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The key to measuring your web design, copywriting & web marketing
The key to measuring your web design, copywriting & web marketing

Archive for March, 2008

Is SPAM an obsolete concept?

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

Bizreport published findings from a Q Interactive / Marketing Sherpa report today that show that the general public view of what spam is poles apart from the accepted technical definition of spam. Apparently email users tend to mark anything that they don’t want to receive any more as spam, however the strict technical definition of spam is UCE or Unsolicited Commercial Email (i.e. email that you didn’t ask for).

I believe that one of the major reasons that users treat everything as spam is that they have been educated to not use the unsubscribe link in marketing emails, even they may know and trust the sender. So in order to stop receiving emails they have no alternative but to put you on their spam block list.

Our experience with the eComMetrix® Email Marketing service that we run is that users are using the “spam” button in their email client to effectively unsubscribe from emails that they don’t want to receive any more.

With eComMetrix®, we participate in the Hotmail Junk Mail Reporting service which notifies us when a user has marked one of our clients emails as spam. In 99% of cases the messages that are reported in Hotmail as spam were signed up for. It shows that many users do not discriminate between real spam and emails that they just don’t want anymore.

We support the idea of developing an Email Service Provider Opt Out Standard that could be supported by the developers of email clients (i.e. Microsoft Outlook). Your email client could replace the “report spam” button with two new options that represent the following two separate concepts:

  1. I didn’t ask for this (spam / hard response)
  2. I don’t want it anymore (opt out / soft response)

Only genuine providers would be able to participate in such a program and such a program could be used to enhance the email system’s reputation with internet and anti-spam service providers. To really succeed a program like this would need to have the backing of Microsoft, who like it or not handle most of the worlds email in some way.

To combat email overload lately I’ve been unsubscribing from lots of email newsletters. I’ve noticed that every email provider seems to have a different way of handing an opt out request. Many of them make it particularly hard to get off the list. I can tell you from experience that a simple one click standardised opt out system is long overdue!

If it was implemented well such a system would be a real positive for email marketers and email users alike.

Is a picture really worth a thousand words?

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

We all know that a picture can be worth a thousand words, but it’s not always the case. Words are the most fundamental blocks of our communication. To prove this Jeff Sexton at Future Now asked, “What happens when you take the words away?”

Jeff used the website www.netdisaster.com to suck out all of the text from amazon.com. Well we did a little experimenting of our own, and you can see the results here.

Take the simple high conversion online shopping and lead generation website apcups.com.au. Here’s a screenshot of it without the words:

DLS Computer’s UPS sales website apcups.com.au without text.

It’s not very useful. If you look at the site with the words, you get the picture (pun intended).

DLS Computer’s UPS sales website apcups.com.au with text

It’s strange that words are so often overlooked in a website project. We often see that copywriting is kept in house or left out of a website project altogether. Others tell us that people don’t read websites, but a demonstration like this reveals that people depend on what’s written!

When we are selling a new website in a competitive situation, we usually find that our competitors are only offering a web design and a content management system. Most don’t take any interest in actually creating the content and the copy for the website. Strange really, because it’s the words that actually make the website work.

How can Australian businesses beat a recession?

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

Here in Australia, some economists have been spinning the yarn that our economy is “decoupled” from the US economy. They would have you think that your business will not be affected by the US recession. However Morgan Stanley economist Gerard Minack set the record straight last week on ABC’s Lateline program. Gerard broke the bad news that for the 98.5% of Australians who don’t work in mining, it looks like hard times are on the way.

So how do you protect your business from a looming downturn?

1. Ensure your supply of customers by investing in highly cost effective marketing

Web marketing is about finding people who are in the market now and ready to buy. Getting your website found in Google and driving 24 x 7 traffic to your website is one of the easiest ways to ensure that you have a steady stream of customers whatever the economic climate.

2. Improve your website’s conversion rates

You can boost the number of leads and sales that come from your website by analyzing and improving the performance of your website. There is enormous leverage in your boosting your website’s conversion rates. The payoff for boosting your conversion rates is far higher than the payoff from getting more traffic.

3. Start an email newsletter

An email newsletter that’s rich with content and informative is one of the easiest ways to keep your customers safe from the competition. If you’re not already producing an email newsletter, don’t wait until times are tough. Start now.

Act now

We’ve been warned that trouble is on the horizon. However, your business need not be hit hard by a retracting market. You need to be smarter than the competition and take a greater market and dollar share. And you need to act now…

I’ve been thinking about this topic since I saw Gerard Minack on Lateline last week, however US conversion rate guru Jeffrey Eisenberg at Future Now beat me to writing this article, so this was partly inspired by his post.

