Here are 2 examples:
Some also spell "free" as "f*ree", "cash" as "c*ash" etc.
Pretty slick, eh?
Showing posts with label Online marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Online marketing. Show all posts
Friday, January 9, 2009
How to Skirt the Spam Filter
Some online marketers knowingly separate the letters of "spam trigger words" like CASH, SECRET, FREE, etc. in their marketing emails.
Here are 2 examples:
Some also spell "free" as "f*ree", "cash" as "c*ash" etc.
Pretty slick, eh?
Here are 2 examples:
Some also spell "free" as "f*ree", "cash" as "c*ash" etc.
Pretty slick, eh?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Even Howie Could Not Help this Search Engine...
I like Howie Mandel a lot. I think he's a very hard-working and interesting guy (like he never touches anybody for fear of catching germs).So when I saw this HM commercial on TV for Buy.Com I enjoyed the clip because Howie is such a sweet character.
And a day later, when I was shopping around for a bottle of perfume for my wife, I decided to check out Buy.Com. That's how commercials supposed to work, right?
But what a search engine Buy.Com has! Never seen anything like it.
Usually, when a search engine cannot find what you're looking for, it 'fesses up and flashes a message like "No search results were found -- please try again" etc. And then you try again.
No. Instead, Buy.Com flashed this really sophisticated-looking feedback:
Hmmm... that's interesting...
So I start clicking on these searches to "remove one or more words" from my search and ended up... with nothing.
Here are the pages I got after clicking the first, second and the third search results:
Obviously none of these results has anything to do with the perfume I was looking for.
So why did Buy.Com waste my time by having me click this and that only to send me to totally unrelated search pages? Why is need for the wild goose chase?
Here are some Rumsfeldian questions and self-provided answers:
Is this the last time I'll visit Buy.Com? -- Probably.
Can they improve their search engine? -- Yes. Just tell people "No search results found -- please try again" and they will.
Is there a lesson in this? -- Yes. LESS IS MORE.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Olympics Observations...
1) Matt Furey is such an excellent writer and opportunity marketer. Whenever there's a momentous event, you can count on it, Matt will fire off a personal and well-written letter on the occasion and will not of course forget to plug in his products as well.
This afternoon I found in my mail box his take on Michael Phelp's second gold medal and the phenomenal 4x100 race with the French. Online marketers: take notice and emulate.
2) A failure in information design: isn't it annoying that NBC will not broadcast maximum scores in any given competition?
For example, NBC anchors will repeatedly tell us that an American athlete just scored 15.87 and that it's an "excellent score." But HOW excellent is that? I have no idea since I do not know what the PERFECT score is.
If perfect score is 16, then I can make that judgment for myself too and agree that it's an "excellent" score indeed. But what if the perfect score is 20, 50, or 100?
It's baffling that NBC continues not to provide the audience what the perfect score is in a competition. If I were them, I'd not only broadcast the perfect score but also include a tiny pie-chart right next to the individual score, visually displaying how close the individual competitor got to achieving that perfect score. That's a piece of must-have information graphics that is sorely missing from NBC broadcasts.
3) Image sacrificed to cuteness. Have you seen the GE commercial that shows an ancient Greek disc thrower bringing down the Parthenon when the wind changes its course? I thought that was a DISASTER of a commercial for GE's Wind Power projects because, although humorous, it plants in the mind of the audience the IMAGE that wind can be a DANGEROUS element leading to DESTRUCTION of PRICELESS TREASURES.
Wow! Whoever thought of that commercial really did an excellent job of planting the seeds of doubt in the minds of those who perhaps already had a question or two about wind power to start with. That was a textbook case of sacrificing function for form.
4) An odd comment in the year 2008. I was taken aback by a casual comment made by one of the NBC commentators, following the fall of an American gymnast during her performance (I am paraphrasing): "...that was like tearing her wedding dress in the aisle..."
I found it very peculiar that the male commentator chose such an image to describe the female gymnast's plight.
Would he describe the foul up as "...like tearing his tuxedo's pants in the aisle..." if the athlete in question were male?
