John Thyfault, Vice President, Search Engine and Social Media Marketing for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., will be teaching a live online Web UX and Usability workshop for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California.

Web UX and Usability Workshop: Maximizing Visitor ROI from Your Site

(Wednesday, February 13, 2019. 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Standard Time)

Once you’ve driven the traffic to your site, are you maximizing the value of it for your visitors? Too many sites have been developed over the years without a good, clear plan that leads visitors to what they are looking for.

What you’ll learn:

• Understand what you want your site to accomplish and how the user’s interaction with the site is tied into this
• Understand how your content informs your site design
• How you should optimize your site for mobile
• Setting up a testing and optimization program
• Finding the right tools to aid in the testing
• Understand the advantages and challenges of user panels, eye tracking and interaction tracking
• How to improve your site usability on a low budget

Learn more

About the DMAnc (www.DMAnc.org)

The DMA of Northern California was formed to educate, inform and provide networking opportunities for Direct and Online Marketing professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We hold monthly luncheon meetings, workshops, periodic half-day seminars, and provide opportunity for the best in learning and job networking in the Northern California marketing community.

About Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. We provide services in inbound and outbound marketing including: content creation, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), print advertising, social media advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), website design, media planning/public relations, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. We help clients in both B2B and B2C marketing and are privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb of Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go here.

For help with your e-commerce site implementation and marketing, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., can help! Get a free consultation.

Find case studies and white papers at https://beasleydirect.com/resources/white-papers.

The post Join John Thyfault, Vice President, Search Engine and Social Media Marketing for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., in a Web UX and Usability Workshop for Maximizing Visitor ROI from Your Site appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

The Direct Marketing Association of Northern California (DMAnc) and Online Marketing Institute (OMI) are offering a Live Online Certification Workshop in Website Usability Training this coming December 1st.

Web Usability: Maximizing the Visitors to Your Site

(Friday, December 1st, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Standard Time)

Once you’ve driven the traffic to your site, are you maximizing the value of it for your visitors? Too many sites have been developed over the years without a good, clear plan that leads visitors to what they are looking for. Learn more.

About the DMAnc (www.DMAnc.org)

The DMA of Northern California was formed to educate, inform and provide networking opportunities for Direct and Online Marketing professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We hold monthly luncheon meetings, workshops, periodic half-day seminars, and provide opportunity for the best in learning and job networking in the Northern California marketing community.

For More Information, Contact:

Laurie Beasley
Chair, DMAnc
President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.
408-782-0046 x21
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

Improve your website landing pages, learn more.

The post Website Usability Training Certification Workshop Offered in December by the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Electronic media is easy to track. However, it’s unforgiveable not to know how your marketing efforts are performing and how hard your dollars are working. This is especially true when it comes to landing page testing and analysis for performance.

As with any medium, you need to track not only how many people clicked to the page but how many registered. Then you need to track how many of those turned into leads and ultimately sales. A low initial response may still pay for itself with high conversions for a high ticket product or service. If you use outbound telemarketing to support your campaigns, that should be factored in as well. Conversions from these calls are typically higher when the prospect remembers seeing the campaign and/or the telesales rep can refer them to it while they’re on the phone.

What to include in Landing Page Testing

Here are some of the landing page components worth testing (see example below):

• First, the Offer (always our top testing recommendation)
• Headline (will benefit win over pain point?)
• Primary graphics (user imagery vs your offer vs your product, perhaps)
• Form fields (both how many and what information is requested)
• Call to action (including the design and text in your button)
• Long vs short copy (short usually wins, but not always)
• Testimonials (whether to use, placement, one quote vs another)
• Guarantees, third party validation through reviews or seals of approval
• Social sharing icons (these can generate additional leads, but they can also cause web visitors to click away from your landing page before registering)

A/B and Multivariate Testing

You can test landing page elements one at a time with A/B testing (50% of your readers see the “A” page, 50% see the “B” page), or use multivariate testing to swap out elements according to an algorithm until the best performing landing page emerges. Then, because audiences and market conditions are constantly changing, continue to test over time.

Ask Us!

Ask us for a FREE critique of the landing pages for your current campaign. We’ll review them against landing page testing best practices, congratulate you for the things you’re doing right, and give you tips if appropriate to make your landing pages work even harder. To get started, fill out our contact form.

The post How to Conduct Landing Page Testing and Analysis for Performance. appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Once upon a time, every landing page had a fill-in form. Even when marketers had good information about a customer, the landing page was a good opportunity to confirm and update it. If you have marketing automation, then with return visitors you won’t need a form because you can identify the prospect through other means. Those means include web cookies, or the landing page is part of a larger nurture process. Further, with a form you need form optimization to maximize conversion rates.

Landing Page Form Optimization Best Practices

Sometimes forms are unavoidable, as when you’re marketing to a cold list. Or, collecting leads from a source that does not have good data appended. Here are a few best practices you can use for web form optimization. See the NetApp and Safe-Step examples below. They will make using the form as painless as possible for the user, and increase your form conversion rate:

• Keep the form short. Ask only for “must know” vs “nice to know” information. Be aware that with each additional field a certain percentage of your audience will abandon the form. Is it worth it to get minor and perhaps useless data?
• The most important information is almost always first name, last name and email. Once you’ve got those facts you can follow up the conversation by email.
• If your white paper or other offer will be fulfilled by email, make that clear in the copy. This will motivate the user to make sure their email is current and correct.
• Only ask for phone number if absolutely necessary, since many people will consider that an invasion of privacy and/or an invitation for a salesperson to harass them. Many people will submit a fake or switchboard number as a result.

