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 @KISSMetrics - You don't have to be a psychologist to create good messages and strategies for your business, but it really helps to know the subtle things that make people more comfortable taking action. This article summarizes some of my favorite research on buyer psychology.

If you offer a trial of your product, use email to deliver "mints" of helpful information. This will increase the likelihood that they will buy. See #4.

Design your pricing in clusters around your most profitable offering. See #5.

Be specific in your calls to action. See #3.

Community involvement and social proof are also covered. See #1 and #2.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

 @conversion_team-I'm speaking about "flipping" you message when writing copy that converts at #convcon West in San Francisco. Basically, "flipping" prevents "blending" your message, which makes it lose impact and relevance.

The catch is that you must understand something about the Web visitors that you're flipping your message toward.

The Conversion Team has a solution, and this article does a great job of helping you get an actionable understanding of how to write for your visitors in a persuasive and relevant way.

 @peeplaja - This is about as complete a summary of home page best practices that I've ever seen. Peep could have made this an eBook. There are some great examples, specific recommendations and tons of links to other resources. This ambitious post covers:Map out buyer personasCraft a value propositionBuild a connectionUse proper visualsDefine most wanted actionCreate call to actionWrite user oriented copyAdd trust elementsTest lengthCheck load speed

 @unbounce has provide a post with a double payoff. First, this is a great list of conversion-related stats and, second, a great example of how to design content to be sharable.

The content is sharable for the following reasons: The title contains the call to action "48 Tweetable Stats..." There's something here for everyone The quotes are Twitter-sized for easy sharing in 140 characters Each quote has a call to action in the form of a "Tweet this" link. Every quote So, if you've got something you really want people to share, follow this recipe. For article-style content, use pull quotes and put a "Tweet this" link with each.

These guys are real smarty-pants.

@pallavkaushish offers a nice check list for things to test. However, you should use this list to develop a list of hypotheses. Rather than just testing these, use your analytics to see if these might really be the problem.

I would add one more to the top of the list: headlines and copy around calls to action. This has proven more effective than testing CTA buttons for us.

"I may have an answer to your questions."

Doesn't this sound hopeful? And you do. Whatever industry you are in, it is fundamentally your duty to understand your market's problems and to figure out how to solve them. The philosophy of content marketing is that teaching prospects about their problems is as important as teaching them about your solutions.

So, if you have some helpful knowledge that helps prospects solve problems, how are you letting them know that you're there for them?

Here are twelve ways to call attention to what you offer. Then you can let the content speak volumes for your solutions.

 @copyblogger Here are the five most persuasive words we can use. Indivdually, each of these words appeals to a certain kind of person. If we use the Eisenberg Modes of Persuasion as a guide, we can assign each to a different mode.

"You" - Humanists are relationship oriented. When your voice shifts from "We" and "our company" and you speak to them in the first person, it feels more human -- and more Humanistic.

"Free" - This word appeals to the Spontaneous reader. These visitors are just looking for an excuse to take action.

"Because" - Methodicals want to understand the details. They make decisions deliberately and logically. Credible proof is important.

"Instantly" - This also appeals to our Spontaneous reader, who wants immmediate gratification.

"New" - This appeals to the Competitive, who wants to know what will make them better. New technologies, new versions, new looks get their attention.

So, two of the words are very Spontaneous, and we tend to act spontaneously when we've decided to buy something. "Free" and "Instantly" are bottom of the funnel words.

Read the research in this excellent post.

 @tim_ash It's that magical moment in which a visitor becomes a lead or a sale; when they seek by their actions to start or continue a relationship with us. It is the moment they click a button. Conversion rate expert Tim Ash offers some great guidance on how to get your buttons clicked more and more.

Questions about how to present your buttons. Your questions are all answered in one infographic. Nice.

This article offers Orwell's Five Rules For Writing: Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech that you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word. You can see some of these principles in action.