This afternoon I found in my mail box his take on Michael Phelp's second gold medal and the phenomenal 4x100 race with the French. Online marketers: take notice and emulate.
2) A failure in information design: isn't it annoying that NBC will not broadcast maximum scores in any given competition?
For example, NBC anchors will repeatedly tell us that an American athlete just scored 15.87 and that it's an "excellent score." But HOW excellent is that? I have no idea since I do not know what the PERFECT score is.
If perfect score is 16, then I can make that judgment for myself too and agree that it's an "excellent" score indeed. But what if the perfect score is 20, 50, or 100?
It's baffling that NBC continues not to provide the audience what the perfect score is in a competition. If I were them, I'd not only broadcast the perfect score but also include a tiny pie-chart right next to the individual score, visually displaying how close the individual competitor got to achieving that perfect score. That's a piece of must-have information graphics that is sorely missing from NBC broadcasts.
3) Image sacrificed to cuteness. Have you seen the GE commercial that shows an ancient Greek disc thrower bringing down the Parthenon when the wind changes its course? I thought that was a DISASTER of a commercial for GE's Wind Power projects because, although humorous, it plants in the mind of the audience the IMAGE that wind can be a DANGEROUS element leading to DESTRUCTION of PRICELESS TREASURES.
Wow! Whoever thought of that commercial really did an excellent job of planting the seeds of doubt in the minds of those who perhaps already had a question or two about wind power to start with. That was a textbook case of sacrificing function for form.
4) An odd comment in the year 2008. I was taken aback by a casual comment made by one of the NBC commentators, following the fall of an American gymnast during her performance (I am paraphrasing): "...that was like tearing her wedding dress in the aisle..."
I found it very peculiar that the male commentator chose such an image to describe the female gymnast's plight.
Would he describe the foul up as "...like tearing his tuxedo's pants in the aisle..." if the athlete in question were male?
Thursday, April 24, 2008
On Radio, Have a Domain Name that People Can Remember
I always have my radio on when I drive.
Here is a law office commercial I heard today, followed by the instruction to visit their web site:
"Visit us today at Kimmel, Wellerstein, Zimmertwolds..." etc etc, one of those long typical law-partnership names (I made up this particular one).
And then comes the kicker -- the anchor actually starts to SPELL OUT each and every letter in the DOMAIN NAME!!!
"... that's, double-u, double-u, double-u, dot, K, I, M, M, E, L, W, E, L, L, E, R, S,..." on and on and on...
Good Lord! What do some people think when they put together these incredible commercials? That we have an IQ of 300?!
Who can remember such a loooooong string of letters? What a waste of money.
My advice: get a domain name that people can actually remember when they hear it for the first time. Then forward it to your existing site.
Surely www.lawyer.com is taken. But what about "www.yourlitigationexpertsinnebraska.com" or something like that?
Some of those domain names I'm sure are also taken but you can find one that's available and also easier to remember than that dreadful "double-u, double-u, double-u, dot, K, I, M, M, E, L, W, E, L, L, E, R, S, ..." disaster.
Use your common sense and ask yourself if you could've remembered your domain name if you were driving in your car and heard it on the car radio?
If you can't, perhaps it's time you select another easy-to-remember domain name for yourself and FORWARD it to you existing domain. That way you don't need a new web site either.
Here is a law office commercial I heard today, followed by the instruction to visit their web site:
"Visit us today at Kimmel, Wellerstein, Zimmertwolds..." etc etc, one of those long typical law-partnership names (I made up this particular one).
And then comes the kicker -- the anchor actually starts to SPELL OUT each and every letter in the DOMAIN NAME!!!
"... that's, double-u, double-u, double-u, dot, K, I, M, M, E, L, W, E, L, L, E, R, S,..." on and on and on...
Good Lord! What do some people think when they put together these incredible commercials? That we have an IQ of 300?!
Who can remember such a loooooong string of letters? What a waste of money.
My advice: get a domain name that people can actually remember when they hear it for the first time. Then forward it to your existing site.
Surely www.lawyer.com is taken. But what about "www.yourlitigationexpertsinnebraska.com" or something like that?
Some of those domain names I'm sure are also taken but you can find one that's available and also easier to remember than that dreadful "double-u, double-u, double-u, dot, K, I, M, M, E, L, W, E, L, L, E, R, S, ..." disaster.
Use your common sense and ask yourself if you could've remembered your domain name if you were driving in your car and heard it on the car radio?
If you can't, perhaps it's time you select another easy-to-remember domain name for yourself and FORWARD it to you existing domain. That way you don't need a new web site either.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
How to Generate Whitelisting Instructions?
There are zillions of mail servers out there.
If you are an email publication publisher, you have no idea who is using AOL, who is using EarthLink, or MSN, etc.
How can you make sure that your mailing won't be chucked away as worthless spam?
Here is a solution:
This web site can generate whitelisting instructions for an amazing variety of mail servers.
Just fill in the blanks and click the button and BINGO! It generates an HTML copy that you can post to your page and then direct your recipients to check it out to see what they can do to whitelist your emails, regardless of what mail server they use.
Neat huh?
If you are an email publication publisher, you have no idea who is using AOL, who is using EarthLink, or MSN, etc.
How can you make sure that your mailing won't be chucked away as worthless spam?
Here is a solution:
This web site can generate whitelisting instructions for an amazing variety of mail servers.
Just fill in the blanks and click the button and BINGO! It generates an HTML copy that you can post to your page and then direct your recipients to check it out to see what they can do to whitelist your emails, regardless of what mail server they use.
Neat huh?
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Value of a Web Site ~ "Page Views" or "Time Spent"?
Nielsen rating company has shifted from the traditional “number of page views” to “time spent viewing a page” to measure a web site’s commercial worth.
This is a decision that will have a serious impact on all advertising companies that determine their web advertisement rates on the basis of such "objective" metrics.
The new Ajax technology seems to be the main culprit why Nielsen felt the need to adopt this new criterion. Ajax allows refreshing the web content without refreshing the page view. You must have noticed the way a new mail appears in your email window without re-loading the page, as we all used to do in the past.
Another reason why the traditional “page view” is considered losing its relevance is the streaming video sites like YouTube where visitors spend a lot of time on a single page watching one video clip after another.
On the basis of this new measuring stick, Nielsen has announced AOL as the winner of May’s “most popular” web site, with a total viewing time of 25 billion minutes, followed by Yahoo at 20 billion minutes. But by page view alone, AOL would have ranked sixth.
Google, although ranks 3rd by page views, dropped to fifth in terms of time spent since people leave Google screen quickly after a search is completed.
But I believe this new criterion has a serious flaw in this day and age of tabbed browsers.
What if you visit a site on one tab, then open another tab and go to another site, then do it for a third or fourth time? I find myself doing precisely that all the time.
What happens to the site left open for 20 hours on a forgotten tab? Does that mean that I have spent 20 hours on that site? Of course not.
How come Nielsen missed such a simple point is beyond me. I’m sure major advertisers are already grappling with this real issue.
This is a decision that will have a serious impact on all advertising companies that determine their web advertisement rates on the basis of such "objective" metrics.
The new Ajax technology seems to be the main culprit why Nielsen felt the need to adopt this new criterion. Ajax allows refreshing the web content without refreshing the page view. You must have noticed the way a new mail appears in your email window without re-loading the page, as we all used to do in the past.
Another reason why the traditional “page view” is considered losing its relevance is the streaming video sites like YouTube where visitors spend a lot of time on a single page watching one video clip after another.
On the basis of this new measuring stick, Nielsen has announced AOL as the winner of May’s “most popular” web site, with a total viewing time of 25 billion minutes, followed by Yahoo at 20 billion minutes. But by page view alone, AOL would have ranked sixth.
Google, although ranks 3rd by page views, dropped to fifth in terms of time spent since people leave Google screen quickly after a search is completed.
But I believe this new criterion has a serious flaw in this day and age of tabbed browsers.
What if you visit a site on one tab, then open another tab and go to another site, then do it for a third or fourth time? I find myself doing precisely that all the time.
What happens to the site left open for 20 hours on a forgotten tab? Does that mean that I have spent 20 hours on that site? Of course not.
How come Nielsen missed such a simple point is beyond me. I’m sure major advertisers are already grappling with this real issue.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Great Companies Respond Quickly
I always believed that speed is an essential part of many successful projects in life. Sylvester Stallone wrote his classic “Rocky” in four days. Jack Kerouac wrote his unforgettable “On the Road” in three weeks. Friedrich August Kekulé discovered the benzene ring in a dream, over a single night.
Yes, “haste” also leads to “waste” but the kind of “speed” I’m talking about is not haphazard, disoriented, Brownian motion. It is a disciplined, focused, sincere movement forward towards a target with no reservations, no inertia. It’s an arrow flying at mach 2.
Recently two companies impressed me by the speed with which they’ve responded to two postings on this very blog. Given the fact that this is still a relatively new blog with not even 100 postings on it yet, I was delighted with the response. I found myself meditating about the serious care with which these successful companies monitored their brand image.
The companies are FeedBlitz (the RSS and Blog-to-E-Mail company) and Jajah (Internet phone company). They both quickly responded to either a complaint (Jajah) or a piece of inadvertently missing information (FeedBlitz).
Their responses was an inspiration for me in my own line of work to treat my own clients with the same speed and transparency that they all so richly deserve. Jajah and FeedBlitz light the way to our corporate future in this age of instant communications and 60-second news cycle. Kudos to them both!
Yes, “haste” also leads to “waste” but the kind of “speed” I’m talking about is not haphazard, disoriented, Brownian motion. It is a disciplined, focused, sincere movement forward towards a target with no reservations, no inertia. It’s an arrow flying at mach 2.
Recently two companies impressed me by the speed with which they’ve responded to two postings on this very blog. Given the fact that this is still a relatively new blog with not even 100 postings on it yet, I was delighted with the response. I found myself meditating about the serious care with which these successful companies monitored their brand image.
The companies are FeedBlitz (the RSS and Blog-to-E-Mail company) and Jajah (Internet phone company). They both quickly responded to either a complaint (Jajah) or a piece of inadvertently missing information (FeedBlitz).
Their responses was an inspiration for me in my own line of work to treat my own clients with the same speed and transparency that they all so richly deserve. Jajah and FeedBlitz light the way to our corporate future in this age of instant communications and 60-second news cycle. Kudos to them both!
Friday, June 29, 2007
5 Tips for Email Marketing Success
Here are the 5 tips that e-mail marketing guru David Atlas suggests for your success:
1) Use CertifiedEmail provided by Yahoo and AOL.
"ROIs in the 300 percent range and up are common because consumers trust the email."
2) Use a dedicated IP
"Having a dedicated IP lets you establish a sending reputation."
3) Use the same "From" Address
4) Tell Your Customers What to Expect.
"State your mailing policies up front. Let consumers know you are using CertifiedEmail, if you plan to. Run an education campaign telling them "here's how to confirm a legitimate email: Look for the blue ribbon envelope icon.""
5) Survey Your Customers.
And here is a sixth one from me:
6) Never ever allow a spelling error in your e-mail, especially in your SUBJECT line. That pretty much destroys all your credibility as a marketer before the user can even read the body of your message.
1) Use CertifiedEmail provided by Yahoo and AOL.
"ROIs in the 300 percent range and up are common because consumers trust the email."
2) Use a dedicated IP
"Having a dedicated IP lets you establish a sending reputation."
3) Use the same "From" Address
4) Tell Your Customers What to Expect.
"State your mailing policies up front. Let consumers know you are using CertifiedEmail, if you plan to. Run an education campaign telling them "here's how to confirm a legitimate email: Look for the blue ribbon envelope icon.""
5) Survey Your Customers.
