The Evolving Internet Marketer

Learning From Amazon

Would you agree that Amazon.com probably puts a lot of thought into how it conducts it’s business on the web? Then don’t you think that one of the smartest things you can do to improve your web performance is to pay attention to what Amazon and others in their league do to maintain their web dominance.

Here’s an example; Calls To Action. A Call To Action (CTA) is simply a decision we’re asking our visitors to make in our (and, we think, their) favor. It can be as simple as clicking the ‘more‘ link that takes them to the rest of an article or as complicated as completing an extensive on-line application for health insurance or a mortgage loan.

Whatever the action(s), be sure to make it abundantly clear what it is your visitor can do and very apparent what you want them to do. Look at this book page from Amazon…

There are dozens of things you can do once you get to an actual product page at Amazon but, looking at this image, what do you think Amazon wants you to do most of all? That’s right, they want you to buy and they make it extremely evident as to what action you take to close the purchase loop.

The number one call to action on this page, based on prominence, positioning and design is ‘Add to Shopping Cart‘. You can’t miss it. You could print out this page, carry it across the room and still identify the CTA.

Hmmm, what’s #2, you wonder? Well, in my view (and the arrow is a big clue), the #2 CTA is don’t just buy one book, buy 2. Again, it’s very clear that apart from buying the book, the most important other thing they’d like for you to do is buy more books.

One thing to note is the very basic simplicity of this page. First, you have a large, attractive image of the product, a bold title listing and a to-the-point block of essential text. This tells you a.) that you’re at the right place (or not) and b.) gives you the basic information you need to make a decision with links available that will take you to more detail should you require it. The next thing to note is the aforementioned CTAs: Prominent, non-threatening; add to cart not BUY IT!!!, unambiguous. Finally, and also a CTA, an offer to buy more with an incentive to do so. Amazon upsells and cross sells with the best of them.

Innovate to Build Traffic to Your Web Site

M&Ms have been around forever, right? They cost a couple quarters to a couple dollars at the local store–depending on package size. You would never think of ordering them online, would you? So how did Mars, Inc. increase their online sales of M&Ms by 400% while charging a minimum of $40/order? They innovated by making an old product new again.

What did they do? Well, go to www.shop.mms.com and you will find that not only can you buy your M&Ms in 17 different colors but you can place a two line message on each individual piece of melts-in-your-mouth, not-in-your-hand chocolate goodness. Business is so brisk that Valentine deliveries were pushed into March since so many customers wanted to say I love you with a personalized package of the candy.

Now granted, M&Ms may have a bit more brand awareness than your average product but consider, what can you do to innovate? What can you do that adds just that little bit extra that takes your offering from the ordinary to the extraordinary?

My advice: capture the extraordinary moments in your life. Whether it’s exceptional, and unexpected service or a clever reworking of a familiar product design (see the new, potentially life-saving pill bottles that Target is using in their pharmacies), take note. Make each sighting a lesson with the objective being to identify the extraordinary element of your encounter and extrapolate it to your product or service offerings.

I might also recommend a book that a client, and friend, of mine-Mark Sanborn-has written called The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary (Currency, 2004). It’s a concise book, short on pages and long on insight. A great starting point for an extraordinary journey.

Give People a Compelling Reason to Visit Your Web Site

In a recent SpeakerNet News ezine, a contributor pointed out that she’s noticed a trend where people omit their email address in order to drive people to their web site. Her point was that this strategy can easily backfire. To be honest, a better way to get people to visit your web site would be to place a link on the back of your business card that allows them to obtain valuable information (a white paper or similar document).

For instance, a company that focuses on Customer Service training might include a link to a download of their “10 Ways to Improve Customer Service Now” ebook.

If it’s true that you catch more flys (prospects) with honey than with vinegar then our email omitting professionals might want to switch to a sweeter approach to promote their web presence.

