Examples Of What’s Working Now

Yesterday I shared a list of things that we found to work, and things we had difficulty in the past 6 months getting to work well.

Today I want to focus on what it’s taking to get people to respond on your website. You know, there was a day when you could slap up a website with an opt-in box or order form and you’d get a ton of response without any attention paid to design, copy, or the offer itself. Bad marketers could make things happen as much as the good marketers.

These days, you better be on top of your game, and really focus on details to get people to respond.

We’ve found that in a majority of the markets where we’ve worked, the traditional landing page has simply stopped working. I think the landing page as we’ve been taught has reached such a critical mass, that people now are hip to what these pages are for, and know that they aren’t really getting anything for nothing and will be asked to buy something sooner or later.

What we’ve started working on are multi-page mini-sites with offers on each page. (To see an example, go to: http://kinkadedreamscollection.com/)

In many cases, we’re finding that people are not only responding to these sites, they are spending several minutes on the site, reading, viewing, and listening to the information that’s being presented. (Prospects on the Kinkade site spend and average of 5 minutes)

It seems that the best approach is to give them a lot of quality information up front, give them the ability to click around a bit, and keep a consistent offer in front of them that appeals to exactly what they want.

Also, we’re finding that the traditional follow-up campaign to an email lead is pretty much worthless. What we’ve done is still have that as part of our follow-up, but we’ve added in a phone call to the lead (so capture phone numbers!) and cut through all the hype and get right to their pressing question. (Here is a good example of a site that get’s the name and phone number to get a follow up call.)

This seems to work well because not many online marketers will do this, or have the capability. The personal connection and attention are things people miss online, and will respond to when used without being pushy.

We’re also seeing some success by putting up inbound 1-800 numbers, getting them to skip the opt-in and get right to a sales associate. This is especially true for service businesses, and businesses at a local level (which means you can geo-target and used local numbers instead of 1-800 numbers).

Getting back to the websites, we’ve noticed that design, color, and layout - which previously had little affect - now make all the difference in the world. I used to say pretty websites don’t sell - I’m beginning to change my mind, but….

You better put good copy and offers on that pretty site. (One more bonus, click here to see how we’ve made pretty and copy work.) All the pizazz in the world won’t sell squat unless you spend a lot of time connecting to your visitor with well-written, concise copy with a drop-everything-you-are-doing offer. Even though we have to step up on the design, we got to REALLY step up on creating great offers and writing world-class copy.

It’s still possible to get people to respond, but you better be on your game to keep the flow going in this economy.

Filed under Rants by Bob Regnerus