How Mindset, Value, and the Words We Use Shape Everything At the beginning of a new year, we tend to do the same thing. We set goals. We make plans. We talk about growth, improvement, and momentum. But before any of that matters, there is a more important place to start. It starts with mindset. That idea came into sharp focus during a recent conversation on the Rock Solid Round Rock podcast with Felicia Reed. She is known as a…
If your customers don’t feel the story, they won’t fund the solution. The most overlooked growth lever in your business isn’t your product. It’s how you frame what it means. Most product narratives follow a tired script: “It’s faster. It’s smarter. It’s better. It does more.” That’s not a story. That’s a product brochure! What’s missing? It becomes a story about the company, not a story for the customer. The brands that break through don’t just talk about features. They…
The inventor was tired. Not the kind of tired a nap fixes. The kind that hums behind your eyes. The kind that lives in your calendar. The kind that builds up when what you build keeps getting ignored. His workshop was full. His head was fuller. Like a browser with 47 tabs open, one of them playing music he couldn’t find. “I don’t understand,” he told the mentor. “I keep improving everything. More features. More control. Smarter tech. But every…
How a Simple T-Shirt Turned Into a Movement in Round Rock Every town has its storytellers. Round Rock has its own rhythm and its own voice. If you have been paying attention, it also has real momentum. It is not just growing, it is booming. In six years, Williamson County’s total appraised value jumped from $89.1 billion to $184.4 billion. During that same period, 12,558 new small businesses opened. And those numbers do not yet reflect the full impact of…
There’s a moment, often too late, when people realize their message didn’t land. It didn’t inspire, convert, or persuade. And they can’t quite figure out why. It wasn’t the idea. It wasn’t the effort. It was the excess. Too many words. Too much complexity. Not enough clarity. We live in a world saturated with information and starving for meaning. In this kind of environment, simplicity isn’t a luxury. It’s survival. It’s not just a design principle. It’s not about using…
Now the Funnel Is Dying. Only Your Story Can Save You. They sold you the dream. Big Tech promised that if you could track it, you could control it. That with enough dashboards, pixels, retargeting, and funnels, you could build something that lasts. But what they never told you is this: Funnels don’t build brands. They only extract value from them. Many of you don’t have a brand. You have a set of automations wrapped around a discount code. And…
Even the most intelligent AI can’t fix a broken story. And it can’t replace a team that doesn’t believe the same thing. After thirty years helping companies optimize conversions and build persuasive systems, we’ve seen one truth show up again and again: The right message always wins. Not the best product. Not the largest budget. The message that makes sense in the customer’s world. However, most companies don’t have a single story. They have six. Everyone thinks they’re right. Each…
A few years ago, if you wanted the best chicken soup recipe, you typed it into Google. You’d hit enter and brace yourself. First, you’d scroll past ads. Then you’d land on a blog post about someone’s grandmother. You’d dodge pop-ups, wait for autoplay videos to stop, skim through 1,500 words of meandering storytelling, and eventually, if you were lucky, find the actual recipe. That was the era of browsing. We didn’t like it, but we played along. Publishers optimized…
What if I told you the difference between words that get ignored and words that change lives comes down to just two words? Not “once upon.” Not “the end.” Two little connectors that most people overlook: ‘but’ and ‘therefore’. Stay with me because this is the hinge between someone forgetting your message and someone retelling it a decade later. Timelines Don’t Persuade Most people confuse stories with timelines. “And then this happened. And then that happened.” That isn’t a story.…
Frustrated at waiting for Google to update their index, I recently ran a simple experiment. I wrote a press release, published it, and watched as AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini instantly treated it as fact. Think about that for a moment. A single piece of content became the “truth” inside systems that millions of people now rely on for answers. That experiment is just one of the stories I shared with Slobodan Manic on his No Hacks podcast. But…
Five minutes. One stage. No second chances. That was the challenge at the Round Rock Chamber‘s Startup Day pitch competition. And that‘s where Joseph Fischer, founder of Playmaker Recruiting, stood out and won. Why his story connected Joseph didn‘t start with features or numbers. He started with his own story, an undersized kid from Pflugerville who saw scouts skip over talented teammates because they weren‘t at the “right” schools or tournaments.That frustration became his fuel. And the room felt it.…
We are drowning in content. AI churns out torrents of words in seconds. Social feeds refresh with a flick of a thumb. Blogs, podcasts, videos, and ads blur together until they feel disposable. In all that noise, what makes a brand stand out? It isn’t a polished design. It isn’t clever copy. It isn’t having more content than the competition. The corporate or personal brands that cut through today are characters you can’t forget. Think about your favorite TV series…
Most marketers underestimate just how physical persuasion really is. When you see someone smile, your mirror neurons smile. When you hear laughter, your brain laughs with them. Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran calls them “empathy neurons” because they dissolve the barrier between self and others. This is why the most memorable ads don’t just tell you something. They make you feel it. They create knee-jerk reactions, inside jokes, even little catchphrases you carry into your daily conversations. Wassup! That’s what Dr. Matt…
A young raven falls out of its nest in the dark of night. He sees several ravens and other birds head off, soaring away to seek shelter. The sound of thunder and flashes of light warn him of the peril of an incoming storm. Watching all the other birds fly and glide gracefully, the little raven leaps into the air but barely manages to get off the ground and lands in a muddy puddle. Frustrated and confused by the seeming…
There were days I could barely get off the couch. I struggled to shower, and if my dog Hero had not needed a walk I might never have stepped outside. Hero’s tail, thumping against the door, became the metronome that kept me moving when nothing else would. That low season framed my conversation with Clarena Tobon, Executive Director of NAMI Central Texas, on the Rock Solid podcast. Clarena spends her days turning private battles like mine into public support through…
When former county judge William Gravell says his family landed in Williamson County because a milkman struck a bargain with a local banker, you lean in. You lean in because every great community is built on small, generous moments that compound over decades. You lean in again when you hear the punch line. The same county that once stretched pasture all the way down Main Street now carries an appraised value of 184 billion dollars, a jump from 89 billion…
There’s a moment in every entrepreneur’s life when the spreadsheet stops mattering. A moment when the funding pitch fades, the product launch is over, and all you’re left with is this question: “Who am I doing this for? And why should they care?” That moment is where every great story starts. And it is exactly where this episode of the Rock Solid Round Rock podcast begins. What Happens When You Bring 100 Powerful Women Into a Room and Actually Listen?…
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never believed marketing was about metrics (even as the co-founder of the Digital Analytics Association). Sure, I love a good dashboard. I built a career helping billion-dollar brands turn clicks into conversions. But at the end of the day, what moves people isn’t the metric. It’s the meaning. And that’s what this SEO Charity webinar was really about. It wasn’t a lecture on storytelling. It was a mirror. A reminder that we don’t…
Not every conversation leaves an imprint. But some, like the one I recently had with Kevin Koym, stay with you. We recorded it just before Startup Day in Round Rock, where Kevin was preparing to host one of his signature Campfire Networking events. For those unfamiliar, it’s not your average mixer. There’s no pitch deck, no elevator speech. Just entrepreneurs coming together around a metaphorical fire, sharing insights instead of intentions. Kevin’s been doing this a long time. Long enough…
We live in a world of metrics, where follower counts pass for credibility and virality masquerades as value. It’s tempting to believe that if people see you, they’ll follow you. But here’s the uncomfortable truth. Being seen isn’t the same as being believed. And being believed? That’s what moves people. Amanda Russell nailed it in The Influencer Code: “If nobody takes action because of you, you’re not an influencer. You’re just popular.” That line cut through the noise. Because over…
Last Saturday in Round Rock a preschooler sold every glitter candle on her table in ninety minutes. No ad budget, no CRM, just a marker poster and unstoppable enthusiasm. If that stings, good. Discomfort is data, and data fuels growth. The Moment My Lens Flipped Nicholle Walton Durban sat in front of the mic and dropped a single word that rewired the conversation: edupreneur. She is not an educator who dabbles in commerce. She is an entrepreneur who builds learning…
We are not drowning in information. We are all being fed stories designed to keep us compliant. Every swipe, scroll, and AI-generated summary is a carefully measured drip of dopamine, fear, tribalism, and distraction. Not to inform you. To influence you. Not to empower you. To pacify you. The more overwhelmed you are, the more likely you are to drift in the sea of life. When I wrote I Think I Swallowed An Elephant, it wasn’t because I had everything…
Yesterday at 1 Million Cups Round Rock, our Brews and Breakthroughs table kept circling the same drain. Why does selling feel like pushing a boulder uphill? Here’s the uncomfortable answer. You’re probably attracting the wrong people. Not bad people. Just people who are not a match. And that mismatch is what drains your energy. Let me show you what alignment actually looks like. Dr. Matt Delgado at LifeSpring Chiropractic had all the right ingredients on paper. A clean website. A…
