After collaborating for a ClickZ article on Social Conversion with Dave Evans, I was pleased to get an opportunity to work with him to expand on the topic. I presented the topic at the eMarketing Summit during Innotech Portland 2009.

This is a topic that is moving quickly, and I suspect you will have something to say. Please do.

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I’ve boiled down the entire universe of Web sites into five patterns: Brochure, Portal, eCommerce, Considered Purchase, and Site as a Service. So far, no one has been able to identify a sixth unique pattern. Which are you?

Here’s the full presentation I gave at RISE Austin, an amazing and unique conference in which businesses present free sessions to entrepreneurs all around the city.

We are lucky to live in Austin. Enjoy the audio and slides.

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In doing the research for my new ClickZ column on behavioral marketing, I became fascinated by all that could be measured and inferred about me from the simple act of visiting a Web page. The agents at work when you visit a Web site are an invisible Pixel and something called a Cookie. Then the marketers, advertisers, publishers, scientists and statisticians go to work on the data, divining what they can from it about you and what ads you want to see.

The list, which you will find on ClickZ.com, is long, ironic, funny and sometimes disturbing. It’s exactly the kind of thing that needs a Carlinesque treatment.

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Try as I might, I’m no George Carlin. Here’s the real deal. Warning: Explicit Language

“It is no longer sufficient to communicate powerfully, you must say something powerful.”

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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.

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.

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.

Whenever we design a Web site, we inevitably ask our graphic designers to give us three comps. Then we, the completely unqualified non-graphic-designers decide which one we “like” best. We might even ask a number of our equally unqualified colleagues to tell us what they think.

Then we pay a copywriter a fraction of what the designers get, and ask them to write the copy for the site, knowing full-well that when we get it, we’ll revise it until every ounce of color, every animating metaphor, and every shred of a story is squeezed out onto the ground in a pool of red ink.

A good writer can create images and convey meaning better than a graphic artist because the writer has the richer toolset. Put down your red pen. Trust your copywriter.

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Be Bold and Your Visitors Will See You That Way

If you’re designing a new site or refreshing an old one, it’s time to be a little daring.

Tell the designers to hold on until you’ve completed the copy. They’ll look at you like you have an arm growing out of your head.

THEN, start interviewing copywriters. Tell them that you’ll pay them to develop three different versions of your Copy Body, the document that contains the text from which you will take your copy when writing headings, text, offers, emails and any other Web-based communications.

The interviews will be short. You’re looking for a certain reaction.

When you present this proposal to the right writer, their eyes will flash. A smile may creep across their face of its own will. Be careful, though. If they say “You’ll pay me?” you’ve gotten a false positive. You want to choose the writer who feels that you’ve just opened the door their a cage of mediocrity.

If you let them out, they’ll take you with them.

Be very clear about what you’re trying to accomplish as a business and what your visitors are trying to accomplish. Give them a set of personas if you can.

Take No Steps

Once you have your three copy “comps,” do not allocate time to have the writing revised by a committee. Do not attempt to combine the best from each. Do not seek to insert superlatives that declare you the “leader,” to be “unique” or “innovative.” If you have to say it, it ain’t true.

If you have the right writer, one of your choices will be far out, one will be written in business speak, and one will be somewhere in between. Throw away the one written in business speak and consider the remaining two very carefully.

Select the copy body that best illustrates your value proposition, the one that captures the essence of your company without stating it. Look for metaphors that can be applied to a variety of your benefits. Seek a story that can stitch every page together into a coherent theme.

Then fix the inaccuracies, and leave everything else alone.

Does this sound scary? Wait till you see what’s next.

You Can Let the Designers Into the Room Now

If you’ve selected an engaging copy body, it’ll be really clear to the designers what their designs should express. They can create real images from the ones your writer paints with words. They can guide your visitor through the story with navigation. They can throw away stock photos of pretty people and choose images informed by metaphor and analogy.

Give them the copy body, the corporate style guide and tell them to create a design. One design. Sure, you’ll make decisions along the way and maybe even significantly change the first comp, but try to let them do what they do well.

Steps You Could Add

If you realize the immense advantage that powerfully written copy gives you, consider investing in some testing. Implement two of the three copy bodies on your home page and on key landing pages. Use analytics to see which makes visitors stick and which generates more leads or sales.

• Which has the lower bounce rate?
• Which home page generates more page views and more time on site?
• Which has the higher conversion rate?

There is no better way to know if you’ve made the right decision than to test. And you may need some proof when your colleagues tell you that your copy isn’t “corporate” — and they mean that as a criticism, not a badge of honor.

Do you know a great copy writer? Do you have a success story or test results that demonstrate the power of effective writing? Let us know in your comments and I’ll feature you in an future post.

UPDATE

I’ve challenged copywriters to put together the very process that I’ve described here over on my Customer Chaos Blog. Would you like to work with one of these guys?

Photo courtesy andrewcs via stock.xchng.

