Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Semantics: Google AdWords To Replace “Delete” With “Remove” In Most Instances It’s always seemed odd that choosing to...
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
SearchCap: Google AdWords Removes Delete, Right To Be Fogotten Confusion & July 4th
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Google Launches AdWords Editor Version 10.5
The latest version of AdWords Editor has come out, and there have been some key changes made to the editor.
Read more at PPCHero.com
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How To Improve Shopping Ad Performance & Quality Score In AdWords
By late August, Product Listing campaigns for AdWords will be retired in favor of Shopping campaigns, so if you haven’t started migrating, don’t delay much longer. You can run both campaign types simultaneously, so start tweaking Shopping campaigns now so that they’ll be performing great by the...
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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DIY Website Builder Wix Launches Email Newsletter Service
Wix has built a nice business for itself by giving people an easy way to build their own websites without the need to know HTML. Until now, however, if those users wanted to also send a newsletter, they had to go to services like MailChimp. Starting today, however, Wix users will be able to use the service to send email newsletters, too. Read More
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7 Lessons Learned While Content Marketing for an Early-Stage Startup
If you’re marketing for an early-stage startup , every second counts.
Any mistake is a massive setback.
Setbacks ultimately lose potential customers .
During our content marketing journey with Spectafy , a real-time photo sharing app, we made plenty of mistakes.
Fortunately for you, we kept track of what works and what doesn’t to help you avoid wasting time with your own content marketing efforts.
Background: What is Spectafy?
Spectafy is a real-time photo sharing app allows you to choose a location, such as the beach, and request an image from that location.
Someone at the location will be prompted to reply with an image, and then you will know how busy it is, what the weather is like, and how big the waves are, to help you determine whether or not you want to go there.
Now that you know what the app does, let’s jump straight in!
Here are seven content marketing lessons we learned while launching Spectafy that you can adopt for your startup.
1. Choose benefits over features
For the first few weeks, we wasted a lot of time trying to explain Spectafy.
This was a huge mistake.
Once we used UserTesting to get objective feedback, we discovered we were trying to talk about what Spectafy can do in as few words as possible, rather than showing what you can do with Spectafy.
Focus on the benefit of your product or service.
In May, we changed our headline from “Spectafy gives you real-time visual information, instantly” to simply, “See what’s happening right now.”
Over the next 30 days, we had an 184.62-percent conversion rate increase on the homepage, which led to a 275-percent increase in goal completions for our early-access call to action at the bottom of the page.
Lesson learned: Focus on benefits, and show those benefits, rather than explaining features.
2. Show, don’t tell
Don’t skimp on visuals.
People retain over 80 percent of what they experience visually , while they tend to only retain 10 percent of what they hear and 20 percent of what they read.
A reader is far more likely to remember a visual representation of a headline or action. Icons are popular because they’re easily recalled and actionable. (That’s why so many icons are included in the landing page feature of Rainmaker .)
Throughout the Spectafy homepage, we displayed visuals of specific use cases.
These beautiful and educational visual representations helped anchor the user’s attention and led to a 331.25-percent increase in conversions to our early-access list from the homepage in one month.
Lesson learned: Copy is powerful but visuals assist comprehension and boost conversion.
3. Use local-targeted content
We focused a lot of our content and examples around activities the Spectafy team would personally use the app for within the local San Francisco community: finding the perfect surf spot, locating pickup basketball games, visiting the farmers’ market, or going to the Golden Gate Bridge.
We built “personas” for our preferred audience (on-the-go people in San Francisco), which established a subliminal connection to the benefits of using the app.
By announcing early on through blog posts, email newsletters, and beta list sites that we would first launch in San Francisco, we had a 550-percent increase in conversions from California, and a 2,900-percent increase in conversions in San Francisco month-over-month for our early-access beta.
Specifying a launch location and focusing on local content breeds trust from people within a community and increases the probability that they will sign up.
Lesson learned: Focusing on a small audience helps you hit a big market by facilitating a sharing mentality within a very engaged community.
4. Evaluate traffic sources
Early on, as any startup should, we tried to generate traffic from content we had on the site.
One way we decided to do this, mainly due to our involvement in the community on these platforms, was to promote our content on Reddit and StumbleUpon.
We quickly learned it wasn’t worth the time.
On Reddit, we had a ton of views and impressions on our blog posts and a good amount of feedback in the comments, but no conversions.
StumbleUpon was essentially the same experience. Even though it remains our largest traffic source, it hasn’t produced any conversions.
Lesson learned: StumbleUpon and Reddit don’t produce genuine engagement. Targeted lists will convert better.
5. Focus on the right audience
After we learned that Reddit and StumbleUpon don’t convert, we targeted a list of startup sites that feature early-stage startups and promote their content.
We quickly learned that this was the best option for promoting Spectafy off-site, other than through editorial content.
Betalist is the king.
When Spectafy’s Betalist listing went live, we had a surge of highly primed traffic that converted like magic. We have a 21.63-percent conversion rate from traffic referred from Betalist’s “Visit Site” link.
We made sure the homepage converted perfectly before this listing went live, so we could reap every bit of the benefit from this highly targeted traffic, and boy did it work. It remains the highest converting referrer to Spectafy.
Lesson learned: Focus on engaged networks that are primed to convert. You may receive less traffic, but you’ll get far more conversions.
6. Syndicate content
Syndicating content has been a no-no in the SEO community for quite a while, but I pretty much set that aside and said “to hell with it” when implementing this tactic for Spectafy.
