MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

In Wednesday’s free Web clinic – Homepage Optimization: How using the homepage as a channel led to a 59% increase in conversion – Flint McGlaughlin (the Director of MECLABS Group) will share a few key optimization strategies to help you build an effective, ROI-based homepage.

But first, we wanted to hear your thoughts about homepage optimization. So we asked marketers. Here are a few of our favorite answers…

Keyword early, keyword often

1. Keywords are very important. Find the best for you site/business/product. Is your homepage going to be a landing page for your product or service? If so, you can use the appropriate keywords. Otherwise find the keywords that more generally describe your industry/product and use them for the home page.

2. Content: the keywords will be used to develop relevant content. Try to use the keywords early and often (but not unnaturally so) on the page. Especially effective if you can use them in a title, or bold, etc.

3. Title tags: use keywords in title tag, plus the name of your company at the end.

4. Write a good descriptive meta tag – remember this is going to be part of what shows up in natural results on a search results page

5. Limit graphics. For the graphics that are there, use Alt formatting to see that the search engine can read them.

6. Try to build incoming links into your home page

– Brent Carnduff, Owner at EchelonSEO

Optimize for people and spiders

A homepage needs to be optimized for two general audiences: Visitors and Search Engines.

From a Visitor Perspective

A truly optimized homepage offers navigation options for all types of visitors, no matter what their intent. Not all your visitors are going to be ready to buy your product/service as soon as they land on the site. They may just be shopping, looking for resources, trying to find a job or partner, or researching your company for a news article.

To help gain an idea of who is visiting your site, review your site analytics and look at what referring sites are driving them there, what keywords they are searching to find your site, and what pages they are going to from your homepage.

An optimized homepage should have a navigation option for all types of visitors. Where these navigation options appear on the page is more a matter of your objectives, and prioritizing your calls to action. For example, if your main goal is to drive visitors to learn more about a specific product/service, that should be the dominate focus of your homepage. While a secondary call to action may be to gain blog subscribers. In this case, maybe you choose to include your blog’s RSS feed below the page’s main content block.

No matter what you choose to put on your homepage, make sure it is clean and easy to navigate. You need to tell visitors who you are, what you do and how to find more information within 3-5 seconds. If it takes longer than that, they’ll get frustrated and leave. And don’t use any type of audio to deliver this message. There are still a number of visitors who can’t, or choose not to, use their computer speakers because they are in an office setting.

Make it simple for visitors to find what they are looking for, and as soon as you think you have it figured out, tweak it again and test it. Never stop trying new things.

From a Search Engine Perspective

I think Brent Carnduff pretty much nailed it. The one thing I would add would be make sure the content here is constantly being refreshed. The more search engines see that you have new content, the more often they’ll come back around and index your site.

Remember, content is the real key to optimization that is within your control. The more content you have, the more pages you can get indexed and potentially the more keywords (both regular and long tail) for which you can rank. Your homepage should make it easy for search engines to find this new content.

– Keith Moehring, Consultant at PR 20/20

Above all, get understanding

I believe a logical first step is to understand what’s currently happening on the homepage and then define goals of what you want your different types of visitors to do.

Leverage your analytics to look at which links/paths are most popular, least popular. Do certain paths lead to conversions vs. others? If there are certain clicks/paths that are popular you need to be careful about making changes if they get repeat visitors who expect certain links to be there – for example, potential customers expecting to see a login button in a certain place.

– Stacy Taylor, Online Marketing Manager at XO Communications

Divide and conquer

One can divide homepages in two types – 1. Transactional, 2. Non-transactional. The transactional are the homepages which can generate purchases from the website (pages of most electronics companies, for example). Non-transactional homepages are those, which cannot generate sales from the page (majority of the consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands – think Tide detergent, Ragu sauce, etc.).

The optimization strategies for these two types should be different. Transactional homepages should have clutter-free and clean navigation towards products, reviews, and a super easy way for the visitor to buy a product (plus…actually compel them).

