MarketingExperiments.com Web Clinic Podcasts: Recent Episodes
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MarketingExperiments tests every conceivable online marketing method and present the experiments, learnings and tactics in a web clinic twice per month. Subscribe to the MarketingExperiments podcast and visit MarketingExperiments.com discover what really works in optimization.
Whether or not an email send is successful comes down to one primary factor: the messaging.
While many companies strive to get audiences interested in products via email, nonprofits have the challenge of asking for donations via email — money spent towards an organization that does not directly benefit the donor.
In this Web clinic replay, special guest Tim Kachuriak, Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer, NextAfter, shares his expertise from working with nonprofit organizations on email campaigns.
Tim and the research team analyzed specific ways that you can generate interest in an email and strategies you can use to move forward with testing your way to successful campaigns, including an example test that lead to a 380% increase in revenue per email.
Staying relevant to your customers is key in developing a marketing strategy that really works. Many marketers attempt to remain relatable with seasonal campaigns, such as winter holiday campaigns or events like back-to-school.
However, seasonal campaigns might not be the best fit, or might not be appropriately executed in all industries.
In this Web clinic replay, the research team reveals strategies for striking a balance between clarity and seasonality and shares a test from one company that resulted in a 25% change in clickthrough rate.
Brand strategy has never been more important. The logos, colors and design of a website have the power to immediately orient customers and prospects when they land on your site.
When used properly, design elements and aesthetic choices also act to reinforce the value proposition. However, it's important to understand that there must be a balance so that design elements do not become conversion obstacles.
In this Web clinic replay, the research team will share strategies for testing your way into a balanced site as well as a test on branding that resulted in a 51% difference in conversions.
As marketers, we must ensure the elements on the page align with the specific thought processes of our prospective customers, empowering them to proceed rather than filling them with anxiety or confusion.
The most essential element in the sales process is customer motivation. Unfortunately, it is also the hardest variable for us to influence. Understanding the thoughts of the highly-motivated customer is imperative so that we can then use that motivation to bring about a desirable outcome.
In this Web clinic replay, the research team shares two key principles on understanding and harnessing customer motivation, gleaned from two tests. The team also shares four questions to ask when evaluating your own customers' behavior on your site.
Across all age ranges, U.S. adults said that they preferred companies to contact them via email as opposed to any other medium (according to a 2015 MarketingSherpa survey).
However, that does not necessarily mean customers are anxiously awaiting your sends. With customers' inboxes being flooded daily with ads and newsletters, they carefully skim the subject lines, searching for easy emails to eliminate.
In this Web clinic replay, the research team shares three observations on crafting effective subject lines gleaned from two tests, including an experiment which resulted in a 26% increase in clickthrough rate.
Eight out of 10 American Internet users regularly watch or download videos, according to a Pew Research Center Report (2013). Over the past five years, the ability to create and share content on smartphones has fueled the expansion of video.
How do you determine the most effective way to incorporate video in your mobile strategy?
In this Web clinic replay, the research team shares two key principles for leveraging the use of video to increase the performance of digital collateral, including a test where one company increased mobile conversion by over 50%.
For many organizations, site engagement is one of the most effective indicators of quantifiable conversion potential that is monitored by analytics.
What if you could more effectively influence visitors' actions on your website?
In this Web clinic replay, our research team will reveal three proven tactics that can boost engagement on your website as well as a case study demonstrating how one company tested navigation structures, resulting in a 35% increase in clickthrough rate increase.
At the crossroad in a customer's mind between "yes" and "no," elements on your page propel him toward his ultimate decision.
However, are the pieces on your site leading your customer down a path that is favorable to you and your business?
In this Web clinic replay, Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director and CEO, MECLABS Institute, explains which parts of websites impact a customer’s decision making strategy, and he also identifies components through audience-submitted pages during live optimization.
Determining the optimal price point of a subscription product is no easy task. Customers are inundated with subscription choices in the marketplace, making your asking price vital to your success.
At the same time, marketers in subscription business models are under pressure to price products that deliver value and drive ROI.
In this Web clinic replay, Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS Institute, will share three case studies demonstrating how each company increased subscription revenue through testing and optimization.
Designing the subscription path of your site is not a trivial matter. Often, minor elements are overlooked that stop a potential subscriber in their tracks and causes them to fall out of the sales funnel.
However, with testing, planning and research, a subscription path can be optimized using a few key principles that transform the customer experience. In this Web clinic replay, the research team identifies transferable principles from a recent experiment that you can apply to your own subscription process to increase conversion.
How do you effectively market your product, service or company in 130 characters or less? Each word and character must work toward communicating value in a PPC ad, as these ads directly compete with those around them.
But when just one word fails to resonate with the customer, PPC ads fail as a whole. How do you craft a PPC ad that a potential customer will click?
In this Web clinic replay, the research team shares two key principles from several real-world examples that you can use to optimize your own PPC ads.
Producing content takes a lot of dedication, time and resources. Valuable content invites your audience to get to know your company and products in a more personal and in-depth way.
But when marketers generate content with company logic, it often falls flat with the customer and the conversation ends before it even began. How do you produce content that your ideal customer actually wants to engage with?
In this Web clinic replay, the research team gleaned three observations from a recent experiment that you can apply to content presentation on your site to increase lead generation.
Product pages are often the heart and soul of an ecommerce website. It’s where you showcase products and initiate a conversation with customers that guides them to convert. However, there are elements on your product pages that can potentially have a deep impact on customer behavior by quickly turning conversation into concern.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about three key principles you can use to identify and reduce customer anxiety.
"Going green" has become a prevalent part of marketing strategies abroad as marketers work to reach a new eco-conscious customer base with their products and services. However, do green marketing tactics really have an impact on customer purchases?
Listen to this Web clinic replay to learn more about the measurable impact of green marketing on customer behavior.
Lead generation is a delicate balance between generating a high quantity of leads, but also high-quality leads. So how can we capture more leads across our Web forms without significantly reducing the quality of those leads?
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about a recent experiment that revealed how some minor changes to form fields can increase response from your prospects.
Marketing with multiple products can be difficult. Even the most powerful products can be overshadowed by clutter of less impactful - and sometimes competing - products on a landing page.
But what if there was a way to think about multi-product marketing that could maximize the impact of the whole?
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about a recent experiment with an independent vitamin manufacturer that revealed how changing your approach to multi-product marketing can increase user engagement - and more importantly, conversion.
Form is not as important as substance, and discovering the right value proposition is the most effective lever marketers can pull when optimizing webpages. Considering the entire mental impact of each button, "ask" and element of friction when testing is critical for understanding the customer conversation and achieving positive results.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about a recent experiment that revealed how changes in strategy can garner significant, repeatable results - a 232% lift for one company alone.