And here is a sixth one from me:
6) Never ever allow a spelling error in your e-mail, especially in your SUBJECT line. That pretty much destroys all your credibility as a marketer before the user can even read the body of your message.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Marketing Notes: "Qode" and Onion's Sharp Take on MySpace
This morning a reader of mine made me aware that QR Code technology indeed exists in the United States, provided by Qode, a Florida company (www.qode.com). Thanks Ken D. for the heads up.
You can download the Qode software to your cell phone and then point it to the "Qode" (a version of QR Code) and it will take you to the related web site. I guess these must be proprietary QR codes because you would not want any cell phone to point and get to the same web site, or would you? I'm still not sure who and how money is made through this technology. What is the business model? Probably that's also changing and evolving as well as we speak.
You can point your cell phone at a Qode and take a virtual tour of a house on sale, compare ticket prices, get all kinds of info on all kinds of products and services, etc. And the information can be customized by times zone and other variables as well. For example, pointing the phone at a Qode "stamp" at 9 a.m. in San Francisco would take you to a web page appropriate for the "morning zone" but the same stamp will take you to an "afternoon" page in New York.
SECOND ITEM:
The Onion, the nation's premiere satire paper, has published an item on May 31 that made me laugh out loud because it expressed my own cynicism about MySpace's claim as a "social space." How can people who do not even know one another claim to be one another's friends, by the thousands at a time? That I could never comprehend. And The onion slashed at the whole idea with the following new story:
"MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless"!!! I really laughed hard at that one. "BEVERLY HILLS, CA -- An estimated 150 million people continued to be without social lives Tuesday as a massive system failure at MySpace.com entered its third day."
Fantastic humor but perhaps also a scary harbinger of things to come... could it be true? Why not?
You can download the Qode software to your cell phone and then point it to the "Qode" (a version of QR Code) and it will take you to the related web site. I guess these must be proprietary QR codes because you would not want any cell phone to point and get to the same web site, or would you? I'm still not sure who and how money is made through this technology. What is the business model? Probably that's also changing and evolving as well as we speak.
You can point your cell phone at a Qode and take a virtual tour of a house on sale, compare ticket prices, get all kinds of info on all kinds of products and services, etc. And the information can be customized by times zone and other variables as well. For example, pointing the phone at a Qode "stamp" at 9 a.m. in San Francisco would take you to a web page appropriate for the "morning zone" but the same stamp will take you to an "afternoon" page in New York.
SECOND ITEM:
The Onion, the nation's premiere satire paper, has published an item on May 31 that made me laugh out loud because it expressed my own cynicism about MySpace's claim as a "social space." How can people who do not even know one another claim to be one another's friends, by the thousands at a time? That I could never comprehend. And The onion slashed at the whole idea with the following new story:
"MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless"!!! I really laughed hard at that one. "BEVERLY HILLS, CA -- An estimated 150 million people continued to be without social lives Tuesday as a massive system failure at MySpace.com entered its third day."
Fantastic humor but perhaps also a scary harbinger of things to come... could it be true? Why not?
Thursday, May 24, 2007
A Personal Milestone: 400th EZ Article in 365 Days
Today I've published my 400th online article on www.ezinearticles.comI initially did not realize that it has taken me exactly one year to date to write these 400 articles.
However, I must note that there were many months within the last year when I did not contribute any articles to EZ at all due to other pressing (and paying) writing assignments. So had I written regularly, I probably could've been up to perhaps 700 articles by now.
I am thinking to write a brochure on how to market goods and services through article writing. It certainly did me good, so good that recently I started writing for another similar ezine article web site as well -- The American Chronicle.
Here are my EZ and Chronicle links:
Ezine Articles
American Chronicle
QR Code Revolution is on its way
A sample QR CodeBarcode, move aside! QR CODE is here.
Soon we will be pushing flash movies, coupons, MP3 files, good-old text and god knows what else to our cell phones by pointing their tiny built-in cameras to a QR Code, taking a snapshot, and then pressing the SEND button.
The revolution is already well underway in Japan and it's just a matter of time before it reaches the American shores.
Imagine, you are at the supermarket. You see an odd looking bottle of something on the shelf with a QR Code on it.
You point your cell phone camera at it, take a snapshot and push SEND and presto!
