Saturday
Boring Giants?
Here’s a quick – and hopefully educational and fun – little project for you. I’ve given you the links to 16 top-selling Web sites. Your job is to visit them (just the home pages) and then decide what they all have in common from a general design point of view (well, two present exceptions, but not big ones). Don’t pick over details; go for the Big Picture.
Dell, ticketmaster, Amazon, Quill, Staples, Sears, QVC, 1-800-Flowers, TigerDirect, Victoria’s Secret, HSN, J C Penney, Lands End, Travelocity, Match (click past the home page on this one), Ebay
Okay, off with you. Just be sure to come back!
Now, if you could give me one word to describe your impression of these sites, what would it be? My word, and I absolutely do not mean this unkindly, would be:
BORING!
We are not talking fancy glitz here. We are not talking elaborate graphical design. Yes, 1-800-Flowers uses a very distinctive color palette, and Match and Victoria’s Secret are more image conscious (but then, they are selling love and seductive glamour). Fundamentally, there is nothing terribly exciting about the design of any of these Web sites.
Tons of research and attention have gone into the process of making sure these sites do the job they are supposed to do. Have you ever visited Amazon and discovered some new little thing that lingered for several weeks and then disappeared? They were consumer testing a tweak in an effort to improve the overall persuasion architecture of their site. Don’t ever think “boring” design is easily achieved!
None of the above sites are perfect, but each tries to address these critical persuasive home page issues through their designs. Here are some of the basics:
Professional appearance that takes the best principles for design and adapts them to the online environment
Relatively uncluttered, streamlined design
They load pretty fast
Color blocks rather than patterns
Good use of white space
More text than graphic images (for the most part)
Visual groupings of similar information
Scannable and skimmable presentation of information
Functions and elements located where visitors generally expect to find them (or made otherwise prominent)
Qualification schemes that quickly help the visitor identify what she’s looking for supported with links that take her directly there
These sites are conversion-oriented, process-conscious and they don’t try to hide behind very much visual drama. Sure, deeper in the process some have thrown in a glitzy feature (like a rotating view of a product), but you never have to rely on the glitz to reach the goal.
The Giants seem to have internalized the message that shopping is, first and foremost, about shopping. It’s really not about being entertained. And a design that is subdued and non-intrusive, that supports the business objectives rather than undermines them, is worth its weight in gold.
Think you can learn something from a Boring Giant?
Here’s a quick – and hopefully educational and fun – little project for you. I’ve given you the links to 16 top-selling Web sites. Your job is to visit them (just the home pages) and then decide what they all have in common from a general design point of view (well, two present exceptions, but not big ones). Don’t pick over details; go for the Big Picture.
Dell, ticketmaster, Amazon, Quill, Staples, Sears, QVC, 1-800-Flowers, TigerDirect, Victoria’s Secret, HSN, J C Penney, Lands End, Travelocity, Match (click past the home page on this one), Ebay
Okay, off with you. Just be sure to come back!
Now, if you could give me one word to describe your impression of these sites, what would it be? My word, and I absolutely do not mean this unkindly, would be:
BORING!
We are not talking fancy glitz here. We are not talking elaborate graphical design. Yes, 1-800-Flowers uses a very distinctive color palette, and Match and Victoria’s Secret are more image conscious (but then, they are selling love and seductive glamour). Fundamentally, there is nothing terribly exciting about the design of any of these Web sites.
Tons of research and attention have gone into the process of making sure these sites do the job they are supposed to do. Have you ever visited Amazon and discovered some new little thing that lingered for several weeks and then disappeared? They were consumer testing a tweak in an effort to improve the overall persuasion architecture of their site. Don’t ever think “boring” design is easily achieved!
None of the above sites are perfect, but each tries to address these critical persuasive home page issues through their designs. Here are some of the basics:
Professional appearance that takes the best principles for design and adapts them to the online environment
Relatively uncluttered, streamlined design
They load pretty fast
Color blocks rather than patterns
Good use of white space
More text than graphic images (for the most part)
Visual groupings of similar information
Scannable and skimmable presentation of information
Functions and elements located where visitors generally expect to find them (or made otherwise prominent)
Qualification schemes that quickly help the visitor identify what she’s looking for supported with links that take her directly there
These sites are conversion-oriented, process-conscious and they don’t try to hide behind very much visual drama. Sure, deeper in the process some have thrown in a glitzy feature (like a rotating view of a product), but you never have to rely on the glitz to reach the goal.
The Giants seem to have internalized the message that shopping is, first and foremost, about shopping. It’s really not about being entertained. And a design that is subdued and non-intrusive, that supports the business objectives rather than undermines them, is worth its weight in gold.
Think you can learn something from a Boring Giant?
How You Look at It
Two moms are sitting at the park watching their four-year-old daughters play together. Mom One shakes her head and guiltily announces, “She’s certainly not the child I expected to have.� Mom Two smiles empathetically, watching the child in question, so Mom One continues, “I love her dearly, but it’s always conflict with her, everything’s a problem. She can be so … difficult.�
Mom Two watches the girl stand her ground in a face-off. “She certainly seems a spirited child. It must be a challenge for you.�
Overhearing this exchange, I have to chortle. Mom Two has hit the nail on the head. You can focus on the negative in a situation (problem, conflict, difficult) or you can focus on the positive (spirited, challenge). Guess which way is going to lead to more productive results?
You just know I’m not thinking about kids, though, right? I’m thinking about the design of Web pages.
The Web certainly isn’t the publishing offspring most designers were expecting to deal with. Centuries of designing for the printed page didn’t prepare them for the challenges of this new medium where printed-page principles sometimes work. And sometimes don’t.
Why? John Allsopp explains:
“Designers in the world of paper based publishing are used to control. A whole industry has evolved to ensure that what the designer wants is what the reader gets.�1
But the Web is a participatory, voluntary medium, and your visitors are in control not only of what they see, but even how they see it.
Folks can resize pages and adjust their screen resolutions.
They can choose how large or small text appears on their screens.
They can decide whether or not they want to display pictures.
They can choose whether or not they want to see color (some can even change the color palette).
They view your site on a variety of devices: PCs (and Windows appearance differs from Mac appearance), handhelds, WebTV – each of which presents a different visual format environment.
I always seem to be repeating myself, but this stuff is really that important: Your goal is to persuade by delivering content and information in a way that meets your visitors’ needs. The second you ignore those needs, your visitors are gone. Just like a child. You tell him “No,� and he tunes you out. But if you can find a way to tell him “Yes,� so both your needs and his are acknowledged, he’ll keep paying attention.
The challenge is discovering how you can say “Yes.� Think you can design so one size fits all? Not if you are going to constrain the elements of your design. But if you add flexibility to your design equation, you will get much closer to “Yes.�
In the mechanics of Web design, this becomes possible with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which allows designers to suggest how the Web page should appear.
With CSS, you don’t have to single out one font, which your user may or may not have. You can cover more bases by suggesting a number of fonts.
You don’t need to specify the actual point size of the fonts you use. Instead, you represent them as percentages of the basic text. Headers and subheadings can be proportionally larger; some text can be proportionally smaller. It will then appear on any device in the appropriate size relationships to the base text.
To make page layout adapt to a user’s settings, you can specify margins, indents and other layout features as percentages, or other relative values, of the width of the element which contains them. So when users change the size of their browser windows, the entire page layout adapts to fit.
When it comes to color, it is extremely important to make sure the persuasive objectives of your Web site can be conveyed in black and white, and that you do not rely on color alone to communicate your meaning. Consider that color can enhance your message, but should not be, in and of itself, the message.
Khalil Gibran said of children,
Your children are not your children. …
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. …
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.2
Not bad parenting advice. It even offers a thoughtful parallel for online design. Your Web site is your child. And while you can shape it, you cannot control it. When it leaves you, it takes on an entirely new life shaped by all those who interact with it.
You needn’t throw the baby out with the bath water – although there are some lessons you’ll want to avoid, there are lots of important things to learn from designing for print. Just refuse to think of the design of your Web site as a problem child. Think of it as a challenge. Because how you look at it influences what they see.
And that, as we all know, is the key that gets the persuasive ball rolling.
Two moms are sitting at the park watching their four-year-old daughters play together. Mom One shakes her head and guiltily announces, “She’s certainly not the child I expected to have.� Mom Two smiles empathetically, watching the child in question, so Mom One continues, “I love her dearly, but it’s always conflict with her, everything’s a problem. She can be so … difficult.�
Mom Two watches the girl stand her ground in a face-off. “She certainly seems a spirited child. It must be a challenge for you.�
Overhearing this exchange, I have to chortle. Mom Two has hit the nail on the head. You can focus on the negative in a situation (problem, conflict, difficult) or you can focus on the positive (spirited, challenge). Guess which way is going to lead to more productive results?
You just know I’m not thinking about kids, though, right? I’m thinking about the design of Web pages.
The Web certainly isn’t the publishing offspring most designers were expecting to deal with. Centuries of designing for the printed page didn’t prepare them for the challenges of this new medium where printed-page principles sometimes work. And sometimes don’t.
Why? John Allsopp explains:
“Designers in the world of paper based publishing are used to control. A whole industry has evolved to ensure that what the designer wants is what the reader gets.�1
But the Web is a participatory, voluntary medium, and your visitors are in control not only of what they see, but even how they see it.
Folks can resize pages and adjust their screen resolutions.
They can choose how large or small text appears on their screens.
They can decide whether or not they want to display pictures.
They can choose whether or not they want to see color (some can even change the color palette).
They view your site on a variety of devices: PCs (and Windows appearance differs from Mac appearance), handhelds, WebTV – each of which presents a different visual format environment.
I always seem to be repeating myself, but this stuff is really that important: Your goal is to persuade by delivering content and information in a way that meets your visitors’ needs. The second you ignore those needs, your visitors are gone. Just like a child. You tell him “No,� and he tunes you out. But if you can find a way to tell him “Yes,� so both your needs and his are acknowledged, he’ll keep paying attention.
The challenge is discovering how you can say “Yes.� Think you can design so one size fits all? Not if you are going to constrain the elements of your design. But if you add flexibility to your design equation, you will get much closer to “Yes.�
In the mechanics of Web design, this becomes possible with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which allows designers to suggest how the Web page should appear.
With CSS, you don’t have to single out one font, which your user may or may not have. You can cover more bases by suggesting a number of fonts.
You don’t need to specify the actual point size of the fonts you use. Instead, you represent them as percentages of the basic text. Headers and subheadings can be proportionally larger; some text can be proportionally smaller. It will then appear on any device in the appropriate size relationships to the base text.
To make page layout adapt to a user’s settings, you can specify margins, indents and other layout features as percentages, or other relative values, of the width of the element which contains them. So when users change the size of their browser windows, the entire page layout adapts to fit.
When it comes to color, it is extremely important to make sure the persuasive objectives of your Web site can be conveyed in black and white, and that you do not rely on color alone to communicate your meaning. Consider that color can enhance your message, but should not be, in and of itself, the message.
Khalil Gibran said of children,
Your children are not your children. …
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. …
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.2
Not bad parenting advice. It even offers a thoughtful parallel for online design. Your Web site is your child. And while you can shape it, you cannot control it. When it leaves you, it takes on an entirely new life shaped by all those who interact with it.
You needn’t throw the baby out with the bath water – although there are some lessons you’ll want to avoid, there are lots of important things to learn from designing for print. Just refuse to think of the design of your Web site as a problem child. Think of it as a challenge. Because how you look at it influences what they see.
And that, as we all know, is the key that gets the persuasive ball rolling.
Online Ads Are Bigger, Richer
By Brian Morrissey
Internet advertising trends toward larger unit sizes and more rich media are continuing to develop, according to DoubleClick's (Quote, Company Info) second quarter ad serving report.
The ad technology company said that nearly a third of the ads it served in the quarter used rich media, up 14 percent from the previous quarter. DoubleClick defines rich media as any ad using Flash, pop-ups, interstitials, or Unicast and Eyeblaster formats.
DoubleClick also reported that ads reflected a growing trend toward larger units, with big sizes, such as leaderboards and half-page units, grabbing share from the standard banner. The standard 468 x 60 pixels banner was still the most prevalent unit, accounting for 42 percent of ads served, but it dropped 23 percent from a year ago. The skyscraper remained in the No. 2 position, with 9 percent.
The growth in rich media, averaging 10 percent per quarter, puts it in line to surpass static GIF and JPEG ads by 2005, the report said. Once separate from the online ad industry, rich media has become very mainstream.
"It's not too far-fetched to assume that the entire concept of rich media as a separate form of online advertising will cease to exist, as rich media becomes 'just advertising," DoubleClick said in the report.
The move to rich media is a sign that Web marketers have begun to use the medium for more than just direct response advertising. Publishers like Yahoo! have reported increasing success in bringing traditional advertisers into the fold with online campaigns aimed at brand building.
DoubleClick culled the data from its DART ad-serving platform, which served just under 150 billion ads in the quarter.
Flash dominated rich-media forms, accounting for 13.4 percent of all ads served. DoubleClick has close ties with Flash, having inked a deal with Macromedia to develop a rich media authoring, trafficking and reporting tool.
While advertisers continue to flock to rich media for branding, they might be disappointed by the difference rich media makes in direct response: Click-through rates for rich media declined 15 percent in the quarter to 1.87 percent. That response rate still dwarfs the anemic .34 percent DoubleClick recorded for static ads.
Still, DoubleClick found that rich media does leave an impression on consumers. Rich media ads are three times more likely to lead to a post-impression sale than static ads. Also, the report found that view-through rates, which measure some type of action within 30 days of viewing an ad, have continued to rise. However, the rates remain quite low at .63 percent, up just .02 percent from the previous quarter.
DoubleClick hopes to get a better hold on the effectiveness of rich media as a branding tool with its recently unveiled DART Motif, built in conjunction with Macromedia. Motif promises sophisticated multi-event reporting, which tracks user interactions with rich media ads. That functionality, however, will not be ready until November.
By Brian Morrissey
Internet advertising trends toward larger unit sizes and more rich media are continuing to develop, according to DoubleClick's (Quote, Company Info) second quarter ad serving report.
The ad technology company said that nearly a third of the ads it served in the quarter used rich media, up 14 percent from the previous quarter. DoubleClick defines rich media as any ad using Flash, pop-ups, interstitials, or Unicast and Eyeblaster formats.
DoubleClick also reported that ads reflected a growing trend toward larger units, with big sizes, such as leaderboards and half-page units, grabbing share from the standard banner. The standard 468 x 60 pixels banner was still the most prevalent unit, accounting for 42 percent of ads served, but it dropped 23 percent from a year ago. The skyscraper remained in the No. 2 position, with 9 percent.
The growth in rich media, averaging 10 percent per quarter, puts it in line to surpass static GIF and JPEG ads by 2005, the report said. Once separate from the online ad industry, rich media has become very mainstream.
"It's not too far-fetched to assume that the entire concept of rich media as a separate form of online advertising will cease to exist, as rich media becomes 'just advertising," DoubleClick said in the report.
The move to rich media is a sign that Web marketers have begun to use the medium for more than just direct response advertising. Publishers like Yahoo! have reported increasing success in bringing traditional advertisers into the fold with online campaigns aimed at brand building.
DoubleClick culled the data from its DART ad-serving platform, which served just under 150 billion ads in the quarter.
Flash dominated rich-media forms, accounting for 13.4 percent of all ads served. DoubleClick has close ties with Flash, having inked a deal with Macromedia to develop a rich media authoring, trafficking and reporting tool.
While advertisers continue to flock to rich media for branding, they might be disappointed by the difference rich media makes in direct response: Click-through rates for rich media declined 15 percent in the quarter to 1.87 percent. That response rate still dwarfs the anemic .34 percent DoubleClick recorded for static ads.
Still, DoubleClick found that rich media does leave an impression on consumers. Rich media ads are three times more likely to lead to a post-impression sale than static ads. Also, the report found that view-through rates, which measure some type of action within 30 days of viewing an ad, have continued to rise. However, the rates remain quite low at .63 percent, up just .02 percent from the previous quarter.
DoubleClick hopes to get a better hold on the effectiveness of rich media as a branding tool with its recently unveiled DART Motif, built in conjunction with Macromedia. Motif promises sophisticated multi-event reporting, which tracks user interactions with rich media ads. That functionality, however, will not be ready until November.
Redesign Time?
By Bryan Eisenberg
Companies are taking a hard look at their Internet initiatives. Many have decided it's redesign time as soon as the busy holiday season is over.
I applaud the initiative, but I'm skeptical about execution. If we applied the same logic to traditional architecture most people use for redesigning Web sites, we'd hire a handyman. A coat of paint, new plumbing fixtures, minor wiring -- a few cosmetic touchups. All fine, provided there are no underlying foundation problems. The right paint job can make a room look bigger, but square footage doesn't increase. Do you want your site to merely look better or also to persuade more effectively?
Foundation problems are frequent when sites are constructed by committees or when no single decision maker has responsibility for measurable results. Objectives that are less than crystal clear and no defined goals for the site make answering the critical question for any project impossible: How will you measure success? If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
Answering that question is the purpose of "uncovery," the initial phase of the Minerva Architectural Process (MAP) used in persuasive architecture. Any site that needs to persuade or sell must define clear objectives. Your conversion rate is a measure of your ability to persuade prospects to take the action you want them to take. It's a reflection of your marketing and sales effectiveness and your customers' satisfaction. To achieve your objectives, your prospects must first achieve their own.
Objectives are the whats (not the whys or hows) we want people to do. They are quantifiable within a given time frame (e.g., I want 34,000 investors to read my annual report online during fiscal year 2003). Objectives must be clearly stated, have a schedule, and be measurable. Otherwise, they're just wishes.
