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

You get home from a long day in your marketing department or agency. Whip up a quick dinner. And just when you’re about to bite into your arroz con pollo, you hear that dreaded ring.

I call this situation Dan’s Lament. Our associate editor, Daniel Burstein, was sounding off to me about this situation earlier today. For some reason, at least in his household, they only get one type of phone call around 7pm and that, of course, is the dreaded telemarketer.

Now telemarketing is illegal at some level in the United States, as it is in many other countries, and Dan is on the National Do Not Call Registry. Yet there are those loopholes that ensure his phone still rings at dinnertime. In the latest case, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to discuss his fishing habits.

Surveys. Non-profits. Or my personal favorite…political push polls. They all have found a loophole.

The more you segment, the less you blindly dial for dollars

I’ve really grown to hate telemarketers. Not so much because they prevent foodie friends of mine like Dan from enjoying a good winter vegetable salad with fresh, in-season kale, but rather as a professional marketer.

The technology and science behind segmentation have helped marketers target their message so much better than before, so I feel professionally insulted that someone would think they can, precisely at the dreaded 7pm, offer sandwich-toting Dan something he didn’t already think about buying in a store or online.

So I am a fan of do-not-call registries…even if they are only marginally effective.

Now I know what many of you may be thinking. “Wait a minute, Boris, I don’t mean to interrupt Dan’s enjoyment of a hearty winter vegetable salad or pastrami on rye, but these lists are a major challenge for me…I need to leverage the human touch for an upsell or to nurture a complex sale.”

The reality is that cultural and corresponding regulatory changes have led to a certain shift in the utilization of call centers, from making to taking calls. It’s not bad news. It’s great news for you savvy marketers that have the resources to leverage a call center, if you know how to do it profitably.

Is automation right for you?

If you are a Web marketer reading this, you might be asking yourself “what does this have to do with me?” However, looking at marketing holistically may be precisely where you can maximize return on your marketing dollars, as the automation afforded by the digital medium is not a one-size-fits-all solution to all sales processes.

Yes, it’s cheaper to sell online. Yet you may be doing a better job of selling and cross-selling over the phone, even though it costs you more. The question is where the higher net profit lies.

As the resident KPI (that’s key performance indicator) Guy at MarketingExperiments, among other things, I want to reintroduce you to a KPI that is critical to inbound marketing. It is the same KPI what would have been applied to a telemarketing campaign just a few short years ago: cost per acquisition (CPA).

The obvious use of this metric is to understand how much you can afford to spend on a media buy. You may be more familiar with this metric in the demand generation realms (paid search, affiliate marketing, lead gen, etc.). However, in conjunction with a bottom-line metric, such as revenue (preferably, lifetime) per visitor (RPV), it can also provide you with critical insights for directing your marketing efforts and formulating your messaging.

Even though your site can now do many things that have replaced telemarketing – from further qualifying a lead to completing an order to even getting that upsell – don’t let technology guide your decisions. Depending on the nature of your product, the human touch can be so much more effective for any or all of these steps.

So the best thing to do is… wait for it… test!

By varying the emphasis you place on calls to action that lead to a human interaction (phone number, live chat, call-me form), both in the layout of your pages (location, graphical weighting) and their prominence in the order process (from focusing the option as the primary action to not even mentioning it).

Experimenting with live chat is its own subject, as you can test how quickly (if at all) you want to turn the online chat into a phone conversation. You might even test a click-to-call button, although be wary of spam (and if you market in India, strict regulations).

What you’re trying to discover is whether the increased cost of acquiring a customer is offset or surpassed by an increase in closed orders, upsells, or higher-quality leads (e.g., for a complex sale, how does the increase in calls help your lead management efforts).

In other words, you will need to compare the change in CPA to the change in RPV (and depending on the nature of your business, both may need to be adjusted for the customer’s projected lifetime cost and value).

