Do you like cotton candy? Ever wanted to see yourself as a caricature? Always fantasized about being tied-up with your friends?
Well, FreshBooks turned five years old this year! And we’re throwing the best birthday party a five year old could hope for—loot bags included! It wouldn’t be a party without all of you, so be sure to RSVP for a great afternoon together of games, prizes and surprises you won’t want to miss!
When
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
As the most loving of festivities approached, we thought it was a perfect opportunity to remind you all how much we care about you. On behalf of the entire team at FreshBooks HQ, thanks so much for choosing FreshBooks. We really do love you ‘round these parts!
Check out our Valentine’s Day video dedicated to all of you, shot and produced by our very own, talented Randy.
Jeffrey Eisenberg, co-founder and CEO of Future Now Inc., shows us how easy it can be to implement persuasion architecture, what crucial changes we need to make about how we think about visitors to our web sites, and answers your questions.
Here are some notes and timelines from the call:
(1:35 – 5:10) Discussion about the word “user”; increasing usability used to be an easy way to increase conversions.
(6:53) What are the biggest ideas you’re offering to people who have goods or services that they’re trying to sell?
(7:08) The word “user” is a bad word – people are people, buyers. How you sell is irrelevant to them.
(8:22) People have become in charge in a way they never have before; they are evaluating, communicating, looking at your products/services which have to become more and more transparent.
(9:00) It used to be: the more you advertised, the more you sold. Now, people want more information before they buy. For example, car buyers want to know why certain decisions were made in the design of a car before they purchase.
(9:45) 87% of car searchers start online, less than 1% buy online. People are not going to manufacturers’ sites, they’re going to other sites, looking for the information the business itself isn’t giving them.
(10:00) This is critical: if you sell goods, there is someone out there talking about your goods. If you sell services, you may be hesitant to put prices on your site. If the price is going to be an obstacle, it’s going to be an obstacle no matter what. If you haven’t built up the value of your services already, you’re not going to do it with someone over the phone.
(11:00) Clicks are decisions – people make conscious decisions to click.
(11:51) There is a concept that people think in terms of web “pages”. People don’t read pages, they read from hyperlink to hyperlink. When you design a site, think in scenarios, and how people will engage from hyperlink to hyperlink along the path that they want to go down.
(12:47) If you’re still designing pages you’ve missed it by a million miles. It’s the context of that page that matters – the anchor text versus where it’s pointed to, and if where it’s pointed to answers the question that the hyperlink implicitly asked.
(16:14) Rethink the buying process. The simple idea is this: we’re focused on the way we want to sell, but customers are focused on the way they want to buy. Every click they make is a conscious decision to find out what’s on the other side.
(17:08) If we’re dealing with people who are making a conscious decision, we at Future Now Inc. ask 3 questions to frame a scenario that works for them:
1. Who is the person that we’re trying to persuade?
2. What is it we want them to do?
3. What would motivate them, give them enough confidence, to do that?
(20:20) This is the essence of persuasion architecture, and it really is that simple. You can apply this to a PPC ad or landing page – does the headline, content deliver?
(20:41) Tailor the way you design your site, the way a sales associate would tailor their presentation to different people.
(22:52) Understand the context of your offering within the marketplace (including competition and the customer feedback that’s out there).
(24:19) Psychographics: description of the 4 different archetypes of how people make decisions (competitive, methodical, spontaneous, humanistic).
(26:30) There aren’t that many ways of making decisions, therefore they’re predictable. Instead of talking to everyone (aiming at the middle), Future Now Inc. designs for the extremes, the outside corners, so people in the middle will find something and be able to segment themselves.
(28:13) Creating personas.
(32:35) Adding demographics to the 4 archetypes.
(34:08) Small companies can be more nimble; larger companies will have a harder time writing the necessary content and being transparent.
(35:25) Blogs give you the opportunity to say something – odd angles of approach – that you may not be able to put on your web site. This allows you to frame information in a different way.
(40:13) Poor assumptions about the leaky bucket theory described.