As with traditional architecture, a great deal occurs before design or implementation. The needs of the building are identified (a hospital or a two-family home?); resources are secured (is financing in place, will the windows be delivered, are builders hired?). Now is the time to get questions answered, so the foundation can support the structure.
The uncovery phase is responsible for:
Mapping objectives
Developing strategy
Understanding the customer's buying process
Understanding and refining the sales process
Researching keywords and key phrases (as in search engine marketing, but with broader application)
Defining key business metrics
Only people with responsibility for defining objectives are involved in this stage to ensure business objectives won't succumb to the needs of designers or developers. The most important question isn't what technology to use or what functions the site will include. The only thing that matters is how the site will satisfy prospects, be profitable, and serve your needs. Uncovery helps a project run smoothly and manages risk effectively.
To ensure the success at this stage, assign an impartial project manager and a person whose own success is tied to the project's business objectives. People lose objectivity when they have a personal stake in the issues (e.g., their children, their home, their business). The person responsible for results should work with a persuasive architect who can employ active listening and interviewing skills, is unaligned with internal politics, is technologically agnostic, and can manage, record, and transcribe all information gathered at this stage.
This persuasive architect's role is to make the connection between the big picture and the nitty-gritty. Between intuitive right-brain thinking (business strategy, understanding users, sales process, and design) and the detail-oriented left(categorization, database schema, development, and coding). The persuasive architect leads the next phase, wireframing (which I'll discuss again in a future column).
Redesigns will be needed. But if you can't find the time to do it right now, you're unlikely to find time to fix it later. Effectively planning your site from the beginning ensures the project will be properly executed.
By Bryan Eisenberg
Companies are taking a hard look at their Internet initiatives. Many have decided it's redesign time as soon as the busy holiday season is over.
I applaud the initiative, but I'm skeptical about execution. If we applied the same logic to traditional architecture most people use for redesigning Web sites, we'd hire a handyman. A coat of paint, new plumbing fixtures, minor wiring -- a few cosmetic touchups. All fine, provided there are no underlying foundation problems. The right paint job can make a room look bigger, but square footage doesn't increase. Do you want your site to merely look better or also to persuade more effectively?
Foundation problems are frequent when sites are constructed by committees or when no single decision maker has responsibility for measurable results. Objectives that are less than crystal clear and no defined goals for the site make answering the critical question for any project impossible: How will you measure success? If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
Answering that question is the purpose of "uncovery," the initial phase of the Minerva Architectural Process (MAP) used in persuasive architecture. Any site that needs to persuade or sell must define clear objectives. Your conversion rate is a measure of your ability to persuade prospects to take the action you want them to take. It's a reflection of your marketing and sales effectiveness and your customers' satisfaction. To achieve your objectives, your prospects must first achieve their own.
Objectives are the whats (not the whys or hows) we want people to do. They are quantifiable within a given time frame (e.g., I want 34,000 investors to read my annual report online during fiscal year 2003). Objectives must be clearly stated, have a schedule, and be measurable. Otherwise, they're just wishes.
As with traditional architecture, a great deal occurs before design or implementation. The needs of the building are identified (a hospital or a two-family home?); resources are secured (is financing in place, will the windows be delivered, are builders hired?). Now is the time to get questions answered, so the foundation can support the structure.
The uncovery phase is responsible for:
Mapping objectives
Developing strategy
Understanding the customer's buying process
Understanding and refining the sales process
Researching keywords and key phrases (as in search engine marketing, but with broader application)
Defining key business metrics
Only people with responsibility for defining objectives are involved in this stage to ensure business objectives won't succumb to the needs of designers or developers. The most important question isn't what technology to use or what functions the site will include. The only thing that matters is how the site will satisfy prospects, be profitable, and serve your needs. Uncovery helps a project run smoothly and manages risk effectively.
To ensure the success at this stage, assign an impartial project manager and a person whose own success is tied to the project's business objectives. People lose objectivity when they have a personal stake in the issues (e.g., their children, their home, their business). The person responsible for results should work with a persuasive architect who can employ active listening and interviewing skills, is unaligned with internal politics, is technologically agnostic, and can manage, record, and transcribe all information gathered at this stage.
This persuasive architect's role is to make the connection between the big picture and the nitty-gritty. Between intuitive right-brain thinking (business strategy, understanding users, sales process, and design) and the detail-oriented left(categorization, database schema, development, and coding). The persuasive architect leads the next phase, wireframing (which I'll discuss again in a future column).
Redesigns will be needed. But if you can't find the time to do it right now, you're unlikely to find time to fix it later. Effectively planning your site from the beginning ensures the project will be properly executed.
The 5 Percent Solution
By Bryan Eisenberg
I recently mentioned the "power of 5 percent" concept to a new client and was surprised it seemed such a novel idea. When we helped traditional companies increase the effectiveness of their sales forces it was something we spoke about all the time. The concept has great value and is very rewarding to apply.
For those who've never heard it, this column will be a revelation; for those who have, it should be a good refresher. Hal Slater, a sales trainer, reminded me of this concept recently, and his thinking influenced me in the writing of this column. I've adapted the concept a bit for e-tailing.
When you start talking percentages you're undoubtedly discussing measurements, so let's start with the essentials. There are 10 business metrics, or operating measurements, an e-tailer must track to measure performance: visitors, conversion rate, sales, average sale, gross revenue, margin, gross profit, overhead, net profit, and growth.
Of the 10 metrics you need to track to achieve the 5 percent solution, only 5 are key:
Visitors
Conversion rate
Average sale
Margin
Overhead
Why are these the five key metrics, when you've been paying most of your attention to the other five? Simply because the key metrics are the only ones you can do anything about. You have absolutely no control over the other five metrics; they are simply the mathematical results of the key metrics. However, you do have control over key metrics, and, by exercising that control, you can improve your business... 5 percent at a time.
The starting point is to make the decision, put someone in charge, and establish and use a system for measuring, testing, and optimizing your Web site. Using a system can help you:
Get more and better qualified visitors
Learn what visitors really want
Present better and increase your conversion rate
Price more accurately
Increase the effectiveness of your merchandizing
Understand your errors and learn from your mistakes
Train others
Do I suggest you use a system? No, I insist you use a system.
It's not intentional, but many businesses that measure their key metrics offline don't do the same online. That is how many businesses set out on the path to mediocrity while imagining themselves en route to their business objectives. Some businesses still don't know how many visitors their Web sites get in a given month and have no idea how many of those fine people made a purchase. If business is declining, company execs can't know whether it's sales (the Web site's persuasive architecture) or marketing that is failing. It's very sad because that information is even more important than revenue and net profit. Of course, they'll get those results soon enough.
What I'm advocating is using a system similar to what the Japanese call kaizen -- steady, regular, incremental, unrelenting growth. More visitors, higher conversion rates, bigger sales, and fatter margins are the payoff. Focusing on all five key metrics is how you get triple-digit gains from single-digit improvements.
For example: What if we were to increase conversion rate (on those things we can control) by only 5 percent this month. If we started out with a 1 percent conversion rate, we would finish the month with only a 1.05 percent conversion rate. I can already hear the groans. What would that do? Seems like a whole lot of effort for so little. Nevertheless, over the course of a year, that 5 percent a month would increase our conversion rate to 1.796 percent. The power of compounding would give us almost an 80 percent increase in conversion rate. Doesn't that seem more worthwhile?
The Web allows you to target your market tightly, qualify them to find out exactly what they want, and present exactly what they want presented -- in the way they want it presented -- each and every time. Certainly it takes more effort and planning to be credible and relevant to every visitor and provide them with value. Nevertheless, the unfulfilled promise of the Web is just that, unfulfilled. It takes a great deal of work to create a Web site with persuasive architecture. However, the process produces highly customized and measurable scenarios that can be tracked and optimized continuously.
It takes more patience, a high degree of planning, and more work up front to get results. It's why so many businesses tread water or produce anemic profits. It's the exceptional manager or entrepreneur who is willing to roll up her sleeves, question the value of her business, and commit to constant improvement. That's what it takes to be successful. It won't come out of a black box, you can't buy it from a consultant, and it will be more painful, at first, than profitable. That's the lesson of the 5 percent solution. Ask yourself; are you truly committed to success?
By Bryan Eisenberg
I recently mentioned the "power of 5 percent" concept to a new client and was surprised it seemed such a novel idea. When we helped traditional companies increase the effectiveness of their sales forces it was something we spoke about all the time. The concept has great value and is very rewarding to apply.
For those who've never heard it, this column will be a revelation; for those who have, it should be a good refresher. Hal Slater, a sales trainer, reminded me of this concept recently, and his thinking influenced me in the writing of this column. I've adapted the concept a bit for e-tailing.
When you start talking percentages you're undoubtedly discussing measurements, so let's start with the essentials. There are 10 business metrics, or operating measurements, an e-tailer must track to measure performance: visitors, conversion rate, sales, average sale, gross revenue, margin, gross profit, overhead, net profit, and growth.
Of the 10 metrics you need to track to achieve the 5 percent solution, only 5 are key:
Visitors
Conversion rate
Average sale
Margin
Overhead
Why are these the five key metrics, when you've been paying most of your attention to the other five? Simply because the key metrics are the only ones you can do anything about. You have absolutely no control over the other five metrics; they are simply the mathematical results of the key metrics. However, you do have control over key metrics, and, by exercising that control, you can improve your business... 5 percent at a time.
The starting point is to make the decision, put someone in charge, and establish and use a system for measuring, testing, and optimizing your Web site. Using a system can help you:
Get more and better qualified visitors
Learn what visitors really want
Present better and increase your conversion rate
Price more accurately
Increase the effectiveness of your merchandizing
Understand your errors and learn from your mistakes
Train others
Do I suggest you use a system? No, I insist you use a system.
It's not intentional, but many businesses that measure their key metrics offline don't do the same online. That is how many businesses set out on the path to mediocrity while imagining themselves en route to their business objectives. Some businesses still don't know how many visitors their Web sites get in a given month and have no idea how many of those fine people made a purchase. If business is declining, company execs can't know whether it's sales (the Web site's persuasive architecture) or marketing that is failing. It's very sad because that information is even more important than revenue and net profit. Of course, they'll get those results soon enough.
What I'm advocating is using a system similar to what the Japanese call kaizen -- steady, regular, incremental, unrelenting growth. More visitors, higher conversion rates, bigger sales, and fatter margins are the payoff. Focusing on all five key metrics is how you get triple-digit gains from single-digit improvements.
For example: What if we were to increase conversion rate (on those things we can control) by only 5 percent this month. If we started out with a 1 percent conversion rate, we would finish the month with only a 1.05 percent conversion rate. I can already hear the groans. What would that do? Seems like a whole lot of effort for so little. Nevertheless, over the course of a year, that 5 percent a month would increase our conversion rate to 1.796 percent. The power of compounding would give us almost an 80 percent increase in conversion rate. Doesn't that seem more worthwhile?
The Web allows you to target your market tightly, qualify them to find out exactly what they want, and present exactly what they want presented -- in the way they want it presented -- each and every time. Certainly it takes more effort and planning to be credible and relevant to every visitor and provide them with value. Nevertheless, the unfulfilled promise of the Web is just that, unfulfilled. It takes a great deal of work to create a Web site with persuasive architecture. However, the process produces highly customized and measurable scenarios that can be tracked and optimized continuously.
It takes more patience, a high degree of planning, and more work up front to get results. It's why so many businesses tread water or produce anemic profits. It's the exceptional manager or entrepreneur who is willing to roll up her sleeves, question the value of her business, and commit to constant improvement. That's what it takes to be successful. It won't come out of a black box, you can't buy it from a consultant, and it will be more painful, at first, than profitable. That's the lesson of the 5 percent solution. Ask yourself; are you truly committed to success?
How to Decrease Sales by 90 Percent
By Bryan Eisenberg
Last week Brad, a reader of this column with whom I've become friendly, asked me for some advice. He'd conducted a test campaign that resulted in a huge discrepancy he couldn't identify. No doubt losing 90 percent of his sales, when his normal conversion rate is over 4.6 percent, distressed him. He wanted to know what caused his conversion rate to come in at just 0.47 percent. Together, we discovered the variable he'd ignored, and in his most recent test the conversion rate is back to normal.
Brad was so excited he insisted I share this case study with all of you. I hesitated to do so but promised him I'd share the data with you and let you reach your own conclusions. My concern is what is valid for Brad's business isn't valid for everyone's. Brad's product has a target market with very particular characteristics. Plus, his marketing is response driven, not branding driven. The entire buying process for his products is, though not entirely unique, not universally applicable, either.
Case studies can be very informative, but they can also do a lot of damage. Be very careful what you copy. Many companies try to emulate more successful competitors without really knowing what they're copying, because they're unaware of all the variables. What you need to do is uncover the key factors that influence your target audience to buy your particular products, then utilize this information to help you refine your sales process.
We constantly get requests for averages and benchmarks on conversion rates. We always advise against comparing your own conversion rates with "norms" or "averages." These are drawn from sites that don't have the same traffic or product as yours, and they may differ in any number of ways. We've identified over 1,100 variables in our own work alone. This is why I cringe when I hear the phrase "best practices" tossed around as if it were gospel.
To illustrate my point, I called a friend I knew could further confuse the issue. I told Sam Decker, senior manager of Dell Consumer eBusiness, what Brad did. Dell is one of the top e-commerce sites and is known for its innovative approach to measuring, testing, and optimizing. Sam is responsible for sales on the consumer Web site, so if anybody would know what to learn from Brad's case study, it would be Sam, right? Interestingly enough, Dell's own case studies prove that making Brad's "mistake" would actually help Dell's online sales.
How can it be that two case studies contradict each other so blatantly? The answer is no business is linear. There are many facets, or topological elements, to consider in designing an effective online strategy to maximize your conversion rate. Your conversion rate is only a reflection of the marketing and sales effectiveness and your customers' satisfaction. It depends! It always depends! If you're looking for one canned, simple solution, you're bound to be either bankrupt or very disappointed. I know I've just aggravated a bunch of people who are binary thinkers, but the world has lots of gray, seldom displaying true black or white.
I'm going to make this simpler on you than it was on me. I've given you two screen shots: Test A and Test B. I'd like you to let me know what the offending variable is (and, yes, there is more than one change on the page. Can you find them all?).
Here's a quick refresher on making improvements to increase conversion rates. There are thousands of improvements, big and small, you can make to improve your conversion rate. Nevertheless, you should focus on changing one thing at a time. If you change too many things at once, you may see a net increase in sales, but a change with a negative impact may have diluted a change with a positive impact. Make one change, see that it gives you X percent increase in sales, then make another change. If you start losing sales after the second change, just undo what you did and try something else, always moving your conversion rate up.
By Bryan Eisenberg
Last week Brad, a reader of this column with whom I've become friendly, asked me for some advice. He'd conducted a test campaign that resulted in a huge discrepancy he couldn't identify. No doubt losing 90 percent of his sales, when his normal conversion rate is over 4.6 percent, distressed him. He wanted to know what caused his conversion rate to come in at just 0.47 percent. Together, we discovered the variable he'd ignored, and in his most recent test the conversion rate is back to normal.
Brad was so excited he insisted I share this case study with all of you. I hesitated to do so but promised him I'd share the data with you and let you reach your own conclusions. My concern is what is valid for Brad's business isn't valid for everyone's. Brad's product has a target market with very particular characteristics. Plus, his marketing is response driven, not branding driven. The entire buying process for his products is, though not entirely unique, not universally applicable, either.
Case studies can be very informative, but they can also do a lot of damage. Be very careful what you copy. Many companies try to emulate more successful competitors without really knowing what they're copying, because they're unaware of all the variables. What you need to do is uncover the key factors that influence your target audience to buy your particular products, then utilize this information to help you refine your sales process.
We constantly get requests for averages and benchmarks on conversion rates. We always advise against comparing your own conversion rates with "norms" or "averages." These are drawn from sites that don't have the same traffic or product as yours, and they may differ in any number of ways. We've identified over 1,100 variables in our own work alone. This is why I cringe when I hear the phrase "best practices" tossed around as if it were gospel.
To illustrate my point, I called a friend I knew could further confuse the issue. I told Sam Decker, senior manager of Dell Consumer eBusiness, what Brad did. Dell is one of the top e-commerce sites and is known for its innovative approach to measuring, testing, and optimizing. Sam is responsible for sales on the consumer Web site, so if anybody would know what to learn from Brad's case study, it would be Sam, right? Interestingly enough, Dell's own case studies prove that making Brad's "mistake" would actually help Dell's online sales.
How can it be that two case studies contradict each other so blatantly? The answer is no business is linear. There are many facets, or topological elements, to consider in designing an effective online strategy to maximize your conversion rate. Your conversion rate is only a reflection of the marketing and sales effectiveness and your customers' satisfaction. It depends! It always depends! If you're looking for one canned, simple solution, you're bound to be either bankrupt or very disappointed. I know I've just aggravated a bunch of people who are binary thinkers, but the world has lots of gray, seldom displaying true black or white.
I'm going to make this simpler on you than it was on me. I've given you two screen shots: Test A and Test B. I'd like you to let me know what the offending variable is (and, yes, there is more than one change on the page. Can you find them all?).
Here's a quick refresher on making improvements to increase conversion rates. There are thousands of improvements, big and small, you can make to improve your conversion rate. Nevertheless, you should focus on changing one thing at a time. If you change too many things at once, you may see a net increase in sales, but a change with a negative impact may have diluted a change with a positive impact. Make one change, see that it gives you X percent increase in sales, then make another change. If you start losing sales after the second change, just undo what you did and try something else, always moving your conversion rate up.
The Payoff of Planning Persuasive Architecture
By Bryan Eisenberg
I've discussed the Minerva Archectural Process (MAP) steps to arrive at the point where most people begin the development process. These initial steps help get from abstract concepts (uncovery) related to Web site development to the concrete issues (optimization). All phases are critical to delivering a project on time, on budget, and on purpose.