You have to be careful with how you juggle the numbers, as there are many potential pitfalls. Remember that your ultimate goal is increased profits. Depending on your business plan, your primary or close secondary goal is likely increased profits in the foreseeable future or over the customer’s lifetime. If adding human interaction results in sufficiently higher revenue per website visitor, it may be worth the extra cost.

But you’ll only know if you test. And use the right KPI.

How do you use inbound marketing, telesales, and customer service? What KPIs do you use to measure your success? Share your triumphs and ideas in the comments section of this post or start a conversation with your peers in the MarketingExperiments Optimization group.

Ecommerce, Lead Generation, Marketing Insights, Research Topics advanced track, Ecommerce, inbound marketing, Lead Generation, marketing, metrics

At our web clinics and optimization training workshops, two of the most frequent questions  are: “What else can I test?” and “Do you have a good example?” To answer these queries with practical test ideas and examples, we’re pleased to present our new “What else can I test?” column.

More than 60% of US online retailers are seeing shopping cart abandonment rates of over 20% this year, according to a recent eMarketer article. Among the most cited and common reasons for that abandonment: just doing comparison shopping, lack of money, looking for a coupon, and no alternative payment methods available.

In a recent survey with one of our research partners, we found that the number one reason for abandonment was shipping prices, followed by “I did not intend to purchase at this moment.”

Here are a handful of ideas, drawn from our research, that can help combat those issues and decrease your cart abandonment rates:

1) Offer alternative payment methods. Credit cards are still the most popular method of payment with about 55% of online retail purchase volume in 2008 (eMarketer), followed by debit cards with 27%. The forecast for next five years shows credit cards as the #1 payment type. However, alternative payment types like debit cards, Bill Me Later, PayPal, and Google Checkout are growing fast in popularity.

Test offering any of these alternative methods and don’t forget to promote them in your shopping cart as well as on your homepage and product pages. It’s important to let visitors know all the payment options available as soon as they land on your website. See examples:

Alternative method of payments - example 1

Alternative method of payments - example 2

Note: Some online retailers are seeing a significant improvement in average order value by providing a Bill Me Later option.

2) State your shipping prices or rules upfront. Simply state your shipping prices or rules in a visible area in your website and cart page. The best locations are next to the shopping cart, page header or footer or within content in the product pages. See examples:

Shipping prices upfront - example 1

Shipping prices upfront - example 2

3) Offer exclusive products online. These can help with shoppers who are just browsing and researching. You may need to do some research to find attractive products that you won’t lose money on if you only offered them online. See example:

Online exclusive offer example

4) Put your nav bar to work for your cart. It’s a common mistake to think that the navigation bar needs to stay the same in your cart page. I understand usability might be the reason, but you don’t want to offer more links to your visitors to abandon the cart. Instead your nav bar can become your center of “anxiety relief.” Use it to state your shipping prices, customer support options (phone number, email, chat), method of payments available, and security seals. The nav bar can help reduce your visitors’ anxiety by making them feel more secure and comfortable with your checkout process. (If you don’t have a navigation bar use the bottom section of your cart page). See example:

Anxiety relief nav bar example

5) Promote your promo codes. The feeling of missing a promotion because you don’t have a promo code can be frustrating. It actually can lead to abandoning the cart to go and search for promo codes online. Instead of wasting your visitors’ time, offer them a way to get promo codes directly from you. GetElastic provides a great example of how to do this. Another option, if visitors come from a channel that you can control (email, PPC, banner, affiliate), is to have the promo code prefilled for them. You can use the visitors’ session or URL to carry over the promo code value and use it right in the shopping cart page.

