Women are earning, buying, and influencing at a greater rate than ever before: female consumers account for $7 trillion in spending in the U.S. and over the next decade will control two-thirds of consumer wealth. Women make or influence 85% of all consumer purchases and are responsible for buying over 50% of traditional male products, including automobiles, home improvement products, and consumer electronics.

You go, girl.

So why is it that 91% of women say that advertisers don’t understand them? Marketers are stuck in the past, creating campaigns and websites targeted at a female persona somewhere between Barbie and the Stepford wives. It’s time to drop these preconceptions about what makes for a “female-targeted” website and embrace the 21st century.

Myth #1: Women need their own gender-targeted websites.

Several years ago, Dell Computers launched Della, a website pitching their new lightweight notebook computers. The pastel-colored site, supposedly a less "mannish" design than Dell.com, was generously packed with imagery of women and their laptops doing popular "female activities": meditating in a field, drinking coffee, and browsing the 'net with their girlfriends. Under the "Tech Tips" page, Dell listed uses for the laptop: calculating calories, looking up recipes, and playing guided meditations.

Seriously? Yes. This site was real. Despite the fact that 75% of women disagree with the statement "men are more comfortable with tech than women" (Broadcasting & Cable), Dell chose to dumb down its content to try and appeal to women, stripping away technical specs and focusing on the lifestyle approach. The backlash was harsh and Dell quickly changed some of the site’s language to be less patronizing.

There's no need to create a gender-specific website for your product. If your website isn't appealing to all audiences, your problem is much bigger than just creating a pink version of it. Often when a company tries to split its audience along gender lines, its makes the mistake of generalizing each segment, turning to commonly-held stereotypes.

Apple.com has been praised as a female-friendly (but not female-specific) website.

Why is Apple female-friendly? Women experience sites holistically, unlike men who prefer to compartmentalize their interaction. This translates into the use of white space and fewer dividing elements or boxes if you want to design a site that appeals to women. Another great example of this open, clean design concept is Mint.com.

This is not to say you shouldn't experiment with using segmented landing pages in your marketing campaigns. For instance, you could run a paid search campaign targeted at working moms and design a landing page experience that speaks to that demographic, while another campaign and landing page would be targeted at working dads.

Myth #2: Sites for women should be pink.

There are definitely products and companies out there, unlike the previously mentioned examples of Dell and Apple, that only produce products for women, such as shoes, make-up, wedding dresses, and feminine hygiene products. Let's look at some examples from these categories (click each image to enlarge):

Note that none of these are “pink” websites. Some companies out there do use pink as part of their branding, such as Victoria’s Secret, and while their retail stores may be rich in the color, the VS website tastefully uses pink as an accent color, rather than an all-over palette.

You don't need to douse everything with pink and pastels to make a "female-friendly" site. Other design faux pas include:

• Scalloped borders
• Curly Victorian ornaments
• Script fonts
• Rounded corners on everything

Don't forget…you're designing for women, not girls. If your site makes Barbie's playhouse seem austere, you've gone overboard.

Myth #3: Women don't care about tech specs OR Women need a lot of copy to convince them to purchase.

On the Della site a lot of the technical information was stripped away and replaced with more lifestyle copy, following the idea that to make a female-friendly site, one only needs to "shrink it and pink it."

On the opposite end of the spectrum, other female-targeted websites clutter the page with flowery descriptions highlighting the product's benefits in dense paragraphs. Ultimately, theses sites are saying little while talking a lot.

Both extremes demonstrate a failure to remember that women respond to the same general rules of web usability that men do. Copy should be concise, but persuasive. There should always be a clear call to action and straightforward guidance on how to move throughout the site. These rules about copy apply to all users, no matter what the gender.

If you want to try to create female-friendly copy, consider the voice in which you are writing. Women have been shown to respond favorably to friendly, conversational copy more than men. Inject personality into your copy and be straightforward in presenting information.

Myth #4: (Imagery like this)

Holly Buchanan from Marketing to Women Online created the Buchanan Test for marketing, modeled after the Bechdel for critiquing women’s roles in film.

Look at your most recent designs or ads targeting women. Can you answer “yes” to the following three questions?

1. Do you feature a woman outside of the home?
2. Do you feature a woman in a role other than "mother"?
3. Do you show a woman doing an activity that’s NOT yoga?

Many marketers turn to stereotyped images of women in life: Women happily cleaning their floor while wearing pastel colored cardigans. Moms always attached to their children’s activities (soccer, school, lunch/snacks). Pore-perfect models skillfully showing off their Downward Dog. Heaven forbid women are troubled by issues greater than spilled spaghetti sauce on the counter. Remember this, advertisers:

1. Mothers do more in their daily lives than just "being a mom."
   Women have interests and activities outside of their children's needs. They lead the way in purchases for travel, cars, and technology. According to data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 66% of mothers are working full- or part-time, and 75% of the population disagrees that women should return to the "traditional roles" of the 50s.
2. Not all women are mothers.
   Enter the PANKs (Professional Aunts No Kids), coined by Melanie Notkin, founder and CEO of SavvyAuntie.com. The 2010 Census reported that 47.1% of women under 44 do not have kids. Compare that to 1976, when only 35% were childless. It was an enthusiastic PANK, Anna Jarvis, who helped found Mother's Day back in 1917. Sears did a great job a few years ago with their "Other Mother's Day" campaign, acknowledging women without kids who still have a role in a child's life.
3. Women value respect and the acknowledgement of her role in society.
   Holly Buchanan said it wonderfully: Make an emotional connection with a women by respecting her values, "not having to rely on others, being a good friend, education/being smart, learning new things, personal responsibility, standing up for those who can't stand up for themselves, contributing to the community, being a leader and a role model."  
4. Not all women use yoga as exercise. Just ask AdPearance's own Betsy Reed; she runs a grueling boot camp on Saturdays that includes tire flips, pushing sleds, and bringing grown men to tears (or in her words "I've actually made about 95% of them throw up behind dumpsters."). Women are tough.  Kudos to Under Armour for acknowledging that.