(43:13) Definition of reputation: the way search engines look at you. If you’re doing SEM to bring in traffic, and not doing anything to make it worth a search engine’s visit to be there, you’re working really hard for nothing.
(46:17) How do I get more people to fill in my contact form?
(47:17) Ask yourself: why aren’t people confident enough to fill in the contact form? You are probably not giving them enough information on your site. Get specific: what you do, how you do it, who you do it for, price, what you don’t do.
(51:58) What are some cost effective ways to capture feedback from customers about what is not working for them?
(53:11) Ask the people who buy from you what difficulties they had and bought anyway. There are no tools that substitute talking to real people. Don’t lead them, let them ramble on, even if it hurts. They’ll tell you what you need to deal with other people.
(54:51) Can I have Mr. Eisenberg’s email address to find out about his new services for small businesses coming out in January 2007?
(55:26) Future Now Inc. is going to be providing some services around Google’s web analytics multivariate testing ability. Because there is no defined release date from Google, it will be best to visit the site to find out more about this; here are Future Now Inc.’s contact details.
Future Now’s publications (Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?, Call to Action)
Persuasive Online Copywriting is out of print. Try Amazon or your local library.
Next podcast:
Craig Fitzpatrick, CEO of Devshop, will outline project management techniques specific to software development projects that will help reduce risk, meet deadlines and improve client satisfaction. Sign up here.
Have questions or comments about this teleseminar? Let us know what they are in the forum.
The goal of the conference was to answer the question, “What’s next online?” for people in four industries – media, marketing and PR, society and politics and venture and entrepreneurship. To that end, we were able to attract some of the internet’s best minds. Below is a list of our keynote presenters and podcasts of their keynotes:
Om Malik (media podcast)
- then a senior writer at Business 2.0, now a blog network entrepreneur
Dr. Michael Geist (society and politics podcast)
- author, law professor at the University of Ottawa Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law.
Tara Hunt (on Pinko Marketing)
- formerly of Riya, now a director at Citizen Agency
If you can make the time, give the podcasts a listen. I have been relistening myself recently and the content is first rate. In fact, the whole event wound up being a great success and so we are doing it again May 30 & 31, 2007. Like last year a limited number of student tickets will be available. I hope you can join us.
Just a quick note, we have had to reschedule today’s “How to Successfully Manage Software Development Projects” as Craig was unable to attend the call due to circumstances out of his control. I understand – @#it happens. Craig has been good enough to reschedule for Thursday December the 21st. We will send emails like normal to inform you about that.
Thanks to those of you who did attend and stuck with me as I treaded water. As I said on the call, I welcome you to email me a note to let me know you were there and so I can meet you and say hello by phone or email. I already have a bunch of emails and I will get back to each of you shortly.
Thanks for your understanding and I hope you can join us for the two remaining calls in the series: Next Thursday December the 7th with Jeffrey Eisenberg of Future Now as we discuss how you can “Persuade More People to Do Business on Your Website“. Jeffrey is a high calibre speaker with incredible knowledge to share. If you own a website, or help other people build theirs, you will not want to miss this call. We will catch up with Craig on Thursday December the 21st.
Jennifer Laycock, editor of Search Engine Guide, shares her knowledge and answers your questions about more advanced traffic drives like viral marketing, link baiting and online reputation management.Here are some notes and timelines from the call:
(1.33) Definition and examples of “link baiting”.
(4.11) Link baiting falls into the viral marketing concept: something that inspires people to talk about you.
(4.38) The cost of viral marketing: in the idea, not the marketing.
(5.14) Why the idea has to be unique: creating brand evangelists.
(6.33) Decide what your viral marketing goal is: sell a product/service, or raise awareness?
(8.33) Once you have the idea and the market segment identified, how do you get the word out?
(9.37) Jennifer wanted to be able to explain the importance of online marketing to small business owners from their point of view. She set herself the challenge of launching a new online business without spending any money and making a profit within 30 days. She explains the process and the results.