“If you can lead a horse, you can learn to lead your life again.” – Karah Powell Some people show up to life. Karah Powell shows up to lead it. Not with fanfare. Not with flair. But with the kind of quiet presence that makes people feel like they belong. In our latest Rock Solid podcast episode, I sat down with Karah—veteran, nonprofit leader, and the heart behind ROCK (Ride On Center for Kids). And as we talked, I realized…
Over 25 years ago, we wrote our first book called Persuasive Online Copywriting. It was the business card packaged as a book to help people understand the value of increasing conversions. Back then, people didn’t take words seriously. They still believed marketing was about fonts, flash intros, and button colors. I knew better. I had seen it firsthand. The right words, spoken to the right person at the right moment, could change everything. Today, as I release I Think I…
Last week on the Rock Solid podcast, I sat down with fitness and menopause coach Karen Cerezo. I expected a great conversation. What I didn’t expect was to feel so seen. Because as Karen talked about brain fog, fatigue, and aching joints… about the slow erosion of identity that hits so many women in midlife… I felt my own story echoing back. Let me be real. Before my transformation, I knew the weight I carried wasn’t just physical. It was…
What if your morning coffee had commitment issues? Hot and iced, both at once. Undecided, until you decide. That’s not just today’s vibe. It’s how your brain and your universe actually behave. Your brain doesn’t passively receive reality. It predicts it. It guesses what comes next, then reshapes what you see, hear, and feel to match that expectation. Neuroscientists call this predictive coding.Marketers call it positioning.Storytellers?They call it the power behind everything. If your brain expects rejection, it filters for…
I didn’t time-travel this morning. But my brain did. One second I’m scrolling news, inboxes, calendars, social media. The next, I’m a kid again, sitting on the carpet, cereal in hand, watching Saturday morning cartoons like nothing else in the world mattered. I can’t wait to meet my friends in the park and play some basketball and wiffle ball.. That wasn’t just nostalgia. That was my nervous system crying out, “Please, make things simple again.” We’re overwhelmed because we’re off-script.…
Some stories start with inspiration. Others start with blood work. Mine started with both. In July 2024, I walked into Impact Family Wellness expecting just another check-up. Instead, I walked into the beginning of a new story. Monica McKitterick and her team didn’t just take my vitals. They ordered full blood work that uncovered the truth I had been avoiding. My blood sugar was more than triple the healthy range. My blood pressure was spiking. Other markers weren’t much better.…
Lately, I’ve been getting overwhelming feedback on my latest manuscript, I Think I Swallowed An Elephant (Kindle pre order is available). But the comments that stick with me most aren’t about what I wrote. They’re about what I didn’t. It’s what I chose to bury. Like an iceberg, the real weight of a story lives below the surface. The part you don’t spell out. The part the reader feels in their gut before their brain catches up. And here’s what’s…
Ever read an “About Us” page that made you want to work with the business, or just grab a coffee with the owner? Didn’t think so. Most About pages read like they were written by someone trying to impress a bank manager. Buzzwords. Bullet points. Boring. But that’s not your story. You built something real. Maybe from your kitchen table. Maybe from pure grit. Either way, people don’t want your mission statement. They want your why. They want to feel…
Back when I was a 20-something social worker in New York, I had a boss named Fred. Former priest, recovering alcoholic, lived through the Bowery, and taught me more about people than any textbook ever could. He used to ask, “When are you going to write your book?” I didn’t get it back then. But I get it now. It wasn’t about putting words on paper. It was about owning your story, leading your story, and writing your next chapter…
If you could build your business anywhere, somewhere affordable, buzzing with talent, rich with resources, and designed for your lifestyle, wouldn’t you? Welcome to Round Rock, Texas. Not just a suburb of Austin. An entrepreneur and startup launchpad where ambition meets opportunity. Here’s why founders are quietly winning here… while the rest of the world is stuck in traffic. 1. Where Data Crowns You King Round Rock doesn’t just feel great — it’s ranked great. Voted #1 place to live…
You will die someday. Not a warm and fuzzy opener, I know. But stick with me. Because when you remember that truth, something strange happens. You stop performing. You stop pretending. And you start asking better questions. Like this one: What exactly do I lose by being fully, wildly, unapologetically myself? Back in 2007, a man named Randy Pausch asked that question without ever saying the words. He was dying of terminal cancer. Months to live. And he walked onto…
What does real leadership look like in Round Rock? It looks like Selicia Sanchez-Adame. Entrepreneur. Community builder. Bold voice for the future. I had the pleasure of interviewing Selicia on the Rock Solid podcast. This conversation wasn’t your typical LinkedIn highlight reel. It was honest. It was rooted. And it revealed what makes her one of the most quietly powerful forces shaping Round Rock today. Selicia didn’t just grow up in Round Rock. She grew into herself here. From the…
Most doctors learn about pain from textbooks. Dr. Mark Malone learned from the floor of his home, stuck there after a devastating back injury. He couldn’t walk. Couldn’t work. Could barely reach the refrigerator. And this was after years of already running a pain clinic. That kind of firsthand experience? It changes you. When I sat down with Dr. Malone on the Rock Solid podcast, we weren’t just talking about business. We were talking about what happens when purpose meets…
Sprinkle a little on the website.Add a pinch to the pitch deck.Maybe toss it in the onboarding slideshow. But here’s the truth:Story isn’t seasoning. It is the system. If your story only lives in your marketing, you’re missing 90% of its power. Because story is how humans understand the world.It is how we decide what matters.Who we trust.What we believe.And why we act. That is why your story has to show up everywhere: Great companies do not just tell stories.They…
When people ask me what makes Round Rock different, I don’t hesitate. It’s not just the growth. It’s not just the innovation. It’s the people. It’s always been the people. That’s why I launched Rock Solid: The Round Rock Business Leaders Podcast – to capture the heart of what drives this city forward. And in this episode, I got the absolute joy of sitting down with my good friend and fellow Round Rock Chamber ambassador, Diana Lindsey. If you’ve ever…
If there’s one thing I hope you take away from my conversation with Juan Damia on the Born2Unicorn podcast, it’s this: You don’t need to be right all the time. You just need to know how fast you’re wrong. That’s it. That’s the shift. That’s what changes everything. Most entrepreneurs are stuck chasing perfection. They want the pitch to be flawless, the product to be complete, the plan to be airtight. I get it. But here’s the truth: progress beats…
Here’s why that’s killing your growth…You know that song you can’t shake?The one that hijacks your brain on repeat — “Don’t Stop Believin’”… “Happy”… Baby Shark (sorry)?That’s called an earworm. And it turns out, businesses get them too.They fall in love with their own tune.Their origin story. Their shiny product. Their 5-step proprietary process.And then? They crank it up. Over and over. Louder. Tighter. Glossier.But here’s the truth: nobody’s dancing.Because customers don’t care about your song — they’re already humming…
I was around six the first time I played it. Two paddles. One dot. No story, except the one you created as you played. By twelve, I had my first Atari computer. At thirteen, I launched a BBS from my bedroom and dropped $400 on a 10MB hard drive (and I got a deal). It felt like I was holding the future in my hands. Looking back, Nolan Bushnell didn’t just build Pong. He planted the seed that would grow…
What happens when you blend 20 years of creative firepower, a haunted hotel, and a glass of red wine? You get Monica Ballard. She’s written jingles. Directed shows. Led ghost tours. Voiced ads you’ve definitely heard. And if you’ve called “A Place at Home – North Austin (512) 521-3010,” you’ve already met her without knowing it. So when my friend Marion, a jingle writer himself, nudged me to invite Monica onto the Rock Solid podcast, it wasn’t even a question.…
In 2014, Derek Sivers did something wild. He rewrote a confirmation email. That’s it. Not a campaign. Not a product launch. Just an email. Here’s what it said: “Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized gloves and placed onto a satin pillow…” It went viral. People laughed. They shared it. They remembered CD Baby. But why? Because it felt like something. Because it sounded like someone. Because it had what most brands are missing:…
In the middle of the Great Depression, when wallets were thin and hope was even thinner, a young copywriter named Elmer Wheeler said something that changed everything: “Don’t sell the steak. Sell the sizzle.” That line crackled its way into the halls of marketing history. Because Wheeler saw something others didn’t. While companies pushed facts, he pulled feelings. While they talked features, he told stories. He realized that people weren’t buying what was being sold. They were buying how it…
You ever walk into a room and just know you’re in the right place? That’s what talking to Adriana Nunez of the Round Rock Chamber on the Rock Solid podcast felt like. Now, if you’ve ever heard me speak or read Be Like Amazon or Waiting for Your Cat to Bark, you know I believe in systems. Repeatable processes. Measurable outcomes. But even more, I believe in people. And Adriana? She’s the kind of person who makes a community magnetic…
It’s the spark, not the system.The amplifier, not the engine.The bow, not the gift. A great story can capture attention.It can stir emotion.It can linger in the mind long after the words are gone. But if the beliefs behind the business are shaky,if the system is broken,if the strategy is vague or misaligned,then the story becomes a trap, not a tool. Because storytelling doesn’t fix misalignment.It amplifies it.It spreads the wrong message faster.It’s lipstick on a pretty pig.It’s narrative masking…
We don’t buy shoes.We buy the feeling of stepping into something that matters. We don’t buy books.We buy belief in who we could become. We don’t buy brands.We buy belonging. What do the logos or brands you wear stand for? And no one understood that better than Blake. He didn’t start with a product.He started with a moment that punched him in the chest.Kids in Argentina. Barefoot. No shoes. No safety. Most people would have donated and walked away.Blake didn’t.…
It was a product nobody wanted. Then one man touched it, and it became a $200 million phenomenon. No new features. No redesign. No big marketing budget. Only one thing changed and everything exploded. Here’s the story: In the 1990s, a small company created a fat-draining countertop grill. It worked. It solved a problem. But no one cared. Sales flatlined. The product sat on shelves, ignored and forgotten. They tried different strategies. Nothing moved the needle. Then came a breakthrough…
Have you ever seen a 10-year-old negotiate product margins, rethink branding strategy, and pivot to a new product based on customer feedback – all before lunch? I have. And it wasn’t in some Shark Tank fantasy camp. It happened right here in Round Rock, Texas, at the ESTEAM Academy Children’s Business Fair. This is their 8th fair. We just wrapped up a very special episode of Rock Solid, where I sat down with several of the young entrepreneurs who’ll be…
You know what’s underrated? Belief. Not “hope.” Not “manifestation.” Not even “confidence.” I’m talking about conviction. The kind that gets you moving when you’ve got no traction, no approval, and no real roadmap. David J. Schwartz nailed it: “Believe you can succeed and you will.” It’s not just a nice quote – it’s a demand. Because belief changes what you attempt. And the minute you attempt, you create momentum. Action breeds confidence. Not the other way around. Most people are…
Keith Goode landed in Round Rock over 20 years ago. He didn’t have a job. Just an invitation to crash with a friend. He saw potential here. Something felt right. And now? He’s helped some of the biggest brands in the world fix their most complex search challenges. But back then? Like a lot of us, he started by doing SEO before it even had a name. Back in the days of Altavista and Yahoo, ranking was about cramming keywords…
Have you ever met someone and thought, “How do they manage to do it all and still care so deeply?” That’s what I felt after sitting down with Deana Cavanaugh for an episode of Rock Solid: The Round Rock Business Leaders Podcast. Deana’s journey didn’t follow a neat line. It zigged from government contracting into construction and then zagged into fundraising. That jump wasn’t random. It was intentional, driven by a need to make a difference. She wasn’t chasing a…
Ken Moench doesn’t manage pain. He eliminates it. For 25 years, he has helped people find real, lasting pain relief when nothing else worked. Surgeries, injections, physical therapy, none of it solved the problem. Until they tried the Moench Method. This isn’t just another deep tissue massage. It’s a proven technique that resets the body for fast, lasting recovery. And the results speak for themselves. In 2023, the average client needed just 2.5 visits. In 2024, that number dropped to…
Some people talk about making a difference. Will Williams lives it. When I sat down with Will for Rock Solid, I expected a conversation about his service, his nonprofit work, and his impact on the Round Rock community. What I got was a masterclass in resilience, purpose, and the power of showing up. Will doesn’t just run a nonprofit. He is the nonprofit. Share the Will, the foundation he leads, is an unstoppable force in Central Texas, feeding families, providing…
Why Business Success Starts with Showing Up There’s a secret to success that’s so simple, so obvious, that most people completely ignore it. It’s not about talent. It’s not about luck. It’s about one thing: showing up. Nicole Thompson, Director of Membership at the Round Rock Chamber, knows this firsthand. She’s seen it time and time again. The people who become key players in their community aren’t always the smartest or most experienced. They’re the ones who keep showing up,…
Leasa Neaves spent 23 years at Dell, moving from an entry-level job to leadership roles in marketing, sales, and as Chief of Staff. Round Rock, Texas, wasn’t her planned destination, but it shaped her career and life. Now, she’s on a mission to help women in tech take charge of theirs. At Dell, she didn’t just mentor women. She built platforms for them to lead. Now, with her own executive coaching business, she helps professionals align their careers with their…
Darwin Tanksley didn’t just build a business. He built a machine. Fifteen acquisitions in a year. A workforce that believes in his vision. A balance sheet that tells the truth about success. On this week’s episode of Rock Solid, I dig into the mindset that took Tanksley from sales person to Entrepreneur of the Year. It’s not just about HVAC and plumbing. It’s about knowing numbers, understanding people, and turning setbacks into stepping stones. Know your numbers. Revenue is just…
Jen Henderson knows her stuff. As a civil engineer and the owner of Henderson Professional Engineering, she’s spent nearly two decades shaping the infrastructure of Round Rock, Texas. But that’s only part of the story. On this episode of Rock Solid, she sat down with me to talk about what makes Round Rock such a great place to build—both literally and figuratively. Civil engineering isn’t just about designing buildings. Jen specializes in everything that happens around them: parking lots, water…
In this episode of the “Rock Solid” podcast, I interview Stephanie Tyler, a prominent figure in Round Rock, Texas, known for her work with the “Round The Rock” community platform and the Fire Foundation. We discuss the recent “Best of Round Rock Awards,” which recently celebrated its 11th year and saw unprecedented participation from both the community and local businesses. Stephanie emphasizes the importance of these awards in reflecting the growth and diversity of Round Rock’s business landscape. She also…
Lee Linton, owner of Office Evolution Round Rock and recently opened Office Evolution Georgetown has a clear message: Round Rock isn’t just another Texas city. It’s a place where businesses come to grow and thrive. During a recent podcast, Lee shared his perspective on why this community has become such fertile ground for entrepreneurs. For Lee, the magic lies in Round Rock’s blend of opportunity and support. With its strategic location near Austin, the city offers access to a vibrant…
News of a Google algorithm leak has surfaced, unveiling a wealth of documents that shed light on Google Search “signals.” These records reveal an astonishing number of over 14,000 ranking factors or signals. As the community delves into these documents, conducting their own research and testing, a flood of insights is bound to emerge in the coming days. The biggest issue with this new documentation is that for years, Google has insisted that factors such as Chrome data, clicks and…
The last couple of years have been difficult for many people. People struggled with all kinds of issues. Some publicly and some privately. I was in the later group. I tried my best to keep a happy appearance, but honestly it was easier to withdraw and focus the little energy I had on my family. I don’t regret it at all. My friend Alan Stein Jr, author of Raise Your Game & recently Sustain Your Game, shared an incredibly powerful…
Every company has to make choices when it comes to how it markets and sells and, in some cases, who it is and what it sells. In an e-mail exchange, Tom Grimes, a great and brilliant friend, shared with me what he’s thinking about in terms of business choices. Based on his list, here’s my own list of many of the high-level choices businesses typically make every day. It may help you make some more conscience choices of your own:…
Do you want to get paid less for any value you bring to your customer? Obviously not! Do you prefer to pay more for products than they are actually worth? Today Payless announce they are closing all their stores. I want us to step back too late November/December of last year (yes only a couple of months back) and take a look at what we can learn from the PayLess disaster to understand how we need to adapt to stay…
Our companies are nothing but the collection of action every one of our employees take. What beliefs do your employees have about the organizations goals and vision? In Alan Stein, Jr. new book Raise Your Game he quotes a famous Inc. magazine survey that first asked executives what percentage of their employees could name the company’s three top priorities. The executives guess 64%. When the researchers conducted the survey of the employees, the actual number was a sadly, only 2%.…
Companies routinely have Revenue Blind Spots that cost them 20-60% of their revenue. It is like revenue that disappears without you knowing it or seeing it. It is like heat escaping from a poorly insulated home or water leaking from an old bucket. Or like the daily death by a 1000 cuts (think Sears). There are really small ones like a paper cut and others that run much deeper. Here is an example: Don’t let your blind spots get in the way…
On Demand Webinar: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game is about how Oakland A’s manager, Billy Beane, used data to level the playing field. With the right insights, he fought back against teams with far more money and resources to create a winning baseball organization. This won’t be a webinar about baseball though. It will focus on how AI can change the game for retailers to fight back against digital disruptors like Amazon. You’ll learn how retail organizations…
Error 403! Probably not what you want to see when you “actually” engaged with an ad , reviewed the landing page and were motivated enough to click on the call to action. What went wrong and how to prevent it? When we work with clients on the Buyer Legends process to plan their customer experience journey, we always start at the end. Let’s look at the reverse chronology of the Sudo.AI Instagram lead capture. We don’t have access to their…
A look at the mobile experience, landing page, call to action, etc. for the #NES release offer. BTW this is what the Treasure Truck looked like when you arrived: What other brands would you like to see execute a fun truck experience like this one?