The non-transactional homepage should showcase their ads, latest campaign, and major usage of their product. For example, a food brand should showcase its own super-hot recipes (example: Kraft). These type of brands can integrate the page with a social media presence – this will add excitement and activity to otherwise not very active pages.

Finally, a homepage (irrespective of kind) should not be too advanced or have loads of videos. Many visitors will not have fast Internet connections and will simply navigate away.

– Subhra Ghatak, MBA Candidate at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

Related Resources

Homepage Optimization: How using the homepage as a channel led to a 59% increase in conversion

Web Page Optimization: Basic principles yours peers use to increase conversion

What to Include on Your Home Page

Clinic Notes

“Many tradeshows have experienced a decline in attendance and exhibitors in recent years. In addition to companies cutting back on their tradeshow attendance due to financial reasons, many attendees are also scaling back their tradeshow participation, due to travel costs and time away from the office. Virtual events eliminate some of these issues.”

The above quote is from Chris Chariton, Vice President of Supplier Marketing & Marketing Services at GlobalSpec – the engineering search engine. To help you incorporate virtual events into your marketing mix, we conducted a virtual interview with Chris…

Let’s start with the obvious question – what is a virtual tradeshow and how is it different than a webinar?

Chris Chariton: Virtual tradeshows go beyond a webinar or webcast, as they include elements of both an educational conference and a tradeshow. A typical webinar lasts between 30 and 60 minutes, and is usually focused on a single topic.

On the other hand, virtual tradeshows encompass a “conference” portion featuring many different educational sessions with a variety of speakers, as well as a “tradeshow” component including exhibitor booths, live chat and networking.

The platform for virtual tradeshows is much more comprehensive, the interactive capabilities are greater, and they offer additional multimedia opportunities, including video.

In what situations should marketers use a traditional event? When should they choose a virtual event?

CC: Two reasons why marketers use in-person events are the opportunity to be face-to-face with an existing or potential customer, and the opportunity for someone to see your products “in action.” Virtual events also provide this interactive ability for one-on-one discussions.

Additionally, the economic, time and resource benefits of virtual tradeshows and online events are too big not to experience. They can serve as a complement, a supplement or a replacement to in-person events, as they offer lead generation, branding and networking opportunities – much more conveniently, and without travel, hotel and entertainment costs.

However, you will want to evaluate each individual event for itself, determining the quality of the audience, the “fit” with your company, its products and services, and other factors.

How should we approach a virtual event differently than we would approach a traditional event?

CC: We recommend that you approach a virtual event in a similar manner that you would approach a traditional event. Having a successful presence requires effort, so you want to be sure that you have a solid project plan in place.

You also want to create a content strategy that ensures that you are outfitting your virtual booth with the content that is most relevant and valuable to attendees, and that positions you as a thought leader.

Much like a traditional tradeshow, you want to interact with all of your virtual booth visitors as well. Know who the subject matter experts are, in case you need to pass the person off for a technical discussion. And understand the content of the collateral that you have on hand, so you can offer them the appropriate materials.

Maximizing results is key. After exhibiting at a virtual event, you want to follow up on opportunities – like you would for a traditional tradeshow, or any other marketing initiative for that matter.

And while there are many similarities between virtual events and traditional events, there are some differences – without travel costs and time away from the office being a factor, you can implement a cross-departmental team to staff your virtual booth and participate in online chats, especially during high traffic times. So in addition to the traditional sales and marketing folks who typically staff your in-person booths, you can also invite engineers and other subject matter experts to attend.

How do you incorporate social media into virtual events?

CC: We use a variety of social media channels – including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – to promote our events, both prior to the event to encourage registration, and during the event to attract and engage attendees. For each event, we have a dedicated social media strategy designed to drive interest and registrations, as well as attendance.

How do you determine the value of participating in a virtual event?

CC: To maximize your virtual event investment, select one that will help you effectively achieve your marketing goals. Before participating in a virtual event, there are a number of important criteria to consider.