(12.54) The importance of investing time to become involved with a community and how it can pay you back.
(18.20) Online reputation management defined. The effect of poor responses to online customers.
(19.13) How online reputation management is similar to public relations.
(19.45) Why people are taking from their advertising budget to give to their PR budget.
(21.46) About the mesh conference.
(23.47 – 25.35) Jennifer dropped off the call.
(25.35) I’ve not started a blog for any of my stores because I’m afraid I won’t keep it current. How often should I add content to keep it working for me?
(26.00) Key point for blogging: if you can’t do it properly, don’t do it at all.
(26.55) Creative ways to create blog content: delegate, pay someone, user-generated content.
(27.41) Other benefits of blogging.
(29.38) Do we need all our keywords on our homepage in natural text?
(30.00) How many keyword phrases you should optimize each page for.
(34.46) Is use of marquee tag considered spam?
(36.04) If it’s no good for users, it’s no good for search engines. The Pinocchio effect: search engines want to replicate human judgment.
(37.53) Link building: 3 different types of links that go to your site (reciprocal, one-way, paid) and the definition of each.
(38.53) Understanding the value of a site: page rank.
(39.40) Ways to approach a site to ask them for a link.
(40.10) The most important factor in getting someone to link to your site.
(42.31) Title tags: length, what they’re used for, how to write them, inclusion of brand.
(46.30) Keyword phrase dilution.
(47.50) How to find places to link to your site: for sites with existing links.
(50.10) How to find places to link to your site: for sites with no links.
(51.40) Should I use an SEO company that promised page one rankings?
(54.41) What information should I look for in my web stats that will help me make changes that result in more traffic? The value of segmentation; knowing “what’s changed” can be more valuable than “top referrers”.
Jennifer Laycock, editor of Search Engine Guide, talked to Michael about how search engines can help attract visitors to your web site. Here are brief notes and timelines of their call:
(0.17) Call agenda: introducing the fundamentals of search engine optimization
(2.40) What has changed the most in search in the last year? Don’t just focus on Google
(5.25) What is the business case for driving traffic to a web site?
(6.44) Definition of organic marketing
(7.26) Results of eye tracking studies show searchers perceive an organic link to be of higher quality than a paid link
(10.08) How conversion rates differ for generic versus brand keyword terms (e.g. tennis shoes vs. Nike)
(10.57) Optimizing your site for organic search levels the playing field between big and small businesses.
(11.30) How many searches a person carries out before making a purchase, and what this means for your search terms.
(13.25) How search engines rank web sites – the Pinocchio effect
(16.41) Why text is so important to search engines
(17.17) Can search engines read the text in Flash?
(18.09) How to structure your web pages (like an essay or newspaper article)
(19.46) Suggestions for how to judiciously incorporate your keywords into a web page.
(21.00) What is a keyword phrase, and how do you rank for your keywords?
(23.35) The steps to follow to find your keyword phrases
(24.46) PPC a great way to test your keywords before optimizing your site
(25.35) Scanning and skimming – what it is and how to structure your content so it can be scanned and skimmed
(27.42) Keyword density – how to know how often to include your keywords
(28.21) Using highlighting or links to call attention to certain keywords
(29.54) Introduction to “offpage” factors: links, domain age
(31.05) About the different types of links (reciprocal, incoming, paid, text or image)
(32.51) Google bombing
(33.32) Why link quality is important
(34.16) Why link age is important
(35.20) The sand box concept, and what the real barrier to entry for new sites is
(37.44) How to get a competitive edge in presenting your product/service
(40.05) What do you do when your chosen keywords don’t do well in keyword effectiveness tools (e.g. WordTracker)?
(43.38) How do search engines look at dynamically generated pages, versus regular HTML pages?
(46.00) Use of site maps – how many links are too many
(46.45) About WordTracker and Keyword Discovery
(48.54) An additional benefit of these tools: identifying future products/services
(49.46) Use your competitors’ web sites to look for variations on your keyword phrases
(50.10) Do you need to submit a site to search engines and directories?
