Your Customer Creation Equation

Which Video Game Character is Your Visitor Persona?

Cathy Benavides — Wed, 01 May 2013 06:18:13 +0000

It’s pretty amazing to see how creative some people get with their posts. Yes, infographics are great, but what about the almost-lost art of just plain graphs? The brilliantly creative minds over at Orbit Media Studios came up with a pretty great graph to describe visitor personas…… using characters from classic 80′s video games. Sneak peak Well we can’t give them all the credit. As they point out in the bottom of the article “This article is based on a presentation given by Jenny Magic and Brian Massey at Content Marketing World. The original methodology is theirs. I just added some content types and the video game references. Brian’s got a book out called Customer Creation Equation. Check it out!” The visitor personas are broken down into four categories – Mario, Galaga, Frogger, and Pac-Man. How does each character act? What are their characteristics? To find out more, read the article HERE.

Three Must-Have SEO Tools, Featuring The Conversion Scientist

Cathy Benavides — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 07:03:23 +0000

The fine folks over at Powered by Search put together a great post asking a pretty important question; If you could use only 3 tools to excel in your digital marketing specialty, what would they be and why? They reached out to seventeen different digital marketers and SEO experts, and Brian was one of them. As always, Brian has a lot of feelings on the subject and on what tools are essential in his digital marketing arsenal. A huge THANK YOU to our friends at Power by Search for including Brian in this piece! Read the full article HERE.

The Chemistry of Landing Pages that Convert with LIVE Critiques Webinar

Cathy Benavides — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 05:03:15 +0000

It’s no secret that Brian loves a great landing page. But what exactly makes a great landing page? How do you know if yours is good, or great, or just plain bad? Brian has partnered with Contact Point to bring you a webinar that answers those questions. He’ll explain what components make up a great landing page and how to ensure they are a part of your page. But it gets better! Brian will also be taking real landing pages submitted by webinar attendees and critiquing them LIVE. You will get to see firsthand how the Conversion Scientist looks at and evaluates a landing page. Don’t worry folks, he promises to be gentle. So how do you get to be a part of this webinar? Here are all the details. Date: Thursday, April 4th Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm EDT Click HERE to get registered for the webinar. Thanks to Contact Point for inviting Brian to be a part of their webinar series, and we look forward to having you attend!

Brian’s Interview on Content Marketing 360 – Website Optimization Tips

Cathy Benavides — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 07:15:53 +0000

Brian was honored to be a guest on Content Marketing 360 to share his best website optimization tips. Download the podcast below and check out what Brian has to say about tips and tricks for optimizing your site. Brian talks about his beginnings as a computer science major at Texas A&M, which somehow took him into sales. Eventually that led him to marketing. He did some consulting work, then ended up developing his own original analytic packages. All of the skills and experiences came together to create The Conversion Scientist. In this interview, Brian breaks conversion down to it’s most basic parts; people coming to your site, and people taking action on your site. He explains how knowing your conversion rate can help you maximize your buyers and potentially lower your marketing costs. To hear more of Brian’s best tips for optimizing your site and boosting your conversion rate, download the interview below.

Shopify Blog’s 30 Books That Will Help You Increase Sales

Cathy Benavides — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 07:27:57 +0000

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks around here. First, Brian was named one of the Top 40 Digital Strategists by OMI, then SEO Copywriters recognized him as one of their top guest posters of 2012. And today, Your Customer Creation Equation was recommended by Shopify Blog as one of the 30 books that will help you increase sales. This calls for streamers and champagne! Shopify included some really amazing titles on the list. There are books for conversion, books for entrepreneurs, books for marketing and PR, and every type of online marketing under the sun. It’s pretty cool to see Your Customer Creation Equation listed with so many great books. It’s not often a conversion and optimization book gets to be listed with Tony Robbins or Malcolm Gladwell, so this is definitely worth celebrating. Congratulations Brian!

Thank you SEO Copywriting – Top 12 Guest Posts of 2012

Cathy Benavides — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:52:52 +0000

January 2013 seems to be full of honors and mentions and shoutouts. First, I was recognized by OMI as one of the Top 40 Digital Strategists, and now SEO Copywriting has chosen me as one of the of their Top 12 Favorite Guest Post Writers of 2012. It’s an honor to not only be invited to post on SEO Copywriting, but it’s even more awesome to be included in this bunch. While there are some familiar faces on the list, it’s exciting to see so many new contributors that are making great contributions to our space. You can also check out my original post from August. Thanks to SEO Copywriting for inviting me to share and thinking I’m good enough to make the Top 12 list!

Eat it #26! OMI’s Top 40 Digital Strategists List

Cathy Benavides — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:21:26 +0000

I just received an email that I’m really excited to share: “The Online Marketing Institute has officially released their list of the ‘Top 40 Digital Strategists’ leading the industry, and they are thrilled to include you, and your advice for 2013.” Alphabetically, we’re at #25 on the OMI list with some brilliant leaders in the digital strategy field. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know many of them, and they are definitely the cream of the crop. And, any list that puts the likes of Scott Brinker and Joe Pulizzi in the honorable mention category is clearly less than scientific. Joe, Scott, my advice is to buy OMI’s Aaron Kahlow a cooler full of steaks before next year’s list is published. Nonetheless, it feels great to have your work recognized. Check out the entire list of winners. If you want to know how smart these folks really are, read their top advice. Thanks again to OMI for the honor. I am…. well….. honored.

A Quick How-To on Using Your Marketing Battery

Cathy Benavides — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 07:26:26 +0000

This a guest post by Your Customer Creation Equation reader and email marketer Elliott Breadmore. When I launched my first website I was full of excitement and enthusiasm, looking forward to providing thousands of people with valuable information that I had learned. Sharing my knowledge on my site was the easy part though. Getting the views is another thing. For example, getting views through back linking can be a tediously long and frustrating process. It can require hours and hours of dedication and can sometimes have only minuscule results. If done wrong it can annoy viewers and bring negative sentiments to your site and actually have harmful or depressing consequences. When back linking you need to keep an overall positive attitude and thank people for their feedback.

Back linking: The process of going onto another site, talking about the subject in the post (normally related to your niche but not always necessary) and then leaving a link back to your site. The point of back linking is to increase the number of views that one of your pages receives, therefore boosting it up on the Google page rank.

This is where your “marketing battery” comes in; it is all about viewers and conversion rates. When your page receives views, you can expect 10% to go onto the squeeze page and request your free product, which then makes them subscribers.

Squeeze Page: A landing page created to solicit opt-in email addresses from prospective subscribers..

Now with those 10% of viewers that are now subscribers, we send emails offering valuable information so they keep coming back to our site wanting more. After 4-5 solid emails with helpful information, a sales letter goes out.

Sales Letter: An email, often in “letter” form, advertising a product.

This letter is, by definition going to those who are most worthy to receive it; they have not unsubscribed after the first 4-5 mailings. We build a relationship with our subscribers during the first 4 or 5 emails, and then when they know that the information that we are providing is both legit and educational, the sales letter goes out. Your email campaign can also be a difficult process. You specifically need to address each letter on the subject of your choice. When writing these first couple of emails , they need to be very informative, structured, and professionally friendly. These emails are crucial if you are to sell your product.

Using Email to Inform and Build Trust

I personally recommend the email being no longer than 400-600 words. You don’t want to burden the reader, but instead keep them interested and looking forward to the next one. Keep in mind that your subscriber batteries will lose charge over time. Having multiple products that are consistently advertised to your subscribers can cause a drain on the juice, so keep an eye on your stats and evolve your strategy as needed. You want to keep your subscribers happy, informed, and engaged, while avoiding product advertisement burnout. Remember to keep your approach happy and positive; this will ensure that others enjoy your site as much as you do. Elliott Breadmore is the Marketing Manager of Email Marketing Tips, one of the leading online resources for all things email marketing. His (and Email Marketing Tips’s) main goal is to provide fast-tracked education to aspiring email marketers. Image courtesy jeroenbeel on sxc.hu

Web Conversion Conversation with Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist [Audio]

Brian Massey — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 20:25:25 +0000

Pamela Muldoon talks with Brian Massey, website conversion expert and The Conversion Scientist at Conversion Sciences, his marketing firm in Austin, Texas whose main focus is on assisting companies to create higher conversions from the traffic they drive to their websites. He is also the author of Your Customer Creation Equation: Unexpected Website Formulas Of The Conversion Scientist , the book that shows you how to develop the right formula for qualified lead generation and higher conversions. Transcript | Subscribe with Google | Subscribe

Your Conversion Web Team Needs a Draftsman

Brian Massey — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 08:36:19 +0000

We’ve been talking about who you need on your web team. One person was story teller. Another is a draftsman. Draftsmen are designers who are all about function, not just looks. Not that an ugly webpage is good for conversion. Not at all. If a website is ugly, looks amateurish or dated, or is tricky to navigate, it will hurt conversion rather than help it. But, sometimes web designers get a little too caught up in the design, the beauty and symmetry. It almost seems they forget that the point is to get people to convert rather than to take a screenshot of the home page and post it on the wall. Reminder, we want people to find answers, products, services and relationship on this site…not just cool graphics. Conversion Scientists know they need designers. But they also know they need draftsmen. Draftsmen aren’t the ones who make the front of the building look like a swan’s wing. They’re the ones who make sure there’s plumbing and electricity and air vents and studs and other things that make the building actually work. If I am helping a company to create a high-converting website and I say, “Make this element the most prominent item on the page,” a “draftsman” designer will hear, “Surround it with white space, make it stand out on the background, choose a color that is NOT part of the page’s color palette, and make sure it is above the ‘fold.’”

I don’t know what the creative designer will hear. I just know that they are reluctant to step outside of the site’s style guidelines, meaning that important elements look the same as every other element on the page. You want a designer on staff that is designing the optimal routes for the human eye. They can guide the path of your visitors’ eyes like a conductor’s baton. Once the logo and style guide is done, release the agency, but keep your draftsman close. Because once the website is pretty you’re still going to need somebody around who can pick the right “Contact” form and design those breathtaking conversion buttons. Summary On your web design team, you need somebody who can pick the right colors and the right style and feel for your company. But you also need a draftsman designer—the one who knows that the prettiest website in the world isn’t much good unless the hard working parts—like your conversion buttons—have the right to disrupt the design. Draftsmen—who are sometimes women—are designers with tool belts. They’re more concerned with bearing walls than graceful arches. And they put in the elements that make people convert. Read more in Customer Creation Equation.