vital marketing

When designing a web landing page, have you ever struggled over which headline is more compelling?  Which graphics are better aligned with your message?  What should the call to action be?

Google has an answer.  They are making Google Website Optimizer, a multivariate testing application, available free to their Adwords customers.  With this tool you can determine the absolute best combination of web page elements (headlines, graphics, fonts, text, etc.) that leads to conversion success.

What is Multivariate Testing?
Unlike the more common A/B split testing that compares the effectiveness of two completely different web pages, multivariate testing provides a way to quickly test many page designs.  By rotating all of the possible page elements and tracking visitor responses, the multivariate approach determines the most effective combination preferred by your audience.

With this tool you can test up to eight elements at a time. So as an example you might consider:

• Headline (2 different options)
• Sub Headline (3 different options)
• Image (3 different options)
• Call to action (2 different options).

Now if you had to design different pages for all of these combinations, you would have to build and track 36 different pages (2 x 3 x 3 x 2).  Of course this would be too difficult, so you wouldn’t do it.

That’s the power of the Google Website Optimizer – you only need a single page and Google will rotate your elements, track the results and ultimately suggest the most effective design.  To see it in action, view the Google Website Optimizer Overview Demo.

Does it work?  Just read a few of the Website Optimizer Customer Testimonials.

After using Website Optimizer, we have a very good idea of what works, and what doesn’t, and what we should do now. Not using it would be almost criminal.”
- Ilan Klein, Park Slope Softworks

Website Optimizer is another home run for Google. The instructions are clear and tagging the sites is simple and completely unobtrusive.”
- Bill Cronin, E-Commerce Manager for Vermont Teddy Bear

The ease of set up, the reporting…all typically “Googlian” in its simplicity and effectiveness.”
- Frank Malsbenden, Shoeline.com

Multivariate testing was once affordable to only the largest companies… but it’s now available to everyone.  So sign up for this free service and start optimizing your landing pages.

If you’re not already using Google AdWords Editor to manage your AdWords campaigns, you should check it out.

AdWords Editor is a free, downloadable application for managing your AdWords Campaigns. A few things I like about it are:

• You can download and manage your campaigns offline
• It’s easier and more powerful than the online interface
• It offers new tools for grouping keywords and removing duplicates
• You can export campaigns into a variety of formats
• You can circulate proposed changes and get feedback

Grouping Keywords and Removing Duplicates
To get the best performance out of Google AdWords, you should create tightly knit Ad Groups with keywords, ad text and destination click-thru pages all based on a common theme. This makes your ads and click-thru pages most relevant to the visitor.

To help you with this, the Keyword Grouper takes your existing list of keywords and intelligently divides them into smaller Ad Groups based on common themes. You can then add or remove words from the list of common terms or organize your keywords around other themes. Next you can create related ad text for the new Ad Groups or just use existing ad text from within your account.

The Find Duplicate Keywords tool locates keywords that are repeated across your account, specific campaigns or ad groups.
When I used this tool I had several keywords unintentionally appearing in two ad groups – so I removed the keywords from my ad groups that were not quite as relevant as the primary ad group.

Unnecessary duplicate keywords can complicate your account management, skew performance statistics and drive visitors to less relevant ads and click-thru pages.

Exporting and Sharing Ads
AdWords Editor allows you to export your entire Account, a single Campaign or a single Ad Group into a number of formats:

• CSV – Share a spreadsheet containing your account information with someone who doesn’t use the AdWords Editor.
• HTML – Ideal for viewing your text ads and keywords together, along with campaign and ad group settings.
• Export for Archiving – gives you the future option of restoring your account to its present state.
• Export for Sharing – Allows you to send your changes to other AdWords Editor users for review. They’ll be able to see your changes, accept or reject them, and add comments.

Don’t Forget to Synchronize
Since AdWords Editor works offline, you’ll need to Post Changes when you’re ready to upload and activate your updates in Google.

Also if you’re not the only one making changes to your Google AdWords Campaigns and Ad Groups, when you launch the editor you’ll want to click on Get Recent Changes in the toolbar. This will download any changes that occurred in your AdWords account since the last time you downloaded it to AdWords Editor. When you download the updates, what you’ll notice is:

• Downloaded changes are green.
• Unposted local changes are purple.
• Conflicts between downloaded and unposted changes are red.

