The Think eBiz Blog

Principles of Lead and Sales Generation

I remember the first web site we built for ADP (payroll company) and how we reported on the number of visitors - aka eyeballs. Management was thrilled when we had a hundred visitors to our on-line brochure. That didn't last long. Management then asked how we can make money - and lead generation was born.

For ADP, the actual payroll service had to be sold and setup by a trained "feet-on-street" sales person, so our sites were design to obtain qualified leads. In other words, you submit your name and contact information and a sales person followed up. The concept of Lead ggeneration has not changed much - yet the tactics have, becoming an intense struggle to obtain the highest number of leads for the lowest possible costs (Cost per lead - CPL).

There are two segments to a lead generation program. The first - the strategy of attracting the attention of qualified people for the service. The second - the process of getting the person to convert to a lead.

Google is a typical tool used to find qualified people. If you are searching for a new loan, you might enter this in Google  :  Home Equity Loans in NJ.   It is then up to you to have a strong (yet brief) ad that drives the person to "click". Banner ads, email and other tactics exist - all to entice the click over to your "landing page"

The next step is the landing page. This is where I believe many campaigns fail. The landing page, a specialized web page, should be highly relevant to the keyword and campaign that the person searched upon. In the home equity loans example - driving the person to a generic web site about all your loan products Will certainly lead to defections (leaving your site without taking any positive action). Ideally your page should be all about Home Equity Loans - and even better -about NJ loans!

Then - where I have seen campaigns fail - make it very easy for me to sign up - with a brief form right on the landing page. Don't make me click around...  make it simple.

There is much more - which I will write about - including landing page optimization leveraging multi-variant testing...which did not exist when we creating our first ADP campaigns. The goal remains the same - how lead generation is managed has changed... significantly.

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Landing Page Simplicity equals Online Success

Recently reading Jonathan Mendez' blog discussion (Optimize and Prophesize) on "simplicity in landing pages" resonated very well with the Think-eBiz view on web site effectiveness. Web site owners are catching on, that their site is not their online ego, but a place for business - real sales & leads - conversions!

And with a simple approach to landing page design, the ability to perform real and valuable testing is magnified. Often it is subtle changes to a web site that cause the greatest impact on increased conversions. A complex image and text heavy site that displays all '20' of your leading products will often rank high on the one-and-out scale (the % of people who come to your home page and leave).

So scale your site back, provide short powerfully written content that tells the visitor who you are, what you do and why they should be here...  draw your visitor in and gain their permission to learn more. And always give them an easy way to contact you, to provide their name as a lead or get to the specific product they were actually seeking.

Optimization can help - allowing you the analytics of what caused conversion, learn more and defection behavior. And with a simple design, it will be easy to make the subtle yet powerful adaptations that lead to a better overall visitor experience - delivery more and better sales!

PS: A great book on web site usability is Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition)

Recently reading Jonathan Mendez' blog discussion (Optimize and Prophesize) on "simplicity in landing pages" resonated very well with the Think-eBiz view on web site effectiveness. Web site owners are catching on, that their site is not their online ego, but a place for business - real sales & leads - conversions!

And with a simple approach to landing page design, the ability to perform real and valuable testing is magnified. Often it is subtle changes to a web site that cause the greatest impact on increased conversions. A complex image and text heavy site that displays all '20' of your leading products will often rank high on the one-and-out scale (the % of people who come to your home page and leave).

So scale your site back, provide short powerfully written content that tells the visitor who you are, what you do and why they should be here...  draw your visitor in and gain their permission to learn more. And always give them an easy way to contact you, to provide their name as a lead or get to the specific product they were actually seeking.

Optimization can help - allowing you the analytics of what caused conversion, learn more and defection behavior. And with a simple design, it will be easy to make the subtle yet powerful adaptations that lead to a better overall visitor experience - delivery more and better sales!

PS: A great book on web site usability is Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition)

The Cure for Banner Blindness. MVT Testing

Are your online media ads suffering from Banner Blindness? According to an eye-tracking study conducted by the Nielsen/Norman Group, most people are ignoring your banner advertisements. No matter how splashy, bright or exciting they may appear, people are not looking - and therefor not clicking. In fact, click rates on banner media have be steadily decreasing.

"Banner blindness means Internet users focus on the content on a page and ignore the advertisements."

Don't despair, banner ads still remain an effective channel, just more challenging. Keeping things simple is one cure, as text ad's tend to outperform graphical ones.

Kara Pernice Coyne (Nielsen Norman Group Director of Research) said graphical ads with text and contrasting colors, like white text on red, is less likely to be disregarded. "They're looking at them if they're text," she said. "I hate to sound boring, but [it is best] if you can make sure your ad is something simple, text or a recognized logo, and it needs to be relevant to the page."

We at Think-ebiz believe that this is a clear case for MVT testing; a strategy for uncovering what triggers  what motivates a coveted click - rather than ignore - your online advertisement. What can overcome banner blindness, in terms of motivating the click through behavior? Is it the color, the image or lack of an image, is it a Flash based motion or simplistic text? Is it an strong message or a compelling call to action? Is it a great offer? MVT, multi-variable testing is the key to unlocking this knowledge, the insights that lead to a higher click through rate...  and thus a possible cure for the banner blindness affliction.