Myth #5: Women like imagery of the young and youthful.

According to eMarketer, Boomers (whose median age is 55), spend more time and money online than any other demographic. Yet, this market is essentially neglected by most advertisers and marketers. According to Why She Buys, in a global study conducted by Unilever in 2006, nearly 60% of women aged 50 to 64 felt that if magazines were reflective of a population, a reader could likely believe that women over 50 do not exist.

The female Boomer is a HUGE viable market, and yet, marketers patronize this demographic by assuming men are the primary purchase makers or that they should only market their products to a younger demographic. Let’s look at the facts (source):

• Disposable incomes are highest for women aged 45-54.
• Women aged 35-54 represent the highest proportion of web surfers compared with male Boomers.
• Even in traditionally male-dominated categories, Boomer women are responsible for more than half of the purchase decisions.
• They make 80% of home improvement decisions
• Buy 65% of all new vehicles
• Spend more than $55 billion dollars on consumer electronics

It's no tough feat to see that the female Boomer is the hot demographic right now, but be cautious of how you market to this group, because you'll run into just as many stereotypes and pitfalls as you would marketing to women in general.

• Baby Boomer women are independent. Don't show imagery of older women relying on men for financial security or for stability (sometimes literally leaning on them). They may have grown up in an era where the man was seen as the breadwinner, but it's 2012 now and a majority of them don't hold that same belief. Also be aware that it's not uncommon for women this age to be divorced or widowed and happily living life alone.
• Baby Boomer women are very active. These women don't spend their days mourning over lost youth, empty nests, or stiffening joints.  For many, this point is a shift from "mom" to "me."  This is the time to start a new business, go back to college, travel abroad, pick up a new hobby, etc.  Don't be patronizing and refer to Boomer women as "golden", "mature", "seniors", or even "middle-aged."  Appeal instead to their sense of adventure and energetic curiosity.

Conclusion:

There are hundreds of books and blogs and studies about how to market to women. People tend to want a bulleted list of what women want and how women think, but it comes down to an honest truth: life’s not that black and white (or blue and pink).

Men and women can’t be categorized into two extreme Others. Often what works for one audience works because it follows a greater concept of good user experience. Good design will appeal to both genders.

When you first embark on designing a website for women, start with basic user-friendly concepts: clear navigation, persuasive headlines, readable copy, strong calls to action, and quality imagery. Create a strong user experience foundation before you begin tweaking the design to appeal to a specific gender.

Happy Mother's Day from all of us at AdPearance!

I'd like to send a special Happy Mother's Day to my own lovely Mama Walker, whose love and support and insistence on Susan B. Anthony dolls instead of Barbies made this article possible.

2. Event Marketing: For many casinos, entertainment and events are a loss leader to bring new players in to experience the casino. While this is true, ticket sales are still a good indicator of ROI on social media. To drive traffic to your ticket vendor’s page, we recommend using targeted landing pages that speak to the event, provide a way to RSVP or let others know you're coming, and buy tickets directly through a simple submission form. If fans have questions about the event, they can quickly call the casino for more information. All this is, of course, tracked and monitored for conversion optimization.

3. Mobile Marketing: Speaking of landing pages, in a generation that is continually getting more and more mobile, it is now necessary to consider mobile landing pages and websites in your casino marketing plans. If your website isn't mobile-friendly, you are missing out on 10% of mobile browsers who search for information using their iPhones, Droids and Smartphones.

4. Promotions: Contests, sweepstakes, giveaways, whatever you want to call it, we can now do it all online. Promotions are powerful ways to grow and engage your audience on Facebook, Twitter and more. It’s a known fact that running a contest or sweepstakes can help struggling brands capture new fans and drive sales. You can even promote user-generated content through photo, video or essay sharing contests! Generate buzz, capture player information and monetize your fans with applications that can be shared across your website, landing pages and social networks.

5. Blog: Why Blog, you ask? Why not! Think of all the wonderful amenities your casino provides outside of gaming, which can be crafted into Blog-worthy content. Blogs are a great platform for improving SEO rankings, too. Search engines will attribute importance to certain keywords based on the semantic outline of a webpage’s content, and a blog can be easily engineered to emphasize important keywords to create link bait and to increase referral traffic via authority ranking. With a blog, you can also write about the latest entertainment news, social entertainment events and general schedule of events for your casino.

6. Ads: Today’s gamers appreciate marketing that is non-invasive, non-interruptive and valuable to their online experience. Whether that is a fun and timely mobile app, a targeted event or a personalized viral video, the message has to resonate with this audience. Facebook Ads are a great option to reach this demographic using a quick and easy format that does not crowd their Inbox. You can promote your website, Facebook Page, Event and more to build awareness, drive new business and grow your fan base. Best of all, Facebook Ads offer highly selective targeting, which you can adjust by testing ad copy, image and branding to find the most effective combinations.

7. Email Marketing: Direct marketing through email is a quick, efficient and powerful way to communicate openly with your customers. It’s a chance to start a genuine dialog with your target audience with messages that are tailored to his or her own preferences, interests and demographics. Email also provides the data and analysis possible for refining follow-up sends and prompt different channels of touchpoints depending on whether or not the recipient opened the email in question. You can easily generate top-of-mind awareness, build your casino brand and create a long-lasting relationship with players through email marketing!

