Transcript 10 Great Myths of the Internet - Direct Marketing Club of New York

10 Great Myths
of the Internet
Amy Africa, [email protected]
Sponsored by Merit Direct * October 4, 2007
High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web
Today’s Agenda…
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Shopping Carts
Navigation
Entry Pages
E-mail (Thrust and Trigger)
NCASE
Web 2.0
Statistics and more…
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Myth #1:
A good shopping
cart abandonment
rate is 10% or less.
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A good AR is about 60%.
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If you don’t have about 60% – you aren’t selling hard enough
How do you get more of them?
 Key metrics:
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Unique visitors to carts
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Cart to completed orders
How to convert them:
 Clean, efficient checkout with temperature bar
 Limited distractions
Capture E-mail Address (#1 technique)
Use aggressive converting techniques
 Pop-ups
 E-mails
 Telemarketing
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Myth #2:
E-mail is free.
You should mail
everyone & everything
every single time.
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It’s all about deliverability.
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Factors that are important in e-mail
 Content
 Segmentation
 Deliverability
 Format – #2 most underestimated factor
 From address
 Personalization, including the “to” address
 Subject line
 First two lines of your e-mail
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Myth #3:
It’s 2007. People
know how to find
stuff online.
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Navigation is a selffulfilling prophecy.
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Largest determinant of a site’s success. Period.
What type of navigation?
 C Navigation: Top/Left/Bottom Navigation
Consider other types of navigation
 Problem/Solution
If something is important you need to showcase it
more than once
Your navigation should be so solid that the user never
relies on text search
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Myth #4:
Text search is a
good thing. Every
site should have it.
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Text search = abandons.
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Text search is a necessary evil…. Sometimes!
People search differently
 Men
 Women
If you have to do it – do it right:
 Get a good program
 If you do it yourself:
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Populate effective Thesaurus and Spelling options
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Respond on failed searches
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Pop-ups
Emails
Live Chat
Monitor results
 Track what people are looking for
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Myth #5:
Your home page is
the most important
page on your site.
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Entry pages are the most
important pages.
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Develop strong pages for all major category, product
lines and products
 Supports all marketing programs
• PPC, Organics and Alternates
• Email Marketing
• Hubs
It is the first page many people see – make a good
impression so they bounce
Not every page needs to be an entry page, in fact, most
shouldn’t
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Myth #6:
Your site should
change once a
week, preferably
on Monday.
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Sites should change based
on traffic patterns.
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Look at repeat visitors
Change only the things that will make a
difference, don’t change just to change
Do not change the C
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Myth #7:
When it comes to the
web, aesthetics
matter the most.
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Aesthetics often matter
the least…
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Contrary to popular belief, websites are all
about functionality
SEM doesn’t consider “pretty”
Users see things on the web in visuals
Search Engines see things in text
Design for the view
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Myth #8:
You don’t need
organics when you
have PPC.
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PPC is a right-hand
column function
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Organics convert better and they
typically have higher LTP
Develop a program for alternates
Use data feeds
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Myth #9:
Web 2.0 is THE
killer application.
If you aren’t using
it, you’re an idiot.
High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web
Most companies aren’t
even at web .05!
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Web 2.0 (in this context social networking)
 Very expensive
 Not masking the original problems of a site
 Adding community to your site may be the kiss
of death if you don't have good navigation and
structure for your website.
Do the basics very well – then you can move
to next level
High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web
Myth #10:
You need the latest
and greatest
technology to
market on the web.
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It’s all about the basics…
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You should know what’s inside the box before you
think out of it.
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Solid navigation
Great product presentation
Standard formatting
Leading people to the sale
Intuitive checkout
Understanding of stats
Email Capture
Trigger and Thrust email programs
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Myth #11:
Offline is the major
driver of online
business.
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The web is the main driver
of incremental business…
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Most companies are living in the offline
world – so it’s self-fulfilling
Companies are not allocating the resources
to the web
 Marketing dollars
 Manpower
 Technical innovation
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Myth #12:
Statistical packages
are over 90% accurate
and will help you
make good, solid
decisions.
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Truth is, they’re about
55% accurate.
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What is important to look at?
 Unique Traffic -- New and Repeat and by Source
 AAUS – Active Average User Session
 Critical usage pages -- entry/exit/most popular pages
Search Stats
Key Benchmarks
 Unique visitors/Carts
 Carts/Completed Orders
 Checkout Funnel
Email Sign-ups
Trends are more important than the stats
High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web
Thank You!
High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web