Web Design, Development & Online Marketing - Serving the Central and North Texas Markets

Looking for Affluent Men Online

Desiring interaction with affluent men is not just for single women on dating sites!  Marketers are recognizing that men like to shop online.  Although women still influence the majority of buying decisions, men are enjoying the freedom to shop anywhere, anytime on their computer and mobile devices.  This sure beats shopping with your wife/girlfriend and having to hold a purse at the mall while you wait and wait and wait!

I personally can vouch for the trend of men shopping online by even observing my two kids.  My 15 year old son shops on line 90% to my 17 year old daughter's 10% (or less).   (This does not include iTune purchases.) This may indicate future equality across the sexes for marketers' attention.

Men shop online with mobile devices

Marketing Charts published data from a iProspect study that indicated an overwhelming preference among affluent males (70%) to research and buy online as opposed to researching online and purchasing in store, provides unique opportunities for advertisers to capitalize on this audience’s behaviors. And while the majority of purchases are still made on PCs, the affluent male is doing more and more research on mobile devices, making a multi-channel approach necessary. Some details:

• The vast majority (91%) access a PC at least once daily, while 77% have a mobile smartphone and 50% own a tablet.
• Engagement with these devices is high across the board – almost 100% of survey respondents report using their PCs and mobile smartphones at least daily and 85% reporting daily use of tablets.
• When an affluent male has daily access to tablet, he is 32% more likely to have made a purchase via the device.
• In terms of visibility, 71% have seen ads on a PC while one in three has seen ads on a mobile phone or tablet. 

What Marketers Should Do to Reach Affluent Men

This trend trickles down beyond luxury brands and products so all marketers should take note. Your first priority is to have a highly functional MOBILE website.  Viewing your company website on a mobile device can be very frustrating for users and limits conversion and engagement opportunity. From there the focus is on content and visibility as with all your marketing channels.

If you are curious or new help reaching the affluent market or mobilizing your online presence, contact a digital marketing agency for a consultation.  We are here to help and can assess and prioritize a strategy based on your business goals and budget.

Avoiding the “Delete”

Email marketing is getting harder.  By nature, human behavior looks first to sort out the junk whether it’s email or printed mail.  We quickly delete or toss “junk mail” without opening it whether it be digital or printed.

Next we segregate the important from the somewhat interesting.  For email, the interesting may get left in the inbox unopened with good intention on returning to read as other more urgent matters go on top and distract us from good intention.  That “somewhat interesting” subject email gets lost in the clutter never to be read.

Email Subjects that Convert

In a short instance, your email subject line has to do a big job.  It must get attention and convert attention to interest and action by standing out from all the clutter flying through the reader’s inbox.

How can your email be irresistible so it gets read and further action is taken?

The best techniques for email subject lines were revealed by Marketing Experiments webinar today.  The marketing experiments they share with us digital marketing consultants and Internet experts is so valuable.  Here are a few points summarized:

1.   Is the email subject line clear?

It must take zero effort to understand and comprehend the point. .  A couple examples of good lines were:

            Does our landing page pass the test?

            Learn 3 tips that made 10,000 landing pages more successful

2. Is the email subject precise?

Instead of arbitrary meaning like “better way” or “leading method”, try one that guarantees a more factual content than opinion like using “scientific” as in this example :

            A scientific way to improve your email conversion.

3.  Is it concise?

Simply, don’t use more words than are necessary to make the point.

4.  Is it relevant, urgent and important?

Get relevant to target’s problem or desire and add a time-sensitive element so they don’t wait to click through to your message.  Keep the focus on these on the landing page too as you move them down toward action.

5.  Does the subject communicate exclusivity?

Does your subject line have an “only-factor”?  This can be done by using numbers or even a respected brand name or a trusted event/source to elevate exclusivity.

            7 Steps to make your offer irresistible

            WebMD.com top 10 super foods for heart health

            CEO seminar on leadership – bonus ends at 4pm.

6.  Is the subject credible?

Is the promise your subject makes believable or is it too gimmicky or salesy?  The tone should be appropriate.   Make sure the value to the reader is specific.

            Take the test and determine your body age.

Email subject line wisdom

The most basic take-aways in this lesson is: 

Your competition in email marketing is other email subject lines.

Avoid words without meaning.

Keep testing and measuring!

Incremental improvements at each point in your marketing machine are sure to add up to digital marketing success.  Sometimes it may take an outside eye to help you see these simple opportunities.  Reach out to us or another expert who can help you optimize your digital marketing efforts.

Sequencing Copy for Maximum Conversion

Whether its online copywriting or offline, don’t “sell” on your pages.  Rather tell a story to get significantly better results.  This method is referenced from Marketing Experiments.  The case study showed 200%+ conversion improvement using this sequencing process…just by changing the copy. 