6) Plug in a progress bar. This is a very simple and easy update to your cart and checkout pages. Especially for those online retailers that have a short (two to four steps) checkout process, having a progress bar can help reduce visitors’ anxiety and encourage them to continue. For longer checkouts (more than four steps), I’d recommend testing first reducing the number of steps and then testing a progress bar. See example:

Progress bar example

7) Brand your checkout process. Along with the progress bar, naming your checkout process can reduce visitors’ anxiety. By naming I refer to using adjectives to describe the nature of your checkout process. For example, “easy checkout”, “1-2-3 checkout”, “express checkout”, etc. Test different names powerful enough that can create a sense of relief in your visitors’ mind. See example:

Branded checkout example

For more tactics and suggestions on how to optimize an eretail website, join us for our Sept. 30 web clinic: Ecommerce Optimization: A holiday playbook for procrastinators.

Ecommerce, Lead Generation, Practical Application Alternative method of payments, checkout, Ecommerce, promo codes, shopping cart abandonment rate, what else can I test

At our web clinics and optimization training workshops, two of the most frequent questions  are: “What else can I test?” and “Do you have a good example?” To answer these queries with practical test ideas and examples, we’re pleased to present our new “What else can I test?” column.

As I wrote in a previous post, optimizing for lead generation is a more complex task than meets the eye. However, one area where you can run tests quickly and easily is with short lead capture forms (see example at right: short form embedded in product page).

2. Headline and call to action. These two elements together can make a significant improvement to your site’s lead generation rate. However, it’s critical that they communicate value and that there is continuity between them.

Both the headline and call to action can be used to re-state, clarify or quantify the value proposition or emphasize a specific benefit. Continuity refers to how well the page uses the call to action to confirm or reaffirm the promise of the headline and the supporting content elements in between.

What you’ll want to test with these elements can vary widely. But if your page doesn’t have continuity between the headline and call to action, your first test should be changing them so they’re more closely aligned. They don’t need to match word-for-word, but should be clearly and intuitively connected. 

[Example above right shows a form headline and call to action with continuity; click to enlarge.]

3. Form design. Some of the best lead capture forms are those that don’t even look like a form. Forms can create a lot of friction for prospects, whether it’s due to the length or the questions and required fields, or just the look and feel. As a result, form design is an area where you have latitude to alter several factors at once.

So where should you start? The more the form can be associated with the surrounding content of the page, the better. You don’t want it to be totally obscured, but to look and feel like a natural extension of the content, leading prospects to take that next step — sign up for access, request or download more information, and so on.

Test removing borders and boxes around the forms, or squares or dark colors that set it off from the content. In the example image, you’ll see that the short lead capture form is embedded in the content to connect with the prospect’s thought process.

[Example above right shows a form integrated with content; click to enlarge.]

Let me know if you decide to test any of these variations with your short lead capture forms, and look for the next column, where I’ll be looking at test ideas for ecommerce shopping carts.

Not sure what you should test next? Want to share your testing ideas, questions or feedback on this topic? Use the comments section below or tweet me at: @anagabydiaz

Lead Generation, Marketing Q&A, Practical Application b2b, form design, form location, lead capture form, Lead Generation, optimization, testing, tests, what else can I test

If you’ve got a B2B website, you’re always looking for ways to generate more leads online. But while recent research shows 71% of B2B marketers view their site as one of the most important marketing tools, only 31% said their site is “highly effective” at generating leads.

That leaves a lot of room for testing and improving business results. However, optimizing for lead generation is not as straightforward as optimizing for conversion rate.

Conversion rate is the final metric that decides whether or not your online process/funnel is working. In contrast, lead generation only tells you a portion of the story. The leads you generate are really the start of a long process of qualification steps, both online and offline. If you don’t pay attention to each step, you will never be able to get the best out of this process.

How to use friction to your advantage

Think of the process of optimizing for lead generation as two interconnected dials. Each dial represents a step in your online process. One dial increases volume of leads by reducing friction. The second dial increases quality of the lead by increasing friction.

You can increase friction in several ways, such as adding more form fields or steps in the funnel process. Or, you can reduce it by subtracting various page elements or process steps. To adjust your lead flow, turn the dials: more friction will yield higher lead quality; less friction will increase lead volume.

Too much friction can make your visitors quit, but not enough friction will fill your pipeline with leads of a lower quality. So you need to test different approaches to determine what balance works best for your lead generation process.

Before you turn that dial …

Three keys to keep in mind when testing your lead generation process:

1. Choose the right time to add more friction. Think of your lead generation process as a personal introduction to someone. The moment you meet someone you don’t ask for a lot of personal information. If you do, you scare people away. The same concept applies here. For example, in a recent experiment, we tested moving the phone number field from the first step to the second step. Lead generation rate increased by 68% and the conversion rate remained stable.
2. Prioritize your requests properly. Think carefully about what information you ask first, second, and so on. It is important to keep a natural flow as you add and subtract friction elements. A good way to check for this with your pages and processes is to review every step and consider two questions: 1) Do we need this information? 2) Do we need it at this stage?
3. Pay close attention to your final conversion rate. We tested a three-step process against a four-step process. As expected, the three-step process had a higher lead generation rate. However, once the sales team got the leads and started following up on them, they found that leads from the four-step process were more qualified and easier to close. Bottom line: the four-step process had a lower lead generation rate, but ultimately a higher final conversion rate (sales).

To learn more about applying this concept, see our recent research brief, What’s working now in optimization or join our team at our optimization workshop at MarketingSherpa’s B2B Summit.

Internet Marketing Strategy, Lead Generation, Practical Application friction, Lead Generation Rate, quality leads, two dials analogy

What is it about lead nurturing that makes it so hard to get it right?

Is it the all-too-familiar disconnect between marketing and sales? The hassles of CRM systems — or lack of them? Or the gray areas surrounding lead definitions, scoring, nurturing strategies and who owns what customer touchpoints?

For many organizations, it’s a combination of all the above (and more). And the need for a shift in perspective, if not in the organizational culture, can be a tough sell when monthly and quarterly sales numbers aren’t exactly rosy. That is, unless you can point to proven results and budget-friendly methods you can implement quickly.

If you’re looking for ways to start, or get more from, your lead nurturing process, I’d recommend two new, free resources:

1. In his webinar, Putting the Human Touch into Lead Generation, B2B lead nurturing expert (and colleague) Brian Carroll broke down a case study and several action steps that show how you can use multiple channels — social media, email, webinars, phone and mail — together more effectively. Most organizations are reaching out to prospects in these ways, but they’re not consistently doing it in an optimal way. This one-hour webinar can help you get there.
2. The Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing, a new eworkbook from our friends at Marketo, not only offers several best practices, but provides the worksheets and real-world examples you can adapt or adopt (i.e., ideas you can steal). What’s best about this guide? It’s not just another whitepaper pitching services; this is information and research that marketers and sales teams can literally plug into their existing processes, or build those processes if they don’t already exist. You can download the guide here.

You’ve heard the MarketingExperiments team say many times that people buy from people, not websites. Invest some time in these lead nurturing resources and you’re sure to find new ways to cultivate the business relationships that ultimately generate more sales.

Lead Generation, Marketing Insights, Practical Application b2b, ebook, free, Lead Generation, lead nurturing, marketing, optimization, resources, sales, tools, webinars

Last Wednesday’s web clinic — B2B Success Stories: Four tests with gains of 21% to 254% — was the second in our series featuring case studies and test results from our course and clinic participants.

Like the B2C Success Stories clinic, we included a contest and offered three clinic participants the chance to win one of our optimization certification training courses. Our three B2B contest winners, chosen at random, will have their choice of Fundamentals of Online Testing, Landing Page Optimization, or the Email Marketing course.