First, understand the audience for the event – both the quantity and the quality to expect, including the titles and industries of the attendees.

Next, ask yourself if the topic is relevant to your target market, and a good fit for your business. Inquire how these events are being promoted, both pre- and post-event. And understand the support you will receive as an exhibitor. Will you have a dedicated client services manager assisting you? Is the technology platform secure? All of these will help you ensure you are making the right decision.

Like an in-person tradeshow, virtual events can position your company as a thought leader, and deliver branding, exposure and qualified sales leads.

You can hear Chris discuss virtual events at Frost & Sullivan’s GIL (Growth, Innovation, and Leadership) 2010: Silicon Valley in San Jose. Chris will be presenting “Building Brand Exposure, Generating Leads with Virtual Events” on September 15^th during the “BtoB Marketing: Best Practices” breakout session.

Our own Brian Carroll (CEO of InTouch , our sister company) will also be presenting in that session – “Playbook for Marketing and Sales Alignment: How to Collaborate to Optimize Lead Generation Programs.” If you’re interested in attending, you can visit Brian’s blog for a discount code.

Related Resources

Why Your Web Site Isn’t Enough

Internet Marketing Research: A behind-the scenes look at MarketingExperiments Web clinics

B2B Marketing: Playbook for sales and marketing alignment

Events

I recently found out that Andy Mott is the Mayor of MarketingExperiments. Which got me thinking…who rules the roost at other austere workplaces according to Foursquare?

Well, it turns out that Rob R. is the so-called Mayor of the White House. Rob who? I don’t know, but clearly not Barack O. So, if the Leader of the Free World can’t even be in charge of his own house, how valuable of a technology is this really?

I don’t care where you are

After I found out about his Mayordom, I also learned that Andy is the Mayor of a local Dunkin’ Donuts and Chili’s. But what do I really learn from this other than that Andy could be making healthier choices in life than scarfing down Boston Kreme donuts and Baby Back Ribs?

After all, when he checks in somewhere, all I really see is “I’m at BLANK.” So how social is FourSquare really?

The true power of social media is not that it allows people to be a shill to their friends (Andy ate a donut, and then two of his friends ate a donut, and then four of their friends ate a donut…). Social media, broken down to is essence, is essentially Transparent Marketing microcast to a highly niche audience – people who care what you have to say.

And the quickest way to turn those people off to caring what their friends and associates have to say is to shill.

Even in a tweet, I learn something about what someone thought of something – the bare minimum essential for communication to actually take place. They liked it. They didn’t like it. They ate too much. Something. Not just, “I’m at BLANK.”

Beyond that, once the novelty of campaigning against Mayor McCheese wears off, what value is there going to be to the FourSquarers? Essentially, all I’m learning is that someone can be enticed by the potential for a free cup of coffee and a virtual Girl Scout badge to let his friends track him on an odyssey through the strip malls of America.

Get your Groupon

Now, don’t get me wrong, I agree that the convergence of Local + Mobile + Social Media = The Next Google. And since the current Google hasn’t mastered this equation (Buzz is about as likely to generate any buzz as non-alcoholic beer), the field is wide open to upstarts. To me, the let’s-use-incentivized-social-media-to-get-people-into-B&M-stores horse to bet on is Groupon. For one, there is clear appeal to users. Huuuuuuge discounts (the prices are insane). And two, people ACTUALLY SAY SOMETHING about the product or service. Sure, there’s some discussion on Foursquare…

But on Groupon, people are actually putting their money where their mouth is, and making a buying decision, so the information for those interested in making a local purchase (which is, after all, what both Foursquare and Groupon are really about), is much more valuable – a true marketplace of ideas…

Tips for location-based social media marketing So if you have a local company or a national brand with bricks and mortar locations, what should you do? Until we release more detailed research into social media marketing, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Transparency – Something both these services get right is that they are clearly, openly, and honestly promoting local businesses. That’s a huge plus considering all the unethical, black hat social media “powerful promoters” currently flooding the digital airwaves with what is essentially spam.
   