Soon you are watching a video about how to use the product, its benefits, complete with a 15% discount coupon that you can use right there at the same store!
Welcome to the 21st century and make all your marketing plans accordingly.
Click here for an excellent article on QR Codes
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
An 11,158 Word Sales Letter
Most of the time my clients think an online marketing copy should be as short as possible in this day and age of short attention spans.
But, believe it or not, that goes against the practice of some of the most successful online marketers today.
Why?
When a targeted group of potential buyers are about to make a decision to purchase a very expensive product or service, they do not mind to read as many supporting arguments and as long a list of benefits as possible. The logic of "short is better" simply stops there.
In a previous posting I have mentioned a financial newsletter subscription letter distributed by Agora Publishing that was over 7,000 words.
Today I have received a well-crafted sales copy from American Writers and Artists Institute, promoting a 3-Day $9,000 seminar that was over 11,000 words!
There is a lesson there for all copywriters and direct marketers.
But, believe it or not, that goes against the practice of some of the most successful online marketers today.
Why?
When a targeted group of potential buyers are about to make a decision to purchase a very expensive product or service, they do not mind to read as many supporting arguments and as long a list of benefits as possible. The logic of "short is better" simply stops there.
In a previous posting I have mentioned a financial newsletter subscription letter distributed by Agora Publishing that was over 7,000 words.
Today I have received a well-crafted sales copy from American Writers and Artists Institute, promoting a 3-Day $9,000 seminar that was over 11,000 words!
There is a lesson there for all copywriters and direct marketers.
Monday, May 21, 2007
“Link Popularity” versus “Search Engine Saturation” Indexes
“Link Popularity” (LP) and “Search Engine Saturation” (SES) indexes are two different and complementary ways of measuring your web site’s ranking and relative importance on the web.
LP indicates the number of web sites with links to your domain.
SES, on the other hand, indicates the number of pages on your web site indexed by various search engine robots.
In general, the higher these numbers are the better it is.
However, there are caveats as in everything else in life.
High LP numbers, for example, can be generated by links coming in from web sites that nobody is visiting anyhow. All links are not created equal. A link from yahoo.com is perhaps worth a million links from nobodyvisitsme.com (just an example).
In the infancy of the Internet, “Directory Farms” were created to drive up the LP numbers. These were web sites with nothing in them but a bunch of web links. But these days you will be penalized by most search engines if your link is included in such “farms.” So you have to be as concerned about the quality of your links as their quantity.
SES has its own issues too. You can create thousands of pages, for example, to generate a higher SES index but…
Are those new pages related to the main topic of your web site?
And do they make it easier or more confusing to navigate around your web site? When visitors get confused by your inconsistent navigation and unrelated content, they may leave forever.
There is a point where “abundance” tips over into “confusion” and to know when to add things and when to stop is at the heart of search engine “optimization” process.
(If more was simply better under ANY conditions, the process would be called “Search Engine Maximization” and not “Optimization.”)
There are many sites out there that generate both LP and SES reports; some even provide comparative data on competing web sites. One such site that I use and like is www.marketleap.com.
Check the LP and SES numbers of your web site regularly since they change frequently. The best practice is to take regular measurements and then take their average for a reliable benchmark.
If the numbers are good, try to understand what you did right and replicate it.
If, on the other hand, the numbers are falling, analyze the reasons why and take appropriate measures to counter the trend.
LP indicates the number of web sites with links to your domain.
SES, on the other hand, indicates the number of pages on your web site indexed by various search engine robots.
In general, the higher these numbers are the better it is.
However, there are caveats as in everything else in life.
High LP numbers, for example, can be generated by links coming in from web sites that nobody is visiting anyhow. All links are not created equal. A link from yahoo.com is perhaps worth a million links from nobodyvisitsme.com (just an example).
In the infancy of the Internet, “Directory Farms” were created to drive up the LP numbers. These were web sites with nothing in them but a bunch of web links. But these days you will be penalized by most search engines if your link is included in such “farms.” So you have to be as concerned about the quality of your links as their quantity.