Teleprospecting can require some sales departments to make a high volume of calls each day to convert leads. To do this with any consistency, those teams likely use a call script to help them stay consistent and focused throughout the constant dialing. But are these scripts really effective for moving prospects from conversation to conversion?
Learn more about a recent experiment that revealed how some minor changes to call scripts can increase response from your prospects.
The call-to-action is one of the most vital elements in your marketing. Consequently, when you think for a moment about the current calls-to-action on your main offer pages, how can you be sure they are generating enough customer response?
What if there were some slight modifications you could make to your CTA copy, placement, size and color to experience a significant increase in response?
Watch this Web clinic replay for the results from a recent experiment where calls-to-action were put to the test.
Think for a second about the last time you needed to create a form on your site. Whether it was for a shopping cart or lead generation, it probably had a field where you asked customers to select one of multiple options.
Most of us decide quickly between a radio or dropdown format as we’re creating forms, often leaving them as an afterthought of design. But what if choosing the right format for a single question in those forms meant seeing a conversion difference of 15%?
Watch this Web clinic replay for the results from a recent experiment company that puts these form options to the test.
When given a choice for a column layout on your pages, what's really the best for marketing your products or services effectively? Is there an underlying theory for selecting a layout that will perform better than others?
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn more about a recent experiment with a large technology company involving column layouts that you can use to aid your landing page optimization efforts.
Most usability and design experts would agree that responsive design is an ideal solution for rendering webpages across multiple devices as users transition between desktops, tablets and mobile devices.
While 2013 was a great year for featuring new discoveries to help you do your job better, the sheer volume of actionable takeaways and key principles can be overwhelming for marketers in the trenches struggling to keep pace.
In this MarketingExperiments Web clinic, the MECLABS research team reviewed the top five discoveries of 2013 and how you can use those insights to aid your marketing efforts in the upcoming year ahead.
When you think of email campaigns today, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the war for attention being waged in everyone’s inbox.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about two approaches you can use to increase customer interest in your subject lines.
Imagine one of your webpages for a moment. Is your copy communicating everything a customer needs to move to the next step in your sales process? What if you are losing business simply because customers don’t have enough information to make the decision to buy?
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn how one company captured 36% more total sales by adding a simple paragraph to its page.
The guiding principles of conversion optimization often call for sharpening the focus of your messaging to appeal to a single customer persona. But, how do those principles apply to elements of copy and design that serve multiple visitor types with different needs and interests?
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about how design and copy changes "broke the rules" of optimization and led to a 331% increase in conversion.
Category pages are a standard for websites offering multiple products, yet they often take a backseat in testing and optimization.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about how design changes to a series of category pages led to a 61.2% increase in product purchases.
When you think of email campaigns today, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the war for attention being waged in everyone's inbox.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about three key principles every marketer should know for crafting effective email messages.
Accordion-style checkouts, among other developing cart technologies, have become increasingly popular in e-commerce, especially from its use by top-grossing companies. But, does this style really perform better?
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn how accordion-style checkouts affect optimization.
Marketers are discovering A/B testing has become increasingly sophisticated. Even though software platforms can make testing easier, many marketers are left questioning how they should best approach the testing process.
Watch this Web clinic replay to hear some of the most common questions associated with online testing answered by members of the MECLABS research team.
Many marketers connect prospects with specific products or services using microsites. Yet, the process of designing microsites that communicate high levels of value to those customers remains a challenge.
Companies frequently use free trials as an incentive to draw customers closer to the final point of transaction. But, when the free trial is over and customers choose not to convert, marketers are often left wondering what went wrong.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about a recent experiment with a sports team management software service, which revealed how messaging surrounding a free trial impacts conversion.
Marketers often hear of the "power of brand," and organizations spend significant revenue on building brands. But, is this a truly effective approach for increasing conversion?
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about a recent experiment with one of the largest print news sources in the United States, and how branding impacts the conversion process.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn about three high-performing website templates you can use to design landing pages for your next test.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn four key reasons why customers abandon shopping carts and how you can decrease cart abandonment and increase ROI.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn three key principles on how copy length impacts conversion to aid your copywriting optimization efforts.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn three principles for revealing price in your sales process.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn a five-step process for using email to discover your value proposition.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn four surprising discoveries of how Web usability practices relate to optimization, which you can use to aid your testing efforts.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn three key factors of PPC campaign optimization and how you can apply those principles to increase the probability of conversions on your landing pages.
Have you ever wondered what the impact of optional form fields are on lead flow?
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn how you can apply three key principles of form field optimization to your lead flow process.
What if there was a way to use every email campaign to learn more about your customers?
Watch this special Web clinic replay, recorded live at MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2013 in Las Vegas, to learn how you can apply three of the most important discoveries from a decade of experimentation to your email marketing campaigns and build your customer theory.
How do you write the subject line, first sentence, body copy and call-to-action in an email?
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn how you can apply six email copywriting principles to your marketing campaigns.
Do you know the optimal time to send your next marketing email? Watch this Web clinic replay to learn how you can apply five email timing factors to your marketing campaigns.
How can busy marketers effectively optimize their budgets to pursue the maximum ROI opportunities in the New Year? Watch this Web clinic replay to learn how you can apply the five most startling research discoveries from 2012 to your marketing campaigns.
Shopping cart optimization is one of the most effective ROI opportunities that exist on your website right now. Listen to this Web clinic replay to learn six last-minute changes you can make to your shopping cart to increase conversion before the holidays.
Website color design is often misused by marketers. Pages under perform when discordant color schemes become a distraction, and when opportunities to use color to guide customers to conversion are overlooked. Watch this Web clinic replay to learn five mistakes designers make with color and how you can avoid them.
We've all heard about the huge possible upside of content marketing - create valuable content through blogs, whitepapers, webinars, etc., and you can see your sales team flooded with more sales or leads than the organization can process. However, in practice, some marketers end up with content that does not effectively perform or produce an acceptable return.
Watch this Web clinic replay to learn five steps that you can use to design and implement more effective content marketing strategies for your organization.
Generating more revenue from your pages and paths takes more than learning optimization theory. It requires you to apply that theory to your own particular situation. Watch this special live optimization Web clinic replay to learn valuable insights into how you can repair your leaking pages.
Anxiety is causing your website to leak revenue. And, until you can plug those leaks, any amount of traffic you drive there will have a negligible ROI. Watch this Web clinic replay to learn three techniques you can use to overcome anxiety in the minds of visitors to your website.
Your competitors are continually making your job as a marketer more difficult. They are constantly spying on you, uncovering your hidden marketing strategies, and beating you at your own games. And when they aren't doing that, they are executing their own plans for market domination. What is the hard-pressed marketer to do? Watch this Web clinic replay to learn six techniques that you can use to discover and express effective value propositions for highly competitive markets.