  But Groupon gets my vote for that extra layer of transparency. As you can see from the comment above, people debate if these deals are really worth it, and that provides much more value to a local consumer than just knowing your buddy likes to grab a beer at the local pub.

   

  While your company may not be on Foursquare or Groupon yet, keep the value of transparency in mind on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs as well. If you are promoting a product, service, or non-profit, be clear in your intentions. And encourage your followers and customers to be clear as well, if you incent social media action with a contest, discount, or freebie.

   
• Actual content – Social media is, after all, a form of content marketing. And as the name suggests, content marketing requires actual content.
   

  Groupon does a better job than Foursquare of actually producing content that a local customer would be interested in. Even if I don’t purchase a discount through a Groupon, it’s interesting to get people’s feedback on that product or service.

   

  But content can help you in another way as well. Both of these services, especially Groupon, rely on incentives to grab attention and drive traffic. And that’s a great way to begin your local social media promotions…especially in a down economy. But if that incentive is the only value you offer potential customers, you’re going to kill your margins.

   

  Content marketing, through social media or any other media, does an excellent job of building an audience for your offering while strengthening your brand and showing the real value you provide. But to get to that step, you must first provide real, valuable, genuine, authentic content that is valuable to your audience in its own right. In this arena, both Groupon and Foursquare fall short.

   
• Actual decisions – If you’re a local business or a national brand with B&M locations, here’s the real value of Groupon over Foursquare. Groupon drives actual purchase decisions. Users get a discount, they debate the merit of your product or service, but you’re likely getting significant net new traffic to focus on what you have to offer.
   

  The difference is akin to the gap between surveys and real-world testing. With a survey, you’re asking people what they might like to buy. With Foursquare, the conversation (if you can call it that) essentially revolves around places people have been and may go.

   

  Groupon, like real-world resting, is focused on actual conversions. The buying process itself. As such, it provides content and value that is aligned with your goals, which is likely not traffic and badges but rather – real purchases.

Unless some major changes are made, in two years FourSquare will largely be remembered as a lame game you play at recess when you can’t find a football.

Oh, and Andy, if you really are the Mayor of MarketingExperiments, when are you going to fix the pothole in front of my office?

Join us on Wednesday when Andy hopefully answers that question while telling you the value he’s discovered in Foursquare from working with some of our enterprise-level Research Partners…

Related Resources

Social Media Measurement: Are you getting value out of Twitter and its peers?

Facebook Case Study: From 517 to 33,000 fans in two weeks (plus media coverage)

Social Media Marketing in Four Steps

Marketing Insights

“Our job is to help you do your job better.” That’s how I sign every MarketingExperiments Journal email, and it’s a mission all of us at MarketingExperiments take very seriously.

One of the main ways we help marketers is through the production of MarketingExperiments Web clinics – free, hour-long webinars where we share our research discoveries, analyze what they mean, share actionable advice for using these discoveries in your day-to-day job, and often provide live optimization advice for submissions from our audience of their marketing material.

These Web clinics are crucial to our educational and enablement activities, so I want to take today’s blog post to introduce Web clinics to those new to the MarketingExperiments community while addressing some key comments that may be helpful to long-time audience members as well.

I’ll get to those comments in a minute, but first a look at the replay of our latest Web clinic…

[Presentation will open in new window]

While the Web clinic replays are valuable (you can find more replays in our Research Directory), please note that they don’t fully replicate the experience of attending a live Web clinic – which is usually a lively session with much interaction and two way-conversation.

I could rattle on about our clinics, but clearly I have a vested interest in them…my opinion might be a bit skewed. So let’s take a look at some comments from the 917 marketers that attended our last Web clinic (with some annotations from yours truly to shed some light here and there)…

“I really enjoyed the fast pace and real-life examples.”

– Erica Waitman, Director Business Development at ARG Inc.