 @b2bmarketing via @huffpostbiz John Fox gets landing pages and is bringing the tale of this important online strategy to the masses who read the Huffington Post. Much of the article was based on an interview with yours truly.

There are two defining characteristics of a landing page: It must keep the promise made by the link or ad that brings people to the page It is single-mindedly focused on getting them to take an action that will help them or the business Fox goes on the talk about trust, proof and images as keys to effective landing pages. He also talks about eliminating distractions and avenues for abandonment.

Thanks for a great article, John.

While Kickstarter isn't a typical landing page, this Kickstarter project does a great job of using video in a persuasive way, and including a call to action tied into the page.

If you're using video on your landing pages, you should point to or reference the form on the page in the video.

There are a number of best practices when it comes to creating forms on your landing pages.

Fewer fields increases conversion rate. Avoid conversion killering fields like address unless you absolutely need them. Add qualifying questions only to increase the quality of leads. "Submit" is not a proper call to action. No best practice is best for everyone, though. This infograph does a great job of putting some numbers behind the development of the right form for your landing page.

Whether you're willing to admit it or not, you ARE trying to persuade visitors to take action on your site. Here is a nice "visual" summary of Cialdini's six principles to draw from.

ROI Calculators can be used to help prospects justify taking action. I thought that this Marketing Sherpa ROI calculator did a great job of mixing the helpful with the fun.

Retargeting Emails - Do E-commerce customers like or loathe them? March 10th, 2011Leave a commentGo to comments By Charles Nicolls, SeeWhy At SeeWhy, when we first launched our remarketing service in 2009, Randy Stross wrote a piece about email remarketing in The New York Times suggesting that while remarketing might be a great idea for ecommerce websites, it's not a great idea for consumers. He likened emails following up on abandoned shopping carts to a salesman chasing you down the street if you didn't buy from his store. There are major differences, of course. We've long argued that remarketing emails, when done well, not only drive conversions but also build brand trust. They can deliver great service and provide customers with the confidence to return to buy-either online, by phone or in store. If Randy was right and customers universally resented the intrusion, then these emails wouldn't work. In aiming to answer the question more substantively, I turned to data, and specifically email marketing benchmarks. The key metrics to look at to determine whether customers like or loathe remarketing emails are: the recovery rate the open rate the clickthrough rate the unsubscribe rate Frankly, the evidence is overwhelming: Remarketing, when done well, is appreciated by customers. Here's the evidence: (1) The recovery rate The recovery rate is the percentage of visitors that abandon shopping carts, and remarketed visitors thatthen return and purchase following remarketing. At SeeWhy, we measure recovery rates across all our customers, and currently the average is 20 percent. So, one in five shopping cart abandoners come back and buy, having being remarketed. In some cases, the recovery rate is as high as 50 percent. Moreover, when remarketed customers buy, they spend on average 55 percent more than customers who didn't abandon their shopping carts. (2) The open rate The average email open rate for remarketing emails is currently 46 percent, m

If you run a blog, you'll really enjoy this critique of Jay Baer's Convince and Convert blog by Derek Halpern of SocialTriggers.com. Great ideas include: Simplify your landing pages, make your most imporant conversions most prominent, add a call to action after the comments (I call this a "dripping pan"), and more.

The three most important things on your landing page: Headline, Bold Call to Action and Social Proof. Nice read.

In my new book -- see preview on Facebook -- I isolate five conversion signatures, one of which is right for your website. One is the Site as a Service signature, and the first conversion strategy is "Turn Visitors into Tryers."

This case study bears out the importance of that strategy. SaaS sites have an advantage over ecommerce sites in that their visitors can try the product right there on site. Why not offer a trial? Find out the other strategies in a free video introducing the book's core concepts.

This is a great overview of Landing Page best practices complete with examples. You'll find a lot in common with our Chemstry of the Landing Page presentation. Headlines and Ad Copy Clear and Concise Headlines Impeccable Grammar Trust indicators Call to Action Buttons Lose the Links Visuals (images) Above the Fold Always be testing