This clinic’s three lucky winners are:

1. PKWARE — a data security and file compression software company
2. LexisNexis –  a global research and information publisher serving several B2B markets
3. Research In Motion (RIM) — the brains behind the BlackBerry and other tech products

Along with a hearty congratulations to our winners, and a special thank you to Scott Lindberg, Jessica Carter, and June Macdonald, respectively, for participating in the B2B clinic and entering the contest, the MarketingExperiments team also wishes to thank the people and organizations whose case studies we featured in the clinic itself: Jeff Taxdahl of ThreadLogic, Sarah Frazier and Joe Haddock of Summit Business Media, Jake Atwood of BuzzBuilderPro, and Matt Dombrow of Clixo, who also joined our team to present his test results live.

As we discussed in the clinic, building relationships is about more than just tossing around the catch phrase. While we continue to look for (and test) ways to interact with our audience, and build a community around trying to “discover what really works” in optimization, we are grateful for the opportunity to hear about your successes and insights, share them, and continue to learn from them together as part of our research. We simply could not do this without your input.

Have some test results you’d like to share? Plug them into the comments field below.

Clinic Notes, Internet Marketing News, Lead Generation b2b, certification, clinic, landing page optimization certification course, online testing, optimization

When it comes to lead generation, the battle over quantity vs. quality shows no signs of letting up, especially as dollars remain tighter and sales cycles longer. You know this battle. And the side you’re on usually boils down to your role on either the marketing or sales team.

Marketing wants a  flood of leads. Keep the pipeline full and let the sales team have at ‘em. Sales wants a flood of leads, too — but they don’t want to waste their time with unqualified leads and dead-ends. Oversimplified? Sure. But in general, this is still how the quantity vs. quality tug-of-war plays out in many organizations.

Who wouldn’t love to maintain or grow a steady stream of  leads while at the same time increasing the quality? Or at the very least, implement a way to sort leads more effectively?

Our April 8 web clinic, What’s working now in optimization: New tests and a 364% gain, explored how to improve lead generation and conversion rates by applying friction in specific, intentional ways with your site.

You can now access the complete presentation, listen to the MP3 version, or review the print-friendly research brief from the clinic and see how using a “two-dial” approach helped us achieve the best of both worlds. In one test, altering the registration path yielded the 364% increase in conversions alluded to in the clinic title. Our team also examined some of the differences that arise when using this approach on ecommerce sites.

We received several questions from the live clinic audience, and, as with our recent Spanish-language optimization clinic, we’ll follow up this post with selected Q&A and resources related to this clinic topic. Meanwhile, other recent web clinics that dealt with lead generation and offer page optimization include:

• Optimizing Offer Pages: Steps that increased conversion 148%
• A Proven Playbook for Growing Your Leads
• Filling the Pipeline: Lead generation strategies that got an 86% increase

Use the comments field to share your thoughts on this clinic, and hey, while you’re sharing, why not pass this post along to a friend (but not a competitor)?

Clinic Notes, Internet Marketing Strategy, Lead Generation b2b, clinic, Ecommerce, email optimization, Lead Generation, marketing, testing

To say that marketing to a B2B crowd requires a different approach than B2C is a huge understatement (and another blog post).

In many cases, educating B2B prospects and building relationships with them (and other relevant influencers, end users, decision makers), comes down to incremental steps. After all, purchasing a $35,000 service or product is worlds apart from buying a few books on Amazon.

B2B Landing Pages: Live optimization

Despite the many differences between B2B and B2C customers, the landing pages and the marketing channels that feed them have similar criteria for success: presenting a strong value proposition, keeping friction and anxiety to a minimum, maintaining relevance and continuity between all steps in the process so prospects don’t get confused, lost or sidetracked.

Using specific pages to pinpoint those areas for improvement, and recommend ideas for testing, is the focus of our live optimization web clinics. For our most recent clinic, our team focused solely on B2B landing pages, examining the strengths and weaknesses of several pages.

You can now access the Feb. 25 clinic in three formats for your convenience:

• View the complete presentation (slides and audio)
• Read the print-friendly research brief with additional links
• Listen to the MP3 version

The MarketingExperiments team also analyzed five “elimination-round” contestants from that clinic for a series of blog posts over the past week.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the live web clinic and contest — especially those who submitted their landing pages for review.