Tell a story.  People respond to stories.

Each part of the conversion process is tied to the ideal story progression.  It’s a process of transitions from set up to confrontation & rising action to climax then resolution.  The following will help to outline the structure for your own writing. 

1.  THE HEADLINE   - setup  

The “story” might start with your paid ad, for example, that sets up the promise leading them on the next step to your landing page.

Start with the “why” they may be on your page, what is driving them to look and confirm that in the title and text.

Action/goal:

a.  Attention grabbing headline that will resonate with the target audience

b.  Get them to click through or read on to the next paragraph

 2.  THE SUPPORTING PARAGRAPH/S - confrontation, rising action intensifies

 On your landing page, continue emphasizing the pain/problem you can solve with your very specific value as unique solution.  Several transitions can occur on the landing page.  Keep clarity to the viewer’s level of understanding.

First paragraph  (do NOT skip this):

a.  Where am I

b.  What can I do here

c.  Why should I do it

Body paragraph/s:  (Intensify with these elements now)

Proof  (data)

Benefits (before features)

Features  (only AFTER benefits)

Incentives  (offer)

Urgency   (today, save $200)

All of these can appeal to the external and internal motivators

Example: Boss wants you to gain/solve xyz (external) vs. advance your career by gaining experience leveraging the Internet for lead generation (internal)

3.   CALL TO ACTION  - resolution, climax

The Call to Action is the request for physical action or interaction by the reader.  It can encourage a phone call, a form completion, view a video, add-to-cart and so on. 

The Call-to-Action (CTA) must:

Be VISIBLE

Apply VALUE

Encourage IMMEDIACY

COME IN THE RIGHT TIME IN THOUGHT SEQUENCE

Call to action is presented such as  “Add to cart”, “complete the form”.  But use text in the action buttons that reassure that their action will deliver on the value promise.  Do not put “submit” or “click here”; instead use words to further the promise.  (Ex: “to receive info…”,  “Learn the xyz”, “Get the product to improve your life”, etc….)

Getting started

This is easy and it’s not easy.  As with most things, the hardest part is getting started.  With practice and ongoing experimentation with your web copy writing, the data (analytics) will prove the results of structuring your content for clarity and connection to what the viewer wants.  In doing so, in the right sequence, you will get what you want.

We are uniquely able to help you evaluate and take action on the breadth of factors influencing conversion:  Web design, website development, Internet marketing, driving traffic, conversion tactics, applying business intelligence through data.

We are here to help you achieve great things online.  As for copywriting services:

1.  We can write for you or help guide you (or your designated writers) to ensure you have the greatest opportunity for conversion success with your text & graphics.

2.  We can technically SEO (search engine optimization) your copy so it will gain better visibility on Google and other search engines.

3.  We can strategize a plan for content topics and delivery channels for strong “inbound” marketing.

Contact us today and together we’ll evaluate your most important website pages.

Two features to boost PPC results.

1.  Dynamic Landing Pages for your PPC campaigns!

In order to improve the performance of your PPC campaigns, WSI Local Ad Works now has the ability to dynamically route a potential customer from your PPC ad to the most appropriate page on your website based on the actual search phrase (keywords) used by the searcher. We do this by employing some of the same algorithms used by the search engines to determine the most relevant page for a specific search term.

By way of example, if someone is searching for an 'orthodontist in dallas’, clicking on your ad would take the searcher to the page on your site describing the dentist's orthodontic services. If, on the other hand, someone is searching for a 'teeth whitening center in dallas’, we would take the searcher to the page describing the dentist's cosmetic dentistry services.

If you choose to do this, we will route customers to different pages on your website based on the keyword term. In many cases, this may be the landing page you specify when we set up your campaign.   The options remains to direct all searchers to the landing page you have specified, regardless of search term.  

2.  Keyword Highlighting:

This feature will highlight all occurrences of words used in the search query that appear on the page. This makes it easier for the searcher to quickly see the relevance of your page to the search term they used. For example, if the visitor searched for "SCUBA lessons Dallas" and clicked on your site, all instances of "SCUBA", "LESSONS", and "DALLAS" will be highlighted on your site.

You have 2 options as to how much highlighting you would like displayed on your site.

1) Entry Page Only - This option means that the search terms will only be highlighted on the first page the visitor hits, and all subsequent pages will not be highlighted.

2) All - will keep highlighting on for all pages that are part of your site.

A wireframe is the foundational starting point of where to start thinking about how a web page is going to convert the customer from a visit into a prospect to generate revenue.  It is often surprising to hear how little emphasis is put on creating a visual wireframe of a web page before thinking about the creative design. 

The Concept

Would you build a house without having blue prints?  I certainly hope not.  The same applies when thinking about how you are going to build a web page.  A wireframe is essentially your blue print for designing a page and formulating the ‘flow’ of your customers on the page.

The Goal

The goal of any web page is to convert visitors into customers.  The first step in the process is to think about the customers goal of the page.

The clearest way to achieve your page’s objective is to clearly define 3 answers for your customer.

1.)  Where am I?

2.)  What can I do here?

3.)  Why should I do it?

Next start thinking about what the customer’s primary objective is.  Is it to have the customer call a phone number?  Purchase a product? Sign up for a demo?  If you haven’t defined what your customer needs to do what makes you think they know what to do?

The Strategy

The strategy of wire framing the layout of the site comes directly from the goals you have defined above.  For instance if you know the primary goal is to have your customer signup for a free demonstration then every call to action on the page needs to lead the customer to this conclusion.  If designing a landing page for one specific product avoid having more than 1 call to action if possible. 

Rule of thumb is you have about 7 seconds to capture the attention of a visitor.  If they have too many options and too many things to think about they will bounce off the page.  Keeping one clear goal in mind for the visitor to accomplish will result in much higher conversion rates.

The How

One of the best free wire framing tools I have found online is www.Cacoo.com which offers free membership for creating professional looking wireframes and allows easy sharing options.

Once a clear strategy has been defined and a wireframe of the layout has been created it can easily be passed on to the creative team to make look elegant and beautiful.

If you haven't had a chance yet to learn about WSI's amazing Online Business console, WSI EFusion, I suggest you take a look at a quick demo here.

WSI EFusion is an amazing platform to enhance any online business and help you keep track of your leads, manage your own website, create custom modules, and much much more to help increase your internet marketing strategy.

July 2011 Enhancements

Modules within Modules

WSI EFusion has many different modules built-in including Blogs, Photo Galleries, Webforms, Custom Web App modules, and many others. Now we are bringing the ability to include a module within a different module. IE. the ability to include a photo gallery within a blog post, or insert ANY module into a Web App. This will allow for extreme customization of the tools built into WSI EFusion. We have also include a Module Manager into the WYZYWYG for easy access to add in modules.

Device Specific Templates

We continue to help enhance the ability to provide the best access to your website no matter what device your site is being viewed on whether it's a desktop/laptop, smart phone, or a tablet. WSI EFusion now includes a two extra versions of every sitewide template, one for smart phones and one for tablets. When EFusion detects what device you are on, you have the ability to have a mobile version of your site and tablet version of your site to direct them too. This will greatly enhance the user experience of your website.

SEO Friendly URLs for Web Apps

One of the most powerful tools of WSI EFusion is the ability to create your own custom web app. Web Apps are extremely powerful and let you create custom modules for your website with no additional programming charges. We are now excited to say that WSI EFusion has the ability to have a custom SEO friendly URL. For instance: http://www.yoursite.com/webapp-name/webapp-item-name This will let you have complete control of the URL. Let's say you use a Web App for a real estate website for homes located in Dallas Texas. Your Web App for each home can now be http://www.yoursite.com/Dallas-Texas/Homes-In-Plano and this can be modified however you see fit!

July 2011 release

The new update will be taking place on July 6th, 2011 at 11:00AM CST. The deployment time will take a few hours, but there will be no major disruptions to service during this time.

We'll keep you posted!

Consumer behavior is changing and social media enables companies to keep right up-to-date with their clients' requirements as well as allow satisfied clients to spread the word about their products and services. Social media advertising can be a great asset in the business world for lead generation, brand recognition and real time market research, but it is important that your campaigns are run in an effective manner. Knowing and understanding how these techniques augment communication and provide new ways to build trust in your products and services by enhancing your online reputation is critical to your social media success. In our upcoming webinar "Integrate Social Media with Your Sales Process: 6 Steps to Fill Up Your Sales Funnel" will cover the following topics:

• How social media is enhancing the process of relationship selling

• Why it is important to embrace social techniques to enhance your sales process

• Six steps that should be employed to create an effective online sales process that will convert browsers into buyers

These six steps should be employed to create an effective online sales process that will convert browsers into buyers. Registration details are below:

Topic: Integrate Social Media with Your Sales Process: 6 Steps to Fill Up Your Sales Funnel
Date: Thursday, July 7, 2011 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT
Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/453756160

Understanding Social Media strategy is important but if you don’t know where to apply this understanding then it won’t be useful to your company. There are tons of Social Media Networking sites available for any and everyone to join and it can be over whelming when trying to figure out which ones are applicable to you.

Focus.com created a list of the top 50 social sites every business needs to have a presence on. In this post we only list the first 3 in each category.