“Lots of immediately useful information”

– Liz Bredeson, Consumer Marketing Director at Meredith Corporation

“I like the directness. They don’t waste time with marketing rhetoric or pull any punches. They just get right into the content, tell you what’s wrong or could be improved, and then give you actual ideas and solutions on how to do it.”

– Bob Curtis, owner at SoHo Business Services

“The Web clinics are straight to the point.”

– Veaney McIrvin, owner of Storefront Creations, LLC

“I always enjoy the webinars given by the MarketingExperiments team. I especially like it when the Doctor (Dr. Flint) is in the Web page operating room. If you have experienced a live page review, you must be pretty bold or want help. Flint is not PC when it comes to telling it like it is. On reflection, I would rather have total honesty and improved conversions than hurt feelings. If you want to strive to be the best, let the best critique your work or you will never get there. I have been sliced and diced by the best, it made me better! Great stuff Flint and team as always. I particularly liked the bluntness.”

– John Wolfe, COO at IntelaSystems Inc.

“This is the second MarketingExperiments clinic I’ve attended, and the only thing I wish is that they were a bit longer, so more user-submitted sites could be reviewed.”

– Melody Foster, Marketing Director at Zephyr Real Estate

Special thanks to Erica, Liz, Bob, Veaney, John, and Melody for allowing us to publish their comments as a sampling of all the great feedback we get. Keep it coming. It gets us fired up to help you more.

To Melody’s point, while Web clinics are currently 60 minutes long, we also optimize audience-submitted sites that we didn’t have a chance to get to on the Web clinic right here on the blog. Here are a few recent examples:

Landing Page Optimization: Clean air or a free backpack? (Which is the bigger incentive for Sierra Club members?)

Web Page Optimization: Consider this post the help desk for free trial landing pages

Landing Page Optimization: Regions Bank opts for the information underload strategy

Web Page Optimization: In search of a value proposition as fast and reliable as Verizon FiOS

“When you send out the email blasts about these webinars, you always say to submit our website for possible review during the seminar. But then I see that during the seminar you are reviewing sites from Wall St Journal and Microsoft. Why are you giving them free advice? They have teams of people that do this full-time. Help out the smaller company who can’t afford full-time employees dedicated to optimization. If you’re going to spend your time reviewing Microsoft’s site, why ask us for our URL?”

– Brian Bischof of Crystal Reports Online Training

In our most recent Web clinic, Flint McGlaughlin, the Director of MECLABS Group, Research Manager Adam Lapp, and Research Analyst Nathan Thompson did conduct live optimization on Microsoft Azure Platform and WSJ Wine from The Wall Street Journal pages.

But they also conducted live optimization on pages from Pure Pearls, Newave Energy, and Positive Parenting Solutions.

To give you a little behind-the-scenes look, we have a wide range of marketers who attend these events – some are sole proprietors, some are at agencies, and some work in the corporate marketing departments of the biggest global brands. Our desire is to serve all of these elements of our audience.

So while I empathize with Brian (I’ve been there myself…lacking the resources of the major enterprises), to truly live up to our mission – “our job is to help you do your job better” – we have to serve the enterprise audience as well. Besides, I’ve worked with those Fortune 500 companies before, and, trust me, big-time budgets don’t paper over every challenge they face. Everyone could use a little help from time to time. (Us, too. Have blog optimization ideas? I’d love to hear them.)

“We are developing a new website and really need some feedback.  What can I do?”

– Gina Dement, PR/Marketing at Five-County Mental Health Authority

The MarketingExperiments Optimize Group on LinkedIn has 3,092 of your peers that have (or are facing) the same challenges that you face and can provide feedback for all of your marketing initiatives. Many have even achieved certification in landing page optimization, email marketing, and/or online testing from MarketingExperiments training.

“Amy and I are very aware that our site needs work. That’s why I submitted it when I signed up. We were thrilled you guys selected it for use in your webinar and more thrilled to get the free feedback.  Unfortunately, I had a meeting and could not participate. Amy took as many notes as possible but you guys go so fast. Can I get a link to the recording?”