If you’re considering investing in a social marketing campaign, and you haven’t nailed your e-mail strategy, you may be investing in the wrong place.

I don’t think business owners and marketers are dumb. I think that they’re just superstitious. Like walking under a ladder, they fear that if they really step up their e-mail strategy, they’ll come to some sad end with only the pity of their loved ones to show for it. Often, they’re afraid they’ll be punished by the god of “corporate image” and the unforgiving taskmaster, “brand.”

Here are the superstitions that keep us from making e-mail the effective, inexpensive marketing tool that it should be.

If I send e-mail, I’ll be seen as a Spammer

So, what is SPAM? It’s unsolicited or irrelevant e-mail. Technically, irrelevant e-mail isn’t SPAM, but the reaction is the same, and usually involves words that I won’t publish here.

So, what isn’t SPAM?

• It’s e-mail that I’ve specifically asked for.
• It’s e-mail that I anticipate getting, even if I don’t read it all.
• It’s e-mail that let’s me opt-out any time I feel it’s not relevant.
• It’s information delivered to me in the way I want it if my inbox is my primary information source.

If you can satisfy these requirements, you are providing a valuable service. In fact, if you don’t send e-mail to someone who has opted into your newsletter or notification program, you’re breaking a contract with your prospects and customers. It’s dishonest to offer something and not follow through.

People get too much e-mail

No. People get too much unimportant e-mail. If you send valuable information to people who need it, you too can be important. You may not be “I read every one of your e-mails immediately” important, but you can be.

Don’t worry. If their needs change, if they lose interest, they’ll tell you by unsubscribing (since you make this so easy).

People don’t want e-mail

If not by e-mail, then how will your prospects learn to solve their problems? Do you think more of your prospects are reading blogs? Do you think more of your prospects are on social networks? Twitter?

That people are using social media to get their information is only true for very specific segments of our the population. Members of the Baby Boomer generation and Generation X love their inboxes. Millennials do to, they just won’t admit it.

Let your readers decide. If you don’t have a plan for helpful, engaging e-mail, you’re denying them one of their favorite avenues of communication.

E-mail is old technology

E-mail is in its infancy. It is not a mature medium destined to fade away soon at the feet of a social media god. We are just learning how to deliver effective communications via the inbox. New technologies are being brought to bear, enabling inbox jockeys to get only the e-mail that is important, urgent, or highly desirable.

You just have to be sure you’re delivering something that is important, urgent, or highly desirable.

It takes too much time to do a newsletter

Then don’t do a newsletter.

If you can write a blog, you can write an engaging e-mail. In fact, if you have a blog, services such as Feedburner and Feedblitz will automatically send an e-mail to your subscribers every time you post. With Feedblitz, for example, you can create a template that includes promotional offers that will go out with your blog-to-e-mail posts.

My boss is more interested in social marketing and video

E-mail has an amazing quality that so many social media don’t. It’s measurable. You know who opened, who read, who bounced, who clicked, what they clicked on and if they forwarded the e-mail to a friend.

Plus, if you believe my premise that e-mail is the largest social network on the planet, you know that there is no better way to expose your video and social properties than through a list of interested individuals who’ve said they want to receive it.

No social network grows without e-mail. Why would your offering spread without it?

The “I’m No SPAMmer” Recipe

Since it’s easy to send e-mail without being a SPAMmer, why not do the following things:

• Add a way to subscribe to your helpful or entertaining e-mail communications on every page of your Web site. Add a checkbox to every form. If you want to be extra diligent, ask the recipient to verify their e-mail address before they’ll receive anything.
• Take the time to generate content that is going to help your readers solve their problems, educate them, or entertain them. Write as a human to a human. You do it everyday when communicating with your colleagues. Worry less about the design and more about your reader.
• Be sure to offer an unsubscribe with each e-mail. Be CAN SPAM compliant by putting your mailing address on the e-mail. Don’t send e-mail to people who unsubscribe.
• Send as often as the quality of your content allows. I received five e-mails in one day from American Airlines. They were telling me about the status of the flights I was scheduled to board. This wasn’t too much. It was welcome. Certainly there’s something valuable enough to send once or twice a month.

Most of this functionality will be provided by any of a hundred E-mail Service Providers (ESPs) for about a penny an e-mail. Plus, they’ll manage your relationship with Internet Service Providers to ensure that more of your e-mail makes it to the inboxes it’s destined for.

We’re talking about all things related to online marketing strategy and conversion at The Conversion Scientist. Get every post directly to your inbox and you won’t miss a thing.

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No matter how unique your product service or business is, your Web site follows a specific pattern. For each pattern. There are certain set of strategies that you must get it right or you will have difficulty converting traffic to leads or sales.

Listen to my presentation from the Innotech eMarketing Summit to learn what pattern your web site should follow, and the three strategies that you must case to make the Web work for your business.

Listen to Brian Massey’s Presentation

Download the audio

Picture courtesy Brian Combs of Apogee Search