Prototype
Rapidly go through the uncovery, wireframe, and storyboard processes. Cycle through successive iterations to arrive at a finished prototype. The prototype's appearance is identical to the application to avoid that costly project killer, "scope creep."
Complete Scenarios
During development, it's easy to focus on features and checklists. They're minimum requirements to get a site, any site, up and running. Concentrating on features for features' sake results in a bloated feature set (most of dubious utility) and a difficult product for users. Adding a feature to a Web site, regardless of its utility or role in the sales process, is poor persuasion and worse architecture.
Features are not a site's value. Value lies in a customer's ability to complete the tasks described in scenarios they find relevant. If your team recognizes the difference, they'll strive to create a site that enables users to complete actions they (and you) want them to take.
Acceptance Tests and Freeze
Lay out these scenarios, then use them to complete the front end of the development process (no coding yet). No prototype is complete until it accomplishes all client-identified scenarios, and does so in a way the user of each scenario agrees with in an "acceptance test." At the point where both client and development team agree prototyping is complete, freeze the prototype. No other changes can be made (in this version). A final set of acceptance tests are then defined.
How do you know when iterations are done and freeze can occur?
Hal Helms explains: "There's an old story told about a little girl who's asked to spell 'banana.' 'I know how to spell it,' she explains. 'I just don't know when to stop.'" (Keep reading, I'll explain later...) With these techniques, we know when to start writing markup and code (when the prototype is frozen) and (just as important) when to stop (when the prototype runs). Thus, we begin to craft a system that will make both client and developer successful.
Development
What's the danger in writing code? Author and businessman Richard I. Winwood said, "If we do not choose to plan, then we choose to have others plan for us." If you fail to provide every detail, the developer makes choices for you. If the prototype is complete, there's no guesswork. He'll do what he does best: code.
Every hour spent planning a project saves roughly three in coding and development. Programming is expensive -- way more than planning. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand the significant savings in keeping a brake on development until planning is complete. If that means spelling the fruit "banananana," so be it.
Optimization
Optimization is where a development project comes full circle. Technically, the site works. That's the point of acceptance test hurdles. Now, test how visitors use the site. By tying in the site's objectives (defined in the uncovery phase) and viewing the persuasive architecture's results in visitor scenarios (created during wireframing), you can determine using Web analytics how close intent is to what actually occurs. Then, follow a disciplined strategy based on measurement, testing, and re-evaluation to get closer to meeting objectives and to improve results of every page not meeting its responsibility.
Keys to Success
Successful methodology requires:
Being flexible. Methodology must be flexible enough to deal in principles, not absolute rules. It must accomplish the same results regardless of size and scope of a project. There are countless ways to make holes: big and small, holes in dirt and holes in concrete. If the right tools are available, I can reach the objective of making a hole.
Focusing on people. For group acceptance of a methodology, understanding cognitive psychology and communications theory is critical. Focus on individual team members' roles. The methodology must initiate with an understanding of the people involved and their goals and objectives. This facilitates meeting both end-user needs and business objectives.
Using it. No matter how good the methodology, it's worthless if it's not used. Apply methodology to the smallest projects, even if it's not necessary. It's good practice for projects that will need it.
By Bryan Eisenberg
I've discussed the Minerva Archectural Process (MAP) steps to arrive at the point where most people begin the development process. These initial steps help get from abstract concepts (uncovery) related to Web site development to the concrete issues (optimization). All phases are critical to delivering a project on time, on budget, and on purpose.
Prototype
Rapidly go through the uncovery, wireframe, and storyboard processes. Cycle through successive iterations to arrive at a finished prototype. The prototype's appearance is identical to the application to avoid that costly project killer, "scope creep."
Complete Scenarios
During development, it's easy to focus on features and checklists. They're minimum requirements to get a site, any site, up and running. Concentrating on features for features' sake results in a bloated feature set (most of dubious utility) and a difficult product for users. Adding a feature to a Web site, regardless of its utility or role in the sales process, is poor persuasion and worse architecture.
Features are not a site's value. Value lies in a customer's ability to complete the tasks described in scenarios they find relevant. If your team recognizes the difference, they'll strive to create a site that enables users to complete actions they (and you) want them to take.
Acceptance Tests and Freeze
Lay out these scenarios, then use them to complete the front end of the development process (no coding yet). No prototype is complete until it accomplishes all client-identified scenarios, and does so in a way the user of each scenario agrees with in an "acceptance test." At the point where both client and development team agree prototyping is complete, freeze the prototype. No other changes can be made (in this version). A final set of acceptance tests are then defined.
How do you know when iterations are done and freeze can occur?
Hal Helms explains: "There's an old story told about a little girl who's asked to spell 'banana.' 'I know how to spell it,' she explains. 'I just don't know when to stop.'" (Keep reading, I'll explain later...) With these techniques, we know when to start writing markup and code (when the prototype is frozen) and (just as important) when to stop (when the prototype runs). Thus, we begin to craft a system that will make both client and developer successful.
Development
What's the danger in writing code? Author and businessman Richard I. Winwood said, "If we do not choose to plan, then we choose to have others plan for us." If you fail to provide every detail, the developer makes choices for you. If the prototype is complete, there's no guesswork. He'll do what he does best: code.
Every hour spent planning a project saves roughly three in coding and development. Programming is expensive -- way more than planning. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand the significant savings in keeping a brake on development until planning is complete. If that means spelling the fruit "banananana," so be it.
Optimization
Optimization is where a development project comes full circle. Technically, the site works. That's the point of acceptance test hurdles. Now, test how visitors use the site. By tying in the site's objectives (defined in the uncovery phase) and viewing the persuasive architecture's results in visitor scenarios (created during wireframing), you can determine using Web analytics how close intent is to what actually occurs. Then, follow a disciplined strategy based on measurement, testing, and re-evaluation to get closer to meeting objectives and to improve results of every page not meeting its responsibility.
Keys to Success
Successful methodology requires:
Being flexible. Methodology must be flexible enough to deal in principles, not absolute rules. It must accomplish the same results regardless of size and scope of a project. There are countless ways to make holes: big and small, holes in dirt and holes in concrete. If the right tools are available, I can reach the objective of making a hole.
Focusing on people. For group acceptance of a methodology, understanding cognitive psychology and communications theory is critical. Focus on individual team members' roles. The methodology must initiate with an understanding of the people involved and their goals and objectives. This facilitates meeting both end-user needs and business objectives.
Using it. No matter how good the methodology, it's worthless if it's not used. Apply methodology to the smallest projects, even if it's not necessary. It's good practice for projects that will need it.
'Six Sigma' Web Marketing
By Bryan Eisenberg
"You create the system your visitor must navigate. People don't cause defects, systems do," said the late quality management guru, W. Edwards Deming.
Anything that results in a lower level of customer satisfaction or a lost customer is a defect, a flaw in the sales process. When a visitor doesn't convert, your Web site has a service defect and your processes don't deliver on your promise to customers or to prospects. At least, that's how you'd look at things if you applied the Six Sigma discipline to your Web site. I've referred to these defects in the past as holes in a leaky bucket.
Six Sigma Defined
For many organizations Six Sigma is a measure of quality that strives for near-perfection. It's a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology to eliminate defects in any process (driving toward six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit). It can be applied from manufacturing to transactional businesses, or from products to services. Six Sigma was originally developed at Motorola in the 1980s for high-volume, highly standardized production processes. The goal is to eliminate waste by achieving near-perfect results. General Electric, AlliedSignal, and other well-known manufacturers credit Six Sigma with having produced billions of dollars in efficiencies.
Six Sigma's value is not limited to manufacturers. Organizations use it to optimize such nonmanufacturing processes as accounts receivable, sales, and research and development (R&D). The Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge reports:
Dow Chemical, for example, estimates that the application of Six Sigma to environmental health, and safety services has saved the company $130 million in the past two years; other initiatives are under way for corporate R&D, finance, information systems, legal, marketing, public affairs, and human resources processes.
It should come as no surprise all sorts of companies are becoming Six Sigma converts. The article continues:
Six Sigma won't work for every service process, and adjustments may be required for it to suit even those processes for which it does apply. Nevertheless, many of the lessons learned from the production lines are relevant to service processes....
Six Sigma's off-the-shop-floor successes are too significant to ignore. The issue is no longer whether Six Sigma should be considered; it's when, and how....
Take Web site development. Highly customized site developers are likely to achieve benefits from Six Sigma in project administration: client set-up, billing and collection, and perhaps in project status reporting. Mass-customized Web developers can apply Six Sigma to hone their core service. Standardized services have the greatest Six Sigma potential because they use software or Web sites to take clients through the entire process. A human is involved only to answer a question.
Six Sigma methodology's fundamental objective is to implement a measurement-based strategy that focuses on process enhancement and variation reduction through the application of Six Sigma improvement projects. This is accomplished through the use of two Six Sigma submethodologies: DMAIC and DMADV. The Six Sigma DMAIC process (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) is an improvement system for existing processes falling below specification and looking for incremental improvement. The Six Sigma DMADV process (define, measure, analyze, design, verify) is an improvement system used to develop new processes or products at Six Sigma quality levels. It can also be employed if a current process requires more than just incremental improvement.
Six Sigma in Action
Identify and measure specific service and process defects, then ask, "Why are they happening?" That question uncovers the underlying reasons for customer dissatisfaction and/or defection. Typically, there's more than one reason. You'll often find a half-dozen or more root causes contributing to the service defect.
Once you've identified the chief contributors (e.g., copywriting, usability, visual communications, marketing plan assumptions), you can build systems that better serve customers.
For example, at a macro level the problem is defined as conversion to leads. Measure conversion to leads, analyze causal factors (a.k.a. chief contributors), and improve those variables versus a control. Then, repeat the process.
At a micro level, the problem is defined as a high rejection rate (visitors exiting) on a page. First, measure and define a baseline. Then, use surveys, pathing, content analysis, sales process analysis, persuasion architecture scenario analysis, time on page, and other data to determine root causes. Analyze the results to determine what needs to be improved, then fix the leading root causes (e.g., copy, design, navigation, interaction). Test the leading variables to see what changes make the biggest impact. Then maintain the variable (e.g., fresh content) to control the improvement. In the end, you've learned something that can apply to other pages as well.
Conclusion
It may sound like pure theory, but Six Sigma is practical and yields enormous return on investment (ROI). We apply its principles to Web marketing, also utilizing two submethodologies. Web site design as embodied in persuasion architecture is a similar to DMADV. The DMAIC cognate is how we tie Web analytics to Kaizen. Applying Six Sigma to Web marketing makes everything measurable. The result is a repeatable process. Of course, this doesn't apply equally to all areas of marketing. Advertising is an exception.
By Bryan Eisenberg
"You create the system your visitor must navigate. People don't cause defects, systems do," said the late quality management guru, W. Edwards Deming.
Anything that results in a lower level of customer satisfaction or a lost customer is a defect, a flaw in the sales process. When a visitor doesn't convert, your Web site has a service defect and your processes don't deliver on your promise to customers or to prospects. At least, that's how you'd look at things if you applied the Six Sigma discipline to your Web site. I've referred to these defects in the past as holes in a leaky bucket.
Six Sigma Defined
For many organizations Six Sigma is a measure of quality that strives for near-perfection. It's a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology to eliminate defects in any process (driving toward six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit). It can be applied from manufacturing to transactional businesses, or from products to services. Six Sigma was originally developed at Motorola in the 1980s for high-volume, highly standardized production processes. The goal is to eliminate waste by achieving near-perfect results. General Electric, AlliedSignal, and other well-known manufacturers credit Six Sigma with having produced billions of dollars in efficiencies.
Six Sigma's value is not limited to manufacturers. Organizations use it to optimize such nonmanufacturing processes as accounts receivable, sales, and research and development (R&D). The Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge reports:
Dow Chemical, for example, estimates that the application of Six Sigma to environmental health, and safety services has saved the company $130 million in the past two years; other initiatives are under way for corporate R&D, finance, information systems, legal, marketing, public affairs, and human resources processes.
It should come as no surprise all sorts of companies are becoming Six Sigma converts. The article continues:
Six Sigma won't work for every service process, and adjustments may be required for it to suit even those processes for which it does apply. Nevertheless, many of the lessons learned from the production lines are relevant to service processes....
Six Sigma's off-the-shop-floor successes are too significant to ignore. The issue is no longer whether Six Sigma should be considered; it's when, and how....
Take Web site development. Highly customized site developers are likely to achieve benefits from Six Sigma in project administration: client set-up, billing and collection, and perhaps in project status reporting. Mass-customized Web developers can apply Six Sigma to hone their core service. Standardized services have the greatest Six Sigma potential because they use software or Web sites to take clients through the entire process. A human is involved only to answer a question.
Six Sigma methodology's fundamental objective is to implement a measurement-based strategy that focuses on process enhancement and variation reduction through the application of Six Sigma improvement projects. This is accomplished through the use of two Six Sigma submethodologies: DMAIC and DMADV. The Six Sigma DMAIC process (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) is an improvement system for existing processes falling below specification and looking for incremental improvement. The Six Sigma DMADV process (define, measure, analyze, design, verify) is an improvement system used to develop new processes or products at Six Sigma quality levels. It can also be employed if a current process requires more than just incremental improvement.
Six Sigma in Action
Identify and measure specific service and process defects, then ask, "Why are they happening?" That question uncovers the underlying reasons for customer dissatisfaction and/or defection. Typically, there's more than one reason. You'll often find a half-dozen or more root causes contributing to the service defect.
Once you've identified the chief contributors (e.g., copywriting, usability, visual communications, marketing plan assumptions), you can build systems that better serve customers.
For example, at a macro level the problem is defined as conversion to leads. Measure conversion to leads, analyze causal factors (a.k.a. chief contributors), and improve those variables versus a control. Then, repeat the process.
At a micro level, the problem is defined as a high rejection rate (visitors exiting) on a page. First, measure and define a baseline. Then, use surveys, pathing, content analysis, sales process analysis, persuasion architecture scenario analysis, time on page, and other data to determine root causes. Analyze the results to determine what needs to be improved, then fix the leading root causes (e.g., copy, design, navigation, interaction). Test the leading variables to see what changes make the biggest impact. Then maintain the variable (e.g., fresh content) to control the improvement. In the end, you've learned something that can apply to other pages as well.
Conclusion
It may sound like pure theory, but Six Sigma is practical and yields enormous return on investment (ROI). We apply its principles to Web marketing, also utilizing two submethodologies. Web site design as embodied in persuasion architecture is a similar to DMADV. The DMAIC cognate is how we tie Web analytics to Kaizen. Applying Six Sigma to Web marketing makes everything measurable. The result is a repeatable process. Of course, this doesn't apply equally to all areas of marketing. Advertising is an exception.
Friday
You Want Them to Buy? Sell Benefits
By Bryan Eisenberg
So you're the biggest, the best, the fastest, the first? So what. Big deal. How do you know if any of that answers the question your customer is asking, "What's in it for me?" (WIFM).
"Features versus benefits" is Marketing 101. But as I look around the Web, I wonder if anybody heard that through their college-day hangovers. Very few people even talk about benefits, much less make the effort to get really good at translating features into benefits. Yet power-packed words describing benefits are what trigger the emotions that motivate us to spend our money, time, or energy. People (including you and me) buy because of the positive emotions associated with the benefits.
"The 2001 model has a 220-horsepower V8 engine, antilock brakes, traction control, automatic safety restraint system, and both front- and side-impact airbags." This statement may excite some of you out there, but the average consumer (and by "average consumer" I also mean "most of them") is lost after the word "model." Speak to consumers in their language: "This car has a very powerful engine, so it won't need to work as hard as one with a smaller engine. You'll find it a pleasure to own, especially when you want to merge or pass. The extra power will also help you avoid obstacles and quickly get you and your family out of harm's way, while the extra safety features ensure you're all safe and secure. And it's great fun to drive!"
Here's another example: "This ring features a 1.4 carat, pear-shaped cut white diamond with an SI1 clarity grade and an H color rating." Huh? Unless you're a gemologist or you understand the four Cs (cut, color, clarity, and carat weight), that's just gibberish. Here is what might sell diamonds better: "Imagine that special evening when you gently slip this on her finger and stare intensely into her eyes. She peers at this symbol of your devotion, the promise of your future together, and tears begin to glisten. An adoring smile spreads across her face, and at that moment your love is sealed forever."
Would it be indelicate to ask that gentleman if he cared about the four Cs the next morning?
Focus on emotions, not intellect. Emotions are the gateway to making a buying decision. Zig Ziglar, a world-renowned sales trainer, explains, "People usually buy on emotion and then they justify it with logic." Therefore, appeal to their emotions first and foremost. Benefits are the language of emotion. Features are the language of logic. Even people who insist they buy logically or based on features do so because that's what makes them feel better.
One of the common problems companies have translating their product or service features into benefits is that they are "looking at the label from the inside of the bottle," in the words of best-selling author and ad guru Roy H. Williams. In other words, because they know too much about their businesses, they often assume that others, too, not only want to know them but also should know them. These companies spend time (and money) "assuming" and "shoulding" all over themselves.
How does one get out of this thought trap? I thought you'd never ask. Here is a process to use to identify benefits.
Products' attributes usually have four principal levels:
Features -- what products have. For example, "This application is able to handle multiple users concurrently."
Advantages -- what features do. For example, "This application provides essential information in real time."
Benefits -- what features mean. For example, "This information will allow your managers to keep their fingers on the company's financial pulse at all times."
Motives -- what features satisfy. For example, "This feature will provide cost-savings, control, and efficiency."
List all of the features of your product or service, including standard, technical, supportive, and abstract features. For each feature, develop a subsequent list of relative advantages, then list benefits, and finally motives.
