Darren Contardo's Netrepreneur

What do my customers want?

Ever wonder what attributes, benefits or claims are perceived as valuable for your customers? Without knowing you could spend a lot of money bringing a product or service to market that is of little value. For example, say you have a online store and you think that your advanced search feature is what people want, it's what makes your online store unique, etc. The reality is though, that's what YOU think is important. Your customer make think that an email with the invoice and tracking number immediately after the purchase is the most valuable thing to them.

How do you know what's important? What's valuable? Here's a hint: ask them! Put an online poll (websitegear.com) or an online survey (surveymonkey.com) on your website and ask them what they want. They'll tell you and you can spend more time on what matters to them. Give them what they want and YOU GET THE MONEY!

Personas or Personalities?

So what's the difference? Is there one? You know that you should be using Persona-based Scenario Design, but what does that mean? Are personas personalities? Well, not exactly. Think of a persona as an actor. The actor plays a specific character, say Charlie. Charlie is a 32 year-old Account Executive that makes $65,000 per year at an Interactive Agency. Charlie doesn't have any kids, is single, and works like a dog. He's concerned with furthering his skill of personal selling and negotiating and comes to your website looking for educational material he can learn from. This is a PERSONA. Now, Charlie may have a distinct personality trait. If you're familiar with the Meyers-Briggs personality profiling or even Dr. Robert Rohm's DISC method, then you understand what I mean. If not, let me explain. You can further design your website and customize your copy to appeal to different personality types. For example:

People can fall within four different categories.

1. People Oriented / Outgoing
2. Task Oriented / Outgoing
3. People Oriented / Reserved
4. Task Oriented / Reserved

The word "DISC" stands for -

" D " - Dominant/ Driver or Fast-Paced and Task-Oriented

" I " - Influencing/ Inspiring or Fast-Paced and People-Oriented

" S " - Stable/ Steady or Slower-Paced and People-Oriented
" C " - Compliant/ Correct or Slower-Paced and Task-Oriented   

The "D": The Dominant type - An outgoing, task-oriented
individual will be focused on getting things done,
accomplishing tasks, getting to the bottom line as quickly
as possible and MAKING IT HAPPEN! (The key insight
in developing a relationship with this type person is
RESPECT and RESULTS.)

The "I": The Inspiring type - An outgoing, people-oriented
individual loves to interact, socialize and have fun. This
person is focused on what others may think of him or
her. (The key insight in developing a relationship with this
type person is ADMIRATION and RECOGNITION.)

The "S": The Supportive type - A reserved, people-oriented
individual will enjoy relationships, helping or supporting
other people and working together as a team. (The key
insight in developing a relationship with this person is
FRIENDLINESS and SINCERE APPRECIATION.)

The "C": The Cautious type - A reserved, task-oriented
individual will seek value, consistency and quality
information. This person focuses on being correct and
accurate. (The key insight in developing a relationship
with this individual is TRUST and INTEGRITY.)

Now as you can see, you would use different copy and images to relate to each personality and your different personas, in this case Charlie. So if Charlie was a "D" I would write my copy as such:

"Accelerate your career and start earning more money today! Our world-renowned personal selling and negotiating course will help you close more deals immediately and increase your bottom line".

Show Your Artistic Side

Being artistic is a gift. Being creative is something we all are, but don't like to admit is sometimes due to the fact that we've been beaten down over the years with reality to be "normal". Anyway, I'm not going to go off on that topic, but what I thought needed some attention is Artists.

Why Artists? Well, my girlfriend is an Artist and I've been hard at work figuring out what best suite of tools will be best suited to her needs. You know, show off the porfolio, simple to navigate, generate interest in her work, lead generation, commerce enabled, SEO friendly, easy to manage for content, etc. Sound famaliar?

Well, I test drove a number of solutions and discovered that if you want the best, sometimes you have to pay for it. Check out the Site that was built with the porfolio tool: CrystalKoskinen.com.