Don't just rely on Lady Luck to get business through your doors. Contact us today if you would like a free social media audit to find the right marketing fit for your casino. Play these cards right and and you can score big! ]]> 2012-05-03T15:49:28+00:00 http://adpearance.com/blog/seven-ways-to-roll-the-dice-with-social-media-for-your-casino-marketing#When:15:49:28Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/adpearance/digitalmarketshare/~3/fLbRUFkoS0g/designing-for-ecommerce-know-your-audience http://adpearance.com/blog/designing-for-ecommerce-know-your-audience#When:15:39:17Z In this first of a five-part series, I’ll be discussing what goes into making a successful ecommerce site, achieving success for both the users and the business.  In this first section, we’ll look at how understanding the knowledge of your users helps set goals for your site and later inform what features to include in your design.

Today’s consumers aren't satisfied with sites that simply make it possible to shop; the experience must also be pleasant. Forty-eight percent of visitors on ecommerce sites don’t buy because of lack of usability. In the following 5-part Designing for Ecommerce series, we’ll be navigating through the online buying cycle:

• The first impression
• Finding the product
• Evaluation of the product
• Purchasing the product

Know your Ecommerce Audience

The optimal use of the 20+ tips in this series takes into equal consideration the three personalities of online shoppers. Let’s meet them...

The power shopper

This persona knows what they want. Power shoppers have sophisticated shopping habits and are frequent ecommerce users, making them highly comfortable with the technology. Power shoppers have high expectations regarding search usability and will quickly exit a site if they feel they are wasting time finding the item they were seeking.

The recreational shopper

We all know this type of shopper in real life: the friend or relative that insists on going up and down each aisle, easily distracted by endcaps and specials. These shoppers are casual explorers, more in it for the experience. Recreational shoppers commonly use ecommerce. Often these users are browsing for inspiration and have a high frequency of cart abandonment. However, recreational shoppers are also the most impulsive: influenced by sales, cross promotions, and popular items.

The reluctant shopper

This group of users is generally uncomfortable about shopping online. They are the least tech savvy of all three groups. Reluctant shoppers respond favorably to trust indicators, easily available customer service, and clearly published terms and conditions (i.e. shipping, returns, refunds).

Other Audience Considerations

Returning customers

Returning customers are so much more than repeat customers; they had a good shopping experience both on your site and after their purchase. They felt genuinely good about their previous experience and actively decided to return to your ecommerce site to make another purchase (rather than just doing it as a utility or because “there was nowhere else to buy this”). Return customers recommend you to family and friends, write positive reviews, support your business, and provide valuable feedback. Return customers can either be power shoppers, knowing that they want to purchase a similar product to what they bought prior, or recreational shoppers, having loved your product(s) so much, they are browsing your site for inspiration and an impulse buy.

Your customer demographic

Some ecommerce sites focus on a niche industry, selling to a very specific audience. At times, this demographic will include certain accessibility and human factor issues (e.g. senior citizens, people seeking specific clothing/shoe sizes, etc.). Keep this demographic in mind when deciding what features should be included, how they should be implemented, and how they should be designed. For example, if you were designing an ecommerce site with a target audience over 60, having a Quick View hover on the category page (see Part 3) wouldn’t be recommended because of the likelihood of mobility issues from this demographics and the difficulty of precision clicking.

Read more from Adpearance's Designing for Ecommerce series

• Part 2: The First Impression
• Part 3: Finding the Product
• Part 4: The Product Page
• Part 5: The Checkout Process

Design a killer home page

A great home page equally caters to the power, recreational, and reluctant shopper (see Part 1).  Here’s how:

For the power shoppers:

• The search bar should be large and visible and remain consistently placed throughout the rest of the site.
• The navigation should be clear and logical (we’ll get into how categories should be organized later on in this section)
• Because return customers tend to be power shoppers, this persona will be interested in new arrivals.
• For some types of products--like electronics or parts--power shoppers may need some assistance getting started in searching.  Consider including a “Getting Started” feature on the home page when a high level of knowledge is needed prior to even typing in a search query.

For the recreational shoppers:

• Appeal to the bargain hunters with promoted sales.
• Include shopping guides that bring together items from separate categories.  For example, “Spring Trends” could include sandals, sundresses, cardigans, and accessories.  Or “Easter” could include decor, dinnerware, food, and gift baskets.
• Promote the best-selling items.  This is the ecommerce equivalent of the aisle endcap.  Because recreational shoppers are impulsive, they are attracted to popular trends.

For reluctant shoppers:

• Place your contact information for customer service in a clearly visible area
• Clearly outline your shipping and return policy if it’s a unique selling proposition.  For example, Zappos includes their policy consistently across every page on their header.

Let’s look at some examples of home pages....

Zappos.com

Power shoppers have a multitude of options to begin their search: a search bar with a bright contrasting button, popular advanced search filters, a horizontal menu with the first level of categories, a vertical menu with subcategories listed, and an alphabetical listing of all the products’ corresponding brands. Return customers will like the New Arrivals box.

Recreational shoppers will be attracted to the “Sporty Chic” style guide and the “Swim Shop” collection.

Reluctant shoppers will go gaga over Zappos.  Note the blue bar promoting their free shipping and returns, 1-year return policy, and 24/7 customer service.  Also directly above the logo is a toll-free number for their customer service department and a link to the Live Help application.

Yurbuds.com

This is a great example of a small ecommerce store with a big impression.  Because there are only 7 available items, this ecommerce site is not about the search process.  No search bar.  No categories.  No boxes with featured products, popular items, or shopping guides.  Yet, all 3 personas are appealed to:  Power shoppers can click on the item immediately to purchase.  Recreational shoppers can make their decision based on the “Technology” section.  Or if they’re not interested in purchasing now, opt to connect to the company via social networks.  Reviews from prominent trade publications and video testimonials appeal to reluctant shoppers.

The Design Itself

Select the appropriate layout on the home page.  Too often ecommerce home pages are dominated by large image sliders, pushing other important content below the fold of the page.  The large image slider is not for every online store. Here’s how you decide: Answer the question “Do I have a large variety of products?”

• If the answer is yes:  Search and categorization becomes your priority.  Shopping guides and collections of items should also be featured on the home page above the fold in separate boxes, reducing the screen width of your slider. If you opt to include a slideshow, feature specific collections of items relevant to the time of year or it should promote a seasonal sale.  Keep every item in the slideshow related; don’t skip around showing a sale on one slide, an upcoming event on another, and a branded image on the next.
• If the answer is no:  It’s likely you are an ecommerce site selling one very specific niche group of items or manufacturer.  Your focus should be making your few products as alluring as possible to the potential buyer.  If you are a manufacturer, branding becomes more important because you are trying to establish a brand loyalty from the consumer.  Your image slider should include high quality, professionally shot photography.  You could even just have one, strong impactful static image like YurBuds to represent your brand image.  Include models similar to your target audience wearing or using the product.
• Don’t be afraid to kill the slideshow altogether. I’m of the personal opinion that the image slider is misused—a haphazard of unrelated, sometimes poorly conceived images whose motion distracts the eye.  Get rid of it all together and use that precious above-the-fold space for targeted content or one strong branded static image.  But don’t just take my word on the subject:  in test after test, the use of a slideshow has reduced conversion rates for ecommerce sites.

Overall, the design should never overpower the products.  The aesthetic of the design should match the products and the brand itself.

Create a mobile optimized version of your site

It’s no secret I love to talk about mobile (4 Insights for Business about Mobile Devices from Google Analytics), (Designing Mobile Landing Pages).

Not only should your site be mobile-enabled (no Flash elements, users doesn’t need to pinch and zoom to see all your content), but your site should be mobile optimized.  Mobile users have different needs than desktop users.  They are power shoppers and go straight to the search bar when entering the site.  A mobile optimized site will include:

• A large, finger-friendly search bar first and foremost.
• A prominent “Find a store” button on the home screen if there is a brick-and-mortar store.
• A “Track my order” button on the home screen.
• Click to call for telephone numbers.
• Finger-friendly buttons.  UXMovement recommends a minimum 72 pixels wide by 44 pixels tall based on the average man’s thumb.
• Minimal amount of columns. With a small amount of screen space, you can’t fit that much across the horizontal space and still remain touch-friendly.
• Reduced image size.  Mobile users dislike waiting for giant images to load.  Use smaller versions of your product images on your mobile site.
• Touch-friendly image galleries.  Fully utilize the ability to swipe left to right as a means of navigating a slider.
• At-a-glance product pages.  Since mobile power users know what they want, lengthy information on the product page is cumbersome to the mobile user experience.  Keep info abbreviated and place additional photos, product description, reviews, and related products in collapsed accordion tabs.  Focus instead on making it easy to add the item to the cart.
• Finally, be sure that you include clear, explicit links from the full site to the mobile site and from the mobile site to the full site.

For large, popular ecommerce sites, many companies are developing mobile apps which include a more robust UI, added features, text alerts, and the ability to upload media from one’s phones (such as for product reviews or as a barcode scanner feature).  In one recent study, Jakob Nielsen measured a success rate of 76% when people used mobile apps, which is much higher than the 64% recorded for mobile-specific websites.

Keep your sales and specials fresh

Your sales should be fresh and applicable to the season.  Appeal to users buying:

• Right now (daily/weekly deals),
• In the near future (seasonal offers), and
• At any time (always free shipping).

To encourage return customers, offer a reward program.  Members accumulate points for bigger discounts and periodically receive exclusive deals.  With a members-only coupon program, you can also deliver personalized specials based on items they’ve purchased in the past.

Maintain those first impression warm fuzzies

The initial impression of your home page as one that offers ease of use, updated content, and searchability should extend to the rest of the site experience.

Offer stellar customer service.

First and foremost, your contact information should be clearly visible on every page, as should your policies for returns, refunds, shipping, and privacy.  Generally those are listed in the footer.  Keep each policy separate instead of bundling them as a general “Terms and Conditions.”

Include a variety of ways to contact customer service.  Live Chat functionality is a growing trend, but be fully prepared to properly implement it.  Avoid using Live Chats that auto-open on unsuspecting users.

Only having customer service available 8 - 5 EST is a huge hinderance to reluctant buyers; always consider contact options for customers in different time zones or those needing to contact you outside normal business hours.

If you can’t be around 24/7, reduce the need for users to pick up the phone call.  Include a comprehensive FAQ section that is periodically updated with common questions.

More and more ecommerce sites are finding innovative ways to offer instant customer service.  IKEA implemented Anna as an automated online assistant.  She’s basically an advanced search engine but with a perky smile.  She’s also programmed to hold simple conversations, like responding to “How are you?” or directing the conversation elsewhere if you are feeling mischievous.

Sometimes you can turn to your customer base to provide instant customer service.  Have you ever skimmed reviews looking for specific information, like “Is this air purifier good for removing pet odors?” or “Can I assemble this myself?” Enter the “Ask & Answer” feature.  Users submit questions specific to the product and other customers reply.  Sephora also has an active staff that monitor these questions and reply.

Create a personalized shopping experience

Recreational shoppers love this feature on ecommerce site, often resulting in the user returning at a later point as a power shopper.  Personalized functionality can include:

Recently viewed items

Help customers keep track of what they’ve browsed through.  Last viewed items allow customers to compare items or return to a previous line of search if they’ve steer off their original shopping intent.

Best-selling local items

This feature works best for when you have products that are very specific to a certain region or climate.  For instance, in January you may want to show Boston customers ice melters and snow boots, but Portland customers umbrellas and rain coats.

My Account

Allow registered users an ability to manage their orders and personal information, including the ability to:

• Change / retrieve their password
• Update and set contact preferences
• Manage payment options
• View past orders and have the option to reorder previously bought items
• Track order shipping
• Access information about return and refund policies

Read more from Adpearance's Designing for Ecommerce series

• Part 1: Know Your Audience
• Part 3: Finding the Product
• Part 4: The Product Page
• Part 5: The Checkout Process

Have quality product images and media

Users are at this point have found their product, but are now faced with deciding whether or not to purchase it.  Without the ability to touch, hold, smell, taste or otherwise handle the product, users are left only with the image to interact with.  Your images should:

Be professionally shot

The quality of photographs indicates to users the quality of your photographs.  In most cases, it’s preferable to display each product in a light box by itself with no background or tastefully placed on a subtle surface.  This uncluttered view makes it easier for users to focus on the product and quickly determine if it’s what they want.  Avoid blurriness at all costs.

Remain consistent

When comparing thumbnail versions of products, it’s harder to customers to make “apples to apples” comparisons if all your products are photographed from different angles or show different backgrounds. Furthermore, the jarring effect of seeing the products pointing in all different angles reduces the scanability of the category page.

That’s not to say you can’t explore the “best angle” of a product.  Enter the alternate photos…

Include alternative and detailed views

Include different angles of the product: front, back, side, a close-up detail of the material, and different color options.  Show your products in the context of how they’ll be used: worn by people, placed in their environment, or fully in action.  Having alternative views will likely decrease your return rate as you’re showing customers exactly what they are getting.

Be enlargeable

Users want to have the ability to zoom in on the product.  This can be done by with a rollover hover zoom or a lightbox gallery overlay.  Avoid opening items in new browser windows; usability research has shown this is detrimental.  In order to have a zoom capability, you need to have large images.  The rule of thumb is that your product images should be at least 1024x768 pixels.

Product Videos

Product videos increase conversions and are a worthy investment for your ecommerce site.  Using video demos of items increased sales for Zappos between 6% and 30%. Offer a brief video tour of the item, highlighting the features and benefits of the products.   Show the product in use, whether by having a model demonstrate all angles or having a person actually using the item in the situation they would in real life (e.g. a vacuum sucking up pet hair, a bicyclist riding a bike).  If the product is more complex, post a product video that is instruction in use.

Customer Photos

Some retailers are allowing customers to post their own image of the product.  Catalog images are idealized views of a product, paired with pore perfect models or placed in immaculate homes.  Customers’ homes and bodies are different.  There is a risk, of course, that a less than perfect image will break the sale.  But retailers like Petco, Northern Tool, and Zales feel that the risk is outweighed by the persuasive power these customer images.

Stick to established product page layouts.  Place the most important, at-a-glace information first.

Frequent online shoppers have a general expectation for what appears on the product page and in what order.  By not adhering to the established hierarchy of information, users will get frustrated searching the page for the information they desire.

• Large main product photo and alternate photos
• Ratings, summarized by average value and total number of reviews
• Short product description
• A clearly visible “Add to Cart” button
• Shipping information or a link to find out the options

As the user continues to scroll down the page, more information is revealed including product details / specs, related products, and reviews.

Write unique, informative, and compelling product descriptions

Focus on the features and benefits of your item; describe how the product can be used rather than merely what it is.  Avoid technical terminology unless your market is definitely going to understand what you’re talking about.  However, also avoid being overly general.  If appropriate to your brand, use a casual tone and make use of “you” and “your.”  Include extra details like material, dimensions/size, technical specs in a bulleted list or table.

Have a big, bold “Add to Cart” button

Never place your “Add to Cart” button at the bottom of the page below all the product details; it should be clearly placed above the fold.  Make it stand out with contrasting colors.  Avoid using “Buy Now”, as studies have shown users don’t like to make that sort of commitment.  Include an option to select the quantity of items prior to clicking the button.  When clicked, don’t bring the person to the shopping cart page but rather offer an immediate response notification with a button to checkout.  Assume that your shopper will buy another item.

Allow users to submit reviews and rate your product

Shoppers from all three personas respond to reviews: power shoppers will use them as a deciding factor, recreational users will look for validation about making an impulse buy, and reluctant users want to know that the product is exactly what they want.

Ecommerce reviews are no longer just about a five-star criteria.  Large ecommerce sites include specific factors about the product that the reviewer can rate, like comfort and sizing.  These detailed reviews can result in fewer returns if the customer knows such information.  For instance, if the product “runs small,” they might decide to purchase in a size larger.

When dealing with a lot of user reviews, you need to offer people a way to sort through all your information.  The “Was this review helpful?” feature allows you to group reviews together as “Most Helpful.”  You can also opt to sort by date or rating.

Sephora is my favorite example of a robust review feature.   Reviews are scanned for most common adjectives and placed in a word cloud, which can then be used to filter the reviews.  Furthermore, additional filters are added, recognizing that when the audience varies (skin type, skin tone, age), the content of the reviews vary in opinion.  Sephora and other large online retailers are also encouraging reviewers to submit customer product images and video testimonials.

Be sure to regularly audit your product reviews.  Some sorts of products will result in highly subjective reviews (“My boyfriend loves this perfume on me”), objective opinions of the items (“The stitching was poor quality!”), and opinions about the user experience (“Thanks for shipping a replacement so quickly!”).  Carefully monitor for reviews that reflect the usability and performance of your customer service department.

Show related products

This trick to doing this well is to be smart about how you use these.  Don’t just slap together items because they are from the same category.  If you are a one-stop shop for products, group your related products as items frequently bought together (“Customer who bought this item also bought…”).  If you’re selling an iPhone, cross promote an iPhone case.  Remote control car?  Batteries.

Maybe you’re a store that offers many of the same type of items.  While you can include a general “You might also like…”, get creative and highlight items the user might be more likely to buy (“Similar products at lower prices…”)

Include social share buttons

Social buttons are great marketing tools for your product pages.  But don’t jump on the bandwagon immediately: do you sell the type of product that people want others to know they bought?  Sometimes there’s a reason why people are shopping in the privacy of their homes.

When adding social share buttons, use individual buttons—such as the Facebook Like/Share button, the Tweet button, the Google + button, and the Pin It button instead of an aggregated button like AddThis.

Read more from Adpearance's Designing for Ecommerce series

• Part 1: Know Your Audience
• Part 2: The First Impression
• Part 3: Finding the Product
• Part 5: The Checkout Process

Create logical product categories

Adheare to the KISS principle.  Despite have millions of products for sale, Amazon.com has split them all into nine basic categories.  Less is better on the parent level of categories.  If you have less than two items in a category, you don’t need it; bundle those items into another one.  If applicable, include categories that are broken down along audience lines: Men, women, junior, children, age, maternity, petit, plus.  Or by utility: makeup, skincare, fragrance, bath & body.  If you are promoting discounted prices, be sure to include sub-categories within each for new arrivals and clearance.

Allow users to sort and filter the results on the category page

No matter how homogenized your products may be, filters and sorting options are important to online shoppers.  At the very least you can apply filters based on price and product rating.  For more varietal products, you can have many, many options from size to occasion, material to brand.  Some more interesting and unique options I’ve seen include filters for “Eco-friendly”, “Made in the USA”, “Employee Recommended.”

Allow users to apply multiple filters within the same group at once.  Make it easy to delete applied filters; include a “Clear All” option.

You don’t have an infinite amount of screen space to list out your filters if you have a large variety like the Zappo’s example.  Allow for collapsible options or perhaps only show the most popular adjectives and a “Show More” link to view the rest.  If your filters are large in number, consider adding a “Save this Search” option for logged in users.

If you need some ideas for what types of filters to use, consider customer tagging.  This keeps the taxonomy fresh and relevant.

Be smart about the display of your results

Sorting

Be sure to include “Sort By” options for the customer.  Every shopper has a different initial way of discovering the item they want: most affordable, highest selling, highest rated, etc.  Generally these include Newest, Most Popular, Name, Price (Lowest / Highest), and Customer Rating.   Consider these sorting options when you’re deciding what the default listing of your products will be on each category page.

Display Options

Some ecommerce sites allow users to view items in either a grid or a list.  Grid view is for power shoppers and highly visual recreational shoppers.  Users are able to scan grids more quickly.  List view generally includes a little more information about the products and is used by shoppers seeking to compare and evaluate items at the category page level.

Pagination

In the dawn of the Internet, showing only 10 products per page was ideal because it took so long to load images on a 56k dial-up connection.  Nowadays, broadband Internet has enabled us to load the same amount of information is microseconds.  When paginating your results, include a “View All” option.  In one test from WhichTestWon, an ecommerce site saw a 35% increase in conversions when changing the default view of 10 items to 50.  If you don’t have a bazillion items (because that is a number in the ecommerce world), infinite scroll is a possibility, altogether eliminating pagination.

Allow users to compare items

It’s really annoying if you have to get out pen and paper to write down product characteristics and then look for the differences between the other products.  A compare feature allows users to see an overview of the similarities and differences of products on 1 page.  List out the main features as bulleted items or (even better) as a table.

Clearly differentiate the products. If you’re not sure what the difference is between product A and B, how is your customer supposed to know?  If you want to compare products in a meaningful way, you need to know what the deciding factors are for your customers.  Purely visual features (color, material, style) can be gleaned more quickly by just looking at the product images and shouldn’t be used as comparative aspects in the comparison table.  Technical specs, dimensions, and warranties are good things to differentiate.  Stick to concrete characteristics and avoid abstract descriptions.

Include a Quick View option on the category page

The Quick View option is a growing trend in ecommerce.   When clicked, an overlay box is opened with more information about the product, including additional photos, available colors, and product description.  Users can also opt to directly purchase an item from the Quick View box.  Power shoppers love Quick Views when they know exactly what they’re looking for.

Have a robust internal search engine

Probably one of the most important features of a large ecommerce site, search capability is for people looking for things that appear to be hard to find through the navigation structure.  Users with poor search skills will typically leave a site rather than figure out how to reformulate their queries.  Regularly audit your search query analytics to understand exactly how customers are using your search engine.  You often will discover:

• People look for things that aren’t on your website. Don’t disappoint people who type in names of discontinued or old products.  Show them current products that correspond to these older ones.  Do the same if people type in your competitors’ product names.  Often, people searching for discontinued items aren’t looking for that exact product, but simply a replacement.
• People don’t use the same words you do.  Expand your vocabulary on product descriptions.  You can also make your search feature smarted by hooking it up to a thesaurus.
• People suck at spelling.  In an audit, you’ll find that people search for “sandles” and “sandels” and not “sandals.”  Invest in search software that automatically corrects spelling errors or suggests alternatives.

Auto fill search bars reduce spelling errors and increase conversions by offering instant feedback on search queries.  You can even include brief product information in the results.

The search results page

Don’t neglect your search results page.  Offer the same sorting options as the category pages did: filters, sort by options, and grid/list display views.  Be sure to also include a sort option to filter by “Most Relevant.”  Be sure that people searching for items like “returns, shipping, contact us” are directed to those specific static pages and not product pages.

Read more from Adpearance's Designing for Ecommerce series

• Part 1: Know Your Audience
• Part 2: The First Impression
• Part 4: The Product Page
• Part 5: The Checkout Process

Your shopping cart should always include relevant information

Always have a persistent visible icon in the upper right order that shows the numbers of items in your cart.  Include a “Checkout” button next to the icon.

On the shopping cart page itself, ecommerce users expect to do the following:

• Know exactly what’s in the cart.  Include a thumbnail picture that links back to the full product description page.  List out any options that were chosen (size, color, technical specs).  Be sure to show the individual price of each item.
• Update quantities of items.
• Remove items or save them for a later purchase.
• Clearly understand the shipping rates.  Don’t wait until the checkout process to publish this.

Keep your shopping page simple and clean.  The number one action you want on this page is for the user to push the “Proceed to Checkout” button.  While you can target impulse buyers with recommended products based on items in the shopping cart, avoid distracting users into cart abandonment and keep those related products secondary to the checkout button.

Allow shoppers to save an item for later

Not every visitor is ready to buy right now.  Allow window shoppers and inspiration seekers to save an item for a later purchase.  Giving them this option makes them more likely to return and pick up where they left off rather than having to start the process all over with an empty cart.

Offer competitive shipping

Big ecommerce sites unfortunately dominate in offering the best deals on shipping.  But free shipping is very alluring to online shoppers.  Other options include a low price flat rate or free shipping at certain price breaks.  Offer different ship time options.  You’ll need to consider your shipping rates prior to launching your store.  Whatever your shipping promotion is, never let it be a surprise to customers.  Publish this prior to checking out and entering in billing details.

Create a user-friendly checkout process

For many e-tailers, both large and small, the weakest link in overall usability is the checkout process.  Mistakes at this point will cost you the sale.  Try to avoid the following mistakes:

Required registration

Registration has its benefits (faster checkouts, services like wish lists and saved baskets, personalization of offers, ability to leave reviews).   But many usability experts think that making registration compulsory is an unnecessary obstacle.  You risk returning customers not being able to remember their login information.  Sure, you may have a password lookup feature, but what if their email isn’t working or is inaccessible at the moment?  Offer an optional registration prior to purchase, explaining the benefits of registering but also allowing people to checkout as a guest.

An overly complicated form

When a customer has problems with a form, the likelihood of cart abandonment increases significantly.  When they fail more than one, they will be inclined to leave the website altogether.  I could go into great depth about the usability of forms but stick to these principles:

• Usability research has shown that one single page for checkouts convert at higher rates than multi-step ones.
• Include descriptive labels for fields and clearly indicate which ones are optional.   If the field might cause confusion, include a “What’s this?” link that displays more information about what you’re asking for when clicked.
• Format your credit card expiration dates as they appear on the credit card.   For example, the correct way is to use two digit numbers so the options are “03/13” instead of “March 2013.”
• Use the shipping address as the billing address by default.  Most customers order products from their home, so requiring both a billing and shipping address doesn’t make sense.  This results in seeing fewer fields, making the form less intimidating to customers.  Also allow for a “Gift” option; when the recipient receives the item, billing information isn’t included in the delivered package.
• Use clear error indications. Place error messages close to the relevant field and use red - the universal color for form errors. Getting your card declined is always an embarrassing option, even if it’s in the privacy of your own home.  Gracefully handle these errors.  For instance, if the CVV code is invalid, show customers a picture of where the code can be found on the card.

Shady security

People need to trust that when they submit their private information, they do not risk getting spammed, having fraudulent charges, or having their personal information hacked.  Publish a link to your privacy policy on your checkout page.  Include trust indicators about the security of your checkout.  Even the inclusion of a small lock icon does wonders.

Distracting up-selling

Once someone has moved past the shopping cart, it’s time to stop marketing and close the sale.  Too many options can send the customer into a paradox of choice, leading to abandoned carts.

Hidden customer service information

Customers need to know that some is immediately reachable if they have a problem with their checkout.  Not every customer who sees your prominently displayed number will call, but just having one creates a sense of trust.

Unclear next steps

Once they’ve entered in their shipping, billing, and payment information, customers need to know exactly which button to push next.  “Submit Order” is stronger than “Continue.”  Like the “Add to Cart” button, it should be the most eye-catching item on the page.  Keep the design of your checkout page simple and the “Submit Order” button bold and bright.  Don’t include a “Cancel” button; you’re just making it easier for customer to abandon their order.

Continue to engage your customers on the order confirmation page

The shopping experience doesn’t dead end on the order confirmation page.  A nice “thank you” reassures the customer that they’ve made a wise purchase decision.  Consider adding a tell-a-friend form or social share buttons, displaying customer service FAQs, a weekly deal / reward program sign-up, a special coupon for their next purchase, or a feedback survey.

Don’t go hog-wild on the Thank You page either.  Maintain the good feeling of the customer’s purchase by avoiding:

• Red fonts (customers will thing they’ve just made an error in their purchase)
• A clutter of third-party services
• Unneccessary functionality or information

Your return policy can make or break a sale all on its own

Twenty-seven percent of online consumers say the hassle of returns is one main reason they do not make purchases online.  We can’t all be Zappos and offer free returns up to a full year after purchase, but try sticking to these principles to having a good return policy:

• Avoid threatening language like “We won’t be responsible” and “We will refuse” and don’t obfuscate your policy with legal jargon.
• Be prepared to pay for your own mistakes like shipping the wrong item or using poor packaging.
• Clearly state the timeframe for how they’ll receive credit, and indicate if it is credit or cash.
• Make sure you list all your return requirement upfront: Do they need to have all the original packaging and tags?  Do they need to include the receipt?
• Offer an in-store return policy if you have brick-and-mortar stores.

Read more from Adpearance's Designing for Ecommerce series

• Part 1: Know Your Audience
• Part 2: The First Impression
• Part 3: Finding the Product
• Part 4: The Product Page

A common situation where translation issues lead to incorrect implementation is in Event Tracking as provided by Google Analytics. In the 150 plus small and medium sized businesses Adpearance has worked with, we have found that only a small percentage have implemented Event Tracking correctly. In examining this issue, the problem is not broken code, or lack of understanding—the problem is the same one that sent my last girlfriend and me to relationship counseling: communication.

“We have different love languages…”

At the core of this problem is that event tracking by definition seems simple: track an event. The lack of plurality of the word “event” even makes it sound singular. So, if you are the marketing department, you put in a request to your webmaster to track an event, they follow Google’s easy directions, and you’re done, right? Wrong.