Marketing is Not Catch and Release

If you fish you’re familiar with the concept of catch and release. This is where you work hard to hook a fish and reel it in only to release it once you’ve landed it. It’s from the “it’s the journey, not the destination” school of sportsmanship. There are a lot of marketers, and salespeople, who take the same approach. They attract a prospect’s attention, convince them of the value of their products or services and then, instead of closing the sale, they release them.

The reason I bring this up is because a friend of mine forwarded me a colleague’s ezine that he had found entertaining. He was right, it was entertaining. The author is a very funny man who makes his living as a motivational speaker. His ezine had me chuckling from beginning to end and motivated me to look to his web site for past issues.

The problem is that while I took the bait, there was no hook. Nothing that said, “Hey, if you like this, you’ll love my book” or “I’m even funnier in person, maybe you’d like to have me speak to your national sales convention, click here to see my preview video…” This guy earned the right to ‘pitch me’ but he didn’t. A rule of thumb that I advocate states that a good ratio of useful content to sales or marketing content is 70/30. In other words if I devote 70% of my content to entertaining or informing you, it’s acceptable to devote 30% of my content to persuading you to explore a further business relationship with me. Look at a newspaper or magazine for pete’s sake. How much of their content do they devote to features and how much to ads? Get the picture?

So my advice to my client’s friend is don’t be shy about tooting your own horn. After all, not only will you leave your readers laughing but you might end up laughing too … all the way to the bank!

Add a Little Vroom, Vroom to Your Desktop Computing

If you’re a Harley fan, and many of my friends and clients are, then you’ll love these custom motorcycle tank PC renditions from ThinkTankPC.com.

Leathers sold separately…

I Wrote a Blog and a Book Popped Out, Part II

In thinking about my earlier post on blogging your way to a book, I realized that not only can a blog benefit you by providing a means to generate a book or other publishable content but it can, with a little thought, help you to focus your blog more effectively. If you want to get noticed on the internet, focus is good, very good.

So, “Tom,” you ask, “how do I write a book and focus my blog at the same time?” Glad you asked. Think about your passion, your topic, the focus for your blog and create an outline that’s roughly analogous to the chapter titles of the book you’d write on the topic, if you were writing a book (you aren’t, you’re writing a BLOG … wink/wink). So let’s say I want to write a book on blogging (hmmmm, now that’s original, you’re thinking to yourself). I might start by creating the following Chapter Headings:

1. What is a blog
2. Getting Started Blogging
3. What Should I Write My Blog About
4. Publicizing My Blog
5. Monetizing My Blog
6. Blogging Tools & Resources
7. Etc.

What I’ve just done, in this example, are identify a few of what I feel are the important competencies or knowledge groups a beginning or intermediate blogger needs to know. In the book writing world, I have, as I said, created possible chapters. In the blogging world, I’ve identified categories. If you look at my blog and most blogs generated with serious blogging tools (e.g., Typepad, WordPress) you’ll often notice a categories section. This is a means by which bloggers can break their content into logical groupings. My categories include Blogging, Calls to Action, Developing Content, etc. As a reader, if you’re only interested in what I have to say about Search Engine Optimization, for example, you’d click on that category and be able to read everything I’ve written related to SEO.

If you’d ultimately like a book to pop out of your blog you want to make sure that you don’t get to the end of the year and realize, “Gee, I forgot to write about that…” or, “Wow, I have 600 articles on Getting Started… but only 2 on Publicizing My Blog.” Categories can help you maintain not only focus for your efforts but balance, as well. My next step would be to take each of the 6 ‘Chapter Headings’ I created and turn them into blog categories. This serves two purposes, it reminds me that I need to maintain appropriate breadth in my blogging as well as keep a good balance so that I don’t post too much on one topic and not at all on another, equally important area. I use Wordpress for my blogging software and, as I create, categorize and post content, it keeps a running total of the number of posts listed under each item. So I can easily know, everytime I access my blog, what I need to write about and how much.