If you enjoyed this clinic, please share it with a friend and join us for Surprise Winners: How “wild card” tests achieved gains of up to 86%

Clinic Notes, Internet Marketing Strategy, Lead Generation, Marketing Insights b-to-b, b2b, landing page optimization, landing pages, Lead Generation, optimization, optimize

This post is the final post of a five-part series on B2B landing pages.

Thanks to WSI for entering our contest — in addition to being selected for this review, you’ve won a free on-demand certification course of your choice.

Analysis of channel

Keyword search strings: “printer repair” and “printer repair Kansas City” (targeting local searches and using dynamic keyword insertion)

The PPC ad does a good job of mentioning benefits of the service, including nationwide, four-hour response and more uptime. In cases where a location such as Kansas City was searched, it is important to include the location in the ad as well.

Motivation can potentially be increased by including more quantifiable information such as average percentage increase of uptime. Including relevant and quantifiable information in ads will enable yours to stand out from similar offers.

Analysis of landing page

Note: The PPC ad initially driving traffic to this landing page has changed, but we will still focus on the importance of relevance. The language you present in the ad should be easily seen on the landing page once the user arrives to maintain consistency.

Headline and value proposition

The headline is currently in a question format and does not effectively express what this site has to offer. “Who Else Wants More Printer Uptime and Revenue with Less Cost?” It’s unclear “who else” you are referring to.

• What is your value proposition? Currently the headline and sub-headline are not strong messages as to why I should choose your service.
  • Try testing versions of your headline that include quantifiable information in this statement. “24/7″ is a great benefit, but it seems like there are other services that can say the same thing. Can you give an example of how much revenue or uptime I can expect? Or how much I can save in costs? Perhaps include how many technicians you have nationwide. (This would help users that may arrive on this page who are not located in Kansas City.)

  • There are no supporting testimonials showing who you’ve helped and it almost looks like IBM, HP, Printonix are the previous customers you’ve helped but that is not the case.

Contact form

This page does a good job with form placement; however, the length can cause friction.

• Since a sales person reaches out to the user once the form is completed, you should consider removing the address fields from the form. Your sales team could obtain that information once they contact the lead. Perhaps even try a side-by-side field for the name and re-label it as Full Name as this will make the form appear even shorter.

• Try testing different headlines and call to actions on the form. Instead of the animated “Contact our Kansas City Certified Printer Service Department!”, try testing a non-animated version of a headline that helps to increase motivation. If possible, add incentive in the headline, for example use words like “Free Quote” and reflect that incentive in the call to action using something along the lines of “Get My Free Quote”.
• If you have a guaranteed or average response time, include that information near the form as well.
• Support the form by adding testimonials and any other credibility indicators/anxiety reducers such as a link to your privacy policy.
• Finally, while the placement is good, the form may still not be in an ideal location. Test placing a shortened form in the main eyepath of the page, or moving the form under the headline and initial copy.

Other layout considerations

• First, identify who you are with a strong headline followed by the bulleted benefits of what you offer (both extended across the page) and then place the contact form underneath. This will give the user an opportunity to understand what services you provide before being asked to fill out a form. This will also help minimize the distraction of the different color blocks at the top of the page.

• The copy has some strong benefits: 15+ years’ experience, four-hour response time, etc. Try bolding some of those benefits in addition to “Kansas City” as shown currently.
• While it is helpful to identify the brands of printers you repair, displaying the company logos can be distracting. Test moving them lower on the page and identify what these logos are through copy like, “Our technicians are certified to repair” and then list the names. You’ll need to include “many more” near this detail as well. There is a good chance that not everyone is going to read the full copy that currently states this. Perhaps even test a version where the brand names are removed altogether.

If the information featured on the bottom banner is necessary on this page, you should have the links open in a new window. You do not want to lead the user away from the main objective.