It's also a great tool for photographers too!

This is the priority of

This is the priority of the way people view your information on a web page. From EyeTrack III.

What the heck is everyone

What the heck is everyone looking at on my Site?

Well that depends on your structure your Site, but the Poynter Institute can tell you how people look at your Site. This study of new age consumer behavior yields some great insight on how to organize your images, copy, and yes, that right...your call to action.

http://www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/viewing.htm

Eye movement on a web

Eye movement on a web page? 

Home Page Design When figuring

Home Page Design When figuring out how to design your homepage, usability and convention should dominate. According to Jakob Nielson (usability Guru), here are some things to look for:

1. Search Box on the top right side
2. Your company's logo on the top left side
3. Global navigation on the top of your banner or table (organized by content groups)
4. Local navigation on the left side (organized alpha-numerically)
5. Main feature or focus on the middle-left side of the page (people read in a Z formation online)
6. Major content groups on the home page in the middle to bottom right of the page (end of the Z formation), this acts as your storefront/brochure
7. Change your homepage as much as possible. Well, just change the content, not the template

Here a couple of things that I'd recommend as well:

1. Use HTML links to other sections of your website that are keyword based to help your page rank and organic search rankings
2. Don't make the homepage a heavy download. If it takes more than 3 seconds to download the page you've just lost a lot of your audience. They don't have the attention span for much more.
3. Look at your internal search reports to see what people are searching for. That will yield some insight as to what to include on your home page so people don't have to search for it.

Customer Motivation Online Designing an

Customer Motivation Online Designing an online store is really all about focusing on customer goals. Usability, scnenario analysis, conversion, etc. These are all terms used for the science of getting a customer to the ultimate goal of purchasing your product or service. So let's define the customer experience online and how to make it a bit more structured:

The customer experience is the sum of the tasks and objectives carried out on the site. The motivation is temporary (usually 72 hours) and really compels the customer to carry out the tasks to reach their objective or goal.

Let's take a look at an example:
Customer has a specific motivation (i.e. to become more attractive)

Task 1: Search for cool shirts
Task 2: Sort by customer rating
Goal 1: Find popular product

Task 3: Read review and compare prices
Goal 2: Buy the most flattering shirt for them

Buy understanding customer goals with your website, you can prioritize, organize, and truely identify content that will help your customers achieve their goals and satisfy their motivation.

If you want a good example of a Site that does exact thing, go to futureshop.ca (Canadian electronics retailer).

Drive Your Online Sales with

Drive Your Online Sales with Landing Pages... You've probably heard somewhere that PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is great at driving revenue...you've probably also heard that banner ads aren't that affective, but good for awareness. Quite honestly that's true, but only half-true. What's the other half? Landing Pages!

Landing pages are the web pages your prospect lands on from the ad they just clicked on.

- PPC Ad (i.e. Google Adword) >>> Landing Page >>> Your Website
- Banner Ad >>> Landing Page >>> Your Website

So why Landing Pages? Simply put, they're relevant, they continue the communication, and they are trackable. Landing pages also work for email marketing, direct mail to web, you name it! Anything that has a unique message or offer can leverage landing pages. I recently sat in on a Digital Marketing Conference and had the privelege of hearing the owner of ICE.com talk about his 100 different home pages he has running simultaneously. 100?! My thought initially was 'this guy likes to create work for himself', but after he explained his rationale it started to make sense. Basically, he said that PPC and his links from other websites are so critical to the success of his business that what the customer sees arriving on the homepage from a search term better be there to drive the sale or else they're gone!

So, if you want to increase your conversion rates on your PPC, Banner Ads, and links from other websites, spend most of your energy on your landing page...it will be well worth it. For more information on landing pages, check out grokdotcom (they're conversion experts).

Notice how they just ask

Notice how they just ask for the email only. Not too intrusive and quite friendly. Once you fill it in, you are directed to a page where you can fill more information in and subscribe. Brilliant!