Forrester Has My Name and Number Because of Engagement?

Hello brave analysts and marketers out there, have you recently been hearing any of the following comments around the office: “Lets start focusing on measuring visitor engagement. “ or “Can we get an engagement KPI on our dashboards?” or how about this one “Is Time Spent on Site a good indicator of engagement?” (don’t smirk). Well I have heard a lot of buzz about this keyword lately, and although I would love to post about it - I am not really going to touch on the subject of the specifics of measurement here today (if you want to dip into the controversy, please visit Avinash Kaushik’s post “Engagement is Not A Metric, It’s an Excuse” or Eric T. Peterson’s “The Engagement Metric, Defined”). Nope, today we are going to discuss why I registered to become part of Forrester’s database, and also to watch a fun video from Brian Haven from Forrester.

So I was surfing Youtube when I came across Forrester Research section. I will let you get the same experience so please watch the video and take a note of Brian’s experience with Ninetindo’s Wii (it’s only nine minutes, I swear). In the case you can’t see the video properly, please visit A New Approach to Engagement.

Did you watch?... well I will take your word for it. So there is some meaty information there about the challenges and rewards of really sitting down and thinking about what engagement means to your company. So I what I wanted to now know was what is Forrester doing for engagement, and - low and behold - there it was on the homepage and above the fold! They gave me all the reasons why I would give up my email, phone number, martial status, location, job title, and the title to my house (just kidding about the house). Seriously though, it is tough getting a visitor to trust in the value you are offering. And they executed it brilliantly. (Click to Enlarge)

Creating a view of the customer’s relationship with the company and getting to know their behaviors on site is no simple task. But I encourage you to think beyond qualitative data and also start exploring your database. Users are real people who are waiting to engage.

Found the video or the information useful? Let me know what you think about today's post!

A PPC Competition for the Myanmar Cyclone Relief Fund

My good friend over at PPC for Hire challenged me to dust off my pay per click hat and enter Distilled ad copy writing competition. Now even before we get into the topic I would like to say that I am waiting for Distills tools myself, especially the ad strength one. Being a Pay Per Click advertiser you need as many tools you can get to stay ahead of the competition. (if you loved SpyFu your going be writing Distilled love letters :) Ok, so back to the story: Distill is not just having a face off between paid advertisers they are actually raising money for the Myanmar Cyclone Tragedy and trying to get water and water cleansing equipment, along with other supplies to the Myanmar survivors. So how could I say no? Here are the rules if you pick up this blog in time or if you want more information please visit Distill’s Blog:

• Ads need to follow the Google Ads format: 25 characters headline (1st line), 35 characters 2nd line, 35 characters 3rd line
• You can submit up to three ads. However, Make sure you rank your submissions.
• The landing page will be http://www.worldvision.org.uk/.
• Just one bidded keyphrase: ‘Myanmar cyclone appeal’
• The deadline for submissions is this Friday- that’s the 13th June.So below are the ads that I am entering, I will let you know what the outcome is. Let me know what you think, it has been a while since I have generated ads, are they old fashion in style? Is there something about my style you have questions about? Let me know.
  
  {KeyWord:Myanmar Cyclone Relief}
  World Vision, Trusted Experts in
  Relief. Make A Life-Changing Impact
  www.WorldVision.org.uk
  
  Help Aid Myanmar Victims
  Donations Will Provide Water, Food
  & Cleansing Equipment, Spread Hope!
  HelpWorldVision.org.uk
  
  Myanmar Cyclone Aid
  Support the Relief & Recovery Needs
  Of Myanmar Survivors, Get Involved!
  WorldVision.org.UK

360 Degree View On Creating a Landing Page

So I know what your thinking, is there really more than just creating an awesome hero shot, a branded caption, and a slick submit button. Unfortunately, too many marketers believe that if their outbound campaign is so awesome the creative will pre-sell prospects on the offer and user will come flocking to the thank you page, no matter how lame or outdated the landing page is. I believe I know the scenario in why landings pages are often not thought about until the final phases of the marketing campaign. So you’re about to launch a big online marketing campaign, your going to get tons of targeted traffic no matter what, lets even say your did some testing on creative and got the perfect headline, all you have to do is sit back and watch as the money rolls through the door. Sound at all familiar? Maybe not, I am sure you other marketers were way more advanced than me, but for those who didn’t think of what the user was going to do once they got on the landing page, I suggest you read on. There are about six things you insist a user to do:

• Read the awesome content that you paid for ( whether in man hours or to an agency)
• Make them actually do something like type in their name and address with possibility of snail spam
  
• Hand over a phone number so a telemarkter will pester them
• Give their email and take the risk of being spammed again
  
• Dig out a credit card, and possibly risk phishing or fraud ( got to love those credit check commercials)
• Pay or agree for something

And you wondering why landing pages convert in the single digits, and for the some that are in the double digits….KUDOS! For the people who are not there yet, I had the chance to read the holy bible of landing pages, the Marketing Sherpa Landing Page Handbook. The first thing that caught my eye was that you have about 0-8 seconds to convince visitors that the page is really what they were looking for and the most they will read is 15 words, yes 15 words! I will go through the six steps in a series of post here from their suggested guidelines (don’t want to bore you with more below scrolling than necessary, however I will start with step one today. One big mistake is that marketers assume that a landing page can handle two or three different conversion goals without thinking how a user would react to all the spam around the page. I know your saying how hard it to think about what a conversion is, they hit the thank you page and thats that, right and user love our product so it's a win win? Well before you dismiss the definition give it a look through and question exactly what is your motive for the landing page.

#1 -Conversion Definition

1. eCommerce- Adding items to a shopping cart or starting the process

2. Lead Generation- Fillings out registration form (Might include white papers, coupons, price quotes, or trials/samples)

3. Branding Education- Spending time on site or interacting with content

4. Relationship- Opting in to receive communications on an on going basis. (Might include emails, RSS feeds, newsletters)

5. Membership- registering to actively use the site

6. Viral Outreach- Telling personal and professional contacts to refer the landing page

Well that is the list, do you fall and excute a few of these models on your landing pages? I would love to hear your stories, what worked and what didn’t.