Jeffrey and I have a handful of Audible codes left for free audio book copies of Be Like Amazon: Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It. If you would be interested in listening to it and possibly providing an honest review, just send us a message as soon as possible. Please help me Speak at SXSW I, along with other senior marketers, have proposed a panel called: Thrive and Win in an Amazon World These great panelists and I will…
This week I take a look at some simple things Magnolia Market in Waco, TX does to purchase Word of Mouth. For those that don’t know Chip and Joanna Gaines, hosts of the HGTV show Fixer Upper are a designer and contractor team that help people get their dream homes by buying houses that need a lot of work. Part of what is really cool about the examples I share in the video directly correlate to their “brand beliefs.” Anyone…
I hope I get to see some of you at Digital Marketer’s Content and Commerce Summit in LA on September 18-20th. Let me know if you plan to come.
This week we look at a recent NPR analysis of how the Washington Post became profitable after Jeff Bezos acquired them. It was as simple as applying the unifying principles behind the 4 pillars of Amazon success and leveraging the Be Like Amazon: Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It flywheel. I am publishing these weekly over on my Facebook author page.
We have teamed up with Goodreads to giveaway 10 copies of the hardcover edition of Be Like Amazon: Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It. Good luck! Goodreads Book Giveaway Be Like Amazon by Jeffrey Eisenberg Giveaway ends June 08, 2017. See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter Giveaway
After writing Be Like Amazon: Even A Lemonade Stand Can Do It, several people have asked Jeffrey Eisenberg and me: What do you do for companies these days? We’ve created a short list: Customer Experience Planning: We conduct workshops/ projects where we plan and optimize digital and real world experiences to increase sales, retention, and satisfaction. This includes commerce redesigns, process changes, continuous optimization, etc. Align Customer Brand Expectations with Business Metrics: We conduct workshops/ projects where we plan and optimize…
My friend Geraldine DeRuiter (@everywhereist) is about to release her first book. The book will be released May 2nd. The reviews have been amazing so far. I am sure you will love her writing like I do. Comment below why you would love a copy of her book for a chance to win. All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft
Some of you might have seen through our social media channels that Jeffrey and I have been working on a new book with our friend and mentor Roy H Williams. We have been sharing a new chapter every week. This Monday we will release Chapter 11. The book has only 12 chapters. If you would like to be among the first to read the book head over to BrandLikeAmazon.com. If you subscribe you will receive by email a PDF of…
My friend Mark Schaefer is releasing a new book on February 13th. I decided that because I love the book so much that I would giveaway a few copies on February 14th. See how you can enter below. So you want to be Known!
CyberMonday is becoming one of the most critical days for retailers today. According to IBM, Cyber Monday retailers saw online sales increase by 16.7 percent over last year. Retailers are using email and social offers to get the attention of their customers. In fact, according to IBM’s research: On Cyber Monday alone, IBM clients sent nearly 500M email notifications to consumers around the world – a one-day record high. Mobile push outreach continued its rapid growth and was up 47…
In part one of this post, we took a look at the challenges a home remodeler or contractor might have at getting prospects to contact them and fill out a form from their landing pages. Before I go through the process and list all the questions our Persona might have, I want to ask you who do you think is the most successful SEM advertiser of all time? If you answer Amazon, then I would have to agree with you.…
Don’s Contracting is in steady demand. The local market is tight, supply is low and demand is high. Don will tell you he makes his living off of word of mouth. He doesn’t worry much about online experience. He has a personal edge over many other contractors, because of how he makes his customers feel and the quality of his work. Don doesn’t think about the experience of the people referred to him. He knows this level of demand may…
I recently presented (slides below) at Conversion World. Sam Hurley; Digital Marketing influencer and Founder of OPTIM-EYEZ, asked me the following eight questions. The interview is still getting regular retweets so I’m providing a link to the interview and the slideshare. Jeffrey, why do you think CRO has become relegated to junior managers as a side project? Has it always been this way? How can those with knowledge of CRO get board members to invest in the practice? Can you give…
Birth of the Shopping Cart The first rolling shopping cart was created by a Piggly Wiggly owner in Oklahoma City. Once a regular basket got too heavy, customers headed straight for the check-out line. This robbed stores of incremental sales. So in 1936, that store owner introduced a rolling cart to make shopping easier. In CRO terms, he reduced the friction of shopping to increase average order size. The design went mainstream in the 50s. It has remained a retail “best practice”…
Social Media has become a key component to the success of many businesses. Contextual Advertising, real-time word-of-mouth sharing and positive reviews help generate lots of traffic. If you can’t turn that traffic into sales or leads, then the traffic is wasted. Knowing how to collect and use the data generated can be difficult if you don’t have the best tools. After all, you wouldn’t use a screwdriver to get a nail into a wall. According to 5 Trends That Will Change How…
Sixteen painful minutes standing there while those behind us whispered obscenities under their breath. It wasn’t our fault. Standing on line waiting to complete a simple transaction should never be so painful. Let me tell you a story about how dynamic pricing issues and lack of cross-channel awareness created a negative message for a leading retail brand. My daughter was desperate, in the way only a fourteen year old can be, to purchase the Logo board game for her best…
First, I would like to apologize for not blogging here and sharing with you. It isn’t because I have stopped writing or haven’t been busy with our new startup, speaking and clients but I have been writing elsewhere. A few of the things I have written lately include: Separate Pieces Lead to Poor Experiences – on the IBM Commerce Blog Mindfulness As a Conversion Rate Optimization Tool – on the SalesForce blog Keys to Success for Online Retailers: Experts Weigh In…
In this presentation below, Professor Mark Ritson (@markritson) takes on our growing obsession with social media. He explores how social media data gets pumped up so it outshines traditional media returns. He examines the fallacy of the independent digital or social media campaign that operates outside a broader marketing effort, and finally looks ahead to a post-digital world where 1980s-model marketing principles may very well prove to be the most forward-looking of all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCAEbirIByc&feature=youtu.be It’s excellent and he provides some damning evidence…
Since 2012, Searchmetrics has developed a report that looks at the ranking factors that Google uses which can help content marketers, webmasters, and SEO specialists to focus on those important criteria when developing content for websites, social media platforms, articles and blogs. I’ve been keeping a close eye on this space for nearly two decades and in 2011, I summarized all of SEO into the 5 R’s of search marketing that were evergreen and constant. Focus on how content on…
In mid 2013, mobile Internet access surpassed fixed Internet access, and according to comScore the gap is only widening. Many people are not as easily frustrated with mobile as they are with desktop, because their expectations are still low. It was the same way in the late 90s and early 2000s with desktop experiences. However, that forgiveness won’t last very long. Consumers will keep expecting more and more great experiences like those they get from mobile-optimized companies like Amazon. As…
Companies that plan and optimize persuasive momentum usually convert two to four times better than their industry’s average conversion rate. If you are not properly planning the persuasive momentum of your customer’s experience, then you are leaving way too much to chance. I like to keep chance as far away from my business as possible. I hope you might feel the same way. What Is Persuasive Momentum? In Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? we defined persuasive momentum as “the…
Please read the just published Personas: The Key Ingredient In Design For Conversion. It is the fourth in a series of six Recipes For Practical Customer Experience Design & Optimization posts. In case you missed them, the first four posts are: I. Pre-mortem because it is the antidote to Murphy’s Law First we’ll explore the most impactful step of the process, the pre-mortem. Some of our largest conversion wins over the last two decades ever were the result of our clients going through the pre-mortem…
Empower your team with 10 key ingredients for generating powerful customer stories that boost conversion. Reminder: Don’t forget to register for #CRODAY on April 9. 2015 here With Buyer Legends, Your Team Will: Improve communication. Your whole team will see and understand the bigger picture and the important details Improve execution. You will turn big directives into purposeful and more effective actions Improve testing. You will understand how to plan and implement more effective and impactful tests Make more money. You will see improved…
Bryan was recently interviewed by Rod Worley the host of “Inside the Jewelry Trade Radio Show” to let us know that his interview was now online. Here is what Rod had to say: Good evening Bryan, Just a quick note to say your episode(s) are live in iTunes and on our website. Why two episodes you ask? There was so much great content that we had to break it into two individual episodes. Studies have shown that once a podcast gets…
The one constant of Austin’s SXSW conference is the gaggle of startups trying to pitching for attention. Some deserve it, others not so much. IdealSpot.com was named one of the 50 Austin Startups You Absolutely Must Know About, I’m a co-founder and CMO of one of those startups. I thought you might be interested in some of the tools that IdealSpot and other top Austin startups in town are using. If you do a quick online search you’ll notice that…
April 9, 2015 will be the first annual International Conversion Rate Optimization Day. April 9 is also my 45th birthday. I’ve invested almost half my life evangelizing for conversion rate optimization (CRO). I should be thrilled but instead I find myself asking: is CRO, as it is practiced today, a dead end? The good news is that there is a greater awareness that increasing sales conversion rates offers a greater ROI than what you can get from optimizing your traffic;…
This is an important post that Anthony Garcia wrote on the Buyer Legends blog If I gave you a recipe some of you would be thrilled and others not so much. You can cook a gourmet meal that will have your taste buds fox trotting. I know that to be true. When it comes to food there are alternative ways to acquire a great meal. However, when cooking up great customer experiences there are no alternatives. If you want customers…
Gerald’s grandpa is a 71 year old luddite who doesn’t use email or a smartphone. So how did Gerald get his grandpa, the CEO of an old school catalog retailer, to champion a highly technical shopping cart and checkout development initiative? Gerald credits a significant part of this success, the ecommerce business was up 29.4% over budget this holiday season, to using the Buyer Legend process. This case study shows: how stories help identify the most important variables to test; how the power of…
Listen to Bryan explain how businesses that can’t seem to get into the mindset of their customers are failing and what you can do to avoid that pitfall. Mitch Joel from Six Pixels of Separation interviews Bryan Eisenberg about the Buyer Legends process. The podcast is 47 minutes long.