– Dave McCready, Owner at Positive Parenting Solutions

Web clinic replays are published eight days after the live Web clinic. To ensure you get a link to the recording, you can activate your free subscription and be notified when the replay is available.

“I would love to examine a partnership with Ecopaper.com. We would benefit greatly from your wisdom and it would be great for you since the tree-free paper market is brand new.”

– Aaron Schiff, COO at Ecopaper Inc

We received 365 landing pages for live optimization during the Web clinic, and while we try to offer free optimization advice on Web clinics (and right here on the blog) for as many pages as possible, we simply can’t get to every page.

If you need marketing help and haven’t been selected for live optimization, you may want to consider exploring a paid Research Partnership with MarketingExperiments.

Related Resources

Homepage Optimization: How using the homepage as a channel led to a 59% increase in conversion (with live optimization examples) – the invitation to our next free Web clinic

Optimizing Landing Pages: The four key tactics that drove a 189% lift – replay of our most recent Web clinic

MarketingExperiments Research Directory – you can find replays of all of our Web clinics here

Clinic Notes

We’ve written some posts recently about how the customer should be in charge of your marketing (and really perhaps everything you do as a company). And hopefully along the way we’ve provided some helpful advice on how to listen to your customers and provide them real value (which will ultimately lead to greater success for your company).

But…there’s a line. Let’s just say, “the customer is often right.” To help you find that line, let’s take a MarketingExperiments look at…

When not to listen to your customers

While writing these customer-oriented posts, I started thinking about Apple and Steve Jobs. After all, their customers said they wanted a tablet computer, but instead Apple gave them an iThingy.

Then Scotty Monty of Ford commented on a recent post about the whole anti-crowdsourcing idea dating back to a famous quote by Henry, “If I asked my customers what they wanted, I would have made a faster horse.”

So, how do you create iPad-and-Model-T-level marketing and avoid producing an Edsel? I think it comes down to a simple (but not easy) three-step process…

STEP #1: Listen (broadly)

“I want a horn here, here, and here. You can never find a horn when you’re mad. And they should all play ‘La Cucaracha.’” – Homer Simpson, designing a car as a an “everyman” customer consultant

When I was young, there were endless commercials for a toy called Spy Tech that supposedly let you eavesdrop on conversations while hiding behind a bush. To a kid, it seemed liked the most impressive piece of technology that could be molded out of plastic.

Today, in the future, you have Spy Tech as well (only now it’s called social media). You don’t have to rely on phone calls coming into a complaint line to judge your marketing. You can listen to pseudo-real conversations taking place (virtually) all over the world. Social media isn’t just a megaphone, it’s also a great phone tap.

In fact, the first piece of advice Chris Brogan gives about Twitter is not to come up with a really cool handle or shout about your latest accomplishments/content/offers in 140 characters or less, it’s to (shhhhhh) – listen. Search Twitter. Join competitors’ groups (on LinkedIn) and fan pages (on Facebook). Follow industry-specific hashtags. Ask questions on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Of course, it’s not all just social media. Really, you’re just looking to download as much info into your cranium from your current and potential customers. So ask yourself how else you can tap into their valuable knowledge? A few other ideas:

• Conduct surveys and focus groups – Don’t make decisions based solely on these (more on that in Step #3), but a tight set of well-worded questions with a clear end goal of helping the customer can provide valuable info.
• Call them – Or email. Heck, even send a letter. But tone is important. As MarketingExperiments Research Analyst Corey Trent says, “Ask in a very personal, human fashion to avoid the ‘system-generated message’ feel.”
• Tap into institutional knowledge – You may not talk to customers every day, but likely someone, somewhere in your organization does. Whether their title is sales executive, customer service rep, flight attendant, or maid, they have unique insights than can help. Of course, take that info with a grain of salt, since it comes through a filter.