SES has its own issues too. You can create thousands of pages, for example, to generate a higher SES index but…
Are those new pages related to the main topic of your web site?
And do they make it easier or more confusing to navigate around your web site? When visitors get confused by your inconsistent navigation and unrelated content, they may leave forever.
There is a point where “abundance” tips over into “confusion” and to know when to add things and when to stop is at the heart of search engine “optimization” process.
(If more was simply better under ANY conditions, the process would be called “Search Engine Maximization” and not “Optimization.”)
There are many sites out there that generate both LP and SES reports; some even provide comparative data on competing web sites. One such site that I use and like is www.marketleap.com.
Check the LP and SES numbers of your web site regularly since they change frequently. The best practice is to take regular measurements and then take their average for a reliable benchmark.
If the numbers are good, try to understand what you did right and replicate it.
If, on the other hand, the numbers are falling, analyze the reasons why and take appropriate measures to counter the trend.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Aweber's "Split Test" Functionality
Autoresponder company Aweber offers a great "split test" option to its customers that I just found out.
Imagine you have a subscription box on your web site, just like I do here in the right sidebar.
Let's say 1% of those who visit your web site are actually signing up.
The question is, could that have been 2% or more if you tried a different sign-up box and/or you gave out a different download premium... Wouldn't you like to find that out?
Aweber allows you to test exactly that by running a "split test."
This is how you do it:
1) You design two different sign-up boxes, with perhaps different text, different colors, different font family and font sizes, or a combination thereof.
2) You either link those different boxes to the same free download (or what Aweber calls a "message"), or come up with a second free download for the second signup box.
3) Then, you tell Aweber the probability with which those boxes should be displayed every time their page is viewed. (There are other and multiple pop-up options of displaying the box as well.)
For example, you can have Box A displayed 50% of the time and Box B displayed the other 50%.
4) Aweber composes a Javascript code for you based on the above steps. You copy that HTML code and insert it in your web page, in the appropriate location.
And you are done!
Not only your boxes are displayed according to the probabilities you have defined, but detailed statistics are provided about the performance of the alternative sign-up boxes. That way you can easily determine if your design changes have improved or actually deteriorated your conversion rate.
A very useful functionality that should help you improve the performance of your web site through a controlled and scientific method.
Imagine you have a subscription box on your web site, just like I do here in the right sidebar.
Let's say 1% of those who visit your web site are actually signing up.
The question is, could that have been 2% or more if you tried a different sign-up box and/or you gave out a different download premium... Wouldn't you like to find that out?
Aweber allows you to test exactly that by running a "split test."
This is how you do it:
1) You design two different sign-up boxes, with perhaps different text, different colors, different font family and font sizes, or a combination thereof.
2) You either link those different boxes to the same free download (or what Aweber calls a "message"), or come up with a second free download for the second signup box.
3) Then, you tell Aweber the probability with which those boxes should be displayed every time their page is viewed. (There are other and multiple pop-up options of displaying the box as well.)
For example, you can have Box A displayed 50% of the time and Box B displayed the other 50%.
4) Aweber composes a Javascript code for you based on the above steps. You copy that HTML code and insert it in your web page, in the appropriate location.
And you are done!
Not only your boxes are displayed according to the probabilities you have defined, but detailed statistics are provided about the performance of the alternative sign-up boxes. That way you can easily determine if your design changes have improved or actually deteriorated your conversion rate.
A very useful functionality that should help you improve the performance of your web site through a controlled and scientific method.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Comparing Autoresponders Feedblitz vs. Aweber
Autoresponders is one of the must tools that should be used by all serious bloggers and online marketers. It is an excellent way to keep up with your readers and clients with minimum of effort.
Here is a brief comparison of the two autoresponders I’ve used in the past:
FEEDBLITZ
AWEBER
Here is a brief comparison of the two autoresponders I’ve used in the past:
FEEDBLITZ
Major advantage: it’s free. You can broadcast your blog content automatically to your list.
Also has: double opt-in subscription engine. It eliminates people subscribing other people without their consent.