(52.16) Do framesets make a difference in optimising a site?
(53.44) Linking strategies will be talked about in more detail next week
(54.04) The key budgeting guideline: you should always earn more from the effort your SEO professionals put in than what they’re charging you.
(56.43) Jennifer can recommend search engine optimization providers
(57.39) Be patient. It may take a while to see benefits from an organic campaign.
John Marshall, founder and CEO of ClickTracks, talked to Michael about advanced web site analytic techniques. Here are brief notes and timelines of their call:
(0.25) What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in the web analytics field over the last 12 months?
(3.07) Agenda for call: moving beyond the concept of return on investment; internal search; optimizing web site conversion funnels
(4.35) Return on investment: the problem with concentrating on ROI as a metric
(7.48) What ROI cannot measure: the holes in your data
(9.33) Examples of where holes in data could emerge & strategies of how to overcome them
(12.55) Moving beyond ROI: how to measure the degree to which a campaign is successful without using the ROI measurement
(13.57) The metric to use: average time on site
(14.23) Why people don’t like to use average time on site
(15.17) Is shortening the time on site better, because you’re helping people get somewhere faster?
(15.45) Rule one in using the time on site metric: compare numbers across campaigns only within your own site.
(18.42) Internal search – when is it appropriate to use it, and how can it be used?
(19.25) Data mining gives increased visibility into what your customers are looking for
(22.05) About the quality of data you get from internal search
(24.00) Why including internal search on your site is worth it
(28.50) How can I use segmentation and path analysis to determine which visitors are good candidates for popular internal search terms?
(29.17) Clarification of “path analysis” and why this data should be interpreted with caution
(33.56) Where path analysis data does work, and why segmentation is important
(35.34) How to use segmentation to get useful data from exit page data
(38.56) Funnel optimization – how does the notion of segmentation and defining of goals fit into funnel optimization?
(40.05) Background to how funnels and funnel analysis on web sites started out, and why the process inherited some fundamental design flaws
(42.55) An online sales process should not be funnel shaped
(44.19) Another problem with thinking that people visit pages in a predefined path
(46.50) Contact page one of the most important pages that build authenticity and trust
(49.07) What data can be extracted from funnel analysis that is valuable
(51.15) How to define what an influential page is
(52.53) What can a company do when the goal is a page you may not own, so once your user gets to that goal the company cannot track after that point?
(53.39) Choosing a goal for a web site (ecommerce or lead generation)
(55.12) About the 2 methods of data collection – log files and JavaScript
(56.55) What to do if a 3rd party site doesn’t allow you to track your information
Michael spoke with John Marshall, founder and CEO of ClickTracks, last week. Award-winning web analytics software, ClickTracks was created out of frustration with existing web site analysis tools in the belief that there had to be a better way.
Here are brief notes and timelines from the call with John:
(0.20) Agenda for the call.
(2.27) How and why John started the company, ClickTracks.
(4.07) Why would someone want to analyse traffic on his or her web site?
(4.46) Differences between measuring consumer interests and behaviour in physical world and online world.
(7.42) What are the steps to start tracking your web site?
(9.37) Do certain sites lend themselves towards certain types of goals? The importance of setting goals.
(12:33) Can you have more than one goal for your web site?
(13.10) Are there best practices regarding where to start (with what to do with my web site data)?
(16.05) Data trends, comparisons, and the importance of data segmentation.
(19.50) Why it’s more important to look at your data once a week than every day.
(24.00) Types of log file-based products.
(25.34) Types of JavaScript-based products.
(26.39) Technical differences between these products: what you can measure using log file versus JavaScript products.
(28.57) How search engine robots respond to log file vs. JavaScript data collection.
(32.15) Advantages/disadvantages of log files.
(38.11) Why some companies use JavaScript and log files.
(39.39) There’s so much info included in web analytics software; what information should I concentrate on measuring when I start?
(41.30) Why not to compare these measurements across multiple web sites.
(42.27) Where can one get benchmarking data to understand what a reasonable goal is?