He pushy pushed his way up towards the stage. I had just finished presenting the keynote at Driving Sales, an automotive dealers conference. He thrust out his hand and eagerly shook mine; saying “thanks … blah blah blah…. And then I heard him clearly “…too often I am obsessed with pushing customers through sales and I’m not helping them buy!” Really!?! That forced me to pay attention. I hope that he didn’t notice me picking my jaw up from the…
As marketers are given better tools for storytelling, it may become harder for companies to deliver on the promises they are making. If I promised to give you $25,000 as a gift and then only gave you $10,000 you might be grateful, but you’d also be disappointed. Don’t bother to deny it. Once an expectation has been set, anything that falls short of that expectation is disappointing. Good marketers are paid to attract prospective customers. When attracting those prospective customers,…
Most business owners (who aren’t in stealth mode) want to get the word out about their new ventures in order to help build credibility, and trust. Those are critical barriers to overcome when you are a new start-up without a track record. I am no different. The past few months have been busy on this end: we published a new book, launched a new training company, and launched a new start-up. And like many start-up founders, I have to think about…
Things have been crazy the last couple of months since publishing our new book so I’ve been neglecting this blog a bit. Just in case you missed it here are a few things my team and I have been working on in the past few weeks: 1. Conversion Rate Optimization I wrote about the future of Conversion Rate Optimization over at the eConsultancy blog 2. Improving Collaboration and Execution With Your Marketing Team On the SalesForce.Com blog I wrote about…
Conferences are fun. The drinks afterward are better. Confidences get shared. Let me give you a peek into Chad’s world. Chad is the chief marketing officer (CMO) of a very successful company you’d recognize and probably admire. I changed his name to protect the innocent. Chad’s Stepford Personas Janice, Duane, Samantha, Nathan, and Ari are our personas, explained Chad, while showing me a stunning deck. We invested a great deal of time and money researching our customers and these personas…
I hope you got your copy already, if not grab it for free over the next couple of days. Please share this with your team and friends.
Your marketing deserves to be legendary! Your brand and it’s story crave sharing from one customer to the next. That is the difference between a story and a legend. Think about the brands you admire most; isn’t it because of how those brands make you feel? Isn’t it the way you “flow” through their delightful customer experience? Amazon.com is of those brands, even if they can’t seem to make a profit. Jeff Bezos is quoted, in the Everything Store: Jeff…
Do you know the one about Jerry and Jeff walking into a coffee shop? “I love advertising because I love lying.” Jerry Seinfeld tells the room as he accepts a Clio award for his work with American Express. He goes on to describe how people are happy in the time between seeing an ad and experiencing the disappointment of the product. He continues “I think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless,…
In days long gone a company’s brand story typically emanated from a single place, from the company itself. Today, technologies like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, blogs, Yelp, and (insert technology dijour here) have given customers a powerful platform to get in on the act. Too often there are two completely different brand stories being told; the story you tell yourself about your own brand, and the story your customers are spreading. Which version of those two stories is most likely…
When I talk to marketers about their creative briefs the responses I get are about as diverse as the undie aisle at Target. Their briefs come in all shapes, styles, and sizes and only the most brave and defiant don’t bother to use briefs at all. Some will preach on about the virtue of briefs and their necessary role in covering the company’s marketing essentials. Most complain their creative briefs offer too little support and grant their agencies too much…
Over the course of almost two decades, Jeffrey and I have worked directly with hundreds of content writers. Many of them were our secret weapons in many of our most exciting client success stories. Once the writers understood the personas they were writing for, had a clear sense of the narrative flow of the scenario and the context (where their content piece fit with in that scenario) they almost always delivered content that was both relevant and persuasive. However, a…
There are bad companies, good ones, great ones, and then there are legendary companies. Legendary companies that disrupt, innovate, revolutionize their space. These companies lead, not just in market share, but in the hearts and minds of their customers. They come in all shapes, sizes, and business models. Yet each one can teach us something about how our companies can become legends. In just under two decades Amazon.com has become in the digital age, what the Walmart was in the…
Jeffrey and I built our business on content. When we first started our agency in 1998, we had zero capital (even rent & grocery money was tough). What we did have, for those of you who really know us, was lots of opinions. So we started writing, first in discussion lists (remember i-sales, etc.), then our own newsletter and then ClickZ. We started blogging before it was even called blogging or even thought of as content marketing. All these years,…
Brands must make sure their stories are being told properly across all channels and that they can measure alignment and congruence across the channels as well. In 1967 Maytag aired its “lonely repairman” TV commercial, telling the first of many tales of a Maytag repairman with nothing to do and nothing to repair. The Maytag repairman became an icon and for more than 40 years the campaign bound the word “reliability” together with Maytag in the minds of millions of…
This presentation should help you improve your current desktop and mobile landing pages as well as how to develop new ones. How to Design a High Converting Landing Page from Bryan Eisenberg I wanted to make sure people could take the context from each of my slides so I made sure to add speakers notes to my keynote presentation. If you would like to download a version of the presentation with all the notes for each slide you can find it…
To create effective landing pages, you should understand the anatomy of a landing page and it should be part of your landing page and optimization framework. After optimizing thousands of landing pages over the years, I want to offer this framework for understanding the 10 key elements of a perfect landing page and how to use it. This same framework works for both desktop and mobile landing pages, with the caveat that mobile landing pages need to be more bite-sized. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zVOJGyuiek[/youtube] 1.…
It was a great honor to present at the inaugural ClickZ Live in New York this week. I was asked to share some of what I presented. For years we have paid careful attention to Amazon, and I shared a few secrets we have discovered about what makes them so incredibly successful. Say what you will about them, but they are a formidable competitor to every business out there. However, what we most admire about Jeff Bezos’ approach to business…
Take 30 minutes during your lunch break today and catch Jeffrey’s webinar with Marketo on “More Effective Lead Generation Using Persuasive Scenario Planning.” Jeffrey will show you a scenario narrative process that ensures all business decisions are made explicitly by the team that owns the results instead of implicitly by the creative and/ or technology teams. Following this process will help you drive more micro and macro-conversions, improve testing and boost the effectiveness of your marketing communications. If your bottom line…
It sounds like IT, not marketing! Data breach, identity protection, customer security – these are terms that never concerned marketers much. The breaches that retailers Target, Neiman Marcus, Zappos, and other brands like Evernote, Living Social, LinkedIn, and Adobe suffered have impacted the way consumers are interacting with brands. Security is now also a chief marketing officer’s (CMO) challenge – it is no longer only a worry for the chief information officer (CIO) or chief technology officer (CTO). The challenge…
Last night, at a get together hosted by Noah Kagan of AppSumo, I was with my friend Peep Laja and several other conversion optimizers, Austin being declared the Conversion Capital of the World now. 🙂 Coincidentally, I was on his ConversionXL blog earlier in the day (his content is worth reading) and I grabbed a screen shot of his Opt-In overlay. There are so many good things about this design, but there are also a few things that should be…
I want to share two links I reviewed last week that will hopefully change the way you look at digital marketing & advertising and the way you manage data in your organization. Digital marketing seems to push people to be more analytical in their approach and there is nothing wrong with that, but you need to add the creative and intuitive side to your digital storytelling and marketing analysis. Start with this video (thanks to Jeff Sexton for the share):…
There were many aspects of Sunday’s game that left people quite disappointed. Forget the game. I don’t even want to comment on the persuasiveness of the Super Bowl television ads. Today, we are just going to look at how well those advertisers did at blocking and tackling the digital marketing fundamentals of capturing search and meeting the expectations of potential customers arriving at their landing pages. You may be as disappointed as I am about what marketers haven’t learned in…
Today marks my 13th anniversary writing for ClickZ. I have seen change happen more slowly than I believed possible and more rapidly than I could notice in this evolving digital marketing space. So, is 2014 the year of mobile? Do you remember every time over the last decade, when everyone claimed the year of mobile was just about around the corner? We all know how many times the year of mobile didn’t happen. When Apple released the iPhone and Google…
Do you publish content or have a blog? It seems everyone has one today. In the last year or so, many more companies have been in touch, asking us how to improve blog conversions. That could be from blog to actual leads or customers, blog to blog subscribers, blog commenting and sharing increasing, etc. Having recently published on my blog how Jeffrey and I helped Marketo increase their blog visitors to subscribers by 10x, I was asked to present more information…