So, in short, by taking this approach, not only am I writing a book but even if it never turns into a book, I’ve developed a system that will pay dividends because of the sharper focus it will provide to my blog. You don’t want readers, you want fanatics and you cultivate fanatics by stoking the fires of their passion with mutually interesting content. The same goes with search engines and other directories. Google, et al, care mostly about content. They identify and catalogue you based on what they believe you’re all about (your content). The more content you provide and the more focused that content is, then the higher you will rank in their search listings.

I Wrote a Blog and a Book Popped Out, Part I

Are you passionate about something, anything? Do you wish you could write a book but don’t think you have time or the ability? As a speaker, consultant or other knowledge professional would authoring a book boost your credibility, stature and, potentially, income?

Then blog.

Andy Wibbels of easybakeweblogs.com, in a teleseminar I listened in on, made this interesting and kind of obvious observation. If every day you write a paragraph or two on a topic of interest to you then at the end of a year you’ll have a book on that topic. Of course that means that you have to stay relatively narrowly focused on that topic.
Take me for instance, I work with a lot of professional speakers. Many of these speakers have written books which invariably have benefited their business in numerous ways from getting more speaking engagements to providing fairly lucrative passive income streams to helping them boost their fees. I get jealous and think, “wow, wish I could write a book but I’m undisciplined, don’t know what I’d write about, don’t have the time, don’t have the ability, blah…blah…blah…” Yet, since I started publishing this blog, I’ve generated close to 80 posts on things I think are important in the world of internet marketing.

Is this content the genesis of a book? Maybe. It lacks a certain focus. There are gaps in the information presented but, in general, it’s a good start. Right now I know I have enough material for a short ebook or two. Hmmm. Would having a few ebooks benefit my business? You bet. Would having a book boost my credibility and clientelle? I think so. Might it result in more money in my pocket and a broader distribution of my ideas (scary thought)? Yeah, it could.

Gives me something to think about and, if you blog, or are considering it, this should give you food for thought as well.

Note: See my follow up expanding on this idea of blogging your way to a book in Part II.

Why Blog? You Just Might Get Noticed by the Big Guys

I recently heard a report that 70-80% of major media execs now look to blogs as a major source when seeking experts for breaking stories. So why blog? How about a quote in the Wall Street Journal or an interview on CNN? What would that do for your credibility and business?

Don’t Make Me Think – Two Simple Rules for Online Success

I’m rereading a great book on web usability – Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. If you don’t read beyond the first page of the first chapter but apply the 2 simple rules (one, a footnote) you’ll find there then the book will more than pay for itself.

The first and, according to Krug, the most important rule is the book’s title, “Don’t make me think!” In other words, don’t make visitors to your web site or consumers of your email communications think about …

• What your site is about
• What your message is
• What this button does
• What they can do on your site
• What to do next

According to Krug, “…a web page … should be self-evident. Obvious. Self-explanatory.” So if yours isn’t, make it so!

His second rule, nestled in the footnotes is simply what I call the Law of 1/4. He states, “Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left.” Why? Well for one, web visitors generally don’t read, they scan. Think about it, when’s the last time you actually read, rather than scanned a web site upon arrival. Even with articles you’re interested in, you scan it first before committing to the time to actually read it.

So, two simple rules…

1. Don’t make ‘em think.
2. Less is more.

So there it is, all you need to make your web or email communications more effective, truly in a nutshell.

Power to the Road Warrior

Mfuel provides the ultimate power source for road warriors tired of their 3 hour laptop battery crapping out in 2 hours right in the middle of prepping their next day’s sales presentation on their 4 hour flight; Or realizing that they’ve got to get back to their irate customer ASAP but only have a single, anemic bar left on their cell phone.

So how does Mfuel help? With the slightly pricey (at about $400) Universal Power Bank. It allows you to recharge virtually any battery powered portable device. It even allows you to recharge two at once; a high powered notebook computer and your low-power cell phone or PDA.

According to Mfuel the Universal Power Bank Provides Up to 12 Hours of Additional Notebook Run Time and 100 Hours of Additional Cell Phone Talk Time. Plus it comes with 27 different power cable tips so it’s (almost) sure to fit your devices.

Take a peek: