eROI NYC Interactive Agency

“Let’s get conversions!” they cheer from the cliffs and huts of the village. We hear it everyday. How do we increase conversion rates? No matter the vertical or the offer the answer is simple. Provide value….be compelling. I converted myself on an offer this weekend so I thought it relevant to share. And perhaps bring you some value. First, remember that everyone is competing for eyeballs both online and offline….what the internet provides is interaction with the brand….eyeballs plus action so that to me is the goal. Let’s go through the steps of my recent conversion.

Step 1: I received the below email. Delivery time Friday 4:45pm…Subject Line: Happy Valentine’s Day from eMusic…the offer: Here is a gift for you. How curious and tempting right. I am fan of the “Unwrap it now” call to action as well. Visually the creative is decent. I have issue with the header navigation. I know the old “best practice” hand book has a chapter on this but in this case I say let the V Day offer stand alone. Its going out to existing users and its a conceptual event driven offer. Nav in the email is just not necessary in this case. But alas the offer was compelling so I clicked.

Step 2: I was routed to a landing page and was auto played a short Flash Video. The video was good I suppose. Not to intrusive but not that big of a WOW factor. It works though as it is an offer for existing users. The action isnt to forward this. So the video is short and the song is too which is nice. The end state of the video plugged the offer and below the vid there is a link explaining the gift….5 free downloads.

Step 3: I clicked the redem button and was on the home page ready to log in.  So now I am here….logged in with free stuff to use. I noticed something I liked on the home page (see below)….I read about the artist…then downloaded her whole album. The experience was so good I searched again and downloaded another album. I pay for 35 songs a month and used almost all of them in this one session.

So I interacted and had a brand positive experience in just three clicks.  There are a couple reasons I like this besides the fact that it brought value.  For these kinds of sites and services its important to remember that sometimes your users forget they are even a part of the community. I know I do sometimes…I have lost my downloads a few times because it just slips my mind that I have them waiting for me there. While it may seem like it doesn’t matter if I use my downloads or not as E-Music will make their money anyway I contend that it means everything. They need to show that people use their service so they can intern sign more artists and labels to get an even broader audience. So this offer is relevant, compelling, it brings value and encourages interaction. Good job E Music. Still a fan. Here’s a sample of what I found…pretty sweet…the drop at 0:49 seconds in is ridiculous. Enjoy

Last week I was invited to speak at Scholastic publishing in Soho. As i mentioned on twitter I kept a look out for one Mr. Potter but saw neither he nor Clifford roaming the halls. I was asked to speak for 20 minutes about optimizing landing pages. Wow. So many things to say so little time. I racked my brain trying to figure out a way to provide value to these people while still trying to come up with something new and relevant. What makes this a difficult topic is that Landing pages, and the things that make them successful, just like everything else on the internet change all the time depending on so many things.  How can I be educational to the education people? I set out on the usual research of sites and blogs that anyone else would…google, marketing sites, etc…I needed more. I needed something new. The more I read and discovered the more I realized that there is no answer. There were sites offering “Top 10 Landing Page Secrets” and the usual “Your Guide to Landing Pages”. No smoking gun thing that makes a landing page “optimized”.  For as many products as there are in the world there could be equal number of landing pages that work. There has to be a framework in which we can talk about all landing pages across all verticals. Then I considered this…..a constantly changing system never has answers….it is all theory. At the heart of it…optimizing a landing page is nothing but a guess. Thus was born Landing Page Theory. (Only pronounced properly with your tongue in your cheek…)

The 5 rules of Landing Page Theory

1. Landing Page Equilibrium (L) = The point at which a landing page achieves balance and is thus optimized against other systems
2. The right combination of variables (V) and constants (C) will equal (L) V +C = L
3. L can only be proven through testing various combinations of (V) and (C) using the scientific method
4. All choices should be made in consideration for the user
5. All if this is only theory: there are no rules if you convert

What is a CONSTANT?

1. A clear and concise goal
2. Your audience
3. Your entry points

What is a VARIABLE?

1. Clear call to action
2. Appropriate forms
3. Consistent imagery
4. Solid brand message
5. Good user experience
6. Copy in “F” shape pattern
7. Stickiness: Do I want to click out?
8. Testimonial
9. Product shot
10. There are a ton more…

After explaining my new Theory I took a look at some case studies to provide some concrete examples. I identified the constants and then we worked as a group to identify the variable and decide if they indeed equaled L. The below is a Pin Code campaign we did with Breitling Watches. What are some of the variables?

Do you have any landing page examples that we could examine in this context? A special thank you to Stephanie Miller and the DMC for including me in the panel.

We talk about it all the time here at eROI….relevance and engagement. Having said that I want to give a shout out to CBS Sports for their timely and relevant emails following the Stanley Cup and NBA Finals. For both events I was sitting in a bar sharing the excitement of the game with my fellow New Yorkers. Only 15 minutes into the post game I received an email from CBS pushing merch for the winning team. Kudos CBS for taking advantage of the immediate post game excitement. If I am a Pittsburgh or LA fan and I see my favorite players rocking some sweet championship gear, then hell yes sign me up. Great timing and execution. The design of the emails is a different story, but for now I will concentrate on the good stuff. Great job team CBS Sports.

Today I had the opportunity to speak at NYU for the DM Club of New York. Truth be told it was my first speaking engagement in New York so I was stoked. I had trouble trying to figure out what to talk about but it all came together for me. I basically took a look at the work we have done with Wacom and presented it in a linear way to describe the Journey a brand can take from email marketing to a full fledged Social Network. The people in at the event were great and offered terrific questions about engagement and our execution. I have embedded my deck below and its available for download here .

I got this in my email box and had to share. This kind of message goes above and beyond usual spam and is a super intrusive technique called PHISHING. Wikipedia had a good definition:

In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as user-names, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

I have to admit that I actually clicked through on this email. I knew the second I clicked that I had made a mistake and of course I didn’t enter any info, but there mere fact that I clicked freaked me out. Be careful out there…don’t ever enter information in a form field from an untrusted email link. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

1. Check the from line/subject line/to line: In this case it was sent to a team email address clue #1 its not real

2. Check the wording/style: A bank would never ask for you to do what this email is asking. And I never received an email that looked like this from Chase ever.

3. Check the URL: If you do click through out of curiosity or mindlessness check the URL. Sometimes they try to mask buy purchasing a URL containing the brand they are imitating. If there is doubt don’t do it!

Here is an up close:

I have gotten Quiksilver emails for a while now as I love the brand from back in the day. Growing up in Hawaii Quiksilver is like the "North Face" of the West Coast (I swear it seems like if you were born in NYC you get a North Face jacket every year for life…they are everywhere here). Anyway, I think this campaign is sick… It encourages interaction, gives the reader something sweet to do, there is potential for a ton of great content, clear message, totally on brand and on and on. For all you shredders out there get your cameras ready. I would participate but they don’t let people who are sponsored enter.