You’ll also want to refresh statistics frequently. You can download recent performance statistics any time by selecting a Sats Interval in the tool bar. You’re limited to statistics for yesterday, the Last 7 Days or Last 30 Days. So if you want to view performance statistics for a different time interval, you’ll need to jump back over to Google AdWords online.

Just Try it!
If you’re using Google AdWords, you’ll want use this new tool for managing your campaigns. It has more functionality and you’ll find your more productive — especially for mass changes, additions and collaborating with others.

Remember, it’s FREE so download it and give it a try. And then the next time you’re offline and have a great AdWords idea…you’ll be able to capture it and later upload when you next connect!

Are you attracting a lot of SPAM through your Salesforce.com Web2Lead form?   If so, it seems you’re not alone.  Of course any time you are running something as popular as Microsoft Windows or SalesForce.com, the evil-doers will try to invade.

Since there are so many Web2Lead forms easily accessible across the web, hackers write programs to search and harvest Salesforce.com account identifiers from these forms.  And once they have that, they can begin pushing fictitious leads through the Salesforce.com interface which soon arrive as “open leads” in your system.

Here’s how blogger Rick Klau describes the issue:

“The exploit is simple: spammers scrape your lead intake form, capture your Salesforce.com OID number, and then use that to bypass your form and hit the Salesforce.com lead submission script directly. The result? Thousands upon thousands of bogus leads cluttering up our system”

Fortunately Rick offers a solution to this issue in his article “Salesforce spam: fixing web-to-lead.”

Greg Doud over at the Software Development Service Station has been experimenting with the salesforce.com development platform called AppExchange. His article Intro to Salesforce.com outlines the power of this environment — it makes it easy to create new applications that work well with others.

According to Greg, the platform is easy to learn, has a rich set of functionality and offers flexible options for interfacing into the salesforce.com system.

That’s great to hear! Hopefully more and more developers will jump on to AppExchange, further expanding the number of quality applications and extensions available in this environment.

Other than PPC (pay per click), blogs are one of the best ways to attract more visitors to your web properties. Search engines love blogs because they are usually updated more frequently than a traditional corporate web site and they contain a lot of content.

So if you are using your blog to drive traffic, how can you attract even more visitors?

PR firm Conners Communications has come up with a tool called HitTail that reveals in real-time the least utilized, most promising keywords hidden in the Long Tail of your natural search results.

They call it “Blogging with Insight” because it provides users with actionable information that will ultimately increase a Web site’s qualified traffic. This information is derived from tracking code placed on each page of a site by its owner, allowing HitTail to monitor keywords used to access the site and, through its proprietary algorithms, issue custom-tailored suggestions.

HitTail essentially develops an intelligent editorial calendar for you, based on the hidden interests it infers from your visitors. So if you follow their suggestions, you’ll improve your SEO and attract more of your target audience.

Maybe that’s why the editors of BusinessWeek named HitTail one of the Best Ideas of 2006.

Conners offers a free basic service for websites with fewer than 100,000 visits per month. If you have more than that or you want advanced capabilities, they also offer a premium service.

So check out the short demo on their site, and then logon as “Conners” to view the real product in action. After that, register for a free account to see what hidden and desired topics HitTail discovers from your audience.

For the past couple of months the Aberdeen Group has been studying companies that automate the lead to sales process. They have just published the new benchmark study titled “Automating Leads to Sales – Improve Return on Marketing Campaigns” that shows marketing automation solutions have a positive impact on the lead-to-sales conversion rate. Among their key findings are:

• Over two-thirds of companies that have implemented a marketing solution within the last two years have seen a 10+ percent improvement in the lead-to-sales conversion rate.
• 53% of companies are currently using marketing automation solutions for lead management; this number is expected to jump to 83% in the next 24 months.
• 62% of Best-in-Class companies are growing their budget for marketing automation solutions year-over-year
• 55% of laggards have no automation in place to track and measure lead management performance

The study also states that small (SME) and mid-market (MME) enterprises are exceeding average performers in all metrics benchmarked.