I’ve gained a quick flood of traffic from personal Medium posts when they connect with the right group, so I decided to apply the same principles to see if we could create some cool content marketing buzz around Spectafy.
I added Eric, the CEO of Spectafy, as a “writer” for my “ Coffee Time ” collection on Medium, a collection specifically focusing on productivity tactics and information that can be consumed in a coffee break. My “Coffee Time” collection has over 1,000 followers, so he would instantly reach a good number of readers.
We nailed down topics that would go over well on this collection, but also on Medium as a whole, just in case they were picked up on the front page of the site (where the real floodgates of traffic open up).
While our Spectafy blog posts all had a strong call to action , our Medium blog posts were less direct.
We pushed out a few posts, and one in particular had over 1,500 views in two days; it also got picked up in the “Most Recommended” section on Medium’s front page. The post was named “ 3 Types of Visual Information We Use Everyday, And Why They Work ” and converted well due to the large amount of useful information and strong visual themes.
Medium actually has had less referral traffic than Reddit or StumbleUpon, yet Medium traffic converts better than Reddit, StumbleUpon, Facebook, and Twitter combined.
Lesson learned: We haven’t had any negative SEO repercussions from syndicating quality content on Medium, and it remains one of our highest converting sources of traffic.
Editor’s note: To ensure that search engines know the syndicated article originated on your site, be sure to use the rel=”canonical” meta tag to point back to the original article from the syndicated page.
7. Satirical landing pages don’t work
When we were writing one of our blog posts, “The End Goal of Productivity is Not More Time for Kitten Videos,” we had this funny idea to make satirical landing pages focusing on Internet fads.
Specifically we focused on kittens and Game of Thrones.
We linked to these pages and promoted them within the blog post, essentially thinking that it would be funny to bait people into clicking on these pages, and when they got there they would laugh and sign up.
We overlooked the fact that we had tricked them into clicking on a sign-up page and they would probably react to this betrayal with a bounce, instead of a sign up.
That’s exactly what happened.
These pages had a ton of traffic and not a single conversion.
Lesson learned: Don’t use tricks; they don’t convert. This kind of content may be fun to make, and it may even quickly communicate a bit of company culture, but you don’t want to trick your customers. Period.
Let’s hear about your content marketing lessons
What content marketing lessons have you learned while developing your business?
Have you ever tried any of the strategies listed above?
Click over to Google+ to discuss !
Flickr Creative Commons Image via Tom Gill .
Editor’s note: If you found this post useful, we recommend you read this case study about one of the most famous and inspiring content marketing success stories: Case Study: How Content Marketing Saved this Brick-and-Mortar Business .
About the Author: Sean Smith is a content marketer and social media strategy consultant, having worked with brands like Best Western, Holiday Inn, Bidsketch, and Baker Hughes to boost revenue through clever content and community building. He’s also the Co-founder of SimpleTiger digital marketing , and a consultant for hire . Get more from Sean on Twitter .
The post 7 Lessons Learned While Content Marketing for an Early-Stage Startup appeared first on Copyblogger .
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How to Diversify Your PPC Campaigns – and Your Skill Sets at the Same Time
If you push to learn and test new ideas, you will diversify your campaigns, which will help your overall performance. But through this process you will grow as a campaign manager as you expand your knowledge and experience. Here's how to get started.
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AdWords DIY (Destroy It Yourself) – 4 Reasons to Hire a PPC Professional
Have you ever met a compulsive DIY’er (Do It Yourself’er)? You know the type. They get so intent on saving a penny that they can spend dollars to do it.…
Read more at PPCHero.com
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Facebook vs. LinkedIn: which is better for B2B marketing?
Do you ever wonder which social network is best for B2B marketing?
Me too, so I did some audience research and found some surprising results.
Here's how you can do it too.
Even with all of the analytics available, it's tough for a marketer to know the best platform for a new campaign. I mean, sure, you can look at your historical stats - clicks, conversions, and even ROI - but it feels like there are just too many variables to make an accurate prediction.
And without having some idea of your chance of success, it can often feel like you're just 'winging' it. And that's not how we, the modern marketers , want to feel!
So when preparing to launch a new campaign, what's a data-driven marketer to do?
Analytics again, I'm afraid
Well for those who have mastered the basics of analytics there is something you can do in advance to predict your campaign outcome.
It requires an easy-to-obtain figure which, with a very simple calculation, can take you from being a quivering wreck to a (wo)man with a plan. And to top it off, it can also tell you which platform is better for your B2B campaign.
Audience size
What I'm talking about here is the ad audience size . That is, the number of people who could possibly see your ad on your platform of choice. And by audience, I don't mean the spray-and-pray affinity groups that you get from display networks, but the micro-targeted B2B markets you can reach through social media.
See, all of the data LinkedIn and Facebook collect on you to provide you a great networking experience is available to advertisers, for free.
Using each network's self-service ad tools you can see this data and research the size of your potential ad audience before you launch your campaign. Then you will know just how many people you are likely to reach - and you also have the added benefit of being able to compare the reach of the two ad networks.
And once you know your audience size and mix in a few guesstimates, you will be able to estimate your campaign performance and know whether LinkedIn or Facebook is the better platform for your B2B campaign.
Self-service tools
Before we go into the detail of audience research, we need to briefly cover the self-service ad tools for LinkedIn and Facebook.
If you're unfamiliar with these then I recommend you go through the excellent tutorials that the sites themselves provide.
For LinkedIn, it's fairly straightforward but for Facebook I highly recommend that you use the more complicated, but far better Power Editor .