Are your online media ads suffering from Banner Blindness? According to an eye-tracking study conducted by the Nielsen/Norman Group, most people are ignoring your banner advertisements. No matter how splashy, bright or exciting they may appear, people are not looking - and therefor not clicking. In fact, click rates on banner media have be steadily decreasing.

"Banner blindness means Internet users focus on the content on a page and ignore the advertisements."

Don't despair, banner ads still remain an effective channel, just more challenging. Keeping things simple is one cure, as text ad's tend to outperform graphical ones.

Kara Pernice Coyne (Nielsen Norman Group Director of Research) said graphical ads with text and contrasting colors, like white text on red, is less likely to be disregarded. "They're looking at them if they're text," she said. "I hate to sound boring, but [it is best] if you can make sure your ad is something simple, text or a recognized logo, and it needs to be relevant to the page."

We at Think-ebiz believe that this is a clear case for MVT testing; a strategy for uncovering what triggers  what motivates a coveted click - rather than ignore - your online advertisement. What can overcome banner blindness, in terms of motivating the click through behavior? Is it the color, the image or lack of an image, is it a Flash based motion or simplistic text? Is it an strong message or a compelling call to action? Is it a great offer? MVT, multi-variable testing is the key to unlocking this knowledge, the insights that lead to a higher click through rate...  and thus a possible cure for the banner blindness affliction.

MVT and Online Advertising

Every advertiser tests - of course they do. However, are they testing effectively?

When an advertiser launches an online media campaign they will monitor their impressions, click throughs, and ultimately conversions - but do they really understand the triggers of success? The behavior of the consumer? Often the answer is no - however they can claim success by reaching their cost-per-acquisition (CPA) targets while maintaining an acceptable ad spend budget (measured by cost-per-millions impressions -CPM) . We believe advertisers can do better - much better by leveraging multi-variant (sometimes called multi-variable) testing - or MVT.

An outlandish claim by the authors of Breakthrough Business Results with MVT, Charles Holland; "...MVT is the greatest business improvement methodology ever devised"

What is MVT? It is the structured ability to test many different variables all at the same time in order to uncover the greatest impacts to your business. In it's very simplest terms - do consumers click your banner because of a Free Shipping or 20% off? Now factor in other key variables:

Aesthetics; does a green banner do better than a red one, when advertising DVD's? What about Plasma Televisions?

Message; are consumers more apt to click on a strong compelling message or one that is softer, easier (maybe less direct)?

Offer; as we noted above, does free shipping attract more attention than a percent-off offer?

Call to Action; What drives the click behavior? --> Buy Now? Learn More? Take advantage of this offer today? What are you waiting for?

And then there are the use of images, banner types (flash, rich media, video, static) and the banner size.

Now test all of these factors simultaneously! Welcome to MVT, a powerful way of learning more about your consumers and the drivers of online success - more and better leads/sales. According to Forbes, "If you haven't yet applied multivariable testing to your business, get moving.".

Consider leveraging MVT as a means of helping your business deliver more and better conversions, yielding a higher ROI, while lowering your CPA - for your current level of ad spend budget... effectively! MVT offers "real-time data analytics and insights" into consumer clicking and buying behaviors (tm:O3performance). Some MVT vendors include Optimost, Offermatica, 1+X (previously known as Poindexter), SiteSpect and others.

Every advertiser tests - of course they do. However, are they testing effectively?

When an advertiser launches an online media campaign they will monitor their impressions, click throughs, and ultimately conversions - but do they really understand the triggers of success? The behavior of the consumer? Often the answer is no - however they can claim success by reaching their cost-per-acquisition (CPA) targets while maintaining an acceptable ad spend budget (measured by cost-per-millions impressions -CPM) . We believe advertisers can do better - much better by leveraging multi-variant (sometimes called multi-variable) testing - or MVT.

An outlandish claim by the authors of Breakthrough Business Results with MVT, Charles Holland; "...MVT is the greatest business improvement methodology ever devised"

What is MVT? It is the structured ability to test many different variables all at the same time in order to uncover the greatest impacts to your business. In it's very simplest terms - do consumers click your banner because of a Free Shipping or 20% off? Now factor in other key variables:

Aesthetics; does a green banner do better than a red one, when advertising DVD's? What about Plasma Televisions?

Message; are consumers more apt to click on a strong compelling message or one that is softer, easier (maybe less direct)?

Offer; as we noted above, does free shipping attract more attention than a percent-off offer?

Call to Action; What drives the click behavior? --> Buy Now? Learn More? Take advantage of this offer today? What are you waiting for?

And then there are the use of images, banner types (flash, rich media, video, static) and the banner size.

Now test all of these factors simultaneously! Welcome to MVT, a powerful way of learning more about your consumers and the drivers of online success - more and better leads/sales. According to Forbes, "If you haven't yet applied multivariable testing to your business, get moving.".

Consider leveraging MVT as a means of helping your business deliver more and better conversions, yielding a higher ROI, while lowering your CPA - for your current level of ad spend budget... effectively! MVT offers "real-time data analytics and insights" into consumer clicking and buying behaviors (tm:O3performance). Some MVT vendors include Optimost, Offermatica, 1+X (previously known as Poindexter), SiteSpect and others.