I'll close this article with a simple question: Would you prefer to read an article that will provide you with data on sales, marketing, usability, consumer psychology, and Web site design, or one that can actually show you how to increase online sales?
By Bryan Eisenberg
So you're the biggest, the best, the fastest, the first? So what. Big deal. How do you know if any of that answers the question your customer is asking, "What's in it for me?" (WIFM).
"Features versus benefits" is Marketing 101. But as I look around the Web, I wonder if anybody heard that through their college-day hangovers. Very few people even talk about benefits, much less make the effort to get really good at translating features into benefits. Yet power-packed words describing benefits are what trigger the emotions that motivate us to spend our money, time, or energy. People (including you and me) buy because of the positive emotions associated with the benefits.
"The 2001 model has a 220-horsepower V8 engine, antilock brakes, traction control, automatic safety restraint system, and both front- and side-impact airbags." This statement may excite some of you out there, but the average consumer (and by "average consumer" I also mean "most of them") is lost after the word "model." Speak to consumers in their language: "This car has a very powerful engine, so it won't need to work as hard as one with a smaller engine. You'll find it a pleasure to own, especially when you want to merge or pass. The extra power will also help you avoid obstacles and quickly get you and your family out of harm's way, while the extra safety features ensure you're all safe and secure. And it's great fun to drive!"
Here's another example: "This ring features a 1.4 carat, pear-shaped cut white diamond with an SI1 clarity grade and an H color rating." Huh? Unless you're a gemologist or you understand the four Cs (cut, color, clarity, and carat weight), that's just gibberish. Here is what might sell diamonds better: "Imagine that special evening when you gently slip this on her finger and stare intensely into her eyes. She peers at this symbol of your devotion, the promise of your future together, and tears begin to glisten. An adoring smile spreads across her face, and at that moment your love is sealed forever."
Would it be indelicate to ask that gentleman if he cared about the four Cs the next morning?
Focus on emotions, not intellect. Emotions are the gateway to making a buying decision. Zig Ziglar, a world-renowned sales trainer, explains, "People usually buy on emotion and then they justify it with logic." Therefore, appeal to their emotions first and foremost. Benefits are the language of emotion. Features are the language of logic. Even people who insist they buy logically or based on features do so because that's what makes them feel better.
One of the common problems companies have translating their product or service features into benefits is that they are "looking at the label from the inside of the bottle," in the words of best-selling author and ad guru Roy H. Williams. In other words, because they know too much about their businesses, they often assume that others, too, not only want to know them but also should know them. These companies spend time (and money) "assuming" and "shoulding" all over themselves.
How does one get out of this thought trap? I thought you'd never ask. Here is a process to use to identify benefits.
Products' attributes usually have four principal levels:
Features -- what products have. For example, "This application is able to handle multiple users concurrently."
Advantages -- what features do. For example, "This application provides essential information in real time."
Benefits -- what features mean. For example, "This information will allow your managers to keep their fingers on the company's financial pulse at all times."
Motives -- what features satisfy. For example, "This feature will provide cost-savings, control, and efficiency."
List all of the features of your product or service, including standard, technical, supportive, and abstract features. For each feature, develop a subsequent list of relative advantages, then list benefits, and finally motives.
I'll close this article with a simple question: Would you prefer to read an article that will provide you with data on sales, marketing, usability, consumer psychology, and Web site design, or one that can actually show you how to increase online sales?
The ABCs of GTC and POA
By Bryan Eisenberg
You step up to the counter of your favorite store. The cashier smiles at you warmly and asks politely, "Will that be cash or charge today?"
In sales parlance that's called an alternate-choice close. Whichever alternative you choose, you complete the purchase, and the merchant accomplishes GTC -- a well-established sales axiom: get the cash.
In the dot-com world, the meaning of GTC can be expanded. If you're doing business on the Web, you can still think of it as get the cash, or you can think of it as get the customer, or you can think of it as get the click. But however you think of it, definitely think GTC!
The Ka-Ching of Cashing In
GTC may be a nice abbreviation, but what do you do with it? Paint it on your monitor, embed it in your mind, and use it as a guiding principle whenever you are trying to get a prospect to take action.
Let's say you have an e-commerce site and your customer is ready to check out. To maximize GTC, you would offer all of the following, prominently and clearly:
Alternative ways to pay (credit card, check, COD, money order, etc.)
Acceptance of as many different credit cards as possible
Multiple payment channels (secure server, fax, mail, phone)
Third-party payment services -- Beenz.com, MyPoints.com, PayPal, AOL Payment Services, and so on -- if you determine they offer benefits to your business
Security assurances
Guarantees
Return policy
Privacy policy
But notice what you just did. You didn't just do the right things, you did them at the right time, at the right place. If you want to maximize the sales impact of what you do, you have to do it at the corresponding point of action (POA).
Get Them While They're Hot... or Not
You do provide reassuring policies on privacy, returns, guarantees, credit card security, shipping, and so on, don't you? Great. Now also make sure you provide them at the POA.
The key to gaining the confidence of potential customers lies not just in providing assurances but in providing the right assurances, phrased in the right way, and presented when they matter most to your customers as they move through your sales process.
Take a look at Nordstrom.com. With regard to POA, the site does a pretty good job of taking the brick-and-mortar customer experience and transferring some of the fundamentals online. At the bottom of most pages you'll see a section called Shop With Confidence. As soon as you get to the shopping bag or checkout pages, that same message is not just repeated, it's moved up the screen and displayed more prominently.
Here is some of the language used in the links:
Easy Returns, Free Exchanges
Secure Shopping
Credit Card Safety
Privacy
As you move through the (unfortunately way too many) steps of its checkout process, the "Shop With Confidence" message keeps following you.
Don't you want your own customers to shop with confidence, too?
Amazon.com also has a fine example of using GTC and POA. Its "Add to Shopping Cart" button uses both simultaneously. The Amazon.com folks know it is difficult to get someone to put something into his or her cart. What did they do? Right underneath the "Add to Shopping Cart" text they included "(you can always remove it later)." Amazing how seemingly little messages presented at exactly the right time can slip in subliminally and affect buying.
Why don't other sites do the same?
Making a Point of Point of Action
So often we neglect to use POA on our sites. Include a reassuring statement that you value your client's privacy right next to the subscribe or submit button, and it will increase response dramatically. Display a toll-free number prominently at all times, and if shoppers have a problem, they'll be more likely to call you than just click off to another site.
After the sale, include return, shipping, and customer-service information along with your order confirmation. (You do confirm every order, right? And say "thank you"?) When you deliver, include an incentive to return to your site. This is when customers are most delighted with their transactions with you (hopefully), so it's when they're most inclined to return. They might need just a little push, and your incentive will do the trick. Oh, and why would they "tell a friend" before their experience with you is complete and delightful? Then don't ask them too soon. By all means, ask for referrals -- but only at the right POA.
Isn't it time your site graduated from the ABCs of business to the slightly more advanced GTC and POA?
By Bryan Eisenberg
You step up to the counter of your favorite store. The cashier smiles at you warmly and asks politely, "Will that be cash or charge today?"
In sales parlance that's called an alternate-choice close. Whichever alternative you choose, you complete the purchase, and the merchant accomplishes GTC -- a well-established sales axiom: get the cash.
In the dot-com world, the meaning of GTC can be expanded. If you're doing business on the Web, you can still think of it as get the cash, or you can think of it as get the customer, or you can think of it as get the click. But however you think of it, definitely think GTC!
The Ka-Ching of Cashing In
GTC may be a nice abbreviation, but what do you do with it? Paint it on your monitor, embed it in your mind, and use it as a guiding principle whenever you are trying to get a prospect to take action.
Let's say you have an e-commerce site and your customer is ready to check out. To maximize GTC, you would offer all of the following, prominently and clearly:
Alternative ways to pay (credit card, check, COD, money order, etc.)
Acceptance of as many different credit cards as possible
Multiple payment channels (secure server, fax, mail, phone)
Third-party payment services -- Beenz.com, MyPoints.com, PayPal, AOL Payment Services, and so on -- if you determine they offer benefits to your business
Security assurances
Guarantees
Return policy
Privacy policy
But notice what you just did. You didn't just do the right things, you did them at the right time, at the right place. If you want to maximize the sales impact of what you do, you have to do it at the corresponding point of action (POA).
Get Them While They're Hot... or Not
You do provide reassuring policies on privacy, returns, guarantees, credit card security, shipping, and so on, don't you? Great. Now also make sure you provide them at the POA.
The key to gaining the confidence of potential customers lies not just in providing assurances but in providing the right assurances, phrased in the right way, and presented when they matter most to your customers as they move through your sales process.
Take a look at Nordstrom.com. With regard to POA, the site does a pretty good job of taking the brick-and-mortar customer experience and transferring some of the fundamentals online. At the bottom of most pages you'll see a section called Shop With Confidence. As soon as you get to the shopping bag or checkout pages, that same message is not just repeated, it's moved up the screen and displayed more prominently.
Here is some of the language used in the links:
Easy Returns, Free Exchanges
Secure Shopping
Credit Card Safety
Privacy
As you move through the (unfortunately way too many) steps of its checkout process, the "Shop With Confidence" message keeps following you.
Don't you want your own customers to shop with confidence, too?
Amazon.com also has a fine example of using GTC and POA. Its "Add to Shopping Cart" button uses both simultaneously. The Amazon.com folks know it is difficult to get someone to put something into his or her cart. What did they do? Right underneath the "Add to Shopping Cart" text they included "(you can always remove it later)." Amazing how seemingly little messages presented at exactly the right time can slip in subliminally and affect buying.
Why don't other sites do the same?
Making a Point of Point of Action
So often we neglect to use POA on our sites. Include a reassuring statement that you value your client's privacy right next to the subscribe or submit button, and it will increase response dramatically. Display a toll-free number prominently at all times, and if shoppers have a problem, they'll be more likely to call you than just click off to another site.
After the sale, include return, shipping, and customer-service information along with your order confirmation. (You do confirm every order, right? And say "thank you"?) When you deliver, include an incentive to return to your site. This is when customers are most delighted with their transactions with you (hopefully), so it's when they're most inclined to return. They might need just a little push, and your incentive will do the trick. Oh, and why would they "tell a friend" before their experience with you is complete and delightful? Then don't ask them too soon. By all means, ask for referrals -- but only at the right POA.
Isn't it time your site graduated from the ABCs of business to the slightly more advanced GTC and POA?
Navigating Through Analysis Paralysis
By Bryan Eisenberg
In last week's article, I spoke about the importance of keeping your site as simple as possible. You never want your prospects to be confused or frustrated. This is especially true when they are dealing with navigation.
Many designers and information architects plan their navigation based on George Miller's landmark research on recall tasks. His research concluded that the human memory system has a capacity of 7 1 2 chunks.
First of all, that research was done almost 50 years ago. Second, while Miller's research has stuck in people's minds, a lot of other research indicates that the number may be as small as 4, not 7. But even more important, designing good navigation for a Web site has little, if anything, to do with prospects' recall ability. The key, rather, is in how human psychology handles choices.
Where to Go, I Don't Know
It's Saturday night. You get together with a bunch of friends. You're the first to suggest, "Let's get something to eat!" Another friend pipes up and says, "What are you in the mood for?" How often do you hear those infamous words, "I don't know"? If someone had shouted, "Pizza or Mexican!" everyone would have had an immediate opinion. But when faced with too many choices, our brains seem to freeze. Instead of making one, we become paralyzed while thinking about which one to choose, and often end up not choosing at all.
The Alternate-Choice Close
It might sound counterintuitive, but the best way to make a sale is to limit the buyer's choices. An alternate-choice close presents the customer with a simple choice; regardless of which choice the customer makes, the sale is closed: "Will that be cash or charge?" "Do you want that in yellow or blue?" "Would delivery tomorrow be OK, or would Friday be better?"
Studies have shown, and experienced salespeople know, that if you ask simple yes/no questions, you're likely to get a "No," but if you offer customers a clear, simple choice, they are very likely to choose one of the options you offer, and you make the sale.
Now, you have to realize that every step in your navigation is a minisale, and you have to design it accordingly.
Getting Around
There are numerous navigation schemes. Hierarchical, global, supplemental, and embedded links are the most common.
Hierarchical navigation helps people keep track of how deep into the site they are (e.g., books/subjects/business). Global navigation schemes, such as tabs, help direct and orient the customer to what type of products is available (e.g., Books, Electronics, Music). Supplemental or local navigation allows users to get to related information within a category rather than between categories (e.g., Advertising: Web, TV, print, radio). This is particularly helpful when your visitor has landed on your site via a search engine but hasn't landed on quite the right page.
But from our work with clients, we've discovered that the navigation scheme important to actually closing more sales is the embedded-links scheme. And it's very easy to implement. Within the body of your (great) copy, you simply place links to the places you want prospects to go next. Of course, what works best on your site can be determined only by testing. And, naturally, embedded links are only one component of a complete navigation structure.
If embedded links are done well (a topic for another article), they will engage your users effectively as they browse within the "active window" of your site. The active window is the main area of your page, underneath or to the side of your main navigation. It is where you place your body text, display your products, and present your offer. It is also where you want to keep your visitors' eyes focused. If you properly engage them in this area by providing the right choices to click on, you persuade them to follow the path you want them to take. This is also why it is very important to keep a consistent look and feel around the active window.
The Power of Blue
Be sure to take advantage of conventions most of your prospects already understand. I am all for creativity, but when designing for the Internet, it's foolish to make your prospects learn quirks of your site design when what you want them to be doing is shopping.
John Rhodes, my friend at WebWord, wrote about population stereotypes. These are the long-term habits and well-ingrained knowledge we have about the world around us (Kantowitz & Sorkin, 1983). Ask anyone who has logged only a few hours of Internet surfing, "What color are hyperlinks?"
As John says, "The color blue for links is a very powerful population stereotype." When you break that stereotype by using a different color scheme, you undermine the usability and, ultimately, the "shopability" of your site. You actually hide your links instead of making them easy to find. On the flip side, people get really ticked off when something is blue and underlined yet is not a link. (Yes, I've seen blue, underlined text that does not function as a link -- absurd!)
They Want to Buy
Don't make it hard for your prospects to be able to find what they want and buy it. By choosing the right navigation scheme, you not only make the process easy for your customers, but also make it a process that actually influences the closing of more sales
By Bryan Eisenberg
In last week's article, I spoke about the importance of keeping your site as simple as possible. You never want your prospects to be confused or frustrated. This is especially true when they are dealing with navigation.
Many designers and information architects plan their navigation based on George Miller's landmark research on recall tasks. His research concluded that the human memory system has a capacity of 7 1 2 chunks.
First of all, that research was done almost 50 years ago. Second, while Miller's research has stuck in people's minds, a lot of other research indicates that the number may be as small as 4, not 7. But even more important, designing good navigation for a Web site has little, if anything, to do with prospects' recall ability. The key, rather, is in how human psychology handles choices.
Where to Go, I Don't Know
It's Saturday night. You get together with a bunch of friends. You're the first to suggest, "Let's get something to eat!" Another friend pipes up and says, "What are you in the mood for?" How often do you hear those infamous words, "I don't know"? If someone had shouted, "Pizza or Mexican!" everyone would have had an immediate opinion. But when faced with too many choices, our brains seem to freeze. Instead of making one, we become paralyzed while thinking about which one to choose, and often end up not choosing at all.
The Alternate-Choice Close
It might sound counterintuitive, but the best way to make a sale is to limit the buyer's choices. An alternate-choice close presents the customer with a simple choice; regardless of which choice the customer makes, the sale is closed: "Will that be cash or charge?" "Do you want that in yellow or blue?" "Would delivery tomorrow be OK, or would Friday be better?"
Studies have shown, and experienced salespeople know, that if you ask simple yes/no questions, you're likely to get a "No," but if you offer customers a clear, simple choice, they are very likely to choose one of the options you offer, and you make the sale.
Now, you have to realize that every step in your navigation is a minisale, and you have to design it accordingly.
Getting Around
There are numerous navigation schemes. Hierarchical, global, supplemental, and embedded links are the most common.
Hierarchical navigation helps people keep track of how deep into the site they are (e.g., books/subjects/business). Global navigation schemes, such as tabs, help direct and orient the customer to what type of products is available (e.g., Books, Electronics, Music). Supplemental or local navigation allows users to get to related information within a category rather than between categories (e.g., Advertising: Web, TV, print, radio). This is particularly helpful when your visitor has landed on your site via a search engine but hasn't landed on quite the right page.
But from our work with clients, we've discovered that the navigation scheme important to actually closing more sales is the embedded-links scheme. And it's very easy to implement. Within the body of your (great) copy, you simply place links to the places you want prospects to go next. Of course, what works best on your site can be determined only by testing. And, naturally, embedded links are only one component of a complete navigation structure.
If embedded links are done well (a topic for another article), they will engage your users effectively as they browse within the "active window" of your site. The active window is the main area of your page, underneath or to the side of your main navigation. It is where you place your body text, display your products, and present your offer. It is also where you want to keep your visitors' eyes focused. If you properly engage them in this area by providing the right choices to click on, you persuade them to follow the path you want them to take. This is also why it is very important to keep a consistent look and feel around the active window.
The Power of Blue
Be sure to take advantage of conventions most of your prospects already understand. I am all for creativity, but when designing for the Internet, it's foolish to make your prospects learn quirks of your site design when what you want them to be doing is shopping.
John Rhodes, my friend at WebWord, wrote about population stereotypes. These are the long-term habits and well-ingrained knowledge we have about the world around us (Kantowitz & Sorkin, 1983). Ask anyone who has logged only a few hours of Internet surfing, "What color are hyperlinks?"
As John says, "The color blue for links is a very powerful population stereotype." When you break that stereotype by using a different color scheme, you undermine the usability and, ultimately, the "shopability" of your site. You actually hide your links instead of making them easy to find. On the flip side, people get really ticked off when something is blue and underlined yet is not a link. (Yes, I've seen blue, underlined text that does not function as a link -- absurd!)
They Want to Buy
Don't make it hard for your prospects to be able to find what they want and buy it. By choosing the right navigation scheme, you not only make the process easy for your customers, but also make it a process that actually influences the closing of more sales
KISS Your Customers If You Want Them Back
By Bryan Eisenberg
KISS. It stands for "Keep it simple, Stupid." You've probably heard it before, but from where I stand, the message needs some SHOUTING.
The key to successful Web site design isn't sophistication, it's simplicity. Designing for simplicity is anything but simple (as if I needed to tell you that). But well-thought-out simplicity is what makes the successful Web sites successful. When you want to learn to be the best at something, do you study the amateurs or the pros?
The best Web sites load in about 10 seconds at 28.8 Kbps. Your designers may have T1 lines or DSL or cable modems, but 93 percent of your customers don't. Plus, all sorts of things further slow down download times. But the bottom line is that nobody is going to wait more than 10 to 15 seconds for your page to appear. Want your site to appeal to most people? Well, most people still surf at speeds under 56K, have their monitors set for 800 x 600 resolution, and don't even know they can change that, much less how.
On the Web, visitors look first for relevant text, not graphics. Make clear, strong text available right away. That will also keep them interested while graphics load. Use graphics only if they help prospects understand what they are looking for or if they convey information that can't be conveyed effectively through text. And keep graphics as simple as possible so they load quickly.
The best Web sites have simple and consistent navigation. Your average prospect will view two to three pages before leaving; so, at best, you're two clicks away from dead in the water unless you help her get where she wants to go quickly.
Respect conventions
Blue, underlined text means hyperlink, or "Click here," to almost everyone. Don't confuse anyone! Avoid underlining or using blue text for anything else. Place your navigation cues on the top or left of every page, with the same links arrayed at the bottom. Use categorization schemes that make sense (a series of tabs or something similar works well) for multiple elements.
Make everything obvious
First and foremost, help your prospect see the information -- white backgrounds are quick to download and help information stand out. Label stuff, and do so clearly -- no jargon. Offer concise explanations. Always remember: If your visitor can't find a function, it's not there!
Never leave your prospect stranded anywhere on your site
Imagine you're lost in the middle of a huge store with no signs. Where's housewares? Where's checkout? Where's the bathroom?! Now, how much do you like this store? How much do you want to buy now? So, on your site, provide clear navigation from anywhere to anywhere, and do it on every page. And for heaven's sake, keep all your navigation links within your page. Unless you want to encourage your customers to leave, don't direct them to the Back button on the browser. Any trip to the menu bar is an opportunity for your prospect to kiss you goodbye.
The best Web sites don't assume the client is an expert user. Technology is a wonderful thing, but Joe and Josephine Consumer are years behind the tech types. Therefore, your GUI should be simple (GUI, graphical user interface, pronounced "gooey" -- the sort of stuff you won't want your prospects stuck in). Also, never make them download plug-ins. Average shoppers don't know how, and even if they do, why take them away from the shopping process and force them to do something else because some designer thought it would be cool? They won't say, "Wow!" -- they'll leave. If you can't design it into your site and still have it load quickly and do all that other important stuff, leave it out. And give your prospects simple, clear instructions and helpful tools to guide them through the buying process. (If they can't understand checkout, they won't.)
Keep in mind
Visitors are looking for a reason not to trust you. Pay attention to the details: Check for typos, grammatical errors, screen error messages, images that don't open, browser compatibility problems, functions that don't work -- everything. Then have someone else check again. The best Web sites build their brands by creating a great user experience.
Short and sweet
Here's what the top 100 Web sites have in common -- fast download times; few graphics; little, if any, multimedia; no frames; similar navigation systems; high-contrast text with lots of white space; most links in "traditional" blue, underlined text; no background imagery; very few obvious JavaScript tricks; no DHTML; no splash pages; and a solid database-powered back-end. Simple.
Am I beginning to sound like a broken record? Good! Now, pucker up and give your prospects a big, delightful KISS.
By Bryan Eisenberg
KISS. It stands for "Keep it simple, Stupid." You've probably heard it before, but from where I stand, the message needs some SHOUTING.
The key to successful Web site design isn't sophistication, it's simplicity. Designing for simplicity is anything but simple (as if I needed to tell you that). But well-thought-out simplicity is what makes the successful Web sites successful. When you want to learn to be the best at something, do you study the amateurs or the pros?
The best Web sites load in about 10 seconds at 28.8 Kbps. Your designers may have T1 lines or DSL or cable modems, but 93 percent of your customers don't. Plus, all sorts of things further slow down download times. But the bottom line is that nobody is going to wait more than 10 to 15 seconds for your page to appear. Want your site to appeal to most people? Well, most people still surf at speeds under 56K, have their monitors set for 800 x 600 resolution, and don't even know they can change that, much less how.
On the Web, visitors look first for relevant text, not graphics. Make clear, strong text available right away. That will also keep them interested while graphics load. Use graphics only if they help prospects understand what they are looking for or if they convey information that can't be conveyed effectively through text. And keep graphics as simple as possible so they load quickly.
The best Web sites have simple and consistent navigation. Your average prospect will view two to three pages before leaving; so, at best, you're two clicks away from dead in the water unless you help her get where she wants to go quickly.
Respect conventions
Blue, underlined text means hyperlink, or "Click here," to almost everyone. Don't confuse anyone! Avoid underlining or using blue text for anything else. Place your navigation cues on the top or left of every page, with the same links arrayed at the bottom. Use categorization schemes that make sense (a series of tabs or something similar works well) for multiple elements.
Make everything obvious
First and foremost, help your prospect see the information -- white backgrounds are quick to download and help information stand out. Label stuff, and do so clearly -- no jargon. Offer concise explanations. Always remember: If your visitor can't find a function, it's not there!
Never leave your prospect stranded anywhere on your site
Imagine you're lost in the middle of a huge store with no signs. Where's housewares? Where's checkout? Where's the bathroom?! Now, how much do you like this store? How much do you want to buy now? So, on your site, provide clear navigation from anywhere to anywhere, and do it on every page. And for heaven's sake, keep all your navigation links within your page. Unless you want to encourage your customers to leave, don't direct them to the Back button on the browser. Any trip to the menu bar is an opportunity for your prospect to kiss you goodbye.
The best Web sites don't assume the client is an expert user. Technology is a wonderful thing, but Joe and Josephine Consumer are years behind the tech types. Therefore, your GUI should be simple (GUI, graphical user interface, pronounced "gooey" -- the sort of stuff you won't want your prospects stuck in). Also, never make them download plug-ins. Average shoppers don't know how, and even if they do, why take them away from the shopping process and force them to do something else because some designer thought it would be cool? They won't say, "Wow!" -- they'll leave. If you can't design it into your site and still have it load quickly and do all that other important stuff, leave it out. And give your prospects simple, clear instructions and helpful tools to guide them through the buying process. (If they can't understand checkout, they won't.)
Keep in mind
Visitors are looking for a reason not to trust you. Pay attention to the details: Check for typos, grammatical errors, screen error messages, images that don't open, browser compatibility problems, functions that don't work -- everything. Then have someone else check again. The best Web sites build their brands by creating a great user experience.
Short and sweet
Here's what the top 100 Web sites have in common -- fast download times; few graphics; little, if any, multimedia; no frames; similar navigation systems; high-contrast text with lots of white space; most links in "traditional" blue, underlined text; no background imagery; very few obvious JavaScript tricks; no DHTML; no splash pages; and a solid database-powered back-end. Simple.
Am I beginning to sound like a broken record? Good! Now, pucker up and give your prospects a big, delightful KISS.
What is Six Sigma?
A measurement and methodology for success
Our Six Sigma methodology is a proven tool set for driving and achieving transformational change within an organization. It is a business improvement process that focuses an organization on customer requirements, process alignment, analytical rigor, and timely execution.
Statistically speaking
Six Sigma is a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. The Six Sigma process uses data and rigorous statistical analysis to identify "defects" in a process or product, reduce variability, and achieve as close to zero defects as possible.
Using a universal measurement scale, Six Sigma defines and estimates the opportunities for error and calculates defects in the same way every time, thus offering a means for measuring improvement. In fact, Six Sigma takes its name from the Greek letter "sigma," which is used in statistics to indicate standard deviation.
The Six Sigma methodology incorporates this data and statistical analysis into a project-based workflow that allows businesses to make intelligent decisions about where and how to incorporate improvements.
The DMAIC Model
At the heart of Six Sigma is a systematic method for analyzing and improving business process called DMAIC. The DMAIC model includes five phases:
Define opportunities
Measure performance
Analyze opportunity
Improve performance
Control performance
What does this mean for you?
Ultimately, Six Sigma is about more than numbers. It's a highly disciplined methodology and practice that provides the tools you need to achieve consistent, high-performance results from your products and processes.
By increasing performance and decreasing variation, Six Sigma allows organizations like yours to make customer-focused, data-driven decisions that ultimately yield a reduction in product defects, increased profits and employee morale, and high-quality products - a win-win situation for everyone involved.
A measurement and methodology for success
Our Six Sigma methodology is a proven tool set for driving and achieving transformational change within an organization. It is a business improvement process that focuses an organization on customer requirements, process alignment, analytical rigor, and timely execution.
Statistically speaking
Six Sigma is a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. The Six Sigma process uses data and rigorous statistical analysis to identify "defects" in a process or product, reduce variability, and achieve as close to zero defects as possible.
Using a universal measurement scale, Six Sigma defines and estimates the opportunities for error and calculates defects in the same way every time, thus offering a means for measuring improvement. In fact, Six Sigma takes its name from the Greek letter "sigma," which is used in statistics to indicate standard deviation.
The Six Sigma methodology incorporates this data and statistical analysis into a project-based workflow that allows businesses to make intelligent decisions about where and how to incorporate improvements.
The DMAIC Model
At the heart of Six Sigma is a systematic method for analyzing and improving business process called DMAIC. The DMAIC model includes five phases:
Define opportunities
Measure performance
Analyze opportunity
Improve performance
Control performance
What does this mean for you?
Ultimately, Six Sigma is about more than numbers. It's a highly disciplined methodology and practice that provides the tools you need to achieve consistent, high-performance results from your products and processes.
By increasing performance and decreasing variation, Six Sigma allows organizations like yours to make customer-focused, data-driven decisions that ultimately yield a reduction in product defects, increased profits and employee morale, and high-quality products - a win-win situation for everyone involved.
How Many Holes Are in Your Bucket?
By Bryan Eisenberg
In a recent article, I explained how once a user arrives on a Web site, the conversion process becomes a "sales funnel." At each step of the sales process, a site loses users. We use the leaky bucket metaphor for a site that doesn't successfully convert visitors into buyers. Traffic fills the bucket but leaks out of holes. You need to plug as many of these holes as possible.
Unfortunately, most people measure conversion by the complete macro-action they want users to take (e.g., how many people made a purchase, subscribed, registered, etc.). Every one of these actions is composed of a series of smaller actions. Each micro-action, or omission of one, is a potential hole in the bucket.
Take Microsoft. Assume we need to get people to download Internet Explorer 6 -- the macro-action. At present, the top image in the center column of its home page has the following text: "Download Internet Explorer 6 now. Experience the latest in private, reliable and flexible Internet browsing." Our ultimate goal is to get Jane Consumer to download and install the browser on her PC. Here's an outline of the necessary micro-actions:
She finds the link for IE 6 on the home page.
She understands it.
She clicks on it.
From the main Internet Explorer page, she chooses to download immediately, order a CD, or learn more.
If she chooses to learn more, the goal still is to get her back on track to download or order a CD.
If she then chooses to download IE 6:
Her first action is to select which language she wants.
Then she must click on the link to start downloading the setup file.
If she instead chooses to order a CD:
She must decide which CD she wants to order (there are 2 options).
Once the action of choosing the CD is complete, she is taken to step one of the form.
From there, she must continue filling out the form till the order is complete.
That's a lot of micro-actions! Imagine measuring the drop-off of activity every step of the way. How do you plug the holes in the leaky bucket? First, understand and account for every step in the process. Second, design effective calls to action.
Every page on your site should focus on getting the visitor to take an action -- even if that action is simply to move on to the next step in the process. Conversion rates suffer when sites fail to drive customer micro-actions and maintain momentum through the sales path. Once the path is defined and each of the micro-actions described, you can work on optimizing the most effective call to action for each step.
Back to Microsoft. On the home page, there's a link: "Download Internet Explorer 6 now. Experience the latest in private, reliable and flexible Internet browsing." This call to action is done well. Why? Simple. The sentence contains an active verb ("download") plus an implied benefit ("private, reliable and flexible Internet browsing") Action-benefit interactions work quite effectively. That's why they've been used by marketers for over three decades. Take the Columbia House Music Club pitch: "Join the Music Club: 12 CDs for Free!" Action to benefit. Energetic. Engaging. Compelling. The technique works particularly well with people who scan information, namely, Web users. Using well-placed blue, underlined text links within the page attracts attention.
These rules apply equally when you want a visitor to fill out a form. Display the form (a call to action itself) and specify the benefits. And specify the benefits at the point of action. Finally, when visitors accept a call to action, their expectations must be satisfied. Deliver the benefits!
How well have you mapped the actions you want your prospect to take? How well is she guided, step by step? Are you letting her slip through any of those holes?
By Bryan Eisenberg
In a recent article, I explained how once a user arrives on a Web site, the conversion process becomes a "sales funnel." At each step of the sales process, a site loses users. We use the leaky bucket metaphor for a site that doesn't successfully convert visitors into buyers. Traffic fills the bucket but leaks out of holes. You need to plug as many of these holes as possible.
Unfortunately, most people measure conversion by the complete macro-action they want users to take (e.g., how many people made a purchase, subscribed, registered, etc.). Every one of these actions is composed of a series of smaller actions. Each micro-action, or omission of one, is a potential hole in the bucket.
Take Microsoft. Assume we need to get people to download Internet Explorer 6 -- the macro-action. At present, the top image in the center column of its home page has the following text: "Download Internet Explorer 6 now. Experience the latest in private, reliable and flexible Internet browsing." Our ultimate goal is to get Jane Consumer to download and install the browser on her PC. Here's an outline of the necessary micro-actions:
She finds the link for IE 6 on the home page.
She understands it.
She clicks on it.
From the main Internet Explorer page, she chooses to download immediately, order a CD, or learn more.
If she chooses to learn more, the goal still is to get her back on track to download or order a CD.
If she then chooses to download IE 6:
Her first action is to select which language she wants.
Then she must click on the link to start downloading the setup file.
If she instead chooses to order a CD:
She must decide which CD she wants to order (there are 2 options).
Once the action of choosing the CD is complete, she is taken to step one of the form.
From there, she must continue filling out the form till the order is complete.
That's a lot of micro-actions! Imagine measuring the drop-off of activity every step of the way. How do you plug the holes in the leaky bucket? First, understand and account for every step in the process. Second, design effective calls to action.
Every page on your site should focus on getting the visitor to take an action -- even if that action is simply to move on to the next step in the process. Conversion rates suffer when sites fail to drive customer micro-actions and maintain momentum through the sales path. Once the path is defined and each of the micro-actions described, you can work on optimizing the most effective call to action for each step.
Back to Microsoft. On the home page, there's a link: "Download Internet Explorer 6 now. Experience the latest in private, reliable and flexible Internet browsing." This call to action is done well. Why? Simple. The sentence contains an active verb ("download") plus an implied benefit ("private, reliable and flexible Internet browsing") Action-benefit interactions work quite effectively. That's why they've been used by marketers for over three decades. Take the Columbia House Music Club pitch: "Join the Music Club: 12 CDs for Free!" Action to benefit. Energetic. Engaging. Compelling. The technique works particularly well with people who scan information, namely, Web users. Using well-placed blue, underlined text links within the page attracts attention.
These rules apply equally when you want a visitor to fill out a form. Display the form (a call to action itself) and specify the benefits. And specify the benefits at the point of action. Finally, when visitors accept a call to action, their expectations must be satisfied. Deliver the benefits!
How well have you mapped the actions you want your prospect to take? How well is she guided, step by step? Are you letting her slip through any of those holes?
Advergaming Catches On
By Tessa Wegert
Last week's column discussed online gaming ads -- a marketing method sometimes referred to as "advergaming." Since then, a deluge of e-mail has come in from other marketers generously sharing campaign results from their personal experiences with this technique. The sheer magnitude of feedback suggests this format in online marketing campaigns is catching on.
Beyond that, the nature of the responses I received indicate high performance levels that are in line with what Dreamam Ltd. asserted last week: The ads encourage consumer interaction, garnering relatively high click-through and conversion rates in the process. This facility for engaging users has led many companies to develop online games that not only increase brand awareness and recall, but that also can be used in conjunction with online contests and promotions to attract registrations and expand e-mail databases.
Online games come in many forms. Perhaps the most recognized are the highly visual, action-oriented pop-ups familiar to NYTimes.com users. They're primarily used by advertisers for branding purposes and are generally delivered via pop-ups and in various other ad formats on third-party sites. The objective is to attract traffic and acquire new customers.
Instant-win promotions and contests requiring some level of consumer participation are increasingly popular. Again, their purpose goes beyond branding into acquisition and building databases of customers and prospects. These games can take many forms, from a roulette-style wheel spun by the user to determine whether she's got a winning game card to an online drag race in which consumers challenge an automated car for a chance to win a related prize.
One marketer specializing in such online instant promotions had noteworthy results with incentive-based online games and contests. According to Bob Marsh of ePrize LLC, whose client roster includes General Motors, IBM, Snapple, and The New York Times, "Our clients are making a very rapid shift to these instant-win promotions which have a 'gaming' element to them and are seeing very large spikes in participation."
Marsh points out the average instant-win game created by his company receives 2.7 times as many opt-in registrations as a traditional sweepstakes promotion. He claims the average cost per opt-in is 34 percent lower than a sweepstakes.
An interactive scratch card is another incentive-based online game. With a proven track record for success, this is particularly effective when paired with an online contest. The technology behind this particular game -- as straight-forward a concept as the name suggests -- allows a registrant to use the mouse to uncover boxes on a game card to reveal logos or symbols. Depending on how the game is customized, if a user uncovers a certain number of logos or reveals matching symbols, he's an instant winner. Losing participants are still registered in the advertiser's database, having provided their contact information before being permitted to access the game.
My agency has developed these scratch card games for some time now. We've had considerable success in business-to-business (B2B), notorious for hard-nosed users who prefer substance over style. A recent card created for a B2B client that was promoted on targeted portals and network sections garnered a 14.82 percent conversion rate. Over half of all the game's registrants also signed up for the client's e-mail newsletter.
A business-to-consumer (B2C) online scratch card game for another client utilized a similar concept. In this version, the user could play the game without supplying any personal information. Nevertheless, almost 55 percent of players volunteered their names, e-mail addresses, street addresses, birth dates, and gender and opted in to receive e-mail from the advertiser.
Some readers weren't able to disclose campaign statistics for client confidentiality reasons. All maintained their experiences with online gaming ads -- specifically in conjunction with contests -- have been successful overall. If you're considering the approach, act now -- while the concept's still a novelty. Given the rate at which popularity is increasing, this phase of the phenomenon won't last long.
By Tessa Wegert
Last week's column discussed online gaming ads -- a marketing method sometimes referred to as "advergaming." Since then, a deluge of e-mail has come in from other marketers generously sharing campaign results from their personal experiences with this technique. The sheer magnitude of feedback suggests this format in online marketing campaigns is catching on.
Beyond that, the nature of the responses I received indicate high performance levels that are in line with what Dreamam Ltd. asserted last week: The ads encourage consumer interaction, garnering relatively high click-through and conversion rates in the process. This facility for engaging users has led many companies to develop online games that not only increase brand awareness and recall, but that also can be used in conjunction with online contests and promotions to attract registrations and expand e-mail databases.
Online games come in many forms. Perhaps the most recognized are the highly visual, action-oriented pop-ups familiar to NYTimes.com users. They're primarily used by advertisers for branding purposes and are generally delivered via pop-ups and in various other ad formats on third-party sites. The objective is to attract traffic and acquire new customers.
Instant-win promotions and contests requiring some level of consumer participation are increasingly popular. Again, their purpose goes beyond branding into acquisition and building databases of customers and prospects. These games can take many forms, from a roulette-style wheel spun by the user to determine whether she's got a winning game card to an online drag race in which consumers challenge an automated car for a chance to win a related prize.
One marketer specializing in such online instant promotions had noteworthy results with incentive-based online games and contests. According to Bob Marsh of ePrize LLC, whose client roster includes General Motors, IBM, Snapple, and The New York Times, "Our clients are making a very rapid shift to these instant-win promotions which have a 'gaming' element to them and are seeing very large spikes in participation."
Marsh points out the average instant-win game created by his company receives 2.7 times as many opt-in registrations as a traditional sweepstakes promotion. He claims the average cost per opt-in is 34 percent lower than a sweepstakes.
An interactive scratch card is another incentive-based online game. With a proven track record for success, this is particularly effective when paired with an online contest. The technology behind this particular game -- as straight-forward a concept as the name suggests -- allows a registrant to use the mouse to uncover boxes on a game card to reveal logos or symbols. Depending on how the game is customized, if a user uncovers a certain number of logos or reveals matching symbols, he's an instant winner. Losing participants are still registered in the advertiser's database, having provided their contact information before being permitted to access the game.
My agency has developed these scratch card games for some time now. We've had considerable success in business-to-business (B2B), notorious for hard-nosed users who prefer substance over style. A recent card created for a B2B client that was promoted on targeted portals and network sections garnered a 14.82 percent conversion rate. Over half of all the game's registrants also signed up for the client's e-mail newsletter.
A business-to-consumer (B2C) online scratch card game for another client utilized a similar concept. In this version, the user could play the game without supplying any personal information. Nevertheless, almost 55 percent of players volunteered their names, e-mail addresses, street addresses, birth dates, and gender and opted in to receive e-mail from the advertiser.
Some readers weren't able to disclose campaign statistics for client confidentiality reasons. All maintained their experiences with online gaming ads -- specifically in conjunction with contests -- have been successful overall. If you're considering the approach, act now -- while the concept's still a novelty. Given the rate at which popularity is increasing, this phase of the phenomenon won't last long.
Thursday
The Industry has Spoken (Again) – Part II
Joseph concludes his coverage of and insight into Ad Age’s AdWatch: 2003 Outlook conference, which took place last month in New York.
By Joseph Jaffe
Two weeks ago I began my AdWatch coverage with an assessment of the forecast presentation, followed by the first panel which focused on the bigger advertising picture. This week I’ll conclude with some of the most powerful thoughts or themes I took away from this panel and the ones that followed.
Things are Going to Change, but not on My Watch
It’s amazing to me how some of the most senior and influential figureheads in this business can also be so sheep-like. I keep on hearing talk of change or hints of action, but they always seem to be just around the proverbial corner.
Case in point
“We love TV, but it’s no longer enough” or “TV in itself is no longer enough to round out a total communications program” from Wendy’s Don Calhoon. That might sound inspirational enough but now let’s check the walk against the talk with Wendy’s 2002 spend numbers. According to Ad Age’s 100 Leading National Advertisers report (based on total U.S. advertising spending in 2002) Wendy’s spent 84% of its measured media spending on TV. Online came in at a click through like 0.036%.
How cynical I’ve become in just one year.
Let’s move on.
Say It with Me:
“Procurement” P-R-O-C-U-R-E-M-E-N-T. That’s PROCUREMENT.
The consensus was pretty overwhelming: procurement is here to stay; consultants are here to stay (phew!); purchasing driving pitches is here to stay.
Stephen King couldn’t have written a scarier headline.
I’m not sure when the line was crossed, but the day that agency pitches stopped being about top ideas and started focusing in on bottom line a vital cog became detached from the very mechanism that makes the entire business tick.
According to Grey Worldwide’s President Steve Blamer, the financial emphasis has put marketing clients on the sidelines and in some categories, such as DTC for example, the brand team is not involved in the process until the deal is actually done. And there’s nothing marketing folk hate more than inheriting an agency…
Universal McCann’s Chairman-CEO Robin Kent surmised that there will be some upside to the continuation of the procurement trend in that this will ultimately make agencies smaller. Another implication will be new perspectives and approaches on compensation altogether. Both are sorely needed.
Panel II — Consolidation: Is Bigger Better?
The second panel of the day focused on consolidation – you know, that which makes the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.
IPG’s Chairman and CEO David Bell, Berlin Cameron/Red Cell’s Chairman Andy Berlin, Viacom Plus’ EVP Lisa McCarthy and Patrick Kelly, Pfizer’s President of U.S. Pharmaceuticals, were just some of the panelists on the impressive stage.
But it was Jon Mandel, MediaCom’s Co-CEO, who burst out of the starting gate with his analogy of nine-year-old boys and power – the belief being here that he who has the bigger stick, wins. Or to put it more upfront, “You can’t beat the market if you are the market.”
He segued into a discussion about the importance of talent and most of the panel agreed that ultimately, it all comes down to being able to tap into a reservoir of best ‘n brightest -- which is all well and good, except for the fact that consolidation and talent are as diametrically opposed as oil and water.
Jessica Reif Cohen, First VP, Managing Director at Merrill Lynch, questioned the impact on talent in light of the move towards procurement, waves of layoffs and tighter focus on margins, as well as the implications from bureaucracy and politics, two resident side-effects of size.
Or as the late Jay Chiat once said, “Let’s see how big we can get before we suck!”
Pfizer’s Kelly brought a more sobering reality to the conversation by rebuking Deutsch agency founder Donny Deutsch’s industry rants in favor of a pragmatic demand of wanting to get the best (read: acceptable) possible work for the best (read: lowest) possible price.
The conversation then degraded into an oversimplification and explanation of the differences between “good big and bad big, good small and bad small.” In other words, big is not always bad.
Whatever you say, Goliath.
Panel III — Communication Strategies: Maximize Your Media and Marketing Budgets
Panel three was a bit of a mixed bag, but in it was the jewel of the entire day’s proceedings – Keith Reinhard, DDB Worldwide’s Chairman. Reinhard doesn’t have to say anything he doesn’t want to – in other words, gratuitous plugs or pre-selected sound bytes to appease the audience and fulfill the headline writers. So when he does talk about something visionary or slightly off the beaten track, it’s best to take note of his advice.
Reinhard gets it. In fact he was probably the only person present who spoke intelligently and articulately about what I call New Marketing and what you might call New Media or Digital Marketing.
The conversation began on the subject and importance of emotional connectivity and evolved into brand experiences. Both subjects are no strangers to the interactive world: the former typically as a hurdle and the latter as a springboard.
AT&T’s VP of Marketing Communications and Brand, Cathy Constable, volunteered the recent “Talk is Good” campaign as a testament to the power of emotional connectivity. I personally find this as asinine and believable as Citi’s “Live Richly”; however, the fact remains, “people use products, but they buy brands.”
Quite clearly, creativity is the means to achieve the emotional connectivity and/or brand experience ends, particularly in a landscape dominated by an oversupply of meaningless clutter. This is perhaps why we need to begin to rethink the very definition of creativity, and for that matter, media too. These were the thoughts introduced by Graham Bednash, Managing Partner of Michaelides & Bednash.
In its current iteration, media and creativity are both synonymous with 30-second television commercials. Reinhard, however, introduced some powerful thoughts that might help us get beyond the “interrupt, repeat; interrupt, repeat” monotony of mainstream media communications.
He highlighted the importance of helping creatives to migrate and evolve beyond the heroin fix of television, and in doing so helped identify why it’s just so hard to do so. Some of the reasons given included:
The “reel” problem – meaning if you can’t put it on a reel, it’s not worth it.
However, this is only because it’s where client demand is and for this reason, agency pay structures favor those who create the best television ads.
This being said, Reinhard paved the road ahead with the building blocks of multi-channel ideas and the execution thereof. He also identified the “tipping point” as being the day clients demand big multi-channel ideas and the good news is that this is beginning to happen.
Of course the problem now is that there is an entire community that doesn’t understand (or cares to understand) life after TV. He cites the ineffectual Cannes ceremonies, which still silos each media category instead of uniting them and organizing them around brands and ideas.
He specifically called out TiVo, Gaming (for example: McDonalds’ involvement with The Sims online) and the Web as indicators of where the audience is or will be.
Instead of worrying about how to divvy up budgets, Reinhard expressed that the focus should be on the consumer. He posited on what he called mental convergence i.e. will consumers use specific media for specific purposes e.g. TV for entertainment or the Web for information?
He also introduced a rather delightful quote, “The tyranny of or, as opposed to the genius of and,” which I’ll let you interpret the way you see best fits in the context of this conversation.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t spend much time on the other panelists, which included Greg Coleman from Yahoo! and Traug Keller, President, ABC Radio Networks, it’s because they just didn’t add anything remotely new to the forum.
Truth be told, I was somewhat disappointed with Interactive’s only representative at the day’s proceedings. Last year, AOL’s Ted Leonsis spoke about life after advertising; this year Coleman spoke about paid search. At the time, I almost fell off my chair that the best Yahoo! could come up with was text links. Now my disappointment is interspersed with a bitter aftertaste as I understand Coleman’s Overture pretty clearly.
GM’s C.J. Fraleigh delivered the lunchtime keynote and the day concluded with the final panel on Madison + Vine (I’ll save these two for a rainy day in the near future).
All in all, one of my highlights continues to be an emphasis on the significance of unique and relevant big ideas that are workable solutions before they are one-size-fits-all ads.
See you all at next year’s bash (or before.)
Joseph concludes his coverage of and insight into Ad Age’s AdWatch: 2003 Outlook conference, which took place last month in New York.
By Joseph Jaffe
Two weeks ago I began my AdWatch coverage with an assessment of the forecast presentation, followed by the first panel which focused on the bigger advertising picture. This week I’ll conclude with some of the most powerful thoughts or themes I took away from this panel and the ones that followed.
Things are Going to Change, but not on My Watch
It’s amazing to me how some of the most senior and influential figureheads in this business can also be so sheep-like. I keep on hearing talk of change or hints of action, but they always seem to be just around the proverbial corner.
Case in point
“We love TV, but it’s no longer enough” or “TV in itself is no longer enough to round out a total communications program” from Wendy’s Don Calhoon. That might sound inspirational enough but now let’s check the walk against the talk with Wendy’s 2002 spend numbers. According to Ad Age’s 100 Leading National Advertisers report (based on total U.S. advertising spending in 2002) Wendy’s spent 84% of its measured media spending on TV. Online came in at a click through like 0.036%.
How cynical I’ve become in just one year.
Let’s move on.
Say It with Me:
“Procurement” P-R-O-C-U-R-E-M-E-N-T. That’s PROCUREMENT.
The consensus was pretty overwhelming: procurement is here to stay; consultants are here to stay (phew!); purchasing driving pitches is here to stay.
Stephen King couldn’t have written a scarier headline.
I’m not sure when the line was crossed, but the day that agency pitches stopped being about top ideas and started focusing in on bottom line a vital cog became detached from the very mechanism that makes the entire business tick.
According to Grey Worldwide’s President Steve Blamer, the financial emphasis has put marketing clients on the sidelines and in some categories, such as DTC for example, the brand team is not involved in the process until the deal is actually done. And there’s nothing marketing folk hate more than inheriting an agency…
Universal McCann’s Chairman-CEO Robin Kent surmised that there will be some upside to the continuation of the procurement trend in that this will ultimately make agencies smaller. Another implication will be new perspectives and approaches on compensation altogether. Both are sorely needed.
Panel II — Consolidation: Is Bigger Better?
The second panel of the day focused on consolidation – you know, that which makes the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.
IPG’s Chairman and CEO David Bell, Berlin Cameron/Red Cell’s Chairman Andy Berlin, Viacom Plus’ EVP Lisa McCarthy and Patrick Kelly, Pfizer’s President of U.S. Pharmaceuticals, were just some of the panelists on the impressive stage.
But it was Jon Mandel, MediaCom’s Co-CEO, who burst out of the starting gate with his analogy of nine-year-old boys and power – the belief being here that he who has the bigger stick, wins. Or to put it more upfront, “You can’t beat the market if you are the market.”
He segued into a discussion about the importance of talent and most of the panel agreed that ultimately, it all comes down to being able to tap into a reservoir of best ‘n brightest -- which is all well and good, except for the fact that consolidation and talent are as diametrically opposed as oil and water.
Jessica Reif Cohen, First VP, Managing Director at Merrill Lynch, questioned the impact on talent in light of the move towards procurement, waves of layoffs and tighter focus on margins, as well as the implications from bureaucracy and politics, two resident side-effects of size.
Or as the late Jay Chiat once said, “Let’s see how big we can get before we suck!”
Pfizer’s Kelly brought a more sobering reality to the conversation by rebuking Deutsch agency founder Donny Deutsch’s industry rants in favor of a pragmatic demand of wanting to get the best (read: acceptable) possible work for the best (read: lowest) possible price.
The conversation then degraded into an oversimplification and explanation of the differences between “good big and bad big, good small and bad small.” In other words, big is not always bad.
Whatever you say, Goliath.
Panel III — Communication Strategies: Maximize Your Media and Marketing Budgets
Panel three was a bit of a mixed bag, but in it was the jewel of the entire day’s proceedings – Keith Reinhard, DDB Worldwide’s Chairman. Reinhard doesn’t have to say anything he doesn’t want to – in other words, gratuitous plugs or pre-selected sound bytes to appease the audience and fulfill the headline writers. So when he does talk about something visionary or slightly off the beaten track, it’s best to take note of his advice.
Reinhard gets it. In fact he was probably the only person present who spoke intelligently and articulately about what I call New Marketing and what you might call New Media or Digital Marketing.
The conversation began on the subject and importance of emotional connectivity and evolved into brand experiences. Both subjects are no strangers to the interactive world: the former typically as a hurdle and the latter as a springboard.
AT&T’s VP of Marketing Communications and Brand, Cathy Constable, volunteered the recent “Talk is Good” campaign as a testament to the power of emotional connectivity. I personally find this as asinine and believable as Citi’s “Live Richly”; however, the fact remains, “people use products, but they buy brands.”
Quite clearly, creativity is the means to achieve the emotional connectivity and/or brand experience ends, particularly in a landscape dominated by an oversupply of meaningless clutter. This is perhaps why we need to begin to rethink the very definition of creativity, and for that matter, media too. These were the thoughts introduced by Graham Bednash, Managing Partner of Michaelides & Bednash.
In its current iteration, media and creativity are both synonymous with 30-second television commercials. Reinhard, however, introduced some powerful thoughts that might help us get beyond the “interrupt, repeat; interrupt, repeat” monotony of mainstream media communications.
He highlighted the importance of helping creatives to migrate and evolve beyond the heroin fix of television, and in doing so helped identify why it’s just so hard to do so. Some of the reasons given included:
The “reel” problem – meaning if you can’t put it on a reel, it’s not worth it.
However, this is only because it’s where client demand is and for this reason, agency pay structures favor those who create the best television ads.
This being said, Reinhard paved the road ahead with the building blocks of multi-channel ideas and the execution thereof. He also identified the “tipping point” as being the day clients demand big multi-channel ideas and the good news is that this is beginning to happen.
Of course the problem now is that there is an entire community that doesn’t understand (or cares to understand) life after TV. He cites the ineffectual Cannes ceremonies, which still silos each media category instead of uniting them and organizing them around brands and ideas.
He specifically called out TiVo, Gaming (for example: McDonalds’ involvement with The Sims online) and the Web as indicators of where the audience is or will be.
Instead of worrying about how to divvy up budgets, Reinhard expressed that the focus should be on the consumer. He posited on what he called mental convergence i.e. will consumers use specific media for specific purposes e.g. TV for entertainment or the Web for information?
He also introduced a rather delightful quote, “The tyranny of or, as opposed to the genius of and,” which I’ll let you interpret the way you see best fits in the context of this conversation.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t spend much time on the other panelists, which included Greg Coleman from Yahoo! and Traug Keller, President, ABC Radio Networks, it’s because they just didn’t add anything remotely new to the forum.
Truth be told, I was somewhat disappointed with Interactive’s only representative at the day’s proceedings. Last year, AOL’s Ted Leonsis spoke about life after advertising; this year Coleman spoke about paid search. At the time, I almost fell off my chair that the best Yahoo! could come up with was text links. Now my disappointment is interspersed with a bitter aftertaste as I understand Coleman’s Overture pretty clearly.
GM’s C.J. Fraleigh delivered the lunchtime keynote and the day concluded with the final panel on Madison + Vine (I’ll save these two for a rainy day in the near future).
All in all, one of my highlights continues to be an emphasis on the significance of unique and relevant big ideas that are workable solutions before they are one-size-fits-all ads.
See you all at next year’s bash (or before.)
DoubleClick Report Shows Maturing Industry
Reported by Dawn Anfuso
DoubleClick Inc.’s Q2 2003 Ad Serving Trend Report released this week shows that online advertising is getting richer and bigger, and having an affect on branding.
The data reveals that rich media usage continues to grow quarter by quarter, while larger ads have surpassed the smaller options in popularity. The report also suggests that marketers, having mastered direct response on the Web, are now perfecting the art of online branding and creating more memorable ads that leave lasting impressions. This is evidenced by declining click-through rates - the lowest in six quarters - and higher view-through rates (assessed when a user takes some action on an ad within 30 days of viewing, but not clicking on it).
"Building on the success of online direct response, marketers are starting to really take advantage of the Web as a branding medium," says Doug Knopper, vice president and general manager, Online Advertising Solutions, DoubleClick. "As DoubleClick's latest report shows, click-throughs are being deemphasized and we're seeing more memorable ads that will have a latent impact on the user. Rich media, which has shown massive growth, promises to play a central role in these branding strategies."
The top-line findings
Rich Media and Larger Ad Formats Gaining
Rich media, defined as dynamic ads that fly across Web pages, pop-ups, and any ad that includes Macromedia Flash creative technology, increased from 17.3% of all ads served in Q1 of 2002 to nearly 32% (31.7%) in Q2 of 2003. While on average, it has been increasing 10% per quarter, it increased 14% from Q1 2003. Flash accounts for the largest percentage of rich media served and is now nearly 14% of all ads served.
Rich media also continues to display stronger conversion rates than non-rich media (GIFs and JPEGs). Rich media generates higher rates of post-impression activity per impression (.76% vs. .55% for non-rich media) as well as post impression sales per impression (3.07% vs. 1.02% for non-rich media).
In terms of ad size, the standard banner (468 x 60 pixels) still accounts for a substantial portion of all ads served (42%), but it has been losing ground to other, larger sizes. Since Q2 2002, the standard banner declined in volume by 23% and the button is down 43%. Larger ad units, however, like large rectangles (both 300 x 250 and 336 x 280) increased 257% and 117%, respectively. Skyscrapers, which are now the 2nd most popular unit, accounting for 9% of total volume in Q2, grew 55% from Q2 2002 to Q2 2003.
Newer large units are performing well. The leaderboard, a wide unit (728 x 90) that often appears at the top of Web pages, is now the fastest growing size at 562% growth from Q2 2002, and is now the fourth most common size served by DoubleClick. Half-page ads (550 x 480) had the second highest response rate at .90%.
Click-Throughs vs. View-Throughs Suggest Growing Use of Online Advertising for Branding
The report notes that click-through rates have declined to the lowest in six quarters, while view-through rates have continued to rise, surpassing click-throughs (.63% vs. .52%). View-throughs assess some action observed within 30 days of a consumer viewing an ad (post impression impact). These metrics are part of the larger picture of the effectiveness of online advertising: click-throughs assess immediate response, while view-throughs reflect the latent impact of that online ad.
Average click-through rates for ads served by both advertisers and publishers declined 14% from Q1 to .61% in Q2 2003; the rates had remained constant in the previous five quarters at an average of .70%. The decline of click-throughs and the growth of post impression metrics like view-throughs could reflect growing use of online advertising for branding: more creative executions designed to have impact over time rather than solicit immediate response.
Online Advertising Volume Increases
DoubleClick Ad Serving volume has increased to its highest level since Q2 2002 and is currently at 149.8 billion ads delivered for the quarter. This is a 5% increase over Q42002 and a 10% increase over Q1 2003.
Reported by Dawn Anfuso
DoubleClick Inc.’s Q2 2003 Ad Serving Trend Report released this week shows that online advertising is getting richer and bigger, and having an affect on branding.
The data reveals that rich media usage continues to grow quarter by quarter, while larger ads have surpassed the smaller options in popularity. The report also suggests that marketers, having mastered direct response on the Web, are now perfecting the art of online branding and creating more memorable ads that leave lasting impressions. This is evidenced by declining click-through rates - the lowest in six quarters - and higher view-through rates (assessed when a user takes some action on an ad within 30 days of viewing, but not clicking on it).
"Building on the success of online direct response, marketers are starting to really take advantage of the Web as a branding medium," says Doug Knopper, vice president and general manager, Online Advertising Solutions, DoubleClick. "As DoubleClick's latest report shows, click-throughs are being deemphasized and we're seeing more memorable ads that will have a latent impact on the user. Rich media, which has shown massive growth, promises to play a central role in these branding strategies."
The top-line findings
Rich Media and Larger Ad Formats Gaining
Rich media, defined as dynamic ads that fly across Web pages, pop-ups, and any ad that includes Macromedia Flash creative technology, increased from 17.3% of all ads served in Q1 of 2002 to nearly 32% (31.7%) in Q2 of 2003. While on average, it has been increasing 10% per quarter, it increased 14% from Q1 2003. Flash accounts for the largest percentage of rich media served and is now nearly 14% of all ads served.
Rich media also continues to display stronger conversion rates than non-rich media (GIFs and JPEGs). Rich media generates higher rates of post-impression activity per impression (.76% vs. .55% for non-rich media) as well as post impression sales per impression (3.07% vs. 1.02% for non-rich media).
In terms of ad size, the standard banner (468 x 60 pixels) still accounts for a substantial portion of all ads served (42%), but it has been losing ground to other, larger sizes. Since Q2 2002, the standard banner declined in volume by 23% and the button is down 43%. Larger ad units, however, like large rectangles (both 300 x 250 and 336 x 280) increased 257% and 117%, respectively. Skyscrapers, which are now the 2nd most popular unit, accounting for 9% of total volume in Q2, grew 55% from Q2 2002 to Q2 2003.
Newer large units are performing well. The leaderboard, a wide unit (728 x 90) that often appears at the top of Web pages, is now the fastest growing size at 562% growth from Q2 2002, and is now the fourth most common size served by DoubleClick. Half-page ads (550 x 480) had the second highest response rate at .90%.
Click-Throughs vs. View-Throughs Suggest Growing Use of Online Advertising for Branding
The report notes that click-through rates have declined to the lowest in six quarters, while view-through rates have continued to rise, surpassing click-throughs (.63% vs. .52%). View-throughs assess some action observed within 30 days of a consumer viewing an ad (post impression impact). These metrics are part of the larger picture of the effectiveness of online advertising: click-throughs assess immediate response, while view-throughs reflect the latent impact of that online ad.
Average click-through rates for ads served by both advertisers and publishers declined 14% from Q1 to .61% in Q2 2003; the rates had remained constant in the previous five quarters at an average of .70%. The decline of click-throughs and the growth of post impression metrics like view-throughs could reflect growing use of online advertising for branding: more creative executions designed to have impact over time rather than solicit immediate response.
Online Advertising Volume Increases
DoubleClick Ad Serving volume has increased to its highest level since Q2 2002 and is currently at 149.8 billion ads delivered for the quarter. This is a 5% increase over Q42002 and a 10% increase over Q1 2003.
Rich Media and Larger Ad Units Maintain Growth Levels
by Newswire Report
DoubleClick Inc. on Wednesday announced results of its Q2 2003 Ad Serving Trend Report, which reveals that rich media usage continues to grow quarter by quarter, while larger ads have surpassed the smaller options in popularity. The report also suggests that marketers, having mastered direct response on the Web, are now perfecting the art of online branding and creating more memorable ads that leave lasting impressions. This is evidenced by declining click-through rates -- the lowest in six quarters -- and higher view-through rates (assessed when a user takes some action on an ad within 30 days of viewing, but not clicking on it).
"Building on the success of online direct response, marketers are starting to really take advantage of the Web as a branding medium," said Doug Knopper, Vice President and General Manager, Online Advertising Solutions, DoubleClick. "As DoubleClick's latest report shows, click-throughs are being de-emphasized and we're seeing more memorable ads that will have a latent impact on the user. Rich media, which has shown massive growth, promises to play a central role in these branding strategies."
Rich Media and Larger Ad Formats Gaining
Rich media, defined as dynamic ads that fly across web pages, pop-ups, and any ad that includes Macromedia Flash creative technology, increased from 17.3% of all ads served in Q1 of 2002 to nearly 32% (31.7%) in Q2 of 2003. While on average, it has been increasing 10% per quarter, it increased 14% from Q1 2003. Flash accounts for the largest percentage of rich media served and is now nearly 14% of all ads served.
Rich media also continues to display stronger conversion rates than non- rich media (GIFs and JPEGs). Rich media generates higher rates of post- impression activity per impression (.76% vs. .55% for non-rich media) as well as post impression sales per impression (3.07% vs. 1.02% for non-rich media).
In terms of ad size, the standard banner (468 x 60 pixels) still accounts for a substantial portion of all ads served (42%), but it has been losing ground to other, larger sizes. Since Q2 2002, the standard banner declined in volume by 23% and the button is down 43%. Larger ad units, however, like large rectangles (both 300 x 250 and 336 x 280) increased 257% and 117%, respectively. Skyscrapers, which are now the 2nd most popular unit, accounting for 9% of total volume in Q2, grew 55% from Q2 2002 to Q2 2003.
Newer large units are performing well. The leaderboard, a wide unit (728 x 90) that often appears at the top of web pages, is now the fastest growing size at 562% growth from Q2 2002, and is now the fourth most common size served by DoubleClick. Half-page ads (550 x 480) had the second highest response rate at .90%. Click-Throughs vs. View-Throughs Suggest Growing Use of Online
Advertising for Branding
The report notes that click-through rates have declined to the lowest in six quarters, while view-through rates have continued to rise, surpassing click-throughs (.63% vs. .52%). View-throughs assess some action observed within 30 days of a consumer viewing an ad (post impression impact). These metrics are part of the larger picture of the effectiveness of online advertising: click-throughs assess immediate response, while view-throughs reflect the latent impact of that online ad.
Average click through rates for ads served by both advertisers and publishers declined 14% from Q1 to .61% in Q2 2003; the rates had remained constant in the previous five quarters at an average of .70%. The decline of click-throughs and the growth of post impression metrics like view-throughs could reflect growing use of online advertising for branding: more creative executions designed to have impact over time rather than solicit immediate response.
Online Advertising Volume Increases
DoubleClick Ad Serving volume has increased to its highest level since Q2 2002 and is currently at 149.8 billion ads delivered for the quarter. This is a 5% increase over Q42002 and a 10% increase over Q1 2003.
by Newswire Report
DoubleClick Inc. on Wednesday announced results of its Q2 2003 Ad Serving Trend Report, which reveals that rich media usage continues to grow quarter by quarter, while larger ads have surpassed the smaller options in popularity. The report also suggests that marketers, having mastered direct response on the Web, are now perfecting the art of online branding and creating more memorable ads that leave lasting impressions. This is evidenced by declining click-through rates -- the lowest in six quarters -- and higher view-through rates (assessed when a user takes some action on an ad within 30 days of viewing, but not clicking on it).
"Building on the success of online direct response, marketers are starting to really take advantage of the Web as a branding medium," said Doug Knopper, Vice President and General Manager, Online Advertising Solutions, DoubleClick. "As DoubleClick's latest report shows, click-throughs are being de-emphasized and we're seeing more memorable ads that will have a latent impact on the user. Rich media, which has shown massive growth, promises to play a central role in these branding strategies."
Rich Media and Larger Ad Formats Gaining
Rich media, defined as dynamic ads that fly across web pages, pop-ups, and any ad that includes Macromedia Flash creative technology, increased from 17.3% of all ads served in Q1 of 2002 to nearly 32% (31.7%) in Q2 of 2003. While on average, it has been increasing 10% per quarter, it increased 14% from Q1 2003. Flash accounts for the largest percentage of rich media served and is now nearly 14% of all ads served.
Rich media also continues to display stronger conversion rates than non- rich media (GIFs and JPEGs). Rich media generates higher rates of post- impression activity per impression (.76% vs. .55% for non-rich media) as well as post impression sales per impression (3.07% vs. 1.02% for non-rich media).
In terms of ad size, the standard banner (468 x 60 pixels) still accounts for a substantial portion of all ads served (42%), but it has been losing ground to other, larger sizes. Since Q2 2002, the standard banner declined in volume by 23% and the button is down 43%. Larger ad units, however, like large rectangles (both 300 x 250 and 336 x 280) increased 257% and 117%, respectively. Skyscrapers, which are now the 2nd most popular unit, accounting for 9% of total volume in Q2, grew 55% from Q2 2002 to Q2 2003.
Newer large units are performing well. The leaderboard, a wide unit (728 x 90) that often appears at the top of web pages, is now the fastest growing size at 562% growth from Q2 2002, and is now the fourth most common size served by DoubleClick. Half-page ads (550 x 480) had the second highest response rate at .90%. Click-Throughs vs. View-Throughs Suggest Growing Use of Online
Advertising for Branding
The report notes that click-through rates have declined to the lowest in six quarters, while view-through rates have continued to rise, surpassing click-throughs (.63% vs. .52%). View-throughs assess some action observed within 30 days of a consumer viewing an ad (post impression impact). These metrics are part of the larger picture of the effectiveness of online advertising: click-throughs assess immediate response, while view-throughs reflect the latent impact of that online ad.
Average click through rates for ads served by both advertisers and publishers declined 14% from Q1 to .61% in Q2 2003; the rates had remained constant in the previous five quarters at an average of .70%. The decline of click-throughs and the growth of post impression metrics like view-throughs could reflect growing use of online advertising for branding: more creative executions designed to have impact over time rather than solicit immediate response.
Online Advertising Volume Increases
DoubleClick Ad Serving volume has increased to its highest level since Q2 2002 and is currently at 149.8 billion ads delivered for the quarter. This is a 5% increase over Q42002 and a 10% increase over Q1 2003.
Online Planning Tools Come of Age
by David Ward
With online still only getting on average one to three percent of media dollars — even in an integrated advertising campaign — you might think that the prospects for Internet marketing have changed little since the dot.com collapse of a few year ago.
But a lot has been going on just under the radar. Up to now, most advertisers have run Internet-based campaigns for direct response capabilities that online provides, but a host of companies are offering new tools that allow for the sort of audience segmentation and demographic targeting that has long driven traditional, offline brand awareness advertising as well.
The result is an almost unprecedented ability to gather information about an audience, which is taking some of the guesswork out of online media buying and planning, and enabling agencies to create detailed, compelling cases to get traditional brands back online.
“In many cases the media planner will tell us I want as much data on a given audience as possible — demographic, behavioral, attitudinal — I want it all,” says Karl Siebrecht, vice president of strategy and product management for Atlas DMT. “They want to be very granular, and the Internet can help them do that.”
A lot of this wouldn’t have been possible without several pieces falling into place, most notably the maturation of the Internet as a medium. “There's no question that both the Web as a whole and individual sites have stabilized,” notes Douglas Knopper, vice president and general manager-online advertising at DoubleClick. “There are studies out there that find that the average person doesn't go to more than 10 or 12 sites in any given period of time, and that makes sense. There was a lot of experimentation going on in the early days, and there's a lot less of that now.”
With that stabilization has come the realization that the overall online audience doesn’t differ that much from consumers for television, print, and radio. “There can be some cases where it can skew a little bit more affluent and a little bit younger, but the entire Internet population is reaching a point where it is approximate of the US population,” says Amy Auerbach, associate media director for Euro RSCG Circle.
This in turn has enabled companies such as DoubleClick with its MediaVisor program, Atlas DMT, and Mediaplex, to develop the tools and technologies that allow for what essentially are “apples to apples” comparisons of online and offline audiences, as well as advertising campaigns.
“When Internet media was a new thing, people realized that super-sophisticated targeting was suddenly possible, and you could then reach very narrow demographics or behavioral segments,” explains Siebrecht. “The problem was a lot of people got ahead of themselves and, instead of starting with the basics, they started with crazy, super-sophisticated new stuff that a traditional media person couldn't process. Their world is women aged 18 to 49 — the type of demographics you could buy on TV.”
Part of the recent efforts by Atlas DMT, DoubleClick, and others have been on tools that allow online campaigns to be framed, through use of the same metrics and terminology, in ways that are easily understood by traditional marketers.
“There has been some resistance to companies using online in the traditional advertising sense,” says Greg Pomaro, group media director at Exile on Seventh. “That is due in part because it has sort of its own language, and there’s this layer of technology that pervades everything that happens online. Companies don’t have to deal with that in, say, broadcast, where your entire creative decision is basically, are we going to do a 15- or a 30-second spot. We have to make sure that we’re giving a common frame of reference, so we can discuss a range of media choices in somewhat more common language.”
With these tools in place, online media buyers and planners can then take advantage of what the Internet does best, which is to enable the gathering of huge amounts of information about an audience, and then combine that with technology that can deliver ads relevant to any consumer’s interest. “What all this leads to is contextual ads delivered to a finely defined demographic,” says Knopper.
In many ways the tools are already being rolled out to enable what amounts to the next step in contextual advertising. An example is a consumer who visits a website and clicks on an article about the CIA headquarters. In a static contextual scenario, that may trigger a banner ad for an espionage-related movie, book, or TV show. But if you had gathered historical data on that visitor, and knew that his interests were more likely to be government spending, or northern Virginia commercial real estate, or even simple acronyms, you could change the ultimately delivered ad accordingly.
These are admittedly uncharted waters, and not everyone thinks the advertising community is ready for it, especially given that some of these tools carry with them some “Big Brother”-like implications. But Atlas for one already has a tool that allows advertisers to gather information on where your best potential customers tend to gravitate online, which can then give you great insight into their interests.
“Basically you put these action tags (commonly known as “cookies”) on the ‘landing pages’ you’re trying to drive traffic to and then, after a while, the cookies collect information on where those people who’ve visited that landing page tend to visit,” explains Greg Brown, managing director with FCBi Seattle. “So in theory, you kind of build a profile of the people that run to those sites, being that they they’re going to have a higher tendency to visit your (client’s) site.
Brown and others note that while this information is gathered in aggregate, and doesn’t necessarily give an agency and its clients access to each individual’s specific online movements, there already is some concern about potential privacy issues. “Atlas has done a pretty good job of presenting this on paper, and so we’re going to test: number one, what kind of return do we get and number two, what are the privacy implications?” says Joe Giannantonio, analysis director for Exile on Seventh. “For a direct marketer, this approach could be a way of reaping higher returns on your investment dollar, but in terms of the efficacy relating to privacy by both the publishers and individual, it’s going to be more of a challenge to promote that kind of marketing.”
But media buyers and planners don’t have to rely on their own tools and technologies to better segment their audience. Even though most are vigilant about respecting their audience’s privacy, the publisher sites themselves have been increasingly aggressive about using opt-in surveys and online subscription forms to better segment their users. Led by the NewYorkTimes.com site and others, these sites are building vast databases on their users, and are just now beginning to offer up this information to media planners, so they in turn can craft campaigns that target particular segments within that site’s audience.
“There is a growing consciousness that (the sites) have got to be proactive in audience management and audience segmentation if they are going to meet the needs of advertisers and agencies,” notes Dave Morgan, CEO of New York-based Tacoda Systems. Tacoda provides tools that enable publishers to integrate information on their audience from a variety of sources, including web servers, ad servers, opt-in registrations programs, and commerce systems, as well as from offline databases. The company works with the sites to analyze that data and segment out their audience accordingly, and then hands that information off to the publisher’s ad server, email server, or whatever else is needed to deliver a marketing program.
Morgan agrees that there is a need to come up with a common framework that enables brands to compare offline and online ad programs. But once that’s in place, he argues, the sites themselves can then take the leading role in segmenting out their audience and present target groups to advertisers, since they’ve already established an ongoing relationship with their users.
“The agencies only get to segment what they’ve already bought, but if the publishers manage the segmentation, they can deliver to the advertisers the exact audience that they want,” Morgan says. “They can deliver say, one million young women twice a month, and actually give them 100 percent audience composition of those people, as well as measure the results for them.”
Once you’ve gathered all this information on your audience, it’s then up to the media planner to figure out what information can be used for direct response, which the Internet has always excelled in, and to help determine what should be factored into brand-building, reach and frequency media buys. “We haven’t found that demographics are a very good indication of purchase,” says Andy Sims, media director at SF Interactive. “Now, from a brand perspective where you’re really concerned with moving large groups of people to think about your product, demographic targeting becomes very important.”
Above and beyond audience segmentation tools, Atlas DMT, DoubleClick, Mediaplex, and a few other smaller players also offer software products for everything from putting in and tracking insertion orders, to real-time measurement of a campaign’s ongoing effectiveness. So it’s tempting to think that online media buying and planning may eventually become a bit of a plug-and-play job. You simply put in your client’s demographic target and campaign goals, and out pops the sites you should be advertising on, as well as the recommended media spend.
But the interactive media directors we spoke to stress that these new technologies are what they are, simply tools. “These planning tools allow us to hedge our bets up, particularly when it’s a new target for the client or a new client for us …and then we can get a direct experiential read on what these tools tell us,” says Giannantonio. “The tools may tell us that Yahoo! is a great place for the target, but we can never get a rate that will make it pay out for us.”
Jordon Hirsch, media supervisor with Earthquake Media, adds, “Your clients have to know that you’re looking at things creatively and from a different angle than a computer that’s just going to spit out numbers. For one thing, some of the categories they have may not be as individually ‘cookie cut’ as some clients you may have. A lot of programs may end up picking the top five [websites], but sometimes as an adviser, you don’t want to go to the top five. You may want to go to another site that is outside of the top five, in order to dominate that space with rich media and other things.”
by David Ward
With online still only getting on average one to three percent of media dollars — even in an integrated advertising campaign — you might think that the prospects for Internet marketing have changed little since the dot.com collapse of a few year ago.
But a lot has been going on just under the radar. Up to now, most advertisers have run Internet-based campaigns for direct response capabilities that online provides, but a host of companies are offering new tools that allow for the sort of audience segmentation and demographic targeting that has long driven traditional, offline brand awareness advertising as well.
The result is an almost unprecedented ability to gather information about an audience, which is taking some of the guesswork out of online media buying and planning, and enabling agencies to create detailed, compelling cases to get traditional brands back online.
“In many cases the media planner will tell us I want as much data on a given audience as possible — demographic, behavioral, attitudinal — I want it all,” says Karl Siebrecht, vice president of strategy and product management for Atlas DMT. “They want to be very granular, and the Internet can help them do that.”
A lot of this wouldn’t have been possible without several pieces falling into place, most notably the maturation of the Internet as a medium. “There's no question that both the Web as a whole and individual sites have stabilized,” notes Douglas Knopper, vice president and general manager-online advertising at DoubleClick. “There are studies out there that find that the average person doesn't go to more than 10 or 12 sites in any given period of time, and that makes sense. There was a lot of experimentation going on in the early days, and there's a lot less of that now.”
With that stabilization has come the realization that the overall online audience doesn’t differ that much from consumers for television, print, and radio. “There can be some cases where it can skew a little bit more affluent and a little bit younger, but the entire Internet population is reaching a point where it is approximate of the US population,” says Amy Auerbach, associate media director for Euro RSCG Circle.
This in turn has enabled companies such as DoubleClick with its MediaVisor program, Atlas DMT, and Mediaplex, to develop the tools and technologies that allow for what essentially are “apples to apples” comparisons of online and offline audiences, as well as advertising campaigns.
“When Internet media was a new thing, people realized that super-sophisticated targeting was suddenly possible, and you could then reach very narrow demographics or behavioral segments,” explains Siebrecht. “The problem was a lot of people got ahead of themselves and, instead of starting with the basics, they started with crazy, super-sophisticated new stuff that a traditional media person couldn't process. Their world is women aged 18 to 49 — the type of demographics you could buy on TV.”
Part of the recent efforts by Atlas DMT, DoubleClick, and others have been on tools that allow online campaigns to be framed, through use of the same metrics and terminology, in ways that are easily understood by traditional marketers.
“There has been some resistance to companies using online in the traditional advertising sense,” says Greg Pomaro, group media director at Exile on Seventh. “That is due in part because it has sort of its own language, and there’s this layer of technology that pervades everything that happens online. Companies don’t have to deal with that in, say, broadcast, where your entire creative decision is basically, are we going to do a 15- or a 30-second spot. We have to make sure that we’re giving a common frame of reference, so we can discuss a range of media choices in somewhat more common language.”
With these tools in place, online media buyers and planners can then take advantage of what the Internet does best, which is to enable the gathering of huge amounts of information about an audience, and then combine that with technology that can deliver ads relevant to any consumer’s interest. “What all this leads to is contextual ads delivered to a finely defined demographic,” says Knopper.
In many ways the tools are already being rolled out to enable what amounts to the next step in contextual advertising. An example is a consumer who visits a website and clicks on an article about the CIA headquarters. In a static contextual scenario, that may trigger a banner ad for an espionage-related movie, book, or TV show. But if you had gathered historical data on that visitor, and knew that his interests were more likely to be government spending, or northern Virginia commercial real estate, or even simple acronyms, you could change the ultimately delivered ad accordingly.
These are admittedly uncharted waters, and not everyone thinks the advertising community is ready for it, especially given that some of these tools carry with them some “Big Brother”-like implications. But Atlas for one already has a tool that allows advertisers to gather information on where your best potential customers tend to gravitate online, which can then give you great insight into their interests.
“Basically you put these action tags (commonly known as “cookies”) on the ‘landing pages’ you’re trying to drive traffic to and then, after a while, the cookies collect information on where those people who’ve visited that landing page tend to visit,” explains Greg Brown, managing director with FCBi Seattle. “So in theory, you kind of build a profile of the people that run to those sites, being that they they’re going to have a higher tendency to visit your (client’s) site.
Brown and others note that while this information is gathered in aggregate, and doesn’t necessarily give an agency and its clients access to each individual’s specific online movements, there already is some concern about potential privacy issues. “Atlas has done a pretty good job of presenting this on paper, and so we’re going to test: number one, what kind of return do we get and number two, what are the privacy implications?” says Joe Giannantonio, analysis director for Exile on Seventh. “For a direct marketer, this approach could be a way of reaping higher returns on your investment dollar, but in terms of the efficacy relating to privacy by both the publishers and individual, it’s going to be more of a challenge to promote that kind of marketing.”
But media buyers and planners don’t have to rely on their own tools and technologies to better segment their audience. Even though most are vigilant about respecting their audience’s privacy, the publisher sites themselves have been increasingly aggressive about using opt-in surveys and online subscription forms to better segment their users. Led by the NewYorkTimes.com site and others, these sites are building vast databases on their users, and are just now beginning to offer up this information to media planners, so they in turn can craft campaigns that target particular segments within that site’s audience.
“There is a growing consciousness that (the sites) have got to be proactive in audience management and audience segmentation if they are going to meet the needs of advertisers and agencies,” notes Dave Morgan, CEO of New York-based Tacoda Systems. Tacoda provides tools that enable publishers to integrate information on their audience from a variety of sources, including web servers, ad servers, opt-in registrations programs, and commerce systems, as well as from offline databases. The company works with the sites to analyze that data and segment out their audience accordingly, and then hands that information off to the publisher’s ad server, email server, or whatever else is needed to deliver a marketing program.
Morgan agrees that there is a need to come up with a common framework that enables brands to compare offline and online ad programs. But once that’s in place, he argues, the sites themselves can then take the leading role in segmenting out their audience and present target groups to advertisers, since they’ve already established an ongoing relationship with their users.
“The agencies only get to segment what they’ve already bought, but if the publishers manage the segmentation, they can deliver to the advertisers the exact audience that they want,” Morgan says. “They can deliver say, one million young women twice a month, and actually give them 100 percent audience composition of those people, as well as measure the results for them.”
Once you’ve gathered all this information on your audience, it’s then up to the media planner to figure out what information can be used for direct response, which the Internet has always excelled in, and to help determine what should be factored into brand-building, reach and frequency media buys. “We haven’t found that demographics are a very good indication of purchase,” says Andy Sims, media director at SF Interactive. “Now, from a brand perspective where you’re really concerned with moving large groups of people to think about your product, demographic targeting becomes very important.”
Above and beyond audience segmentation tools, Atlas DMT, DoubleClick, Mediaplex, and a few other smaller players also offer software products for everything from putting in and tracking insertion orders, to real-time measurement of a campaign’s ongoing effectiveness. So it’s tempting to think that online media buying and planning may eventually become a bit of a plug-and-play job. You simply put in your client’s demographic target and campaign goals, and out pops the sites you should be advertising on, as well as the recommended media spend.
But the interactive media directors we spoke to stress that these new technologies are what they are, simply tools. “These planning tools allow us to hedge our bets up, particularly when it’s a new target for the client or a new client for us …and then we can get a direct experiential read on what these tools tell us,” says Giannantonio. “The tools may tell us that Yahoo! is a great place for the target, but we can never get a rate that will make it pay out for us.”
Jordon Hirsch, media supervisor with Earthquake Media, adds, “Your clients have to know that you’re looking at things creatively and from a different angle than a computer that’s just going to spit out numbers. For one thing, some of the categories they have may not be as individually ‘cookie cut’ as some clients you may have. A lot of programs may end up picking the top five [websites], but sometimes as an adviser, you don’t want to go to the top five. You may want to go to another site that is outside of the top five, in order to dominate that space with rich media and other things.”
Web Team Roles and Responsibilities: Who's in Charge?
by Gerry McGovern
A major shift is occurring in who is in charge of the Web. Previously, responsibility tended to be with IT. Occasionally, marketing was in charge.
Today, the Web site—particularly the intranet—is the responsibility of the communications department. This is as it should be.
At a recent content management workshop in Washington, DC, a woman informed me that she had been nervous about attending. “However,� she said in a relieved voice, “when I saw all the other women here, I felt a lot more comfortable.�
In the last couple of years, I have noticed a significant shift in the profile of people who are attending my talks and workshops. In previous years, the crowd would have been very much male and from IT.
Now, around 70% of those attending are women. Most of these women have a communications background.
Communications is the natural home for the intranet, since the Web is inherently a communications vehicle. The public Web site should also be driven by a communications expert who has a strong marketing focus.
Currently, many organizations are struggling with a Web team that is no longer suitable. There is the pioneer who built the original Web site by hand. He (it was generally a man) persevered when the Web was largely ignored. It was his baby.
But now, the Web site has grown up and been embraced by the larger organization, and in those circumstances the pioneering attributes of doggedness and individuality often become drawbacks. The best pioneer knows when to gracefully step aside and let the Web site go to the next stage of development.
Graphic designers were often heavily involved in early Web development. The role of the graphic designer is greatly diminished today. The Web is about standardized design. Text dominates. Thus, editors and writers are in far greater demand.
Marketing people in love with Flash and splash screens often do more damage than good. However, if they understand that e-commerce is about selling with content, they can make a significant contribution.
In the early years, getting a Web site going was a major technical challenge. That is no longer the case. Web technology is becoming more reliable and standardized. Thus, the role of the IT department is becoming less central.
Some IT managers are only too happy to hand over responsibility. Their staff became accidental writers and editors. They want to get back to their core focus of making technology work.
Unfortunately, some IT managers like the extra power that owning the Web site gives them. These managers become blocks to progress.
Communications staff should embrace the Web, but many of them don’t. Many are technophobes who think that because IT originally owned the Web, it must be technical. Others are locked into a print view of content. They don’t want to take the time to learn how to write effectively for the Web.
So, it’s not simply about shifting responsibility for the Web over to the communications department. Old habits will require changing. New skills will have to be learned.
But the change is well underway. The Web may have been the almost exclusive domain of techies. Today, it is increasingly the domain of communicators.
by Gerry McGovern
A major shift is occurring in who is in charge of the Web. Previously, responsibility tended to be with IT. Occasionally, marketing was in charge.
Today, the Web site—particularly the intranet—is the responsibility of the communications department. This is as it should be.
At a recent content management workshop in Washington, DC, a woman informed me that she had been nervous about attending. “However,� she said in a relieved voice, “when I saw all the other women here, I felt a lot more comfortable.�
In the last couple of years, I have noticed a significant shift in the profile of people who are attending my talks and workshops. In previous years, the crowd would have been very much male and from IT.
Now, around 70% of those attending are women. Most of these women have a communications background.
Communications is the natural home for the intranet, since the Web is inherently a communications vehicle. The public Web site should also be driven by a communications expert who has a strong marketing focus.
Currently, many organizations are struggling with a Web team that is no longer suitable. There is the pioneer who built the original Web site by hand. He (it was generally a man) persevered when the Web was largely ignored. It was his baby.
But now, the Web site has grown up and been embraced by the larger organization, and in those circumstances the pioneering attributes of doggedness and individuality often become drawbacks. The best pioneer knows when to gracefully step aside and let the Web site go to the next stage of development.
Graphic designers were often heavily involved in early Web development. The role of the graphic designer is greatly diminished today. The Web is about standardized design. Text dominates. Thus, editors and writers are in far greater demand.
Marketing people in love with Flash and splash screens often do more damage than good. However, if they understand that e-commerce is about selling with content, they can make a significant contribution.
In the early years, getting a Web site going was a major technical challenge. That is no longer the case. Web technology is becoming more reliable and standardized. Thus, the role of the IT department is becoming less central.
Some IT managers are only too happy to hand over responsibility. Their staff became accidental writers and editors. They want to get back to their core focus of making technology work.
Unfortunately, some IT managers like the extra power that owning the Web site gives them. These managers become blocks to progress.
Communications staff should embrace the Web, but many of them don’t. Many are technophobes who think that because IT originally owned the Web, it must be technical. Others are locked into a print view of content. They don’t want to take the time to learn how to write effectively for the Web.
So, it’s not simply about shifting responsibility for the Web over to the communications department. Old habits will require changing. New skills will have to be learned.
But the change is well underway. The Web may have been the almost exclusive domain of techies. Today, it is increasingly the domain of communicators.