Why is that? Well, Facebook tends to release new functionality through its API first, then Power Editor second, and finally to the consumer ad tool.
So, even if you're not a programmer, you can still get in ahead of the masses with the Power Editor.
OK, so once you have a handle on the tools, what next?
Step-by-step audience sizing
Create LinkedIn Ads
First, you need to create an ad. Let's start with LinkedIn.
Don't worry about the creative for the moment, we just need the 'new ad' form up on the browser.
Why are we doing this? Well once you start creating an ad, LinkedIn kindly lets you see how big your target audience is before you ever start the campaign.
I'm sure they do this to encourage you to find a big audience so you buy more ad space, but you can also use it to not buy ads when the audience is too small.
I mean, what is the point of putting together great creative for people Singapore who can translate Japanese if there are only 27 of them on LinkedIn?
For this campaign, I'm targeting people in Singapore who work in Software, Internet, or IT Services - a healthy audience of 110,674.
Create Facebook ad
Next, you need to create a similar audience on Facebook.
As you know, Facebook and LinkedIn have very different purposes - so the data they have - and the parameters available to build an audience - are very different.
For my example, we want to target people in the IT industry. Great - Facebook has 'industry' as an audience targeting parameter. And you can even select ' IT and technical '.
Hmm, it seems that Facebook's does not have a lot of industry data on its users. So when we try to target the IT industry in Singapore, Facebook only finds 13,200 people, or about 10% of what LinkedIn has.
But don't let this get your down. This is where your creativity as a marketer becomes important.
With a little research, we find that a much more useful parameter for Facebook audience building is Interests. So what are people who work in IT interested in? How about ' Computer Programming '?
Now the audience is quite a bit bigger. Great stuff. But maybe those are a bunch of script-kiddies - and who wants to market to them?
OK, let's put another useful Facebook parameter on: Education Level: College Graduate.
Compare the two
Wow that's getting very close to our LinkedIn audience. Add English language and we're almost equal - there's 112,000 in Facebook and 110,674 on LinkedIn.
So great - we now have virtually the same sized audience on LinkedIn as on Facebook!
But hold on, weren't we supposed to see some differences between the platform?
The real differences
Well, I used this example to make the analytics easier to compare, but this also provides evidence that the platforms have reasonably consistent audience measurements.
That is, if we start with the notion that people in Singapore who work in IT/Internet/Software on LinkedIn will also be on Facebook with an interest in computer programming - then we would expect the audience sizes to be similar. And indeed they are. They are also reasonably close to the official government figure for how many Singaporeans work in IT (82,800).
For other countries, however, this is not at all true:
Country
LinkedIn (Software/Internet/IT)
Facebook (Computer Programming Interest Degree)
LinkedIn Audience / Facebook
Singapore
110,674
112,000
99%
HK
35,503
40,000
89%
UK
750,509
920,000
82%
India
3,132,051
4,200,000
75%
USA
4,316,127
5,800,000
74%
Vietnam
41,329
146,000
28%
Malaysia
86,218
920,000
9%
Thailand
35,247
400,000
9%
Indonesia
107,052
1,220,000
9%
Philippines
130,853
2,200,000
6%
And this was I found very surprising. It seems that the participation rate on social networks is very different from country to country , so you should be very careful not to assume that your campaign will perform the same in one as another.
So although LinkedIn and Facebook have reasonably similar audience size in some countries, for others Facebook rocks all over LinkedIn.
Who knows, for your market it might be the reverse - but at least now you know how to find out!
The analytics
So after you do this exercise, you at least know where your audience is. Now let's find out more useful information using estimates.
The Estimates
First estimate the following for both platforms
CPM: Cost per 1,000 Impressions
Click Through Rate: Clicks / Impressions
Conversion Rate: Conversions or Goals / Clicks
CPM
LinkedIn: I typically set it at $2
Facebook: I use their optimized CPM and get around $3
Click Through Rates
LinkedIn: 1 / 1,000
Facebook: 1.5 / 1,000
Conversion Rates
LinkedIn: 15 / 100
Facebook: 12 / 100
The Calculations
Then, do the following calculations:
Total Conversions: Audience * CTR * Conversion
Total Cost: Audience / (CPM*1000)
Cost Per Acquisition: Total Cost / Total Conversions
For my campaign, I get
LinkedIn
Total Conversions: 110,674* .001 *.15 = 16
Total Cost: 110,674/ (2*1000) = $55.33
Cost Per Acquisition: $55.33 / 16 = $3.46
Facebook
Total Conversions: 112,000 .0015* .12 = 20
Total Cost: 112,000/ (3*1000) = $37.33
Cost Per Acquisition: $37.33 / 20 = $1.87
So, Facebook gives me more possible conversions at a lower cost for this audience. Nice!
It looks like Facebook may be the better place to spend my time and marketing dollars - at least until I recallibrate the model with real data after running the campaign.
So What?
So, if you want to predict the future success of your campaigns and know what platform you should focus your B2B efforts on, then it makes sense for you to find out your audience size on each platform before you do anything else.
The self-service ad tools on both LinkedIn and Facebook make doing this easy, all you have to do is add some creativity to make sure your target audiences are likely to be similar.
Then just do a bit of analytics and you're on your way to predicting the future outcome.
And you should note that, as I've shown, the platform audiences vary widely depending on what country you are marketing into. So, doing audience research can also help you be more knowledgeable about your target markets and make you a more data-driven marketer.
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Cart Abandonment is Rising: 5 Tips For Cart Recovery
According to the e-tailing group’s 2014 Annual Merchant Survey , the trend is towards higher reported cart abandonment behavior compared to 2013.