Web analytics can yield an intimidating mound of data - much more than marketers can interpret and use. Watch this Web clinic replay for five steps you can use to interpret your metrics for more profit.
In a recent experiment performed in our labs, a few marketers from Migraine Treatment Centers of America were able to generate a 331% increase in leads. Watch this Web clinic replay to see how they did it.
Most marketers are fairly insecure about writing copy. They’re concerned that if they don’t use the magic sales words needed to hypnotize their readers, no one will ever take action. Add to that the pressure of short deadlines and you have a recipe for some major blood pressure issues.
The truth is, you don’t need magic words. You don’t even need a lot of time to think about what you’re going to say. All you need is a framework for writing copy that is good enough to get the job done.
A few weeks ago, two marketers like you DOUBLED the clickthrough rate of one of our internal marketing emails.
And, the only variable tested was the subject line.
This Web clinic replay studies that test in depth to teach you how to write subject lines that double your clickthrough rate.
There are essentially two ways to increase your website’s performance:
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Endlessly drive more traffic to your landing pages with media buys, direct mail sends and time-consuming social media
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Improve the conversion rate of the traffic you're already getting
Since many marketers struggle with getting budget for driving traffic, this clinic will help you increase your website performance with five easy changes you can make to your landing pages for a quick win.
Imagine that you could predict how your customers will react to your next marketing campaign. What if you could do that for every piece of marketing your company develops?
The results would be staggering.
In this Web clinic replay, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin taught our live attendees how to get the maximum amount of customer insight from their A/B split tests.
Friction in a Web conversion process generally seems easy to point out if you’re an experienced marketer.
There are always:
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The number of form fields
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The number of steps in a process
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The length of the page itself
But there are several other elements of friction that are significantly more difficult to detect and pose a serious threat to your conversion rate.
One of the best ways to get around IT and budget challenges is to optimize areas on your website that are relatively simple to change yet have the opportunity to make a significant impact on conversion. In this Web clinic replay, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin answered the essential question every marketer asks at some point in their career:
How can I get the greatest amount of return on the least amount of optimization investment?
In our research, we’ve come across a few ways to help you answer this question. In this Web clinic replay, you’ll learn:
_The two most impactful elements to test on your page
_5 common headline errors to avoid
_5 common call-to-action errors to avoid
Paid search marketing gets expensive. In this Web clinic, you’ll learn how simple changes to a single ad’s messaging can powerfully impact ROI.
There are many guides to A/B split testing on the Internet. And most are adamant about making sure you test one thing at a time. If you don't, they warn you’ll never learn anything about what works and doesn't work on your pages.
This Web clinic replay takes the past year in online marketing research and condenses it into four tactics you can take away and apply to your marketing in 2012.
This Web clinic replay takes the past year in online marketing research and condenses it into four tactics you can take away and apply to your marketing in 2012.
Most email messages, even semi-important ones without sales pitches, get deleted without even being read every day. What happens when your ideal prospect receives yours? Do they even stop to notice? Or do they file it away in the special destination reserved for every hype-laden, sales-driven message they receive - the crowded "Trash" folder?
Most email messages, even semi-important ones without sales pitches, get deleted without even being read every day. What happens when your ideal prospect receives yours? Do they even stop to notice? Or do they file it away in the special destination reserved for every hype-laden, sales-driven message they receive - the crowded "Trash" folder?
Landing page optimization and search engine optimization are two completely different entities. While optimizing to convince a human to take an action - such as buy, or fill out a lead form - can clearly increase your conversions, what effect will it have on those computerized spiders that visit your site and determine your SERP ranking?
If you’ve tuned into past MarketingExperiments Web clinics, you’ve seen some pretty impressive gains:
141% increase in conversion
12% more revenue across an entire ecommerce website
$4.9 million in additional sales pipeline growth (in only eight months)
And we’ve shared transferable principles to help you achieve similar gains yourself. But for this Web clinic, the MarketingExperiments team took a different approach and showed you not just what we did to get these types of results, but gave you an inside look at how we did it.
When executed correctly, banner ads can be a powerful way to drive traffic to your offers. Unfortunately, many marketers don’t have the time and resources to devote to "correctly executing" banner ad campaigns. What they need is a formula for designing banner ads that produce results. In a recent test, our researchers found that by designing a banner ad to accomplish three key objectives, they were able to drive a 285% increase in conversion on the landing page.
Testing and optimization can lead to impressive, triple-digit gains and far higher conversion rates for all the traffic you're spending time and money driving to your website. However, testing anything on your website can be a bit frightening to the average marketer. For instance, what happens when you don’t get a lift? Well, that's exactly what happened with a recent test we did for one of our research partners...
One of the easiest elements to change on a page is the headline. It’s also one of the most important parts of the page to optimize if you’re trying to get a lift in your conversion rate. However, when tasked with writing an engaging headline for a marketing piece, many marketers get it wrong. In this Web clinic, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin speaks to this problem and shows how 6 real-world headlines (submitted by our viewers) could be changed for to increase customer response.
It’s one thing to talk about landing page optimization and another thing entirely to execute. That’s one of the key findings in Boris Grinkot’s new 2011 MarketingSherpa Landing Page Optimization Benchmark Report. Drawing from his report, Boris and Daniel Burstein (Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS) walked marketers through the process of making the business case for optimization in this recent live Web clinic.
Whether your company offers 10 or 10,000 products online, the shopping cart can be one of the most mysterious and difficult areas of your Website to optimize. How many shopping carts steps are optimal for conversion? What information should be required of customers? What product information should be revealed and when? Which incentives are the most effective?
Despite the myriad of questions, recent research from our labs indicates that a select handful of small changes can make significant impact in most online shopping carts. In this Web clinic, we tackle some of the hardest shopping-cart-related questions; all while providing simple, yet strategic tweaks that any marketer can use to get an immediate lift.
So you’ve just increased the effectiveness of your online lead capture by XX% using optimization strategies you've recently learned... Now what? How do you ensure that this gain is not lost in the sales pipeline? How do you keep the online marketing efforts you invested in to get the lead from being squandered? Many marketers end their optimization efforts on the Web page, not realizing the significant revenue lost by not taking simple steps to optimize a lead before passing it off to Sales.
Your value proposition is at the foundation of all your marketing efforts. It is that primary reason why your ideal prospect should buy from you rather than your competitors. Yet many marketers have never tested this crucial element of their marketing strategy; they have only assumed it, essentially building an empire on sand. However, according to Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, real-world testing is essential to determining the most effective value proposition, and there are five simple steps any marketer can take to identify their optimal value proposition.
Your ideal prospects delete most of the emails they receive each day. How do you ensure your email doesn’t get dumped into the "Trash" folder? According to Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, CEO (Managing Director), MECLABS, one principle is key - the objective of an email is to get a click. In this live Web clinic, Dr. McGlaughlin reviewed an email message that applied this principle to generate 85% more recipient response. He then taught specifically on how to engage email recipients with just enough value to inspire them to click, and quickly switched to hands-on application -- where he (along with researchers Jon Powell and Adam Lapp) reviewed and optimized audience-submitted email campaigns.
Competition for a customer’s attention has been a roaming battle throughout the years. Newspapers. Radio. TV. But today, the front lines are in online search. As reported by our sister company MarketingSherpa, forecasts on the spending for search advertisement alone will break the $25 billion mark for the first time in 2011. But spending lots of money is never enough when it comes to gaining your customer’s attention. For as bad as an economy may be, you will never be the only one spending money to speak to your customers -- especially in the case of PPC.
Addressing this current marketing challenge, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin covered the number one contributing factor to the success (or failure) of any PPC campaign. Often, many marketing departments can get swept up in the rigmarole of trying to stay current with all the new technological "bells and whistles" associated with search optimization, when only one thing really matters. Our research suggests that ensuring a PPC ad clearly communicates a value proposition is the single-most effective way to drive more qualified clicks.
If there is one thing consistent about online customers, it’s that they are consistently changing. Trying to pin down marketing tactics that work from year to year can be a daunting task. That’s why it is essential to always be testing - especially testing those "best practices" that are commonly accepted across the Web. As our researchers discover again and again, it’s often our biggest assumptions that are the biggest hindrances to conversion. This year (2010) was no different, as new tests revealed what worked and what didn’t - with a few surprises.
When it comes to choosing an image for a web page, most marketers and designers rely on gut feelings or personal preferences. Few have a concrete way of determining the "what, when and where" of an image. So, in this Web clinic, we revealed new research findings that provide simple tactics for using both images and copy effectively. We discussed three key elements of an effective image, as well as two unique advantages copy has over images. For the first time, we revealed strategies for balancing landing page optimization (LPO) with search engine optimization (SEO).
Though a test may improve a page’s performance, its greatest gain often comes from what it teaches you about your visitors. This is because the value of customer insights extends far beyond a single test. However, often the potential insights of a test are overlooked, and consequently, lots of revenue is being left on the table. So, in our October 30th Web clinic, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin provides a robust methodology for proper test interpretation to ensure the greatest long-term return on marketing investments.
By applying the principles from this Web clinic, you will be able to optimize your homepages according to the specific objectives you have identified and visitor profiles that your homepage receives.
On this homepage-specific Web clinic, Flint McGlaughlin, the Director of MECLABS Group, shared a few key optimization steps to help you build an effective, ROI-based homepage. Plus, the MarketingExperiments team conducted live optimization of audience-submitted homepages.
On our August 11 web clinic, Flint McGlaughlin, the Director of MECLABS Group, shared the MarketingExperiments foundational theory of value communication and introduced a teaching aid The Value Exchange Fulcrum to help our audience implement this theory.
In our July 21 Web clinic, Flint McGlaughlin and the MarketingExperiments team shared three basic principles that you can use to improve your landing page conversion right now and conducted 40 minutes of live optimization of audience submissions to help drive those lessons home.
In our June 30 web clinic, Flint McGlaughlin and the MarketingExperiments team shared three key considerations for developing a holistic testing strategy and a series of experiments that produced an optimized path with a 272% increase in overall impression-to-lead conversion.
In our June 9 web clinic, the MarketingExperiments team shared four levels of one-to-one marketing application based on a marketing department's specific resources and capabilities.
Senior Manager of Research Partnerships Andy Mott, Director of Sciences Bob Kemper, and Research Analysts Corey Trent and Jon Powell walked our audience through three recent experiments featuring both B2B and B2C real-world scenarios, the three most common blind spots of testing tools, four problematic default technology settings that can invalidate your online tests, what it means to actually run a valid test, a five-point checklist to help you get the most from your technology, and key strategic considerations for running multivariate tests.
Are you using online and offline marketing in a cohesive way to drive the greatest ROI? On the April 28 web clinic, the MarketingExperiments team discussed how best to combine online and offline tactics and revealed how one media company drove 124% growth in subscribers through intelligent integration.
Trying to gain the budgetary and executive support to create a culture of testing in your organization? On our April 7 web clinic, Andy Mott and Adam Lapp provided our audience with a behind-the-scenes look at the story of how one marketer was able to champion online testing within her organization and what you can learn from the significant success that resulted.
Social media marketing has been a blazingly hot topic for marketers in every industry this year. But since this technology is so new, there is still a daunting knowledge gap. So we invited special guest Sergio Balegno, the Research Director of MarketingSherpa, to our most recent web clinic to share his findings and help you better understand the social media landscape. Then our own Boris Grinkot, Senior Manager of Research and Strategy, shared ideas based on our optimization principles to help you apply Sergio’s findings.
Learn key principles to improve your email response rate. In our February 24 web clinic, the MarketingExperiments team optimized audience submissions to give you ideas for key changes you can make to your current campaigns to drive big conversion gains.
Learn how to optimize the basic structure of your email and what each piece should convey to make it effective. In our February 3 web clinic, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin walked our audience through key principles that will help you craft effective email marketing campaigns.
At MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit ’10 in Miami, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin delivered an opening session about the best ways to optimize email response. Here is the audio recording of that live event, complete with live optimization of audience submissions.
Learn to boost ROI from your creative executions by casting aside your hunches and delving into data-driven methods. In our January 13 live web clinic, Andy Mott and ExactTarget's Joel Book explored discoveries gained from an email competition in which three agencies redesigned email messages for three clients.
While marketers invest the majority of their time and budgets on areas deeper down in the funnel, MarketingExperiments research has found that most of the gain from optimizing a website occurs in the first seven seconds of users' experience.
Your peers’ biggest email marketing challenge (88% find it very important) is to retain existing customers, according to the MarketingSherpa 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report. Cost-conscious organizations are trying to offset the impact of the recession by keeping what they have.
In our December 2 clinic, the MarketingExperiments team shared research which illustrated how to increase email ROI from your current subscribers in a time of decreasing demand. President Greg Burningham and researchers Boris Grinkot, Heather Andruk, and Corey Trent discussed the three steps to a successful email campaign.
We conducted hundreds of tests in 2009 to augment the marketing of research partners in a variety of B2B and B2C industries. In our November 11 web clinic, our analysts distilled some of our most valuable lessons of this challenging year into key takeaways that you can use to capture market share in 2010. Researchers Boris Grinkot, Adam Lapp, and Paul Clowe shared their most surprising wins to illustrate these important points.