A Bain survey recently shared that 80 percent of company executives believed they delivered a “superior experience” to their customers. But when Bain asked the executive’s same customers about their own perceptions, only 8 percent of customers felt those companies were really delivering. That’s a huge disconnect. How can that be? Great social media metrics often disguise mediocre performance. That’s what happens when metrics are focused inwardly on company performance instead of customer experience. It happens everywhere but nowhere is…
In my last column, I promised to show you how to take these lists of personality mapping attributes and turn them from your typical persona stereotype (soccer mom, techno geek) into characters that ensure deep understanding and empathy. Many of the techniques we use to draft our personas come from the same techniques used by great storytellers and scriptwriters. The goal of a great character is to make you emotionally connect with them and to empathize with who they are. Without empathizing with…
Did you know most persona efforts fail as soon as the personas are completed? Teams create their personas, design slick posters to put on the walls, and say “these are our personas!” Creating personas is really just the beginning. A persona is not a document — it is a clear understanding of a target customer that exists in the minds of your team. Personas evolve as your data around them evolves as well. Every test you do, every insight you…
When it comes to stuff in which you have a huge personal investment (your kids, your homes, your businesses), you risk losing your objectivity. Hey, it’s a human thing. Too much knowledge about your company and what you offer leads you to answer questions nobody is asking. When you’re inside the bottle, it’s hard to read the label. But that’s also when you risk pushing your own interests at the expense of your customers’ interests. This will often lead you…
In order to plan the click-through-experience models, or persuasion scenarios, on a web site, we develop archetypical fictional characters composed from real data, called personas, who represent your buying audience. We must allow for multiple personas to reach many of the same pages or marketing entities (emails, ads, tweets, etc.), but must separately address their needs. Before designing a single pixel or writing a single word, we get a feel – using a wireframe – for the experience the personas…
Last week, Jeffrey and I were in the Bay Area of California to do some client training and work. On a quieter day we decided to visit our friends over at Marketo to catch up. A few months ago, we worked with their very talented team in redesigning much of the website, but two areas were set apart as a focus point of the redesign. As co-founder and VP of Marketing, Jon Miller would tell you how important having a…
How do you define a complex sale? Is it a B2B purchase? Is it planning a family vacation for 2 adults and 3 kids ranging in age from 4-12. Can it be purchasing new pillows for your bed? How about when deciding on an enterprise testing and targeting solution? As marketers we use the term frequently but as I often find people sort of know what it is when they see it, but don’t really define it well. You’ll often…
Ever since Google Analytics was introduced in 2006 people began an obsession with “what” happened on their website. They could understand that a certain number of visitors came to the website, that so many of them used the internal search, and that so many clicked here versus there. However, in order to progress to the next level in the analytics journey, you need to begin to understand “why” these things happen. Are there particular elements that decide certain behaviors on…
Good Copywriters Are … “What makes for good online copywriting?” Both marketers and copywriters have their reasons for asking this question. “Can you recommend a good online copywriter?” Ah. Unfortunately we have considerably fewer answers to that one (although we wish we were busting at the seams with them). So one day, I enlisted my colleagues in brainstorming the answer to this related question: “What qualities must a good onlne copywriter possess?” Here are 13 things that we would look…
You may be in a test cell right this moment. Go to Amazon.com, search for a book and look at their add to cart button, ready to buy area. Is the background of the box white or blue? Amazon is doing a significant test to their add to cart button and the area surrounding it, what I call the “ready to buy” area. This is the first major test of this area I have seen in years. In 2008, I…
The closer you look, the less you see… Caught up in the day-to-day rhythm of business we rarely take the time to zoom out and see the big picture. Google search seems like magic and it only gets more magical. Let’s take a look at magic. Your brain, mine too, tricks you. The human brain fills in gaps to make sense of our world. For example in the image below what do you see? Do you see a triangle? You…
The social and mobile revolution is about data. It is the enormous volume, real-time velocity and variety of data from disparate sources that is causing indigestion issues for most business’ corporate metabolisms. It’s not a publishing revolution! The disruption caused by social and mobile technologies is not entirely about how the voice of every customer can be shared in public at anytime and anyplace. There has been a major change–customer have different expectations of the companies they patronize. Technological and…
“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.” – Jack Welch Fifteen years of working with many organizations (it is an impressive list) has taught us most organizations have not yet achieved a point where marketing analytics is like financial reporting: simplified; fairly universal; with a clear line of sight to business financial statements and tied to specific goals and objectives. If everyone had a simple marketing analytics framework that made reporting simple, then everyone…
In the near future you will use voice commands to ask for actionable stories to be related to you from raw data. It sounds like Star Trek but it’s months away, not years. Today is the start of IBM’s SmarterCommerce Global Summit 2013. As part of the program IBM invited several industry influencers to attend the event. Last night, I spent some time chatting with Sandra Zoratti, author of Precision Marketing, Stratigent‘s Bill Bruno and Triberr‘s Dino Dogan. I shared with…
Every company has to make choices when it comes to how it markets and sells, and, in some cases, who it is and what it sells. In an email exchange, Tom Grimes, the owner of a Culligan dealership in Amarillo, TX and a brilliant friend, shared with me what he’s thinking about in terms of business choices. I thought about it and based on his thoughts, here’s a list of the many high-level choices businesses typically make every day. It…
People do spend some time tidying up their websites and marketing efforts. Yet, there always seems to be a few things they forget to clean up. Since it’s spring, here is a checklist for you to start getting your site in order: 1. Clean up your lists. This is a great time to send out an email to reactivate emails that have either never purchased from you or haven’t clicked on a link in one of your emails in a while.…
If you do business, online or traditional business, I hope you took the time to read Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos’ 2013 shareholder letter. In it he shares this tidbit: “Our heavy investments in Prime, AWS, Kindle, digital media, and customer experience in general strike some as too generous, shareholder indifferent, or even at odds with being a for-profit company. ‘Amazon, as far as I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit…
“Almost any question can be answered cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that’s the way to answer them not by arguments around a table. Go to the court of last resort – buyers of your products.” “Scientific Advertising” was published in 1923 by Claude Hopkins, who began to evangelize the need for testing and experimentation in marketing and advertising. 40 years later David Ogilvy a huge disciple of Hopkins was quoted as saying that “Nobody, at any…
Here’s the punchline; The role of today’s leadership is to “remove the speed bumps in the experimenters’ way!” ~ Scott Cook, co-founder and Chairman of Intuit Nobody worth arguing with argues whether search, social, and mobile technologies have impacted customers’ minds and changed buying behavior over the last five years. Today while companies worry about keeping ahead of their competition; the truly critical issue is keeping pace with their customers. Technological and social advances are forcing companies to embrace authenticity…
While the one constant in business is change, the one variable that has greatly accelerated—due to mobile and social—is the velocity of change. This is why we now hear so much about the importance of real-time marketing, agile marketing, or the need for a fast corporate metabolism. The point of good marketing technology is to enable you to do more than you could manually. Consider these two examples: 1) Web analytics vendors replaced the need to analyze log files because using Excel was…
I just finished reading this article about an EBay study that questions the value of Google’s main Adwords service. I’ve been really impressed with eBay’s performance as of late, especially their mobile efforts. But, I am concerned how this news will be interpreted by others. I agree with them that any investment that is sub-optimal should be questioned about the value that is being returned. However, the first question they should be asking is, if their team’s efforts are really putting…
Last week, my partner and brother, Jeffrey and I were doing an in-house training for a large B2B marketing team. At the end of our training, we had them review a bunch of landing pages across the web to see how they could apply what they learned over the two day training. One source of inspiration for the landing pages they reviewed was this list of 30 beautiful landing pages. There were a few good ones (beautiful isn’t good), but…
With news that Facebook gift sales and revenue are off to a rough start, they are starting to show how desperate they are for people to start buying gifts. Have you noticed their latest offer of desperation (Get $3 off your gift of $5 or more): Maybe they didn’t think people could see that they could buy their friends gifts when you go to wish them a happy birthday from the birthday notifications and below each person they tell you…
