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Most of marketing is now measurable, directly or indirectly. With digitally produced and distributed marketing - particularly channels such as search engine marketing, online advertising, email marketing, post-click marketing, and web site optimization - it's often practical to test dozens or hundreds of ideas within a short time. So if you have more than one competing suggestion for "what will work best", the solution is "test them and let's find out". The answer is quantifiable, not emotional.

The ecommerce business is partly a numbers game. And the object of the game is to increase your sales and profitability. You need to understand how your site's visitors are converted to buying customers. Not that you need to immerse yourself in the minutiae of data that many web statistics programs produce, but to reach your site's sales potential, you need to have an understanding of its key numbers and have a simple method for tracking them over time.

Here's the first thing to remember about frame switching as it applies to copywriting: All copywriting stories are "nested." Matryoshka+doll-1In writing copy you inevitably create - at a minimum - one frame of reference: the one between your authorial voice and the reader. In fact, copywriting teachers often advise aspiring writers to "talk" onto the page as if they're talking to a best friend, simply because that mental exercise animates that almost invisible frame of reference in the mind of the writer.* Writers who forget that frame of reference tend to produce artificial, corporate-speak copy.

Yesterday we looked at examples of image zoom and alternate views, which can help customers experience the product better than one small view. A good photographer plus AJAX or Flash technology like Scene 7 or Magic Zoom can achieve this. But online retailers can go a step further and use photos that show products in use, or "in context." This can reduce a shopper's fears, uncertainties and doubts about a purchase like "how does this look on a person?" or "how large is this in real life?." Images can also "sell" by triggering an emotion, showing the quality or versatility of an item or illustrating a products features and benefits.