From PPC to offline advertising, you likely invest significantly in driving prospects to your site. But do you put the same amount of resources into guiding them through to conversion? In our October 28 web clinic, we took a detailed look at how to clearly guide your audience from first visit to conversion. Researchers Boris Grinkot, Corey Trent, and Heather Andruk investigated five key elements to directing visitor eyepath.
In recent web clinics, you've learned how to optimize aspects of your site ranging from landing pages to affiliate marketing. In our October 14 web clinic, we took a step back from optimization tactics to focus on maximizing ROI through smarter testing. To address your toughest testing challenges, senior researchers Boris Grinkot and Ana Gaby Diaz explored how to overcome four common obstacles. Before you develop your next testing plan, read the clinic summary (PDF) or view the full presentation video to learn how to improve your tests, results, and ROI.
Didn't get all your holiday marketing plans locked in place this summer? Don't panic. You're not alone. We know you've been stretched thin this year, but help for your holiday ecommerce marketing efforts is on the way. On September 30, MarketingExperiments presented a special guest clinic with renowned ecommerce analyst and GetElastic blogger Linda Bustos, where we presented a playbook of test ideas and tactics you can use right away and get back in the race.
Optimizing for conversion rates is often linked to landing pages - and for good reason. But we all know landing pages are just the tip of the iceberg. In our September 16 web clinic, our research team explored how you can apply our Conversion Sequence and improve results in myriad areas, from ecommerce and shopping cart pages to lead-generation paths, homepages, and more. If you're looking to increase ROI in several places on your site, these are the strategies that will help you get there.
How can affiliate marketing help you generate more traffic, leads and sales? What steps should merchants, affiliates and networks take to increase their ROI? Inspired by takeaways from Affiliate Summit and past MarketingExperiments affiliate clinics, we looked at ways that all involved can avoid or overcome common pitfalls and build more successful programs. During the August 26 clinic, Director of Channels Aaron Rosenthal and Senior Analyst Robert Reynard explored:
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Research on what is and isn't working today
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Tests and experiments with gains of up to 165%
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Do's and don'ts for merchants, networks and affiliates
With increased pressure to make the most of every marketing dollar, many marketers are taking a hard look at how their PPC efforts are - or are not - delivering now. Beyond ad copy and keywords, research shows that optimizing for post-click conversions not only helps you combat rising keyword bids and competition, but also provides the strongest ROI. You can significantly improve results without increasing costs - and in many cases, dramatically reduce costs - with the right PPC campaign strategies in place.
Presenters:
- The MarketingExperiments Team
Consistent testing can give you an advantage over your competitors and lead to major ROI gains. But there are plenty of pitfalls along the way.
You might have a small sample size. Maybe you don't know exactly what to test. And what are all the raw numbers really telling you?
These barriers to testing are the focus of our next web clinic. We'll examine three of the biggest obstacles to effective testing and analysis -- and discuss strategies that you can use to overcome them.
Join us and discover how to tap into the real lessons that could be hiding in those reams of data.
Presenters:
- The MarketingExperiments Team
Special Guest:
- Paul Taylor, President, Webmarketing123
Is attracting qualified prospects with SEO one of your top conversion hurdles?
As the battle for search rankings keeps heating up, your site can't afford to fall behind or rely solely on pricey PPC clicks. You need to compete for quality organic clickthroughs and capitalize on that traffic when it gets to your site.
That's the focus of our next live optimization web clinic.
We're teaming up with SEM pro Paul Taylor of WebMarketing123 to discuss the SEO landscape and strategies that increase visibility and traffic. Then, our team will optimize SEO-driven landing pages culled from our audience to show you ways to increase conversions.
Presenters:
- The MarketingExperiments Team
Special Guests:
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Jason Breed, Sr. Director of Business Development, Neighborhood America
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Marc Meyer, CEO, Digital Response Marketing Group
Twitter is fast approaching a crossroads: Is it built to last -- or will it fail to bring in real business results?
What can organizations expect beyond the networking basics?
Join us for our first "crowdsourcing" web clinic and we'll explore the answers together.
For this special topic, we've enlisted Jason Breed of Neighborhood America. He'll present case studies showing how big-name brands are using Twitter to improve bottom-line results.
We'll also look at the methods and models that organizations of all sizes are using to build their Twitter audiences -- and review some of your Twitter profiles, live-optimization style, with our audience.
Presenters:
- The MarketingExperiments Team
Our last clinic recognized the optimization results of B2C marketers in our audience.
What about the efforts of B2B marketers and their tests?
This time, we'll explore how four B2B sites applied the Conversion Sequence to optimize their landing pages, PPC and email marketing campaigns -- and saw increases ranging from 21% to 254%.
With a range of specific examples and tactics, you'll come away with several ideas to improve your own campaigns, from lead generation to direct sales and subscriptions.
Presenters:
- The MarketingExperiments Team
While many of our case studies come from our research partners, this special clinic will highlight the successful tests of our audience.
Join us as we explore how applying the Conversion Sequence led to major ROI gains for workshop and clinic participants.
We'll review the tests and optimization strategies they used to achieve gains of 30-300% -- and help you pinpoint ideas you can use to improve your own pages.
Do you have an English-language web page that you want to test with a Spanish-speaking audience, but you'd like to do more than just translate the copy?
Are your Spanish-language landing pages getting the optimization attention -- and results -- that they deserve?
The buying power of Hispanics surpassed $860 billion in 2007 and will exceed $1.2 trillion by 2014, according to a University of Georgia study.
Yet in many English-language markets, it's not uncommon for sites to simply translate existing English pages to Spanish. There are better ways to reach out to this growing audience.
For this clinic (conducted in English), our team will:
-- Explore growth trends in the Spanish-language market
-- Offer a sneak preview of our tests in this area
-- Optimize landing pages submitted by attendees, and
-- Address your specific questions with a live Q&A session
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
To stay ahead of the curve with optimization, marketers need to know what's working now -- and glean strategies that they can quickly apply to their own pages and websites.
After all, many techniques that work today in landing page optimization are likely to be less effective in several months.
Join the MarketingExperiments team as we explore optimization strategies that are currently working and review our recent research and testing -- including a test that achieved a staggering 346% increase in conversions.
Along with pointing out ways to improve your existing pages, this clinic will showcase examples of pages that are getting it right.
Participants can expect to learn several optimization ideas they can implement right away.
Presenters:
- The MarketingExperiments Team
Optimization best practices don't come with an iron-clad guarantee.
Sometimes, even the most carefully crafted campaigns get trumped by what we call "wild card" test treatments -- with surprising results.
Is there a way to predict and replicate the success of these outliers?
Join us for our next free web clinic, where we'll explore:
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Experiments where best practices have backfired
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Lessons learned from a range of unexpected winners
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How to incorporate these findings into your own tests
Our team will review case studies and examples, and address your specific testing questions with a live Q&A session.
