The Conversion Scientist™

ConversionCast: eCommerce Site Gradware.com

In this ConversionCast™, we take a look at academic software and hardward eCommerce site Gradware.com, an academic software and hardware eCommerce site.

What are the key strategies you want to get right if you’re running an eCommerce site? I offer my opinion in the workshop “Identifying Your Key Conversion Strategies,” which you can listen to free. You can also subscribe to The Conversion Scientist Podcast for more on conversion and Web strategy.

The eCommerce Web Site Pattern

When we’re looking at an eCommerce Web site pattern, we want to focus on the following key strategies:

• Product Pages
• Category Navigation
• Transaction or Shopping Cart

For this ConversionCast, we don’t have the time to dive into the purchase process, so we’ve focused on the Home Page, Product Pages and Category Navigation.

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Tell us what your eCommerce site offers in the comments below.

ConversionCast: Spinscape.com Site as a Service

If you are building a Web site as a service, you have some important advantages when converting visitors to subscribers.

In this ConversionCast™ we review the conversion strategy for online application Spinscape.com. I am a big fan of Spinscape, and got almost immediate value from using it to outline a book I’m currently writing.

The Site as a Service Pattern

This site follows the Site as a Service Web pattern. You can identify your Web pattern by listening to my presentation at Innotech.

The key strategies for a SaaS pattern are:

• Trial or Demo and a Home Page that encourages the trial
• Effective signup Process
• E-mail notifications that encourage use and subscription

Yes, there are more things you could do to increase conversion, but if you don’t get these right, the rest is not going to help much.

If you can delivery what you offer online, you have some marked advantages over other patterns.

• You can move a visitor quickly through the conversion funnel, from awareness to action.
• You can use a trial or demo to begin a relationship with your visitors
• You can find new reasons to email your subscribers using notifications and updates

Enjoy this 15 minute review.

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Tell us what your Site as a Service offers in the comments below.

Drilling in on Social Conversion Strategies

Dave Evans is one of the smartest guys in Social Media today and has the ability to ask questions that make you stop and think. Really think. So, when he asked my opinion on where social media meets conversion strategy, I really had to think.

The result of our collaboration is his latest ClickZ article Social Conversions: Taking Step Two. For me, the process crystallized the reasons that so many of us have trouble seeing the ROI in social marketing. We’re looking at it wrong.

I will expand here on how we use inappropriate strategies for our social marketing campaigns. In subsequent posts, I’ll drill down on some of the strategies mentioned in the column and show you how they work.

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The Flaw in our Social Marketing Model

Dave’s article hints at the way we use old measures of success in new paradigms. We see social media as simply another way to drive traffic to our traditional conversion funnels.

With this model, we try to cram our social strategies into the Awareness portion of the marketing funnel. While this is a valid use of social marketing, it is it’s most limited.

We try to stuff our social media strategies into the top of the marketing funnel.

When we realize that there is a whole world of conversion after the purchase we begin to use our social marketing more strategically.

Strategic Social Marketing

We can use social media strategically when we apply it to the post-purchase portion of the funnel

This expanded model for social media let’s us use social channels more strategically.

Instead of asking, “How can we use video to drive more traffic to us?” we can instead ask, “How can we use video to increase use of our offering?”

Instead of asking, “How can we use Facebook to build a list of prospects?” we can ask, “How can we use Facebook to get people talking about our product?”

Can you see how we would apply social marketing in a more purposeful way when we change our point of view? Doesn’t it become clearer how we would measure the success of our social campaigns beyond just traffic and page views? If you answered “Well, kinda,” don’t worry.

I’ll be exploring best practices for some of the strategies mentioned in the Social Conversion article, including:

• Use of notification emails which “are among the most overlooked opportunities for engaging new product users.”
• Designing a blog that converts buyers to users, users to opinion, and opinion to talk.
• B2B implementation circles

Keep up with the conversation. Subscribe to The Conversion Scientist and the Conversion Scientist Podcast. Don’t miss a post.

For a complete understanding of the marketing funnel, read Dave’s book Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day.

Relate to Four, Connect with Thousands

You can connect with thousands of visitors to your site by understanding only four of them.

Communicating is connecting. If you’re communicating successfully, each of your readers will feel that you are writing directly to them.

I’m going to introduce you to a method of writing that will forge strong connections with your readers.

You will understand your readers when you understand the four “Modes of Persuasion.” Every visitor fits into one of four modes, and, as will see, each mode describes a different way of connecting. If you can master each of these modes, you can effectively draw anyone closer with your words.

 
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The Four Modes of Persuasion

Each of your visitors will come in one of four modes: Competitive, Methodical, Humanist, or Spontaneous.

COMPETITIVE visitors are looking for information that will make them better, smarter or more cutting-edge. Use benefit statements and payoffs in your headings to draw then into your content.

METHODICALS like data and details. Include specifics and proof in your writing to connect with them.

HUMANISTS want information that supports their relationships. They will relate to your writing if you share the human element in your topic.

SPONTANEOUS visitors are the least patient. They need to know what’s in it for them and may not read your entire story. Provide short headings for them to scan so that they can get to the points that ore important to them.

When you understand that every visitor consumes information differently, you can build empathy with more of your readers. In time, your content will appeal to a wider audience making your Web site more enjoyable and accessible.

We’ll be talking more about the four Modes of Persuasion and how this knowledge can be applied to your Web site at The Conversion Scientist. Don’t miss a post.

You can learn more about these four Modes of Persuasion in the book Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? by Brian and Jeffrey Eisenberg.

Photo courtesy konr4d via stock.xchng.