High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web 10 Great Myths of the Internet Amy Africa, Sponsored by Merit Direct * October 4, 2007

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Today’s Agenda…  Shopping Carts  Navigation  Entry Pages  (Thrust and Trigger)  NCASE  Web 2.0  Statistics and more…

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Myth #1: A good shopping cart abandonment rate is 10% or less.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web A good AR is about 60%. If you don’t have about 60% – you aren’t selling hard enough How do you get more of them?  Key metrics: Unique visitors to carts Cart to completed orders How to convert them:  Clean, efficient checkout with temperature bar  Limited distractions Capture Address (#1 technique) Use aggressive converting techniques  Pop-ups  s  Telemarketing

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Myth #2: is free. You should mail everyone & everything every single time.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web It’s all about deliverability. Factors that are important in  Content  Segmentation  Deliverability  Format – #2 most underestimated factor  From address  Personalization, including the “to” address  Subject line  First two lines of your

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Myth #3: It’s People know how to find stuff online.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Navigation is a self- fulfilling prophecy.  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

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Myth #4: Text search is a good thing. Every site should have it.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Text search = abandons. 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: Populate effective Thesaurus and Spelling options Respond on failed searches –Pop-ups – s –Live Chat Monitor results  Track what people are looking for

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Myth #5: Your home page is the most important page on your site.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Entry pages are the most important pages. Develop strong pages for all major category, product lines and products  Supports all marketing programs PPC, Organics and Alternates 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

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Myth #6: Your site should change once a week, preferably on Monday.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Sites should change based on traffic patterns. Look at repeat visitors Change only the things that will make a difference, don’t change just to change Do not change the C

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Myth #7: When it comes to the web, aesthetics matter the most.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Aesthetics often matter the least… 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

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Myth #8: You don’t need organics when you have PPC.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web PPC is a right-hand column function  Organics convert better and they typically have higher LTP  Develop a program for alternates  Use data feeds

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web 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! 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.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web It’s all about the basics… You should know what’s inside the box before you think out of it.  Solid navigation  Great product presentation  Standard formatting  Leading people to the sale  Intuitive checkout  Understanding of stats  Capture  Trigger and Thrust programs

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Myth #11: Offline is the major driver of online business.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web The web is the main driver of incremental business… 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

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Myth #12: Statistical packages are over 90% accurate and will help you make good, solid decisions.

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Truth is, they’re about 55% accurate. 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 Sign-ups Trends are more important than the stats

High Performance Sales and Marketing for the Web Thank You!