When I studied the data and made an intuitive prediction that 80 percent of PPC professionals would be replaced by an algorithm in the next three years, my brother Jeffrey and I expected some resistance. We were extremely surprised at the misunderstandings that arose. We wholeheartedly agree that good marketers add value to the online advertising equation. As fellow ClickZ columnist Andrew Goodman responded: It’s certainly true that many “PPC pros” who work like (much inferior to the real thing) robots…
A couple of weeks ago, I asked readers how they would optimize the following Hulu.com mobile landing page that I saw when I searched for Hulu on my iPhone’s browser. Obviously, there was an issue with the image loading, but that might not be the only problem on this mobile landing page. Techmirth, a former client and good friend suggested how they could deal with this image not loading: Don’t rely on a single image that may fail to load to…
Last week, I explained how 80% of PPC professionals will be replaced by an algorithm. However, deeper in to my article I also mentioned that “many of the “web analysts” who only function as data reporters without adding much business value” will also be replaced by technologies like NarrativeScience and Arria. I first came across NarrativeScience’s technology while coaching my son, Sammy’s little league team. I used an app called GameChanger.io to keep the box scores and stats for every game. At the end…
You’re fired, laid-off, downsized, terminated, made redundant, rightsized, pursuing other opportunities, discharged, dismissed, pink-slipped. Search Engine Marketing professionals are becoming redundant, replaced by technology, so they should prepare themselves to hear those words. In the next 3 years, 80% of PPC professionals will be replaced by an algorithm. Those that won’t, will be the few who already provide high value or find ways to increase their value to clients. There will simply be fewer positions and high value change. If…
My cable contract just ended, so I have been thinking about how little actual cable TV my family watches. I was wondering if we could do with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu. I had some time waiting to pickup my kids from school, so while I was parked in the car, I decided I would do a bit of research on Hulu. Every way I navigated (direct url, click in search engine results) to the mobile website from my…
I began writing this column on marketing optimization in 2001; yet this morning, 12 years later, I find myself in LA to train a well-known company that wants to start “crushing it” by developing an optimization culture, rarer than running a few tests a month. This is the third such training I’ve done this year already, and I am willing to bet this client will be one of the most successful of the three. Why is that? “A growth team that ‘crushes…
Last week, an article in TechCrunch offered an opinion on “Why We Need to Kill Big Data.” Perhaps it was inspired by this tweet that was embedded in the article: “I hate the term ‘big data’. Its all just data. Someday we’ll all just call it data – but for now it’s big.” -Arun Jacob of Disney at #BDBN — Dr. Martin Wells (@BigDataInsights) September 13, 2012 Perhaps big data as a buzzword is used too often and inappropriately, but…
Google+ may be growing, but anyone who spends time on it wishes it had more engagement with their connections and more content being shared. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Why is this happening? It is not just lack of people, it is the lack of integration with the content marketing ecosystem. Even though there is a great mobile app for Android and iOS, it is still very web-centric. People will share content when they come across content they encounter on the web…
In my last column, I shared recent research about how CEOs have lost trust in CMOs’ ability to be focused on business performance. Hopefully, when asked how your company currently measures its digital initiatives you don’t get an answer like this (LOL, well done Adobe): [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4WmSPdFCEY&sns=em[/youtube] Seriously, the issue is that most analytics frameworks don’t tie all essential marketing metrics back to financial statements. We have been preaching about how this needs to be done since 2001. I suspect, that…
When you consistently deliver a great customer experience, build a great product and develop a brand people trust you don’t have to try as hard to convert your visitors. Check out an old version of the DropBox home page: Check out what their home page looks like today: What are your plans to deliver that kind of reputation in 2013?
In the last Conversion Optimization challenge I asked readers to review a series of promoted Tweets and the corresponding landing and thank you pages. The most important thing to consider for your ads or landing pages is the nature and context of your visitor. Social media traffic is fundamentally different than search traffic, therefore social media landing pages must be thought of differently than search landing pages. The social visitor isn’t seeking out your brand, your category or even your…
Last week Adobe and IBM both came out with studies about how little impact Facebook had on referrals to sales on Black Friday’s online shoppers. Facebook then countered with their own evidence showing how they impacted traffic for retailers. Yes, there is surely an attribution modeling issue at hand here. But that is not the end of the discussion. Facebook has been working on a new conversion tracking program that will allow advertisers to track view-though conversions. View-through conversion rate is…
Did you see the startling statistic shared last week that 70 percent of CEOs have lost trust in marketers? If you’re a marketer, like I am, that should alarm you. According to the recent Fournaise 2012 Global Marketing Effectiveness Program, which has interviewed more than 1,200 CEOs across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, CEOs have lost faith in their marketing departments with their inability to prove ROI on campaigns: Furthermore, they have: Made the conscious decision not to expect more from marketing…
This week’s conversion optimization challenge is to offer recommendations on a socially promoted whitepaper campaign. Bloomreach recently launched a Twitter campaign including some promoted Tweets to gain traction for their latest whitepaper, Moneyball of Marketing. Their Tweets included: New whitepaper: Moneyball of Marketing. Learn how big brands are using data to attract net new customers http://t.co/LKYiKc82 You already have all the customers you need. But your competitors should read “Moneyball of Marketing” to catch up. http://t.co/thHBnUgI Your brand is huge.…
Last week’s conversion optimization challenge was to take a look at the webinar invite sent out by WriterAccess.com with the subject line: Webinar Invite: Lessons Learned From 90,000 Content Orders. The email contained two major obstacles and a handful of smaller obstacles. The major obstacles are the copywriting perspective and the second one is the overuse of jargon. The smaller issues are related to building credibility in the host/presenter, the calls to action and point of action assurances. This is what…
According to the recent Fournaise 2012 Global Marketing Effectiveness Program, which has interviewed more than 1,200 CEOs across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, CEO’s have lost faith in their marketing departments with their inability to prove ROI on campaigns: Furthermore, they have: made the conscious decision not to expect more from marketing than branding, look/feel good ads and promotions… CEOs feel marketers “live too much in the brand, creative and social media bubble”. This is a frightening statistic! What can be…
The more remarkable the customer experience (or piece of content), the stronger the desire to share it through word of mouth and social media. Just barely exceeding expectations isn’t enough. Remember, it’s important to be remarkable! The 3 Triggers of Social Media & Word of Mouth Marketing Recall the last few times you personally participated in word-of-mouth culture about your experience with a product or service. The product either exceeded your expectations or fell substantially below them. Either way, that…
Since my column about the Power of the About Us page (remember 2006 when MySpace was really popular) was written, not a week goes by that I don’t receive a comment about it. Every website needs an “About Us” page, it’s one of the most important but undervalued elements of a company’s website. This is especially true in a world where social media profiles allow us to connect content to people. The “About Us” page needs to show and tell about…
This week’s Conversion Optimization challenge is to take a look at the following email I received from WritersAccess.com with an offer to attend a webinar: The subject line was: Webinar Invite: Lessons Learned From 90,000 Content Orders What would you do to optimize this email so that more people register for the webinar? Feel free to comment on subject line, design, or copy. The landing page for the webinar is at: http://www.writeraccess.com/webinar/. Here is the text from the email from WritersAccess.com, if…
Last week, in our Conversion Optimization challenge we looked at the following PPC ad: and the corresponding landing page (image capture below): How would you optimize the ad and the landing page? My general guidelines for marketing with landing pages: Start your marketing with your landing page and ask yourself how it answer your personas’ questions and needs. Then choose an ad or email that would make them want to click and see that page. 7 Steps to Persuasive Landing Pages Step…
I was in Moscow last week with Jeffrey, waiting in the lobby for a taxi. I passed the time taking screenshots of “promotional” emails and ads with their corresponding landing pages. After clicking through some ads and emails I needed to vent. I posted the following message on my Facebook profile: Frustrated at the state of email marketing. Decided I would look at some of the “promotional” emails whisked away from my Inbox and decided to click through to some…
by Column Five Media. What are you doing to optimize that spend ratio in 2013? Are you planning on investing in a/b testing, usability tests, heuristic/expert evaluations, optimization software. customer journey analysis, personas, or marketing optimization training and mentorship?