Audience: What do you think? Use the comments field to post your suggestions for this landing page, agree/disagree with Heather’s assessment, and let the CPLUS folks know what you would do.

Thanks to all the courageous marketers who submitted their landing pages, the analysts who contributed their thoughts, and our readers.

Clinic Notes, Internet Marketing Strategy, Lead Generation, Marketing Insights, Practical Application b-to-b, b2b, landing page optimization, landing pages, Lead Generation, optimization

This post is the fourth post of a five-part series on B2B landing pages.

Analyst Adam Lapp reviewed this landing page, submitted by Nteractive for our Feb. 25 live optimization web clinic.

Thanks to Nteractive for entering our contest — in addition to being selected for this review, you’ve won a free on-demand certification course of your choice.

Analysis of channel

So, let’s assume that I am a mayor of a small town on the email list for propective CouncilView customers. The headline for the email is simple, yet effective. It tells me exactly what CouncilView can provide for me: streaming video of meetings over the internet. You have captured my attention and if I really do need the product, I am ready to click.

But there is a problem here. At this point there is no call to action ready to meet my so-called “click readiness.” Instead the email continues to sell, sell, sell.

The primary goal of this email should not be to sell the product. It is to get a click.

Compelling readers to click

Optimize the email to get the click by clarifying what the product is and piquing interest in it. Consider testing an incentive such as a free trial or discount.

You cannot inspire a click without providing a “place” to click. In this email, the banner is the only place to click. There needs to be an intuitive, instantly recognizable button or link for users to identify as a page objective. Emphasize it and make it stand out with elements that guide the eyepath such as color, size, and shape.

I would also consider making the entire email clickable.

Analysis of landing page

Now that you’ve got them in the door, it’s time to optimize the landing page to advance the sales process that the email started. Unfortunately, this landing page technically does not greet the potential customer nor tell them why they should purchase the product.

Think of your landing page as a salesperson calling a prospect. Would the first thing they’d say on the phone be, “How it works: Schedule, Meet, View”?

Just as this type of dialogue would immediately result in a hang up, you can expect a number of visitors to such a landing page will immediately “hang up” — that is, exit the page.

Making the connection

Your page needs to meet these visitors with a headline that welcomes them, maintains continuity with the email, and is congruent with your value proposition. Follow that headline with a short paragraph that educates them about the product and establishes its credibility.

Credibility is key! You can tell me all you want about the product, but it’s useless if I don’t believe it. If you’ve won an award, or if well-known people or companies use the product, then say it.

We are now leading the potential customers down a logical road from introduction, education, and establishing trust. They are almost ready to click forward, but need just one more push. Help them take this leap with three or four bullet points of the most desirable aspects of the product.

But just like the email, I don’t instantly recognize anywhere to click. It appears that the primary call to action is the small text link at the bottom left of the page that says, “See it here.” Make this a button that draws the eye with color and looks clickable by having some drop shadow. But most importantly, the button copy needs to convey something tangible that the visitor will receive by clicking. Consider something action-oriented such as “Get FREE Access Now.”

Right now, the link takes the visitor to an inconvenient and confusing new page where you can view meetings in progress. I also searched through all of the top navigation and nowhere do I see a place to buy the product. Our goal as internet marketers is to make it as easy as possible for our customers to buy from us. Test making the purchase option the primary call to action of this landing page.

I believe this product is a software package, so it could lend itself perfectly as a free trial. A free trial can significantly reduce the anxiety visitors have about buying a product they don’t know everything about.

By optimizing this page, there is enormous opportunity for you to improve your sales. Good luck with testing these recommendations and keep us in the loop with your results.

Audience: What do you think? Use the comments field to post your suggestions for this landing page, agree/disagree with Adam’s assessment, and let the Nteractive folks know what you would do.

We’ll post our final landing page winner on Tuesday…

Clinic Notes, Internet Marketing Strategy, Lead Generation, Marketing Insights b2b, email, landing pages, optimization