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 @gaspland The customer equation for an Online Store seems to be the least content intensive, with online proprietors being satisfied with manufacturer stock photos of products. High converting online stores, however, take pains to help the visitor "touch and taste" their wares. Here are some great ideas on how to generate content for your online store.

Ironically, one of the best models for agility and persuasion is found offline, in the world of traditional retailing. Merchandisers at brick-and-mortar chains continually experiment with displays and layouts, offers and messaging, in order to find what works best at each store, then share their findings among stores.

I'm giving away free copies of my book Your Customer Creation Equation: Unexpected Website Formulas of The Conversion Scientist. There are no strings attached.

Starting December 15 and running through December 19th, my book will be completely free in the Amazon Kindle Store. Just click on "One Click Buy" during the promo dates, and it'll be delivered right to your Kindle free of charge.

Don't have a Kindle? Never fear. You can read it on the Amazon Cloud Reader on your computer, or through the free Kindle App available for your Smartphone or iPad.  

  So what is this book I am offering for free? It's called The Customer Creation Equation: Unexpected Website Formulas of The Conversion Scientist™. It gives readers the foolproof formulas to creating a website that not only gets the right traffic, but converts that traffic to customers, returning customers and advocates.  

Some of the great things you'll learn in this book:

- Identify the unique customer creation formula for your site. - Set up your own digital conversion lab to measure your progress. - Develop landing pages for your site that actually deliver. - Charge your marketing "batteries" to reduce your advertising expenditures. - Communicate authoritatively with designers, developers, and executives.

So please, do not buy this book.  

Go over to the Kindle Store and get your copy absolutely free. Your website will thank you for it.

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

What makes people trust your Website more? As you know building trust with your visitors is critical to maximizing conversion. Here is some research that helps us to understand what makes visitors trust our site. Here are some highlights. 1:43-People trust more attractive websites. 2:21-Attractive websites are those that follow conventions. 3:05-Biggest source of frustration? Ability to find relevant information. 3:31-Website owners must increase the relevance of their information. 5:00-The best way to retain customers is to provide relevant information. Relevancy is dropping across the Internet. 6:10-How an Internet store is different from a physical store. 8:02-People who are on Facebook are more likely to recommend companies that they see on Facebook. 9:30-Satisfaction is what it is all about, affecting conversion and referral behavior. 10:00-Clam chowder

 @TheGrok  says "Test your product headline to be benefit oriented as opposed to just product name." I hadn't considered that. Good lists always tell you something you hadn't thought of and Bryan has such a list for Online Stores and Publication sites who feature their offerings on Product Pages. Product pages are the money pages on your site, and are one of the first places to look for optimization opportunities.

This article on ebooks comes at an important time at Conversion Sciences as we put the final touches on a unique ebook of our own (preorder Business Video Through the Eyes of Your Prospects).

Content is the way you charge and release the power stored in your marketing batteries (customer lists, email lists, social media networks).

And don't forget that ebooks now outsell print books.

In my new book, I talk about the importance of having Marketing Batteries that store visitors attention for you to use over and over. The "Subscriber Battery" is your email list. The "Social Battery" will include your Twitter followers.

The problem with the Social Battery is that it discharges unreliably compared to the Subscriber Battery. As a result I recommend converting your social networks to email contacts. This charges your Subscriber Battery from your Social Battery.

Here is a great set of tactics to get more email subscribers from Twitter.

@_EricElliott makes a strong case for choosing Web apps for your mobile users over deploying native apps through the app stores. We can add to this that AB testing Web apps (Elliott calls them progressive web apps) is easier with the tools we have. Many advanced tools don't yet support native applications.

However, responsive web designs aren't enough. You should still put the effort in to craft a mobile-centric web app, as if you were developing a native app.

We test the content of header and footer bars on mobile websites--we call them stickies--and this includes the use of the hamburger menu icon. It doesn't always work well.

For apps and mobile websites alike, "an app's popularity is determined more so by user engagement and retention rather that its App Store ranking."

 @copyblogger: Content is king. In my upcoming book The Customer Creation Equation, I teach you how to charge your marketing batteries and then tap the stored marketing potential... all with content. If you don't yet know what content you're going to create, or find yourself stuck, this infographic may be just the ticket for you.

If your business runs the Online Store formula, average order value (AOV) is probably a critical metric. Here are many ways to increase average order value categorized into four types.

In my upcoming book, I make the case that email is preferable to social media for storing market attention. You might think that, in the era of mobile devices, my preference for email may seem quaint.

Think again.

Clearly, mobile devices and email go together like milk and Cap'n Crunch cereal. Only healthier. Enjoy these stats and keep that email coming!

The folks at CrazyEgg have a wonderful summary of the five website formulas found in my book. Read this and you can skip chapters 3 and 4.

The folks at CrazyEgg have a wonderful summary of the five website formulas found in my book. Brochure Site Consultative Site Publication Site Online Store Online Service Read this and you can skip chapters 3 and 4.

Walking into a store qualifies as a conversion. Apparently promotional email still rocks social media.

"One of the chief advantages that e-commerce companies currently wield over their real-world counterparts are vast troves of detailed data on purchases and shopping habits. " How are you applying behavioral data to your online store? Will you be the next dinosaur?

I've put forth in my new book that adding social media icons to a landing page is a bad idea. I get a lot of pushback on this. Here's some support for my position. Simplicity sells. "Engagement" doesn't. This article highlights three components that consumers need to make it easier to buy. They need to trust the information they receive.They need to learn effectively without distraction.They need to be able to weigh options confidently. Help your visitors choose and choose confidently. Worry about your social media strategy after the sale.

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

Shimon Sandler offers some tips for linking phone orders to search campaigns, ranging from simple (using a pay-per-call provider) to more involved (setting up a database of unique promo codes tied to specific keywords).

You can create a unique landing page for each product that features a different phone number for each of the engines, or add a promo/reference code to each product page and train your phone sales reps to ask for and record this code for every order.

Sandler says that you can also put a printable coupon on each landing page that consumers need to redeem in-store, or try an IVR phone system that tracks phone calls and their sources. - Read the whole story...