“You did what I said but not the way I wanted you to…”

If you are the person setting up the code, event tracking is a series of potentially five variables to pass to Google Analytics (only two of which are required). The ability to make sense of your event tracking data relies on these variables being classified in a way that will make sense when you go to view your data. Most often times, the person installing the code does not fully understand how you intend to use the data. In the example below, the marketing team gave directions to the person implementing the event tracking that they wanted to track how many times a user clicked a particular button.

At first glance, when we look at the data, this is what we see.

What you see is a generic action called “click” on a generic button. There are many things wrong with this setup, most notably, what is the button? To be fair, we can drill down deeper and see more information such as what page they were on when they clicked “the button,” but it is still unclear which button is being tracked. Whoever implemented this event tracking most likely took a literal translation of what they were asked to do (track the click of a button) without thinking about how it would look when viewing the data later.

Communicating Your Needs

To solve the communication lapse that occurs between marketers and the people implementing the code, the first step is to redefine how you think about event tracking. Event tracking is the ability to track events through categorizing 2 or 3 pieces of information:

Category, Action, Label (optional).

“It’s Not You, It’s Google…”

Now, here’s the tricky part, Google Event Tracking is flawed in how it provides access to view your data. The peculiarity in Google Analytics Event Tracking is when viewing your data (without downloading it and using spreadsheets) you can only view two out of the three variables at any given time. Common sense would tell you that you should be able to view all three of these variables at any one time.

Therefore, you need to think of how to name each event in such a way that when only viewing 2/3 of the gathered data, it will still make sense. How you set up your category, action and labels are entirely dependent on how you want to view the data later, but setting them up poorly will make your data hard to understand.

Generally, we think about it as follows:

Category is your “container” that you want to group your events under. Try to be as descriptive as possible. Many people use the page title or URL as their category—this is unnecessary as Google will let you filter by those means anyway.

Action is usually the action that is completed but you want it to be descriptive enough that it will make sense when you view it later. As an example, “Click” is not descriptive enough, but “Clicked the Top Nav Contact Button” is better.

Label is the last variable you can use to be descriptive. Some events do not need a label as the action is self-explanatory, but sometimes this is vital. In cases where we really need an extra variable, we might stuff two or more variables into the label and separate them with a ‘|’. Remember, the key is that if you only see two of the three recorded variables, the event tracking will make sense.

In a nutshell, here are the keys to setting up Event Tracking correctly:

1) Provide whoever is setting it up with the Category, Action and Label. Do not count on them to come up with it for you.

2) When thinking about Category, Action and Label, make sure that if you only see two out of three variables at any one time, the data you collect will make sense.

3) Check back after a week or so of collecting data to make sure it makes sense.

In a later post, we will go over correct and incorrect implementations and dive deeper into more advanced variables you can use to give you very specific data. ]]> 2012-03-28T20:20:47+00:00 http://adpearance.com/blog/how-to-set-up-google-analytics-event-tracking-correctly#When:20:20:47Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/adpearance/digitalmarketshare/~3/sFYvyi70Spk/obama-is-watching-me-what-does-privacy-mean-in-the-digital-era http://adpearance.com/blog/obama-is-watching-me-what-does-privacy-mean-in-the-digital-era#When:18:06:04Z Politico.com published an article today, Obama’s 2012 campaign is watching you, which contrasts the sophisticated online targeting techniques used by the Obama campaign with the legislation directed at companies such as Google and Facebook to reform their privacy practices.  In dissecting this article, and more importantly, the public statements Obama’s representatives are making regarding privacy, it becomes clear that before we can really address privacy, we first have to ask ourselves – in 2012, what does privacy mean anymore?

The enhancements in the ability to consolidate data to craft more sophisticated and tailored messaging is the forefront of the digital revolution. In the last few years, we have seen incredible breakthroughs in remarketing and the ability to specifically target certain groups or demographics. Now that Mr. Facebook and Mr. Google are people too, and these “people” (along with many others, ourselves included) are reaping the rewards of this improved ability, I predict that any legislation that attempts to stifle this will be thwarted.

Obama for America spokeswoman Katie Hogan inadvertently steps right into the privacy confusion debate when she says, “We go to great lengths to make sure that supporters have the ability to opt out of communication and contact from the campaign.” Practically speaking, her point makes sense. If someone says they do not want to be contacted anymore, Obama for America is probably very adept at removing them from their database and not calling anymore; however, does communication and contact extend to the remarketing and targeted advertising being served online to that person? No. For the Obama campaign to discontinue targeted marketing to that person it would require their technology to know the identity of every person they are serving ads to. Effectively, enforcing privacy in this manner would have the unintended consequences of giving us less online privacy, not more.

Currently, the dialog being pushed by privacy watchdogs is the concept of “Do Not Track.” This means that Internet companies shouldn’t be collecting data on users as they use the Web. While the appeal of this policy is obvious, it is essentially equivalent to saying that ABC shouldn’t show you commercials while you watch their programming. This dialog misses the mark in what privacy should mean in the digital era.

I believe that the dialog can be advanced by understanding a clear distinction—privacy should not be about targeting you based on your past behavior but about ferreting your identity from sources the user is not aware you are connected to. The concern with Google and Facebook’s privacy policies is real. They know who we all are and by giving that information to others, we are in fact in danger of losing our ability to navigate the web anonymously. For any privacy legislation to be successful, it has to focus less on how we are targeted and more about how our actual identity is disclosed. ]]> 2012-03-16T18:06:04+00:00 http://adpearance.com/blog/obama-is-watching-me-what-does-privacy-mean-in-the-digital-era#When:18:06:04Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/adpearance/digitalmarketshare/~3/jM6XOZtUUY4/google-announces-changes-to-their-search-algorithms http://adpearance.com/blog/google-announces-changes-to-their-search-algorithms#When:19:39:45Z Google announce 40 new changes to their search algorithms!