Form Design

• Be sure your forms are designed for easy integration with your CRM or other database, and that information will flow there automatically.
• Position benefit copy very close to the form, so the prospect is reminded of the reward for completing it.
• High-value offers can justify longer forms, since the prospect is willing to make a greater commitment in return for a bigger payoff.
• Start your form on the first screen reveal, so visitors can see it’s there.
• Include a privacy statement on your registration page to reassure prospects that their information will not be used inappropriately. Forms are scary. Verbiage such as “We will only use your email address to send what you requested” or “We will never sell or share your information with third parties without your permission” will significantly increase conversions.
• Program the form page so data is captured as they go, so if readers accidentally hit the “back” button their data is not lost.

Form Optimization Best Practices Examples:

(click images to expand)





Learn more about landing page best practices to increase your leads and sales.

Author



Laurie B. Beasley

Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. We are a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, and demand generation campaigns for nearly 100 companies. Ms. Beasley serves as President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. Laurie manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern California. She also instructs online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institute. Ms. Beasley frequently speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, AMA, Tech Council, and the Online Marketing Summit.

Our agency brings the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. The company provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. We help clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

The post How to Optimize Forms for Your Landing Page. appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

]]> https://beasleydirect.com/landing-page-form-optimization/feed/ 0 https://beasleydirect.com/best-practices-for-landing-pages/ https://beasleydirect.com/best-practices-for-landing-pages/#respond Tue, 22 Aug 2017 15:00:01 +0000 https://beasleydirect.com/?p=6071 What Are Creative Best Practices for Landing Pages? Designing and writing a landing page is like setting a trap for your prospect, in a nice way. You want to entice them in, encourage them to go deeper, and once they’re inside make it virtually impossible to get out without taking the desired action. Direct the […]

The post Creative Best Practices for Landing Pages: Plus the all-important OFFER appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

]]> What Are Creative Best Practices for Landing Pages?

Designing and writing a landing page is like setting a trap for your prospect, in a nice way. You want to entice them in, encourage them to go deeper, and once they’re inside make it virtually impossible to get out without taking the desired action.

Direct the prospect through creative design:

• Match the colors, font and other design elements of the ad that got them here so they know they’ve come to the right place. (This isn’t always relevant; for instance Google AdWords Text Ads are all text, so no formatting.)
• Use eyeflow design to pull the reader to one key image (usually a depiction of the offer) and place call to action copy next to it as soon as they reach the page.
• Repeat the call to action multiple times so it’s easy to respond when they’re ready.

Copy should be brief, but compelling:

• Be BRIEF in describing the offer, especially if they’ve already read about it in an ad or email that caused them to click through. Repeating what they already know will lull them to sleep or, more likely, bore them so they’ll click away.
• If it’s free, say so, multiple times. Repeat the selling proposition that brought them here. If you’re fulfilling Google AdWords ads, consider matching headlines to the keywords in the ad.


The Nomadic Systems landing page copies the design and color palette of the Nomadic website home page. But, omits internal links which would allow a curious prospect to click away without registering.

• Use bullets if you have room to highlight the benefits of the offer they’re about to accept. This is often done in a sidebar so it doesn’t get in the way of core selling content.
• Use benefit/reward language in buttons such as “Get my FREE report” vs just “SUBMIT”.
• Include testimonials and guarantees to reassure that there’s absolutely no negative consequence to taking the desired action.

And about that all-important OFFER:

You absolutely need an offer on your landing page because you’ve agreed to a quid pro quo. You’re going to “reward” people for their time in learning your selling proposition. Landing pages without offers are destined to be very poor conversion vehicles which don’t come close to paying for themselves.

An informational offer is usually the best way to incent people for business-to-business lead generation landing pages. These readers need information to do their jobs properly, so give it to them in the form of white papers, third party analysis, webinars, videos, fact sheets or all the above (since you never know what informational format is most appealing to a given audience). An info offer should actually be informative. Don’t promise a fact kit or industry analysis, and instead load them up with sales material.

“Freebie” offers include actual merchandise giveaways, either directly or through entrance in a sweepstakes. These are far less prevalent than they were at one time, because they tend to produce many unqualified leads (who responded for the giveaway, not because they are interested in your product). However, there are exceptions to every rule and a high-value offer, carefully targeted, will cause the right prospect to go to considerable lengths to get the reward.

Limited time offers should be used in addition to, not instead of, other offers. Especially if it’s a merchandise offer, the sense of urgency in a temporary discount or a today-only add-on item will give prospects a reason to make a decision. Even if it’s a webinar, you can let people know attendance is limited, first come, first served; if it’s an analyst paper perhaps you have authorization to distribute only a certain number and no more.

Author



Laurie B. Beasley

Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. We are a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, and demand generation campaigns for nearly 100 companies. Ms. Beasley serves as President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. Laurie manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern California. She also instructs online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institute. Ms. Beasley frequently speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, AMA, Tech Council, and the Online Marketing Summit.

Our agency brings the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. The company provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. We help clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

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