Everywhere the recession mindset is building steam, worries and fear leading to the cutting of all auxiliary components of businesses, including marketing and investments in future development. Unfortunately this short sighted mindset will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where these business are taken out to sea by the recessionary undertoe.
Granted cutting of costs to expand profit margins is necessary. However you can only cut costs by so much without effectively ruining your business. So when that limit is reached what else can a business owner do? For e-commerce site owners the answer lays in increasing conversion rates. A full site redesign can be expensive and still leads to a stagnate site, and the addition of features to stay competitive is helpful but won’t guarantee increases in conversion rates.
The answer to increasing conversion rates in ‘09 lays in web Personalization. What is it? It’s holding a dynamic, personal, conversation with your site traffic via Personalized content zones.
The traffic landing on your site is made up of hundreds of segments that can be defined by everything from their geographic locations, to frequency of visits, to qualifying keywords, to sites they’re referred from. Each of these segments are ripe for conversation and in turn, the potential to increasing conversion rates. This can be simply implemented on your site via several pieces of code and designation of several site real estate zones to hold this conversation.
Our current client base utilizing this Personalization service (and our testing of it) have resulted in significant YOY returns despite the current economic downturn. Going that extra mile, and addressing each segment on a personal level, increases the visitors trust in your site and this goes a long way in their purchase decision.
If you’re interested in learning more about Personalization and the benefits it will offer to your business in ‘09 be sure to sit in on the following webinar: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/877786604
Don’t let the short term ruin the vitality of your business. Business, like the tides has its ups and downs, be confident in the ebb and flow, keep true to the core of your business, your customers, and thrive.
Posted by Jeff Petrosillo on Dec 15, 2008
Why Headlines -
What am i going to write about in this post? Guess…. Headlines? how’d you know, by the headline? Yes in our high paced world headlines and taglines are becoming more and more important. Customers no longer read, they thin slice their way across the internet picking up importance and meanings of pages [...]
Posted by Jeff Petrosillo on Dec 4, 2008
One strategy used by Agencies to increase click-through rates of PPC campaigns (while decreasing CPC’s and CPA’s) is to Geo-Target their clients keywords and campaigns. The impact of these strategies are fairly significant as demonstrated in a recent study by Marketing Sherpra. However if you look closely, you’ll realize an important metric is missing, Conversion Rates. [...]
Posted by Jeff Petrosillo on Nov 11, 2008
On Tuesday the FCC formally agreed to open up the “white spaces” spectrum (unused airwaves between broadcast TV channels) for wireless broadband service for the public!
This is a huge win for the continued liberation of the Internet. What is the potential here? To quote Larry Page -
I’ve always thought that there are a lot of [...]
Posted by Jeff Petrosillo on Nov 10, 2008
A clearly articulated value proposition, that is communicated throughout all of the elements and promotions of your site, is the key to running a successful online busines. The main probelm is that many store owners don’t know what their value proposition is. To find out yours, ask yourself the following questions:
Why should my ideal [...]
Posted by Jeff Petrosillo on Nov 6, 2008
Just found a great blog post about the ways to capatalize on the upcoming holiday season by offering great value, price and service with less additional costs than it takes to hirer a new employee. Giving you a major advantage over the brick and mortars.
If you’ve already activated customer reviews, product recommendations and live chat [...]
Posted by Jeff Petrosillo on Oct 31, 2008
Halloween is upon us, the time of the year where the boundary between the living and the dead is dissolved allowing the spirits to wander our mortal world. This concept of bridging the gap between physical reality and the spirit world is something we as conversion optimization analysts contemplate daily (but instead of actual spirits [...]
Posted by Jeff Petrosillo on Oct 30, 2008
I just came across a great article written by Brian Ross (no known relation to “the” Brian Ross) on the new era of data-driven customer centric marketing.
http://www.dmnews.com/How-customer-centric-retailers-ask-deeper-questions-and-get-better-answers/article/120138/
In summary, it breaks down the new vs. old marketing paradigm. The switch from businesses examining “what” customers are doing to “why” and the importance of data in revealing [...]
Posted by Jeff Petrosillo on Oct 28, 2008
Forrester Research recently announced that the poor economic conditions are going to significantly slow US online holiday sales.
This sounds like bad news until you read the first line of the article:
“US online retail sales this holiday season will reach $44 billion, a 12% increase over last year and the slowest growth rate to date”
http://www.marketingcharts.com
This is [...]
Posted by Jeff Petrosillo on Oct 26, 2008
If you’re a Yahoo store owner chances are you’ll be receiving a beta invitation shortly to start using Yahoo! Web Analytics. Previously Index Tools, this is powerfull analytics tool that is several steps above Google Analytics. And as it is fully integrated with Yahoo! Stores its ease of set-up and tracking of data is far [...]