Special Guest:
- Brian Carroll, CEO, InTouch
Presenters:
- The MarketingExperiments Team
B2B marketers: Now it's your turn ...
Our special guest, lead-gen and B2B expert Brian Carroll, will join the MarketingExperiments team for a clinic dedicated to live optimization of B2B landing pages.
For this clinic, the selected pages will also become contestants in an interactive competition -- where our live audience votes will choose the grand prize winner.
Runners-up and audience participants will also be eligible for prizes.
To enter the contest, include your landing page information when you sign up for the clinic. (Note: You may still participate without entering the contest.)
Since our B2C clinic had "Optimization Idol" overtones, with this session we'll be testing an "Optimizing with the Stars" model.
So, are you ready to rhumba, optimization style?
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
B2C marketers: We're pleased to announce a special web clinic based on your recent feedback.
For this clinic, the MarketingExperiments team will devote the full session to live optimization of B2C landing pages.
Plus, the selected pages will be part of an interactive contest where our live audience gets to decide the grand prize winner. Runners-up and other clinic participants will also be eligible for special prizes.
You might think of this clinic as "Optimization Idol" -- and if you've attended our live optimization clinics in the past, you already know we have our own Paula, Randy, and Simon.
To enter the contest, include your landing page information when you sign up for the clinic. (You may participate in the clinic without entering the contest.)
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
Despite all the buzz about social media, email is still the top channel for most marketers.
The challenge? Growing your lists and conversions year after year.
Since email is such a low-cost yet powerful way to drive response, now is an ideal time to grow your list and strengthen your brand.
Our next clinic will show how you can maximize the impact of your email capture pages and messaging. Our team will:
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Review tests that yielded conversion gains of 49% or more
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Discuss ideas that did and didn't work, and
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Optimize a participant's email sign-up path live.
Join us for this interactive clinic and you'll come away with tactics and strategies that can dramatically improve your ROI from email.
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
How would you like to start the new year with a 148% increase in conversion rate?
For our first Web clinic of 2009, our team will break down a recent testing series that did just that.
We'll focus on ways to reduce friction and anxiety, with specific steps you can apply to your own offer and payment pages. These ideas and principles can help you dramatically improve your site's success rate.
Our team will also conduct a live Q&A session with your questions.
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
No matter what happens with the economy in 2009, you've still got ROI goals to hit and high expectations to meet.
Conventional wisdom suggests that you play it safe, stick with what's worked, and ride out the slump. But is that really your best bet?
There's a time to follow the rules. And there's a time to break them and take calculated risks in pursuit of greater gains. Join us as our team explores how you can benefit from both approaches.
During this free interactive Web clinic, we will:
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Discuss essential principles you'll want to focus on for 2009
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Break down new case studies and examples
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Address your specific questions in a live Q&A session
Covering both B2B and B2C, this clinic will give you action steps and ideas you can implement right away to start the new year strong.
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
To discover what really works in optimization, our team is constantly running tests and conducting experiments.
Now it's time for our annual analysts' roundup, when we step back, review the results of the past year, and present the most significant lessons gleaned from our wide-ranging research.
During this free interactive Web Clinic, we will:
- Review this year's most significant research findings - Discuss action steps, strategies and methodologies you can use now - Answer your optimization questions with an extended Q&A session
Whether your focus is B2B or B2C, you'll come away with ideas and tactics to help you end the year on a high note and prepare for a challenging year ahead.
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
You got the principles from our recent clinic on value propositions.
Now it's time for hands-on practice and specific guidance.
In this special live optimization clinic, our team will show you how to improve your value proposition and your site's results.
During this free, interactive Web Clinic, we will:
- Review examples and the keys to a strong value proposition - Break down optimization steps you can apply right away - Optimize attendees' value propositions with our live audience
If you attended the first clinic, you'll still get several new takeaways.
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
As if the holiday season wasn't tough enough.
Now the economy is roiling -- but you still need to hit your numbers.
Here's help: We are conducting a special, 2-hour virtual clinic on optimizing ecommerce for the holidays, with an emphasis on powerful strategies you can implement quickly.
Join the MarketingExperiments team as we introduce our "Ecommerce Holiday Playbook"-- a series of action steps to help you prepare for this crucial season.
Then, we'll show you how to apply these ideas with a rapid-fire live optimization session featuring participants' ecommerce websites.
Throughout this special clinic, our team will be online to answer your specific optimization questions.
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
Think you've got a powerful value proposition?
Let's put it to the test.
Our recent Landing Page Optimization Workshop reaffirmed that marketers still need a lot of help with this -- so here it is.
During this free, interactive Web Clinic, we will:
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Explore why value propositions are so vital to your results
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Review real examples of what does and doesn't work
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Provide a worksheet to help improve your value proposition
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Address your specific questions in a Q&A session
Your value proposition is one of the most critical factors for improving your marketing efforts, regardless of channel. The takeaways from this clinic can substantially boost your ROI.
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Brian Carroll, CEO, InTouch
It hasn't been an easy year for B2B marketers.
If you're looking to end the year on a high note and prepare for an uncertain '09, this is a clinic you will not want to miss.
Brian Carroll, renowned B2B expert and author of the widely acclaimed book, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, will be presenting this special session with Dr. Flint McGlaughlin.
During this free, interactive Web Clinic, we will:
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Discuss strategies that dramatically increased leads -- but not budget
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Present a proven, five-step "playbook" for more effective lead growth
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Devote a special Q&A session to your lead-gen issues
With up to 80% of leads being squandered regularly, according to research, now is the time to optimize your processes and plug the leaks. This clinic will give you the tools and tactics you can use right away to do just that.
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
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Hunter Boyle, Managing Editor, MarketingExperiments
You asked for more on headlines... and here it is.
Thanks to the record-breaking response to our last clinic, we are hosting a special live optimization follow-up session.
During this free, interactive Web Clinic, we will:
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Examine new headline and subject line test results
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Review and optimize audience-submitted headlines
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Address your specific copy questions in a Q&A session
Our last clinic was a jumping off point. Join us as we dig deeper and explore how you can create, change, and test more powerful headlines that resonate with your audience and boost results.
With live optimization of your headlines and subject lines, plus new case studies and tactics, you'll come away with specific ideas and language you can test right away to improve your conversions.
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Hunter Boyle, Managing Editor, MarketingExperiments
What's one of the easiest tests you can run to boost conversion?
Headlines, right?
No coding needed. No redesigns. Just powerful, enticing copy that fits the offer, the channel, the customers' needs and expectations - all in 10 words or less. Perhaps "easy" isn't the right word.
There's much more to headlines than slapping a catchy subject line on an email blast, or cramming keywords into PPC ads. Knowing how to run valid headline tests is just as critical as the copy itself.