Step #2: (stop and) Think

“THINK.” – Thomas Watson

Steve Jobs wants you to think different. Thomas Watson just wants you to flat out think. Either way, your job as a customer-focused marketer is to take the (sometimes contradictory) clay and mold it into the Mona Lisa of marketing campaigns (which is further complicated by the fact that the Mona Lisa isn’t made out of clay).

So step back from everything you’ve been hearing from your customers. Clear your head. Go to a library. Read the classics. Play with the kids. Walk the dog. Pull a Ferris Bueller.

You need to inject some of you into your marketing campaigns. My point being, don’t overly rely on your customers insights, because I’m sure you have essential ideas of your own. Only you understand your marketing goals, your margin, your corporate structure, the internal politics, and how to mix these all together with your customers’ desires to hit just the right note.

By considering then stepping away from everything your customers say they want, you have the chance to come up with a (pseudo) original way to meet all these demands with a marketing campaign that surpasses your goals and makes you proud and perhaps famous…

To remix a famous quote, “There are no original marketing ideas, just ideas the judges at the One Club haven’t seen yet.”

Step #3: Test (and measure)

“Gentlemen, we got 20 calls about the David Hyde-Pierce incident. And as you know, one call equals a billion people, which means 20 billion people were offended by this. Needless to say, something must be done.” – FCC Suit on Family Guy

It’s one thing for your customers to say they want something in a focus group or phone call. It’s quite another for them to actually reach for the wallet and make a purchase.

You need to run real-world, real-time randomized tests to see how your customers actually react to your use of their ideas. The folks in Washington call this a trial balloon.

If you follow a scientific methodology, testing gives you a chance to gain true knowledge into how well your campaign will actually work. If you just listen to customer opinion, you run the risk of releasing a “faster horse,” because, as MarketingExperiments Senior Manager of Research and Strategy, Boris Grinkot, says “You have to be conscious of skewed sampling. People that are upset are the loudest. People that are the loudest may or may not speak for many others.”

Boris mentioned a subtle change in the shopping cart process for a Research Partner that increased conversion. Excellent, right? Well, there was one caveat. They got some kickback about this change creating a “customer-service nightmare.” However, upon digging deeper Boris learned that it was just one upset customer making a big stink on the phone to a manager.

Now, that one upset person can represent many, many more upset people…or not. By designing a series of tests and tracking the right metrics to measure success, you have a full understanding if your spiffy new marketing ideas are moving the needle, which can also help when the manager who just got off the phone with the enraged customer comes barreling down to your office.

In fairness, you need to take into account long-term indicators. If it was just one (or a small handful) of customers, you’re probably OK. But even an entire upset customer base doesn’t necessarily show attrition immediately in the conversion rate. So it really loops back up to Step #1: Listen. If that many people are upset, it will likely show up in other places as well.

So listen…think…test…repeat.

If you’re new to testing and optimization, we have an entire research website and training courses to help you test your ideas.

If you’re an experienced researcher, check out a few test ideas in the Related Resources section that you may not have considered…

Related Resources

Domain/Product Name Testing: Our testing demonstrated that choosing product, service, or domain names based on what you “like” can cost you dearly

What to test (and how) to increase your ROI today

What Else Can I Test…On My E-commerce Or Lead Generation Website?

Marketing Insights

Boris Grinkot and I have debated this content vs. technology topic on the blog in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, and in Part 3 we’re going to take a look at what your peers had to say.

But first let me say – of course there is no one right answer to the above question. This is simply a thought experiment.

By going through the process of trying to answer the question, we clarify in our own minds (and hopefully yours as well) the complex interplay between technology and content in your marketing campaigns. Which is more important? In truth, there is a sort of quantum entanglement between the two. So perhaps we can think of this question as Schrödinger’s content.

With that said, here are the answers that we think are the cat’s meow…

Digging for gold

Content needs technology to deliver it. I see it as a two-sided coin. Some folks are going to manufacture the coin and some folks are going to dig the gold.

– Katherine Andes, Web Content Developer at Andes & Associates

The message is the message

I’m on the side of content and strongly believe that McLuhan was wrong – the message is the message.

Form can only enhance a message, not replace it. I sit and watch TV and after every ad, I find myself saying, “that’s a bad advertisement.” Consumers are not children – we really do know the difference between talked at and with. Talk with us, and we’ll respond. Talk at us and before you’re done, we’ve already left the room or muted you.

– Erica Friedman, Social Media Optimizer at ALC Publishing

I’d like to ask Stephen Sondheim if he is a “melody person” or a “lyrics person”

I think that the technology versus content debate is a false dichotomy. It’s not about balance, but about harmony. It’s about the dance. Technology and content either work together to create impact and meaning or they work against each other to create noise and step on each other’s toes.

When they work together, it’s because technology’s impact, without content, lacks meaning, so it has figured out how to make the content accessible and approachable; it’s because the content has figured out that meaning can’t live as successfully in a vacuum as when it leverages the visual and physiological assists of its environment.

When they work against each other, it’s because they’re competing. They distract from each other, they try to outshout each other, they try to be the star of the show instead of the team they were meant to be. When they work against each other, they fail.

The needle and the thread shouldn’t be arguing about which of them is more essential to the art and science of sewing on a button; they should be working together to sew on the damned button. The thread and needle are means to an end. So, to the question of which is more important, the needle or the thread, I would submit that the answer is: the button. For “button,” substitute “communication.”

Thus ends the philosophical portion of my program. I’ll just add three pieces of practical information.

(1) Research at Harvard’s Mind, Brain, Behavior Initiative suggests that most of our decisions are completely irrational and unconscious – and that much of the time we’ve made a decision before we even start consciously thinking about it. What that means is that we make our decisions and then retrofit our rationale into the decision so that it will make sense to us. When we’re trying to understand something, we may be completely unaware of how content + technology are affecting us.

(2) Jakob Nielsen has lots of data about how technology affects comprehension. When you put something on a computer screen, comprehension is automatically reduced by 25%. And we know that people don’t read websites; they scan. This says to me that technology and content must work really hard together to support the communication strategy. Technology giveth and it taketh away. (Interestingly, it’s not as hard to read on the Kindle as it is on a web page. Perhaps that’s because the Kindle’s page layout replicates a book’s layout — no fancy schmancy bells and whistles, a single page with content, no scrolling.)

(3) Whether people lean more heavily upon technological or content assists to garner meaning depends largely, I think, upon their generational cohort. In 1964 we got Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan; in 1999 we got The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Lock, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger.

– Vicky Jones, Principal at Victoria Jones Strategic Marketing Communications

Content…the world is content, without content it’s just a ball of rock floating in space

The book and the newspaper in the 1700s were no less a technological marvel in their day, than an iPad is today. For that matter, the tribal story teller was a technology of sorts. He had to speak well, be amusing, animated.

One of the things I do is compose Spanish Jazz. You might as well ask me which guitar makes the best music… the answer is none. My skill makes the music, the composition, the technique, mood and tone. I can compose equally well on an expensive or inexpensive guitar. Are some guitars better than others? Sure. But I know of no guitar that can play better music than the musician wielding it.

Content… your life and all its meaning is content.

Give me good content…written on the back of a coaster if need be…and I’ll find you someone who will read it and love it.

– Steven Grindlay, Strategic Marketing Maven at Xross The Line Marketing and Advertising

Content. Content. Content.

We still have copies of all the work we have produced during the past ten years and our clients are still using much of it. Good content retains its value.

During that same decade I have literally thrown away tens of thousands of pounds of computer equipment which has done its job, become obsolete and been written off. Investing in good technology is a worthy aim in the short-term, but it has no lasting value.

– Tom Mountford, Senior Editor at The JMS Group

Related Resources

Debate Team (Part 1): Does the future of media companies, ad agencies, and content marketers lie in technology or content?

Debate Team (Part 2): Does the future of media companies, ad agencies, and content marketers lie in technology or content?

Search Marketing: Tips on mastering the latest innovations in this mature category

Marketing Insights