The 7 Keys of High Conversion Lead Generation Websites – Part 1

Monday, March 24th, 2008

Why do some websites generate leads better than others? Having developed a number of lead generation websites that convert over 20% of visits into enquiries, we know that asking this question is a big step in the right direction.

In several years of striving to improve lead generation website conversion rates we’ve come up with seven keys that will make your website perform beyond expectations.

Key 1 :- Clearly identified customers and goals

The highest performing websites that we have worked on all had two things in common from the beginning. It was clear:

  • Who the customers were
  • What we wanted them to do (i.e. contact us, become a lead).

There are plenty of reasons to have a website. For example you might use your website to enhance your branding, customer service, customer loyalty or to streamline your business processes. The important thing is that you are clear on what the goal is and that you can measure the outcome.

Having a consistent stream of leads can have a huge impact on your business. After all, that’s why businesses spend so much money on marketing. So let’s be clear that for the purpose of this post, the goal is to generate good quality leads that convert into sales easily.

A good picture of who the customer is likely to be, what they need and how you can help them is also essential. If you don’t invest the time to understand your customers and prospects before you start developing your lead generation website you will not achieve high conversion rates. Knowing your prospects is the foundation of a high conversion website.

We didn’t learn this lesson from the lead generation websites that soared to conversion rates of over 20%. We learned this from the websites that failed miserably.

Key 2 :- A simple, clear message

Delivering a clear, simple and understandable message is as important on a website as it is on a highway billboard. Considering that on most websites, half of the visitors will leave in 10 seconds, you have a very short time to grab your prospects attention.

Don’t be deceived into thinking that a flashy design laden website is the answer to this problem either. Most of those websites haven’t even loaded by the time that half of their prospects have left.

A clear simple message is going to be delivered through copywriting.

Do you remember why people come to your website? They come for useful information. That includes things like descriptions, reviews, recommendations, pictures, videos etc.

Your clear, readable written message should wrap up all of your content (useful information) in a way that’s easy for people to quickly scan and understand.

Take a look at your lead generation website and ask yourself if it’s clear at a glance:

  • Who it is intended for?
  • What problem it solves?
  • What the benefits of solving that problem are?

Even better, ask some prospects if it is clear (no, not your friends, colleagues or relatives).

Key 3 :- Trust

If a visitor from your target market lands on your website and is motivated by your clear simple message, what’s stopping them from contacting you?

The barriers that sit between a captivated reader and a lead are keys 3 and 4, call to action and trust.

The first hesitation that a prospect will likely feel is related to trust. Unless you have a brand that is well known to your prospects it is likely that they have some questions about you floating around in their heads. They will be wondering:

  • Why should I trust your company?
  • Who are you?
  • Can you really solve my problem?
  • Will you get back to me?
  • Are you reliable?
  • Can I trust you with my contact details?

Being able to address questions like that concisely in your lead generation website will boost your conversion rates.

Key 4 :- Call to action

The second problem that many lead generation websites start out with is a complete lack of call to action mechanisms. Call to action for lead generation is all about this question that a visitor to your website should never have to ask:

I want to contact you, but how can I do it?

Answer this question before it’s asked by carefully considering the placement of the following on your website:

  • Local phone numbers
  • Contact forms
  • Physical address details
  • Maps
  • Details of the real people that you might speak to.

If you can build a high level of trust with your prospects and combine that with simple ways of getting in touch, you are well on the way to having a high conversion website.


This is part 1 of a 2 part series. Read on to part 2 of The 7 Keys of High Conversion Lead Generation Websites

Yellow Pages® is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.

Piano Removalist Blasts Off With Huge Conversion Rates

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Piano Removalists – Network Piano Carriers – entered the online removals world late last year with their first website. To their great credit, this highly professional piano removals company systematically measures the outcome of everything – especially their marketing activity.

Google rankings can be hard to achieve if you’ve never had a website before. Many companies can expect to wait over six months before seeing their site show up in important searches. Yet the Network Piano Carriers website hit the ground running with strong Google rankings and the highest lead generation conversion rate that we’ve seen yet.

In addition to strong Google rankings, Network Piano Carriers are using other marketing to drive traffic to their website including:

  • Yellow Pages® Directory
  • Yellow Pages® Online
  • Good Truck Signage
  • Strong Referral Marketing

In only three months, Network Pianos achieved a staggering 31.5% lead generation conversion rate.

Visit to Lead Conversion Rate = 31.5%

Bear in mind that Network Piano Carriers only service Brisbane and Melbourne, but Google rankings bring website traffic from everywhere. With that in mind, 30% of people visiting the site came from Markets that Network Piano Carriers do not service. The adjusted lead conversion rate is over 40%.

So what makes a lead generation website work so well? Stay tuned… We will be examining what makes a high performance lead generation website in our next post.

Yellow Pages® is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.

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