During this free, interactive Web Clinic, we will:
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Examine recent email, PPC ad, and landing page test results
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Discuss how to create and test headlines more effectively
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Explore what makes a successful headline, and mistakes to avoid
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Review and optimize examples of weak headlines
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Address your specific copy questions in a Q&A session
In one hour, you'll come away with ideas and strategies you can apply instantly to improve your marketing efforts.
Presenter:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
Due to the overwhelming response to our last live clinic, we will be conducting a follow-up live optimization clinic on PPC campaigns to cover additional areas, paid-search ads and landing pages.
What's new in this clinic? Our team of experts will:
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Explore the two types of relevance vital to paid-search success
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Optimize a new slate of search ads and landing pages
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Address your specific PPC questions with an expanded Q&A
Here's what Annie Cushing, Web producer for Layers magazine, had to say about our last optimization clinic:
"That webinar was, hands down, the best I've ever attended. Very, very helpful. Usually I'm looking at my watch about halfway through a webinar and getting distracted ... But with this webinar, I was enraptured with the way they deconstructed the different participants' websites. It was a challenge to try to find the pain points in the landing pages before the presenters did, which kept me engaged the whole time. When I realized it was almost 5:00, I was actually disappointed."
NOTE: This is our last clinic devoted to this topic this year. Don't miss this chance to learn how to optimize your own campaigns with specific feedback, tactics and strategies you can apply immediately.
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
Don't miss your chance to have your pay-per-click ads optimized in real-time by our team of experts.
This free, live optimization session will provide you with specific feedback, tactics and strategies you can apply immediately to improve your PPC ads and landing pages.
Presenter:
- Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
Is "testimonial blindness" the new "banner blindness"?
As more and more websites use these credibility indicators,
marketers need to know if these elements really work, if they're
just cluttering up pages, or worse - hurting results.
During this free, one-hour Web Clinic, we will:
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Examine recent tests that increased (and reduced) conversions
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Discuss proven ways to use testimonials more effectively
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Review and optimize attendees' landing pages (time permitting)
Presenter:
- Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
Even in a strong economy, selling online subscriptions can be
difficult. And in today's environment, you need every advantage
you can get.
Optimizing your subscription-path pages is the best way to
increase revenue without increasing your marketing budget.
Join us to find out how one Clinic attendee achieved a 200% lift
in conversions from our 10-minute live optimization session.
During this free, one-hour Web Clinic, we will also:
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Examine recent tests that improved sign-ups by 59% to 77%
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Discuss how "clarity trumps persuasion" in sub-path pages
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Review and optimize attendees' landing pages (time permitting)
Presenter:
- Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
Your landing pages get plenty of traffic, but you're sure they
could be pulling more leads. Sound familiar?
Whether you're focused on increasing quantity, quality, or both,
you'll come away with proven ways to get there.
During this free, one-hour Web Clinic, we will:
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Review tests that have helped (and hurt) sign-up rates
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Explore the impact of incentives and Friction
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Examine page changes that got an 86% increase
We will also review and optimize attendees' lead-gen landing
pages live during the call, time permitting. Please join us and
learn how to apply these strategies to your own sales funnel.
Presenter:
- Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
Online testing can lead to major ROI gains – if the right tests
are set up, executed and analyzed effectively.
Even modest testing, done consistently, will give you a
significant edge over competitors. But you need to know:
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Which tests will provide the biggest potential impact?
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How should you structure tests for consistency and accuracy?
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How can you keep improving results and success rates?
Presenters:
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Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
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Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
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Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research
Here's your chance to experience our optimization experts in
action, breaking down what is - and isn't - working on
eCommerce sites.
Today, ROI is everything - especially in a slumping economy. Are your current metrics giving you the full story?
Probably not. MarketingExperiments estimates that up to 75% of the data Web marketers collect is either misleading or inaccurate.
The right incentive can make a significant impact on response rates, whether it’s used to build lists and generate leads or increase online sales.
But how do you determine which incentive will work best to overcome friction and deliver maximum return?
And which common errors should you avoid?
Which specific optimization steps have been shown to increase conversions by reducing Friction and alleviating Anxiety?
The MarketingExperiments team conducts live optimization on Landing Pages sent in by our subscribers.
The MarketingExperiments team conducts live optimization on Landing Pages sent in by our subscribers.
How do you know when it's better to raise prices to increase
revenue, or reduce prices and pump up your Conversion Rate?
In this clinic we will review the results of recent testing on
price elasticity of demand, and what they revealed about
optimizing prices and increasing total revenue.
Get ready for the greatest Internet marketing year yet.
Join us on January 9th to hear what MarketingExperiments scientists thought were the big ideas of 2007 and their observations, predictions, and recommendations for growing demand for your products in the coming year.
What can we learn from the biggest winners of 2007 as we finalize plans and budgets for 2008?
Previous MarketingExperiments surveys showed intuition was unreliable when it came to predicting the best page performance, the best headline, the best copy in the test cases we studied: Our survey-takers were wrong at least 50% of the time.
But the very nature of optimization includes an element of intuition. How can it be honed to its maximum reliability? Should we ever trust it?
You’re invited to use your intuition at our next Web clinic to assess examples of Web page optimization. Test yourself against the test results. You may be surprised, or not!
Which changes will produce the best Conversion results when optimizing a Call-to-Action? Can distinct approaches be combined to increase both sales and leads?
Previous test results have shown that one particular change is typically a trade-off: It has a negative impact on direct Conversion but increases overall Conversion.
In this clinic we'll look at a case study in which changes to a Call-to-Action increased direct Conversion by 150% and Lead Generation by 5,722%.
Are customers getting what they expect when they reach your Landing Page, or are they receiving mixed or incomplete messages that disrupt the effective expression of Value Proposition and hurt Conversion?
After our recent clinic on Site Flow Disruption we received many requests for more information on the relationship of Continuity and Congruence and the clear communication of Value Proposition.
This brief reviews two recent case studies where improving Continuity and Congruence significantly improved Conversion for our partners.
Landing Pages submitted by online businesses were selected for a real-time assessment by the Marketing Experiments team.
Marketing experts Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Jimmy Ellis and Aaron Rosenthal analyzed each page, identifying areas where applying key concepts of Landing Page Optimization could result in significant improvements in page performance for these businesses.
Are you missing sales by chasing after conversions instead of generating leads? Is your website out of synch with your business model?
Getting prospective customers to land on your pages is just the beginning. You have to capture leads before you can develop a relationship.
In this clinic, we will look at the results of recent optimization testing and what they showed us about improving lead generation, and therefore conversion.
Professional marketers have long known the importance of knowing and being able to convey the Unique Value Proposition for their company or organization. Many will spend weeks and months tuning and refining their "UVP" statements. And it IS truly essential that you have, and can concisely state a unique and compelling value proposition.