It’s roughly 50/50 split among the 100 retailers studied who enjoy sub-50% abandonment rate and those that suffer from greater than that.
And only 79% of merchants report to know their cart abandonment rates. As far as statistics go, that appears high and healthy, but these are ecommerce metrics — that should be 100% of merchants.
Cart recovery email the #1 personalization tactic One of the top tactics for remedying cart abandonment is triggered cart recovery email. Though the mystery shopping component of the research found only 28% of merchants deploying triggered cart abandonment emails, the method was the most commonly used personalization tactic, with 86% ranking it very or somewhat successful from an ROI perspective (edging out other tactics like personalized email assortments, product and cart recommendations).
Cart recovery emails are typically higher ROI because they’re speaking with visitors that have demonstrated an intent to purchase (though many customers use the cart as a bookmarking tool or to check shipping prices). Compared to blast email campaigns, even highly personalized ones, they’re far more likely to convert for this reason.
Optimizing cart recovery email But a smart cart recovery conversion optimization strategy also determines their effectiveness. Design, usability, mobile-friendliness, persuasive copy including urgency, calls to action, timing, frequency, subject lines, customer service contacts and sometimes incentives all are key ingredients.
e-tailing group have highlighted some good examples they found of who’s doing cart abandonment email right, for example:
Check out the full summary including all of e-tailing group’s examples and advice here .
But since this is Get Elastic, let’s recap some of our tips
Cart recovery tips 1. Strike fast
Analysis of over 60,000 abandoned carts by SeeWhy found 54% of all carts that are successfully recovered are won back within the first few hours after abandonment. Another 10% can be saved within the first 48, with 82% recoverable within a week.
Your own days-to-purchase analytics or testing may reveal what the best strategy is for your business, even down to the category or product level.
However, the research also shows immediate, real-time recovery rates are 11% vs 6% at 24 hours, open rates 60% vs 55% for the same, and revenue-per-email $11 vs. $4.
2. Serialize
A series of triggers, such as one real-time, one after 24 hours and one after 7 days is recommended, along with segmenting out those that ignored the first email, opened without a click, and opened and clicked. Experiment with other mixes, such as a shorter or longer series, or introducing progressively more aggressive incentives to those that open and don’t act.
3. Don’t over-incentivize
Avoid sending juicy incentives in the first triggered message – this may encourage intentional abandonment to receive a discount, which will over-inflate your ROI stats for your recovery program while eroding your margins.
4. Capture email early
You can’t send a triggered abandonment email without one, so try — but don’t forget you can still attempt cart recovery without knowing an email address, with retargeting and exit pop-ups .
5. Segment and test different creative
Test subject lines, headlines, product presentation, offers, call-to-action styling, merchandising (similar products) value propositions and persuasive messaging.
For more creative ideas, checkout out our 14 cart recovery email optimization tips .
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eCommerceFuel Live: The Event for Independent Store Owners
New post from eCommerceFuel :
If you’re an independent store owner or eCommerce professional who’s serious about growing your business and learning from some of the best in our field, you won’t want to miss eCommercefuel Live. It’s this August 22nd – 24th in Austin, TX.
Join us for a weekend of networking, sharing eCommerce strategies, expert speakers, breakout sessions and swapping stories from the trenches. We’ll also mix in plenty of fun group activities planned around Austin, including an opening party at Bigcommerce headquarters.
Originally created for members of our private forum (who have already snagged many of the tickets), we’re opening up the remaining available spots publicly to qualified candidates.
Top-Notch Attendees
Everyone attending will be an established store owner or professional with real-world experience. How experienced?
Of the attendees already signed-up, more than 1/3 have businesses doing more than a million dollars per year in revenue . The others are all either savvy eCommerce professionals or store owners.
Making great connections and networking opportunities are the most valuable aspect of any event. While attendees from our private forum are already pre-screened, all other attendees will need to have real-world eCommerce experience to ensure a great networking and learning environment for everyone.
Opening Party at Bigcommerce
We’ll be kicking off the festivities Friday night with a welcoming party at Bigcommerce’s official headquarters. Get a chance to tour their incredible office space, enjoy an open bar and hors d’oeuvres and mingle with both Bigcommerce employees and forum members alike.
Accomplished Speakers
You’ll hear from speakers with proven track records and real-world case studies, all of whom are forum members themselves.
Learn how Bill D’Alessandro purchased a laggard skin care company and tripled sales through rebranding. Eric Bandholz will be sharing how he built BeardBrand.com into a seven figure business in less than a year. And eCommerce guru and Facebook marketing expert Ezra Firestone will be teaching advanced techniques for rapidly growing your store’s revenue.
The speaker list is still being finalized, but you can count on actionable and transparent presentations from experienced entrepreneurs.
Focus on Networking Breakout Sessions
By far, my favorite part of events is connecting with other great entrepreneurs – and that’s what we’ll be focusing on for ECF Live. We’ll be limiting the number of traditional speaker presentations and making more time for breakout sessions, networking activities and group events.
What are “breakout sessions”? It’s where you can connect with area-specific experts and forum members in a smaller, intimate setting to discuss a specific issue in depth. This was one of the biggest requests for the event by forum members, and we’re making sure to prioritize it.
We’ll have multiple tracks of breakout sessions on diverse topics, including:
Designing your own products
Mobile site implementation and optimization
Starting vs. buying a store
Email marketing
Shipping logistics
…..and many more.
Location – Hyatt Regency on the Water
The event will be held at the Hyatt on Lady Bird Lake, a beautiful venue right on the water in downtown Austin. We’ve reserved a block of rooms at discounted rates for attendees. Information on how to book those will be provided after you complete registration.
Limited Spots Available
This conference isn’t going to be a massive 500+ gathering of lemmings. Instead, we want to replicate the feeling of our private forum: an intimate gathering of legitimate, experienced store owners and eCommerce professionals.
If you’re interested in coming, it’s recommended you book soon. Now that we’ve opened up the event publicly to qualified attendees outside the forum, the remaining slots will likely go quickly.
Who Can Register?
As we mentioned, this event is reserved for existing store owners and eCommerce professionals.
If you’re a store owner, you should be doing a minimum of $5,000 to $10,000 per month in revenues. Non-store owners should have worked professionally in the eCommerce space, or in a role to help store owners succeed. Examples include being a paid traffic or SEO expert, product designer, shopping cart developer, eCommerce SAAS app founder or web designer – just to name a few.
We’ll be reviewing and/or following up with all registrants to ensure proper experience before the event, so please only register if you know you meet the guidelines.
Tentative Schedule
Friday Night:
Opening party at Bigcommerce headquarters w/ open bar and hors d’oeuvres
Saturday:
Morning: Welcome + speaker presentations
Afternoon: Lunch + breakout sessions
Evening: On-the-town evening meetup in Austin (location TBA)
Sunday:
Morning: Final speaker presentation + breakout sessions/workshops
Afternoon: Lunch break and then group event (TBA) + networking
Evening: Closing party (location TBA)
How Much Does It Cost?
The event is $499. This covers your admission to all speaker and breakout sessions, the opening party, food and drink, complimentary breakfast for those staying at the Hyatt and transportation from the hotel to some events. Plus, of course, our overhead and venue costs.
We’ve negotiated a special rate of $149/night with the Hyatt for a limited number of rooms. Booking details to be provided after registration.
Questions
Can I bring a spouse/significant other/friend?
Absolutely! While they won’t be able to attend the daytime sessions without officially signing up, they’re more than welcome to join us for the afternoon and evening events. Some additional costs may apply if they’re attending a comped event; if so, we’ll fill you in with more details as the date arrives.
What is the cancellation policy?
We can offer a full refund through August 1, 2014. After that, we can’t issue a refund, but you can transfer your ticket to another eligible attendee at no charge and be reimbursed by them. If you’re on the fence or unsure about your schedule, I’d recommend purchasing now and refunding before August 1st to reserve your spot.
I’m thinking about staying on AirBnB, with a friend, etc. Thoughts?
Austin is an incredible city but its public transit leaves a bit to be desired. If you’re staying offsite, you’ll likely need to have a rental car or pay for taxis when coming and going – although Uber recently was rolled out in Austin which will should make things a bit easier. If you’re able, staying right at the Hyatt is your best bet.
I’d love to speak/lead a breakout session. How can I do that?
If you’re coming and interested in leading a breakout session on a particular topic, please let us know! Ditto if you’d like to give a talk, but we have far fewer spots available for full-on presentations. Please contact our community manager Laura Serino (laura@ecommercefuel.com) with what you’re interested in doing and we’ll be in touch.
When should I flying in and out?
We’d recommend getting into Austin no later than 5:00 CST on Friday to make sure you have plenty of time to make it to the opening party. We’ll have a bus taking attendees from the hotel to Bigcommerce at 6:30, so you’ll want to make sure you don’t miss that.
The event schedule goes through most of the weekend, with things wrapping up on Sunday evening – so we’d recommend sticking around and catching a Monday morning flight if possible. If you need to get back Sunday, our afternoon group event (TBA, but likely involving getting out on the water or touring some local eCommerce businesses) should run from approximately 2 to 5pm CST.
You didn’t answer my questions …
So sorry! Please reach out to Laura (laura@ecommercefuel.com), and she’ll do her best to help answer it for you.
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How To Convert Visitors Who Are Considering Switching From a Competitor
“I use Tide. I’ve been using Tide for the last 40 years. I’ll use Tide to wash the outfit they bury me in.”
“Uh… Thanks Grammy.” I only made the comment that her clothes smelled nice, but her conviction made me realize something very important, “even if they’re on your site, that doesn’t mean they’re going to buy from you.”
Later on, I overheard my 18 year old sister say to a friend on the phone, “Oh My God, UGH, Do what you want, but I would never be caught dead , in clothes from The Gap.”
As I carried about my day, those two interactions lingered in my mind. Later that night, I came across a post titled “ Why A/B Testing Isn’t Enough ” by Jeff Lawrence, the CEO of Granify it was this graph that brought everything sharply into focus:
Even though this graph isn’t very scientific, I think it’s safe to assume that it also reflects your situation.
If we’re being real, you will always have visitors who are never, ever, ever EVER going to buy from you. (competitors, window-gazers, people doing research, etc)
You should of course try to minimize the amount of the “wrong” people who visit your site by sharpening your traffic acquisition efforts doing more advanced PPC like negative keyword targeting and geotargeting , and otherwise stop wasting money efforts on traffic that doesn’t convert… but this still doesn’t solve the problem.
The Psychological Reasons Why People Aren’t Buying
Between this graph the interactions with my family, I hit me that it’s not just pricing or persuasive design that influence a person’s desire to buy.
It’s a convenient thought to believe that changing a few graphics here, telling a better story there, and improving call to actions or microcopy will improve your bottom line.
I mean, obviously it can, but it’s only focusing on the top of the curve within the influence zone:
But what about the bottom part of the curve? This is the harder stuff.
These are the people who might be comparison shopping and looking for specific features that are harder for you to offer; like a better return policy, quality customer testimonials , or free shipping.
Even further down on that curve though, right as the traffic moves out of “will not buy” and into the “zone of influence”, there’s something even deeper more sinister that prevents people from buying from you. These are what’s known as cognitive biases .
For my sister’s friend it was a combination of the Bandwagon effect , Illusory superiority and fear of losing her own Ingroup bias that ultimately prevented her from buying that pair of “really cute shorts.”
According to wikipedia a cognitive bias is :
“a pattern of deviation in judgment, whereby inferences about other people [products] and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion.”
For my Grammy, this means eating a lighter meal just to afford Tide, if she’s tight for cash. For my sister, this might mean owning fewer outfits overall, but learning how to better mix up her outfits in order to stay within her social circle’s “recommended” brands.
For iPhone fanboys, this means choosing an inferior phone, and defending it, even when you’ve never used an proper Android product in your life. ( Go ahead , set the comments ablaze, you’ll only prove my point ;-)
For your visitors, there’s likely a whole mess of cognitive biases that prevent them from picking you.
It’s only once you understand some of those biases that you can convert those who say they’re “never going to buy” from “ok, I’ll give you a chance.”
Understanding Your Competition’s Customer Biases
We’ve talked a lot about feedback loops qualitative research a lot recently, but it has always been in relation to your customers how they perceive you. While this is useful, it doesn’t give you a complete picture of how you are perceived in the overall market.
It’s especially important you understand how you’re perceived because it’s not uncommon that prospects your competition’s customers believe you’re missing a feature or key benefit, when really you’ve had it all along.
For example, I once had a client that sold law office practice management software. When looking at the competitive landscape, I found there were only 3 or 4 direct competitors a very small handful of periphery competitors that had a similar solutions (like calendars contact management) but weren’t specifically designed for a law practice.
Sometimes your #1 Competitor is Google
When surveying the competition, their customers, and the market at large, I learned that most law offices wouldn’t even consider purchasing a practice management software unless they knew:
That it was being used by real lawyers
That the company who designed the software had experience working with real lawyers could “handhold” when necessary
On a deeper level, it’s because they were having a hard time breaking out of the “ Status Quo Bias ” – where they found comfort things being the same – and in a way were actively seeking out the false consensus bias - where people tend to overestimate the amount of other people who think, feel act the same way they do – this is also the underlying reason by things like social proof , testimonials buyer personas can be so powerful.
I had also learned that many of the competition’s customers didn’t believe my client had either of these things because it wasn’t clear in the design, effectively meaning they were working against a major bias that prevented people from buying .
What they didn’t know was that my client had the largest customer base of all their competitors(over 250,000 users) and over 30 years experience.
Now, unfortunately, a new CEO came in right as we were getting ready to go live with the new changes my designs were thrown out research dismissed.
In the end, they decided not to highlight their 250,000 customers decided to stick with stock photos of fake customers to keep with the more standard “professional” feel. In the end, the information about their customer base experience looked more like this on the page:
However, it appears as though one of their major competitors was conducting similar research around the same time, because they ended up launching a redesign that looked like this.
Now, several studies show that when information is presented larger, the brain is wired to believe it is more important.
There’s also Ingroup Bias , which we touched on earlier, where people prefer to be around others who look, think act like we do, while showing distrust for the “out-group.”
Looking at the competitor’s page, their “Thousands of Customers” is certainly more important than my former client’s 250,000 users, and the people they’re showing look more real, which from my own research, I know is important to lawyers who typically aren’t perceived very well.
While it’s impossible to know for sure if this has lead to more revenue, I can compare the current design to previous iterations using the wayback machine , and can see that they’ve have been hiring more positions, are opening a second office, and started holding their old conference as of last year, all of which are traditionally signs of growth.
Surveying Your Competition’s Customers
While you might not have access to your competitor’s customer database, there are more than a few methods you can use to find out what your competition’s customers think.
1. Conduct A Direct Survey Using Facebook Ads
One major benefit of Facebook having over 1.2 billion users, is that many people have “liked” pages to form connections with the companies they do business with.
Fortunately for you, that “Like” also makes those connections a targeting parameter for a Facebook Ad.
By clicking on the “people” section on their actual Facebook page, you can get a little more insight as well.
Now, depending on your competitive landscape, and how “locked in” a customer might be, you might be better off partnering with a third party to collect the results.
For example, if MailChimp wanted to survey AWeber’s customers, they’d probably get more response if they partnered with the eMail Institute , than if they tried it on their own.
Designing The Survey For Your Competition’s Customers
When you’re designing the survey, you have to overcome your own Illusory Superiority bias, where you think you’re better than the competition really just get at the heart of why people shop with your competitor.
Asking questions like…
What do you like the most about [Competitor]?
How does their [product/service] benefit you?
How would you describe their customer service?
How is their response time?
How do you feel about [your service]?
What would it take for you to switch?
…along with other Voice Of The Customer , type questions will help you to identify those customer needs, prioritize them into a hierarchical structure, prioritize those needs, and understand your competitor’s customer’s perception of their performance.
This paper published on MIT gives a great explanation and methodology for using a VOC survey to learn more about what’s important to movie theater customers.
From a competitive standpoint, ultimately your goals is to learn not only where your competitors are weakest, but also determine where on their customer’s radar you are.
In some cases, it may just be they’re not even aware you exist, in others, it might be they have a misperception or simply don’t have enough knowledge about your brand. Either way, this intelligence will help you move forward more strategically.
2. Surveying Competitor’s Customers In The “Wild”
You’ve probably already heard a lot about “spying” on your competitors using social media, but do you actually do it?
According to a 2010 survey by Marketing Sherpa, 72% of companies reported that competitive research analysis presented a challenge to their landing page optimization efforts.
image source
In a 2013 study by Millward Brown Compete , a similar trend was found, with competitive intelligence being dead last on the list of popular optimization tactics (even more surprising that A/B testing came in second though)
Realistically though, gathering competitive intelligence isn’t difficult at all. Here are a few things I do when snooping on a competitor.
1. Set up a Twitter search for all the @replies to their customer service account if they have one, or at their main account if they don’t, and monitor it on TweetDeck.
According to a study by Accenture , 66% of people will switch companies due to poor customer service.
@mrschicken Okay @comcastcares definitely wins that round. Holy crap that’s a hard one to beat.
— Jan Dobson (@mytruself) July 10, 2014
2. Set up an alert using Mention that notifies me of any mentions (positive or negative) they might get across the internet.
3. If they have customer forums, sign up there keep track of complaints or praises.
4. Check out the reviews testimonials on the same or similar products.
The reason for doing this is in order to find where their customers are having an experience gap so you can:
A.) Improve on in your own business or
B.) Highlight your strengths where they’re weak to snipe customers from the competition
Another thing I like to do is get away from their branded channels and see what conversation is being had in “unmonitored” communities.
This is as simple as searching “[competitor name] intitle:forum” in Google to see not just what questions are being asked, but where these conversations are happening.
MarketingSherpa has a great article that goes into even more ways to gather competitive intelligence offline as well. Check that out here
Crippling Your Competition At Their Weak Points
This is where spying on your competition gathering competitive intelligence allows you to understand what their customers are saying take advantage of the areas where they are weak.
For example, this post in the 3dcart forums exposes a few major weak points in the 3d Cart’s product design customer service strategy.
If a competitive shopping cart solution were to run a campaign targeting 3d cart customers, highlighting how their cart
Fixed the speed customization problem
Offered better customer support
And offered migration services to make switching easy…
It’s not unreasonable to think they’d snatch away a portion of 3d Cart’s customers.
Looking at a more mainstream example of a company using customer feedback to pull ahead of a competitor, it was mostly real consumer feedback that fueled the infamous “Get A Mac” campaign which increased Apple’s market share growth by 42% in it’s first year of being live .
When it won the Grand Effie in 2007, jury chair John Butler said (emphasis mine):
“They managed to do it with humor, class, and honesty without falling into the trap of overtly negative competitive advertising”
This is perhaps the most important element when doing any kind of competitive testing in your campaigns. It’s not about brow-beating the competitor, but to do things tastefully in a way that doesn’t make you look like a jerk.
Groove does a very good job of this – probably because they found a good portion of their customers were switching from, or considering, Zendesk from the feedback loop they had for first time buyers.
If you don’t want to be as direct as to call your competitors out on your homepage, you can also highlight those major differences on comparison pages as well.
This is how Clicky does it :
And this is how SugarSync does it:
Vzaar takes an even more personal approach, by picking off it’s competitors one by one:
Conclusion – So Is Understanding The Biases Doing The Research Worth The Effort?
Given the research from Marketing Sherpa Millward Brown from earlier shows that competitive intelligence is pretty low on most marketer’s priority list, and that Accunture estimates there is approximately $5.9 trillion dollars in revenue globally from customers switching companies…
I’d say there’s a pretty big opportunity, if you’re willing to take the gloves off get your hands dirty.
featured image from t-mobile’s switch carrier’s page
The post How To Convert Visitors Who Are Considering Switching From a Competitor appeared first on ConversionXL .
“I use Tide. I’ve been using Tide for the last 40 years. I’ll use Tide to wash the outfit they bury me in.” “Uh… Thanks Grammy.” I only made the comment that her clothes smelled nice, but her conviction made me realize something very important, “even if they’re on your site, that doesn’t mean they’re(...) The post How To Convert Visitors Who Are Considering Switching From a Competitor appeared first on ConversionXL.
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Episode 16 – Sales Legend Stan Billue – Part 2
In part 2 of this two-part interview, sales legend Stan Billue reveals:
How he transformed himself from a self-described “34 year self-made failure” to one of the most successful sales professionals ever.
How choosing the right mentor can turn your life around in practically no time at all.
The 3 magic words Stan’s mentor revealed that allowed him to become a world class master of sales in record time.
The secret to becoming a world renowned expert in ANYTHING… in only 5 years.
How Stan doubled his income every year for five years straight.
The most important thing within your control to attract all the success you want.
The magic of having your own personal “power phrase.”
How to find ANYTHING you’re looking for.
The “magic hour of happiness”… and how it can transform EVERY area of your life.
How to GUARANTEE you’ll get someone’s attention while selling on the phone… even if you’re cold calling.
Instructional statements versus questions. Which is more successful in selling? (The answer may surprise you.)
“Buyers are liars.” Here’s how to use “continuation statements” to get the TRUTH from your prospects.
The fastest (and cheapest) way to consistently get new qualified clients. (This is a HUGE secret overlooked by 95% of business people.)
How to make EXPONENTIALLY more money with less work.
A sneaky (but 100% ethical) negotiation strategy to make sure you get EVERYTHING you want.
And much more…
Enjoy!
