
How come?
We always tell clients that value proposition must be very clearly stated throughout your website. Every element on the site must either state the value proposition or support it in some way. What is Hillary’s value proposition? I am not sure. And this comes from a political junky. If I am not clear about Hillary’s value proposition, how do you think the average Joe thinks? Granted, Hillary did try different things in the past few weeks. First there was the experience factor. Somehow that value proposition was a factor against her in a time which everyone in the country is talking about change. Then she tried change. The problem with that value proposition is that Obama has already successfully used it and definitely had a first mover’s advantage. Hillary’s challenge is to truly find a value proposition that is unique to her and is able resonate with democratic voters.
what are the concerns and the fears of that stop everyone from voting for Hillary? There are some who think of her as a divisive person. There is the fear of that after she takes power she will not stray far from Bush’s tactics. Voters fear a big brother state where the government will garnish wages and force everyone to get universal health care. Hillary can choose to ignore each of these factors but obviously that is not working out for her. The way to deal with FUDS is either by:
There is nothing unusual about appealing to different market segments based on locality. However, if you are focusing on a certain segment you must be sure that the segments will give you enough market shares (or in this case votes) to win. In New Hampshire, Hilary relied on the women’s votes to give her a victory. Later on, whether planned or not, Hillary appealed to lower income Democrats and those who did not attend college. And now in Texas, we see her relying on the Latino vote to give her the win she needs.
When you try to appeal to the masses, you end up appealing to no one. And while you may think that women will relate to Hillary the same way African Americans relate to Obama, that is not always the case. The issue of a woman being the president is in general less important to women compared to the issue of an African American becoming a president for blacks.
So, where does Hillary’s campaign go from here? I am not sure. This coming Tuesday will be very decisive to see if she can move forward or if it time for her to step aside.
What do you think?
Okay, to recap. I discussed some flaws on Biggestbook.com, a great internet portal that offers over 40,000 office supplies in my last blog. When I left off, I was ready to search for a useful, uncomplicated papershredder.
So I’ve arrived at the homepage and am looking at the top navigational options:
They also have a search option which I will test later. Every time I move my mouse on top of the navigation bar, a box appears.
I’m not an expert at knowing which category I would find paper shredder. But I naturally thought office supplies for sure.
On the right were Big Seller options, which was a nice touch. I quickly realized I may have chosen the wrong option! I couldn’t find my paper shredder. I got a little frustrated because I clicked on office accessories and cutting and measuring devices, but got nowhere.
I used the search option:
YAAAY! I also like the option of sorting by best match, price, brand, or top sellers. The call to action button is interesting though, it asks me to select one with the words COMPARE next to the box, and then the CTA button also says “compare.” The idea being that they give you all the specs and you compare those specs with that of another shredder. I don’t know how effective that approach is.
BiggestBook.com has many competitors, which is why finding the best ways to get the customers quickly in and out of the site is essential. That’s why I’ve compiled a list of things they can do to improve this site:
1. Lose or limit the offers displayed on first page. The first thing one should understand from the site is what it offers and how it can help them.
2. Place some type of a value proposition under the logo like “The Biggest Office Supplies Portal on the Web” or something to that effect. Again, this is helping the visitor understand where they are.
3. Make the selection process easier. Maybe allow each item such as office supplies expand at the click of a mouse with the selections under that particular category.
4. Make the call to action button clearer. Include text on the CTA button that will help your visitor take the desired action which is BUY the item. You can still take them to the screen where it confirms and compares the specs, but “COMPARE” on a CTA button is not pushing the visitor to move forward with the purchase.
5. Finally, the site has wonderful potential. It’s neat and looks appealing. The product selection is great, so Biggest book has only the potential to grow. I felt the site was lacking optimization, which is very achievable.
A lot of sites like Biggestbook.com have tons of potential. Do you have a site that needs optimization? Our conversion optimization series offers great tips!
A friend of mine recently recommended that I check out BiggestBook.com. I was unfamiliar with the site, but quickly realized that no, they don’t sell books! At first I thought what the heck were they thinking when they chose that name for their company. How misleading. But, after I understood what they sold and how they were literally a virtual catalog “book,” I thought the name was fine, as long as the one who enters the site realizes that they did land in the correct place, an office supplies site, and not a book site. But as I entered the site, I saw no clear value proposition recognizable right away, which could add the already apparent confusion from the name of the company.
The homepage has a unique design, but in order to keep me hooked and less confused of who and what they do, the value proposition needs to be clearly stated early on.
The other major issue I noticed with the homepage was the flash image with different offers. There were also offers all along the bottom, and on right column. These competing offers can confuse site visitors.
One of the flashing offers is a subway restaurant giftcard, and if I were browsing as site for office supplies, a subway card offer would throw me off entirely.
I began to ask myself, if they are offering subway, Godiva, and blockbuster rebates, who are they targeting with this website? The answer has to be individuals, because no large company would be drawn to an incentive such as a $5 Godiva card, a free paper cutter, or a free wireless headset. But even as an individual, it throws me off to see these offers right as I enter.
So biggestbook.com has caused me a lot of FUD’s so far (fears, uncertainties, and doubts). I was afraid I landed on the wrong site, I was uncertain what the offers were all about and I was doubtful whether the site was credible for offering such things. I did not want to continue at this point.
But I thought, you know what, let me give them the benefit of the doubt. On the right column there are options:
I was interested in finding out more about their Big Solutions for organization. I clicked on the link and this is the page I came to:
I guess I misunderstood what they meant by Big Solutions! The first item on their list of getting organized for the New Year is:
Introducing the New BiggestBook.com!
Umm….I’m confused! Is this about me getting organized or you? I was ready to click away, but I also noticed the Bigideasnewsletter sign up, so I decide to check that out since I’m unhappy with the results on the Big Solutions page.
Okay I don’t see why they asked for my name and last name, and I’m not going to choose job title and education level, those are absolutely ridiculous to ask for! What depending on my job title and ed level they will customize a newsletter to accommodate me?
I submitted just the information above and it worked. Yaaay! But I still wanted to see their latest issue…
It’s great to offer customers something that they can benefit from. Content really draws people to websites, especially interesting and relevant content. I would have loved to see more articles than ads though!
Biggestbook.com seems like an awesome portal with over 40,000 office supply items. But they’ve just released this new site that has navigational, FUD’s, and trust issues. It’s always important to design and create a site with your clients in mind.
But I did not attempt to order anything yet. I need a high-tech paper shredder for my office. So I decided I would search for that item.
I want to stop now, it seems that there are a lot of “wrong” things with this site, but I don’t want to dismiss the fact that there are a lot of things done “right” too. For my next blog I will show you what happens when I search for the paper shredder. I will also share some suggestions that I thought could really benefit Biggestbook.com. Until next time, happy searching!
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