Social Bookmarking Sites
Reddit: Upload stories and articles on reddit to drive traffic to your site or blog. Submit items often so that you'll gain a more loyal following and increase your presence on the site.
Digg: Digg has a huge following online because of its optimum usability. Visitors can submit and browse articles in categories like technology, business, entertainment, sports and more.
Del.icio.us: Social bookmark your way to better business with sites like del.icio.us, which invite users to organize and publicize interesting items through tagging and networking.

Professional-Networking Sites
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a popular networking site where alumni, business associates, recent graduates and other professionals connect online.
Ecademy: Ecademy prides itself on "connecting business people" through its online network, blog and message-board chats, as well as its premier BlackStar membership program, which awards exclusive benefits.
Focus: Focus is a business destination where business professionals can help each other with their purchase and other business decisions by accessing research and peer expertise. Most importantly, Focus provides open, quality information for all businesses that is freely available, easily accessible, and community powered

General Social Media Sites
Wikipedia: Besides creating your own business reference page on Wikipedia, you can connect with other users on Wikipedia's Community Portal and at the village pump, where you'll find conscientious professionals enthusiastic about news, business, research and more.
Newsvine: Feature top employees by uploading their articles, studies or other news-related items to this site. A free account will also get you your own column and access to the Newsvine community.
43 Things: This site bills itself as "the world's most popular online goal setting community." By publicizing your company's goals and ambitions, you'll gain a following of customers, investors and promoters who cheer you on as you achieve success.

Job Sites
CareerBuilder.com: Reach millions of candidates by posting jobs on this must-visit site.
The Wall Street Journal's CareerJournal: The Wall Street Journal's CareerJournal attracts well-educated professionals who are at the top of their game. Post a job or search résumés here.
CollegeRecruiter.com: If your firm wants to hire promising entry-level employees, check CollegeRecuriter.com for candidates with college degrees.

Most companies know of the top three social sites Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but others can be equally, if not more effective for your business based on what you are wanting to accomplish. It’s important to know your goals of using social media for your brand before just jumping in, with that understanding you will be able to pick the right social platforms for maximum results. Still confused? Contact your WSI Consultant today to get your questions answered.

Just like everything else these days online marketing is going mobile. As smart phones become cheaper and more popular, people are finding themselves using their phones and tablets more and more to do their internet searching. Especially when searching for things locally. How many times have you needed to find a restaurant and pulled your phone out to search for directions?

Mobile Phone Usage is Exploding

According to CISCO mobile phone usage is going to DOUBLE by 2012 and TRIPLE by 2013. Sounds like a mobile marketing strategy needs to be developed now.

Have you ever Googled something on your phone and seen different search results then Googling on a PC? That's because Google knows your on a mobile device and wants to deliver the best results for you on the go. Thus they emphasize and rank higher those sites that are mobile friendly and have higher 'mobile ranking' because of Google Places, Local Reviews, etc.

A websites mobile traffic is averaging around 10%, but from personal experience I have seen mobile traffic double during holidays and high traffic times because people are using their phones while on the go as they travel. That's 20% of your traffic, or 1 out of every 5 people vising your site. You might think "Well but 4 out of 5 people still visit us on a computer, so do we really need a mobile strategy?" Remember it's 20%. If you grew your annual revenue by 20% would that be a pretty big deal? I think we all can say yes.

Creating a Mobile Marketing Strategy

Even before we get to the mobile marketing aspects of things, you first need to make sure your website is 'Mobile Friendly'. What we typically see is a 'watered down' version of a website when visiting a mobile website because people want to quickly aspect the most important things to them. This typically leans toward your contact information, directions, phone number, email address etc. People want these things fast, so when thinking about your mobile website keep in mind people will be accessing your site from a phone or tablet for fast information.

So don't use large images, videos, flash etc. Straight forward HTML and CSS can easily get people to what they are looking for on your site.

Start by creating a sitemap of your mobile site, just like you would your regular website. Except ask yourself what would I want to access on my website in 2 minutes or less if I were coming here for quick information?

Now this doesn't mean to exclude critical aspects of your website, but keep in mind your traffic is coming from a smaller screen and wanting the information more quickly.

Optimizing Your Mobile Website

Your mobile website can be optimized like any other site by using good practices of keyword friendly Meta Tags, Title Tags, and SEO friendly URLs. But more importantly to be found on a mobile search is how many LOCAL sites you are listed in. Remember, Google is ranking you based on it being a local search 99% of the time. The more prominent you are on local review sites will be a great improvement towards your mobile SEO rankings. A good place to start would be Google Places, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Super Pages, Four Square, etc.

Your Mobile Marketing Strategy

If you are unsure how to start your mobile marketing plan, feel free to contact us today for a free consultation review of your internet marketing strategy. You can also read our White Paper regarding mobile phone metrics here.