All the best,
Related Posts: Episode 15 – Sales Legend Stan Billue Ep. 14 – Kenrick Cleveland – Reprogramming… Ep 6. Using Cutting Edge Technology And High Tech Data To… Ep 11. Jason Leister Reveals How To Attract And Manage The… Ep 4. The least understood, yet FASTEST and most efficient…
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Crooks Reainmate A Dead Botnet To Target High-Value Bank Accounts
In something that sounds like the plot of a Hollywood movie, hackers have reanimated an apparently dead botnet called Gameover Zeus even as malware researchers dismantled the previous version of the network. The botnet, essentially a collection of zombie computers that can be activated to perform denial of service attacks on banks and other financial firms in order to hide thefts from… Read More
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Rap Genius Raises $40M, Changes Named To Genius, Launches Embeddable Annotations
Rap Genius made three big moves today to further its mission to annotate the world. The founders tell me it raised a $40 million Series B led by Dan Gilbert and joined by previous investor Andreessen Horowitz at a valuation under $1 billion. It’s changed its name to Genius.com, the founders tell me And it’s launching embeddable annotations so any website can hover over text and… Read More
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Twitter’s New Analytics Tool Measures ‘Real’ Tweet Performance
If you’re looking for more details about how all of your tweets are doing, Twitter today released a new analytics dashboard for advertisers, Twitter Card publishers, and verified users.
The company already gave its advertisers data about tweets that they’d paid to promote, covering things like impressions, replies, and link clicks, but there was nothing equivalent for… Read More
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7 Landing Page Flaws That Kill Your Conversions (and How to Fix Them)
Landing pages are supposed to help boost your conversions, but in some cases, they kill them. When does that happen? If your landing pages have the wrong copy or distract your visitors, your conversion rate will drop.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. To help you maximize your landing page conversion rate, I’ve created an infographic that breaks down the flaws you need avoid and the specific steps you need to take in order to grow your revenue. Read More
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Reassess How You Prioritize Your E-Commerce PPC Campaign Builds
Over the last couple of years, the prioritization of e-commerce PPC campaign builds has shifted dramatically. With the rise of Google Shopping and with dynamic solutions now available to advertisers, standard Search Network text-ad campaign builds fall down the priority list. In today’s world...
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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New Google AdWords PLA Test Groups Products By Price
This could get interesting. Last month, we saw Google running a test that ranked product listing ads (PLAs) by ratings and reviews in search results. Now, a new test groups and ranks products by price. In the screenshot below, provided by CPC Strategy, PLAs are grouped in two pricing stacks —...
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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New AdWords Quality Score Info: What You Need To Know
By now, you’ve probably seen (or at least heard about) Google’s recent video and new white paper about Quality Score in AdWords. In fact, when I first heard about the updated Hal Varian video, I was a bit surprised, given that Google hasn’t bothered to update it for about five years!...
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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The Tim Ferriss Show, Episode 18: James Altucher on How to Say “No”, Fail Better, and Build Businesses
James Altucher
Listen on iTunes, download (right click “save as”), or stream it now below:
This episode of The Tim Ferriss Show is sponsored by Bluehost , which I used for my first WordPress blog, and I still use them for sites today. Click here for a special offer!
Now, on to our guest…
James Altucher is an American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur, and bestselling author. He has founded or co-founded more than 20 companies, including Reset Inc. and StockPickr. 17 have failed, and 3 have made him tens of millions. He has published 11 books, the newest of which is The Power of No .
Join us in a conversation about just about everything, including: how to say “no” to requests, how to learn from failure, and how to build businesses. More in the show notes below.
Click here to subscribe/listen to the show on iTunes.
Click here to subscribe to the show via RSS (non-iTunes feed) .
For those who enjoy reading, here is the full transcript .
If you have a second, please leave me an honest rating and review on iTunes by clicking here . It will help the show tremendously, including my ability to bring on more incredible guests. Thanks!
Show Notes and Select Links from Episode 17…
Why James almost ended up homeless after making millions
How a daily routine can mitigate risk
The “1% goal” that changes his life drastically every 6 months
Why he considers news media to be “junk food,” and what he reads instead
Why and how his writing exploded in popularity
How “being vulnerable” on his blog almost permanently damaged James’s relationship with his daughter
The myth of “job security,” and how to chart your own path
And much more…
LINKS FROM EPISODE 17
Visit the Tim Ferriss Book Club to find a new book each month (or so) that has changed my life
Seth Godin’s blog
The Bloggess
David Thorne’s Blog
Read my blog post: “Productivity” Tricks for the Neurotic, Manic-Depressive, and Crazy (Like Me)
Learn more about High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell
The transportation network company that’s taking the world by storm (100+ cities and counting): www.Uber.com
Learn more about Oingo - James’s worst venture capital decision
Learn more about Hoop Dreams
Jerry Seinfeld Documentary: Comedian
Maria Popova’s blog
Read Tucker Max’s stories
James Altucher’s blog
James Altucher on Twitter: @jaltucher
The James Altucher Show Podcast
Ask Altucher Daily Podcast
Books Mentioned in the Episode
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina
The Power of No: Because One Little Word Can Bring Health, Abundance, and Happiness by James Altucher
Choose Yourself! by James Altucher
Dynamic Hedging: Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: “On Robustness and Fragility” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson
Jesus’ Son: Stories by Denis Johnson
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Other Authors Mentioned in the Episode
Books by Ernest Hemingway
Books by Stephen J. Dubner
Stories and books by Raymond Carver
Stories and books by Denis Johnson
Stories and books by Amy Hempel
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For all episodes of The Tim Ferriss Show , including links and show notes, visit this page .
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More Pages to Explore .....