However, effectively expressing your value proposition through your website involves more than just the words you use. Every aspect of your site is communicating your value proposition and conflicting messages may be hurting your conversion. Marketers must understand how to protect their landing pages against the #1 threat to conversion: SITE FLOW DISRUPTION.
In this clinic we will reveal how the two dangerous forms of disruption - Discontinuity and Incongruence - can keep customers from responding to your value proposition.
What do you do with a test when conversion rates don't validate?
We have all probably designed a test webpage or offer email that we expected to dramatically outperform the control and been stunned when performance was poor, or the results came back inconclusive.
Through online optimization testing, we strive to discover which webpage or email message will perform best by trying each version with a random sample of target prospects.We decide during test design how much difference we must see to warrant making a change, and what level of confidence we need to consider the data "valid" using statistical methods.
But is sample size the only factor that should be considered when assessing the validity of our test results? In this clinic, we will identify the four greatest threats to test validity, and look at some case studies that reveal the dangers of relying on a "statistically valid" sample alone.
Anyone who has set up or managed a paid search campaign can testify that there is an element of art involved in realizing the full potential of every advertising dollar. Part of mastering this art form is understanding the nature and role of relevance in paid search, and more importantly learning how you can use this understanding to improve the performance of your paid search campaigns.
In this clinic, we will look at several case studies that reveal the underlying principles of PPC relevance as they pertain to keywords, ad copy, click-through-rate, and conversion.
We are all familiar with the concept of using incentives, such as product discounts, free gifts or free shipping, to boost sales. However, rarely have we done the kind of research that allows us to think through the true principles and the mathematics of developing highly effective incentives - that is, ones that result in the maximum profit at the end of the day.
In this clinic, we combine foundational marketing and business principles with recent research findings to explore a simple but effective way to track down your "ideal incentive" using the two key criteria of Perceived Value Differential and Return on Incentive.
When prospective customers arrive at a website, they come with a specific intention or motivation. They may have come simply to browse or out of curiosity or by mistake. However, many come with the intention of making a purchase. For those prospects, it is the efficacy of the website’s purchase funnel--the pages that make up the buying process--that determine whether the visitor becomes a customer or merely a statistic.
Among the factors that influence the probability of conversion, an element we have called "friction" is key for us as marketers. The reason is that, unlike Motivation or the product factors of Value Proposition, Friction is something that we can significantly influence with comparatively little energy or cost; and the conversion gains we receive can be disproportionately high compared with the level of investment.
As marketers we simply can’t afford to ignore growing social media marketing opportunities. While social media is never a total marketing solution, this niche area of marketing comes with a new set of theories, tactics and methodologies that every marketer should be aware of.
For the past 12 months, we have used video sites, blogs, social networks and discussion forums to drive targeted traffic to five different sites. This clinic will cover how researchers drove 165,204 page views and spent only 1.7 cents per click driving traffic using social media optimization. It will also help marketers consider the role and use of social media optimization in their strategic marketing plans.
Which will perform better, a landing page that has one clear objective or one that has multiple objectives?
As marketers, we are continually faced with the dilemma of determining what to show customer prospects when they arrive at our sites.
Should we present them with just one offer or option, or give them several and let them choose? What if I have what they want, but fail to show it? Do customer options and distracting page elements cause confusion?
In this brief, we use recent research with real-world companies to illustrate 5 fundamental principles of landing page clarity that you should use to maximize conversion.
In this clinic we identify the essential elements of website conversion and use them to design "sticky" landing pages that maximize clickthrough to your order process
In this clinic we will study the factors that determine the efficacy of online marketing Email copy at generating clicks and sales.
During the Live Clinic, Dr. McGlaughlin shares the findings of MEC's research on Email copy effectiveness and illustrates the principles of effective Email copy writing to optimize actual messages submitted by MEC Journal members.
In this clinic we will study the factors that determine the efficacy of online marketing Email copy at generating clicks and sales.
During the Live Clinic, Dr. McGlaughlin shares the findings of MEC's research on Email copy effectiveness and illustrates the principles of effective Email copy writing to optimize actual messages submitted by MEC Journal members.
Content advertising has become a staple of online paid advertising. In fact, presuming Google AdSense is reflective of the marketplace, of the more than $6.7B spent on search-related online advertising in 2006 according to March, 2007 IAB figures, about 37% or $2.5B will go to content ads. Does whether a content ad or offer link stands out from or blends into the host site's native content make a difference in its performance? New Marketing Experiments research suggests that the answer is...
The architecture we use to manage our business may not be the same structure we should use to market it. Our business is to serve our customers, make it easy for them to get what they want, and create an image of class and competence that elicits goodwill.
In this brief we will look at how customer anxiety level, based upon the appearance of your landing page, will influence buyers' perceptions about you, and how these impressions translate into purchase decisions.
We will also provide 7 essential ways to reduce anxiety and improve site conversion.
There are millions of short video clips on the web, produced both by professionals and amateurs.
Tens of millions of people watch these short videos, but how effective are they at driving qualified traffic to web sites?
Using YouTube and Google Video we published some short videos, measured the number of times they were viewed, how many clickthoughs were generated, and how many site visitors converted to subscribers.
It is tempting to provide web site visitors with a broad range of options and choices.
In fact, online marketers often fear that unless they provide the broadest possible range of choices, they might miss out on what a prospective customer or subscriber is looking for.
But what happens when you provide multiple choices and options?
In this brief we look at test data that reveals how people actually respond when faced with complex choices and simple choices.
Most marketers understand the importance of online testing. But how can one best convince senior management?
While online marketers in large and medium-sized companies and organizations know from case studies and other published data that a testing program can yield dramatic increases in revenues, they often find it hard to sell the need for testing internally within their own companies.
What is the best way to present the benefits of testing to your manager or senior management team?
Small PPC Engines Revisited - Two years ago we conducted a study of small PPC engines to find out whether they offered online marketers a profitable opportunity to generate more sales.
At that time our research indicated that these smaller engines could indeed generate significant additional revenues.
Today, two years later, and with even more intense bidding for keywords on the major PPC engines - Google, Yahoo! and MSN - we wondered whether these smaller engines still offered a profitable source of additional traffic and income.
Optimizing Free Trial Offers - Can copy and design changes alone significantly lift the performance of free trial offer pages?
Merchandising Calendar for the Fall & Holiday Season 2006 - Which gives the best return on your investment - Pay Per Click or building strong affiliate partnerships?
The ROI on PPC vs. Affiliate Marketing - Which gives the best return on your investment - Pay per Click advertising, or building strong affiliate partnerships?
Testing the Power of Urgency on Offer Pages - In the world of offline direct mail it has long been understood that creating urgency increases conversion rates. Typically a special offer of some kind will expire on a particular date.