Support: so-so. You are basically on your own.
Questionable feature: number of subscribers are displayed under Feedblitz’ subscription box. That’s great if you’ve got 10,000 subscribers but it looks bad if only 2 people have subscribed to your newsletter.
Major drawback: you cannot schedule an e-mail campaign well in advance, with certain pieces mailed out on certain days.
Visit www.feedblitz.com for more info.
AWEBER
Big advantage: You can not only broadcast your blog content automatically to your list but you can also schedule an e-mail campaign well in advance, with certain pieces mailed out on certain days.
Also has: double opt-in subscription engine. It eliminates people subscribing other people without their consent.
Major drawback: it costs $19.95 a month.
Note: Aweber allows an “infinite” number of autoresponders for multiple websites.
Support: very patient people answer your questions politely and they never give up on you.
Too many configurable features to count here.
Visit www.aweber.com for more info.
My New Logo, thanks to Wikipedia
I use the public domain images of Wikipedia frequently and publish under GNU Free Documentation License.
In this logo, the earth image was also legally borrowed from Wikipedia. The rest was rendered in Adobe Illustrator.
Top 5 Sectors that Generate Maximum Online Leads
When it comes to generating a lot of online leads, all sectors are not created equal.
According to a recent Pew Internet & American Life survey, here are the 5 top sectors that generate maximum amount of leads:
1. Pharmaceuticals
2. Retail
3. Travel
4. Education
5. Personal finance
“79 percent of respondents said they turned to the web for health research. 91 percent of consumers who responded to a 2007 Prospectiv Consumer Preference Index (CPI) survey expressed interest in visiting websites focused on treatments for their ailments; 47 percent indicated they would like to receive treatment information via email,” according to iMedia Connection.
According to a recent Pew Internet & American Life survey, here are the 5 top sectors that generate maximum amount of leads:
1. Pharmaceuticals
2. Retail
3. Travel
4. Education
5. Personal finance
“79 percent of respondents said they turned to the web for health research. 91 percent of consumers who responded to a 2007 Prospectiv Consumer Preference Index (CPI) survey expressed interest in visiting websites focused on treatments for their ailments; 47 percent indicated they would like to receive treatment information via email,” according to iMedia Connection.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
How long online marketing copy can be?
The question comes up from time to time:
"How long an online sales letter should be?"
People new to direct marketing are a bit reluctant to send long letters for fear of "boring" their prospective customers. And that sounds like a valid point indeed in this day and age of soundbites, short YouTube clips and extreme programming.
However, there are a lot people making money by sending really long sales letters.
Here is one I've received from the "The Daily Reckoning" group, a subsidiary of Agora Publishing from Baltimore, MD.
The letter is for selling Steve Sarnoff's option trading newsletter and it is exactly 7825 words!
Seven thousand eight hundred twenty five words, including not one (P.S.), not two (P.P.S.) but THREE (P.P.P.S.) Post Scripts!!!
So if your message is good, if you have a lot to say to convince your prospects, if you need room to display your wares and advance logical arguments that use a lot of empirical data, feel free to write as long as you want.
More people than you might believe actually do read all that to make up their minds, especially in the financial newsletter sector.
"How long an online sales letter should be?"
People new to direct marketing are a bit reluctant to send long letters for fear of "boring" their prospective customers. And that sounds like a valid point indeed in this day and age of soundbites, short YouTube clips and extreme programming.
However, there are a lot people making money by sending really long sales letters.
Here is one I've received from the "The Daily Reckoning" group, a subsidiary of Agora Publishing from Baltimore, MD.
The letter is for selling Steve Sarnoff's option trading newsletter and it is exactly 7825 words!
Seven thousand eight hundred twenty five words, including not one (P.S.), not two (P.P.S.) but THREE (P.P.P.S.) Post Scripts!!!
So if your message is good, if you have a lot to say to convince your prospects, if you need room to display your wares and advance logical arguments that use a lot of empirical data, feel free to write as long as you want.
More people than you might believe actually do read all that to make up their minds, especially in the financial newsletter sector.
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