(44.09) Why John cautions against benchmarking of this kind, and what data he recommends using for benchmarking.
(45.19) Using a change log to keep track of web site changes.
(46.20) Most people are coming to my new site through my Yahoo profile; how can I use this information to meet my goals of increasing lead generation and opting in for future newsletters?
(49.20) Can you explain segmentation?
(53.14) Organic vs. paid search segmentation: how people behave differently if they’re arrived at your site from an organic versus paid search link.
(54.51) Any other examples of user segmentation? Visitors from profiles vs. blogs.
(55.42) Your most versatile and powerful tool for online marketing.
(55.55) Another example of segmentation: first time versus returning visitors. Which segment do you cater for when optimizing web site usability?
(59.26) Thanks very much John, and look forward to speaking with you again next week.
Andrew Goodman, author of “Winning Results with Google AdWords”, joins us to discuss advanced techniques of running pay-per-click advertising campaigns.
Here are some notes and timelines from our call with Andrew:
(0.20) Andrew introduced
(0.39) How’s the new version of your book coming & how will it differ from your first version?
(3.00) Improving 4 or 5 details that increase your AdWords performance just 10% can add up over time.
(5.20) What is “advanced” PPC?
(7.06) Google’s stance on click arbitrage.
(9.15) How Google determines where your ad ranks on a page (quality based bidding).
(10.18) Types of ads and classes of keywords that can affect the quality score of your ad.
(11.46) Landing page quality guidelines.
(14.42) What other areas should professionals who are working with more advanced PPC strategies be aware of?
(15.47) Good sources of information on how to improve conversions: Marketing Sherpa; The Eisenbergs (links at bottom of this page).
(17.49) How much copy should be on a page?
(19.05) Someone has just outbid me on my most descriptive keyword and I have now dropped off the listing. I have a limited budget, but I really want that listing. What should I do?
(20.49) The bidding down strategy.
(21.35) About day parting (scheduling ads to run at specific days and times).
(22.04) In what scenarios is day parting effective?
(23.12) If you suspend your ad for a while, do you have to fight your way up to the top again? Is your quality score affected?
(24.55) Using day parting for specific industries – data collection & analysis important.
(26.22) Using day parting to create a profile/theme.
(28.18) What software would you recommend to manage multiple pay-per-click accounts in Google and Yahoo?
(33.05) I have very important but few keywords. I have now taken steps to design my ad and landing page around one main keyword. Is this a good approach?
(33.38) The importance of creating big keyword lists.
(34.45) We had a technical issue with one of the AdWords campaigns we were running for a client. Any advice on how to protect service providers, as well as manage client expectations, when a mistake happens?
(36.55) Pros & cons of parties signing airtight liability contracts.
(37.45) The importance of frequent reporting
(40.17) Do I get charged every time someone clicks on my link, even if it’s the same person clicking over and over again?
(42.04) What’s the difference between click fraud on a PPC ad, and click fraud on an ad from an affiliate network or Google’s AdSense program?
(43.26) More about Google AdSense.
(44.42) What can I watch for to determine if my ad is a victim of click fraud, are there any services out there that can help?
(46.27) Client example of a deceptive web site clicking on ads.
(48.42) One way to identify a bad source: time spent on the page.
(50.04) What’s the latest on Google wallet or checkout and how might they help click fraud?
(52.09) Since day 1, 30-50% of all clicks have been very short visits.
(53.12) Do you think click fraud has the potential of destroying the entire PPC advertising industry, as it’s been reported?
(54.47) Advertising on the web is a superior form of advertising and marketing.
(55.55) I’ve tried and struggled to get Google Analytics working with my AdWords campaign, especially tracking orders. Do you recommend using Analytics to track an AdWords campaign, is it worth the effort?
(56.55) Third party integrators may be able to do one-off customizations.
Next podcast:
John Marshall, CEO of ClickTracks, will introduce us to the importance of web site analytics. Learn why you should track and analyze your site traffic and how to get the best from your data. Sign up.
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