Earlier this year Tien Tzuo, Chief Strategy Officer for Salesforce.com, presented “Changing the Game of Enterprise Software” at Stanford Technology Ventures Program’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture series.

In this presentation Tzuo reveals how Salesforce.com leveraged the Internet to transform their sales and marketing processes. The seven lessons he offers are:

1. Awareness Cycle
Prior to the Internet age, access to information about new products and solutions was limited to a few — it was a “closed access” world. Buyers had to attend trade shows and seminars or rely on research firms and the media. But today we live in an “open access” environment where buyers can find everything they need immediately on the Internet. Studies show the vast majority of all buyers begin their research online.

Today vendors must build a systematic way to have two-way dialogues with the market. To be relevant, you need stories and content. Invest in your web properties and online PR. You need to create a “buzz” so you are easily found by those in the market.

2. Free-Trial Offers
The ability to trial the software is one of the key reasons for the success of Salesforce.com. In the enterprise software world sales reps used to “negotiate” for trials. This was often very controlled, scripted and frustrating for the buyer. But Salesforce.com makes it extremely easy for customers to evaluate the product and by their own rules.

At first the sales organization didn’t want to make it so easy – they were concerned they’d loose control and customers wouldn’t have to call them back. But it turns out when they like the product and it meets their needs, they’ll call you!

In the Internet era, trials and evaluations are becoming “expected.” Salesforce.com has adjusted the trial period from time to time. It started with 12 months and after several iterations today they find 30 days works best.

3. Onion-Based Product Design
In the “RFP-driven” world, vendors were encouraged to jam as many features as possible into the product in order to be rewarded with the most check-boxes. But in the Free-Trial/Internet era, vendors must offer solutions that are easy to use and easy to implement. “Complexity” is the enemy of a successful “free-trial.”

Tzuo says the solution to this dilemma is a “layers of the onion” product design. He uses an analogy of the “New York Times” writing style. The brief beginning of the article tells the complete “50,000 foot level, big picture” story. The next few sentences or paragraphs provide more details (the “20,000 foot level” story). After that, the rest of the article spells out all of the remaining details.

In this same way products should be designed to be easy to use and comprehend. And when the buyer wants more, they “peel back the layers” to see the advanced functionality, but only as they need it.

4. Sales Model
Tzuo says the Internet has evolved the software sales model from a “field sales” orientation to a two-tier sales system:

• “Lead Qualifiers” follow-up with incoming suspects immediately before they get busy and move on to something else. The Lead Qualifier’s role is to make sure the prospect has everything they need. If and when they are ready to move forward, that’s when the “sales organization” gets involved.
• The “Sales Organization” is focused on moving prospects through a buying cycle and closing business. The sales organization should be segmented to best serve different types of buyers (e.g. SMB, Enterprise)

5. Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning
In the pre-Internet era, Marketers followed a Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning(STP) process:

• Segment the market into potential groups that may need your product
• Target one or more of those segments and make yourself most relevant to them
• Position your value to this target as superior to the alternatives

Often this approach required expensive interrupt-based tactics to reach the audience.

On the Internet, the market finds you. You can’t control who searches for your keywords or comes to your web site. So you need to pursue them all.

Packaging and price-points still make a huge difference. Salesforce.com analyzes the incoming customer requirements and demand and then “forks” functionality and pricing to create new packages that fit each of the sizeable segments.

6. Events
In the past events where often used to educate and introduce new concepts in the marketplace. Of course now this is largely available online. Today events are most useful for meeting with customers and also providing customers the opportunity to network with other customers.

7. Focus on the Post-Sales Experience
Initially 90% of the Salesforce.com customers went away after six months. Unless they were completely engaged and dependent on the product, they just stopped using and paying for the service. But once the customer is successful, the service is a self-sustaining engine.

This caused Salesforce.com to add positions like “Customer Success Manager” and concepts like “Adoption Ladder” to drive usage of the application. In order to ensure successful adoption, they offered “industry best practices” research and made it easy for customers talk to each other. After all, reducing the “attrition” has more impact on growth than adding new clients.