This week’s Conversion Optimization challenge is to look at a PPC ad I found on Google for the search term “SEO Management Software.” Here is the ad I clicked on: and here is the landing page (image capture below): How would you optimize the ad and the landing page? Is this the best ad and landing page based on the intent and buying stage for the key phrase? What things would you like to test here? *Update: For how we…
Last week in our Conversion Optimization challenge I asked, how would you improve this Quick Tour demo video found on the homepage of UserTesting.com. I won’t tell you any more about them. If you don’t know them it’s because the video should do a better job of “selling” you. Watch the explainer video below and let me know in the comments if a) did this make you want to use UserTesting.com on your website b) what would you do to…
Retailers, Black Friday is right around the corner. Super Storm Sandy has already impacted businesses this past week in many ways. Time is running out to make sure you are all ready for the holidays. As Andrew Goodman points out Your Holiday PPC Strategy for 2012: Yes, It’s Changed. Have you made sure the necessary changes are in place in your PPC accounts? For other last minute holiday tips you can still implement before holiday season 2012, pick up a copy of…
What are you doing to increase the value of the relationship with your customers today?
Last week, I visited ComicCon Austin with my 7 year old son. The people in costumes, the famous actors and characters were not what caught my attention. What fascinated me is the engagement that people had with these characters many of whom have been around for more than 50 years. That is the value of great content. I caught up with Shane Gibson, Chief Social Officer for WizardWorld and ComicCon to discuss the power of these iconic brands and to…
Since we just finished looking at how to optimize ecommerce product or hero images, I thought we should look at how to get the best demo or explainer video to help sell your service or product. There is no question video marketing is hot, but doing it poorly can hurt your chances at converting visitors. What proves to be true is that just like in every other media, you have to capture people in the first 8-12 seconds if you…
Trick not treat! Most visitors clicking your promotions hope that you’ll offer them with some tasty treat. If instead you do things that shake their enthusiasm and frighten them from taking advantage of your offer, they’ll just bail on you no matter how delicious the treat you may be offering. In the spirit of Halloween, I’d like to offer you a chance to Trick or Treat with me. I just stumbled across this horrifying landing page: Booo! Can you list all the…
Last week’s Conversion Optimization 101 challenge, asked you to look at the eBags TLS Workstation Laptop Backpack and the product image(s) they use. I asked you to let me know what things would you test as the primary image display? They have multiple images, are all the best ones there? They even have a video, what would you do with it? So what things would you test as the primary image display? They have multiple images, are all the best ones there? They even…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzMUPqOEoHk[/youtube] What are you doing today to be ready for them when they are your customers in the next 5 to 10 years? Just think about how different the landscape was just 5 years ago. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P81bb0Tzwbo[/youtube]
It’s fun to play with the latest shiny new object and marketing tools, but remember marketing success rarely happens because of the tool. Success happens because of what the people and process you have in place do with the tool. Invest in your people, please.
My friend Tim Miles has his birthday this weekend. So he decided that this weekend he will be giving away his book, Good Company – Making It, Keeping It & Being, for free on Amazon. I want you to help me give Tim a present back for giving of himself and allowing you to get this book for free this weekend. I want to help him be the #1 free Kindle Marketing book. Will you grab a free copy? No strings…
My friend, Larry Kim just published some research his company Wordstream just released. Wordstream used the data collected by the AdWords Performance Grader, a free AdWords account audit tool which has evaluated over $1 billion dollars in annualized spending on Google in the last year (roughly 2.5% of total advertising revenues on Google!). For their report, they used metrics from accounts that were evaluated between July 1, 2012 and October 30, 2012. Here is a breakdown of conversion rates by industry for…
I know not everyone can keep up with everything Jeffrey and I read or share during the week. Here are some of those links you don’t want to miss this week: If you are doing any kind of Content Marketing, you’ll want to grab a copy of the 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends Research Report. If your SEO efforts have been affected by the Penguin update you’ll want to grab a copy of the Google Penguin 3 Update –…
Social media and ecommerce are becoming even more visual. With apps like Pinterest, Instagram, etc., the use of the correct photograph and even well shot video is critical in selling your products effectively. So let’s take a look at a product image this week and please list your top 3-5 suggestions for optimizing it. I chose my favorite backpack for traveling when I carry my laptop; it’s the eBags TLS Workstation Laptop Backpack. There are so many reasons why I love this…
For MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Website Optimization Benchmark Report they surveyed participants and asked them to write in what their average conversion rate was. Here is a chart of the results: While this is survey data and not the most accurate, at least it is a benchmark to shoot for. We also don’t know how each organization qualifies their conversions. However, where ever you are you should also try to figure out how you can improve your conversion rate 5-10% monthly.
Last week, I asked you to review and comment on how you would optimize this beautifully designed, but non-optimized form: The three most common form design problems: Forms that fail to reduce fear Forms that fail to build trust and credibility Forms that fail to reinforce benefits Unfortunately, this form page suffers from all three issues. Whenever we look at optimizing forms we should review each of the 7 form factors that affect form conversion: Size – the form looks…
What have you seen as the biggest change in the last 6 years since the book was published?
Do you remember the movie where an ad executive played by Billy Crystal takes time off to go on a cattle drive and he befriends an old cowboy, Curly, played by Jack Palance? While they are out, Billy’s character, who is in search of the secret of life, is told by Curly, as he lifts his index finger, that the secret of life is “Just one thing.” Sometimes I feel like that old cowboy. Being a pioneer in marketing optimization…
There were some excellent responses last week’s CRO challenge post on a NetFlix ad and landing page mismatch. Thank you all! Today’s challenge is to explain how you would improve and optimize the form below . While the page looks polished and professional, it is creating cognitive friction for visitors. You can be certain that where there is friction there is opportunity for optimization. Please be sure to click on the image to enlarge it and then provide a short list of your suggestions as…
Last week I asked how you would improve scent from this NetFlix ad and landing page combination, I found while looking at FaceBook on my iPad. From a scent perspective the issues include: a mismatch of languages mixed messaging in the offers image issues – if I was on my iPad the landing page could have used a picture of someone holding an iPad. while they did try to maintain the color scheme of their ad and of Facebook, it broke…
We asked a bunch of our industry expert friends: if a small to mid-sized retailer asked you for a couple of low resource, high impact & simple to execute, tips they could use before the holidays, what would you tell them to do? The tips had to be simple for them to act on with the minimal amount of resources since we are coming up on crunch time. Some of the friends we asked include: Amy Africa, @amyafrica Linda Bustos,…
It was Dr Ed Chi, a Xerox Palo Alto Researcher, as early as 2001, who indicated that humans track information in a similar fashion to the way animals follow a scent. According to an article on the study: People… engage in what [Dr. Ed Chi] calls “hub-and-spoke” surfing: They begin at the center, and they follow a trail based on its information scent…. If the scent is sufficiently strong, the surfer will continue to go on that trail. But if…
Last week, I asked you to look at the pricing tables from the Dell.com website and to offer suggestions on how to improve them. There were some fabulous suggestions, let’s take a look: Graham Charlton shared: A comparison table, as used by UK site Comet, would work better. Less busy and allows for side by side feature comparison. Also has a handy ‘highlight differences’ button. http://i.imgur.com/JBilf.png As he suggests Dell is not currently doing a good job highlighting the differences between the…
We (Jeffrey Eisenberg and I) were naïve and full of ourselves; in 2005, when “Call To Action: Secret Formulas To Improve Online Results” hit the major bestselling book lists. In 2006, “Waiting For Your Cat To Bark: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing” also achieved the lists and we thought we were truly popularizing customer-centric conversion rate optimization. In accomplishing a mean goal we lost sight of the end goal. Client success and the recognition of our peers as conversion…
It’s been almost 3 years since I published one of these. However, I know not everyone can keep up with everything Jeffrey and I read or share during the week. Here are some of those links you don’t want to miss this week: First things first, if you are an online retailer do not forget to register for my free ClickZ webinar Guaranteeing Holiday Sales for Online Retailers October 9, 2012 at 1:00pm ET / 10:00am PT. I’ll be sharing tips from…
On Twitter, I shared a link to this article from Smashing Magazine, Pricing Tables: Examples And Best Practices. When I shared it, I said that while many of these were beautiful there was still plenty of room for some conversion optimization. This won’t be as tricky as my first Conversion Optimization 101 post that you needed to pick up on the nuance that corporate culture trumps any conversion optimization tactics. Even so, we had some fabulous suggestions in the comments. For my…
I just came back from Shop.org’s Annual Summit in Denver, where over 4,000 retailers and industry supporters came to learn more about what the industry was up to. While I was there I thought I would spend some time interviewing some of my retailer friends and bring their words to you. I asked each one the following questions: Where do you think retail is headed in the next three years? What are the biggest challenges and opportunities you see for this coming…
There are several things that prompted me to update the Buyer’s Guide to Testing & Optmization: 1. Since Google replaced Website Optimizer with Content Experiments, I had to comment on it. 2. I’ve decided to add a new tool to the introductory tools section. Which one did I choose? You’ll have to check. 3. I’ve added information about a few other enterprise solutions that weren’t included in the first edition. I’m still very excited about Monetate as a leader in…
Last week, I published my first Conversion Optimization 101 post and asked you if you could look at a particular screenshot and also to tell me: What’s wrong with this picture? How would you fix it? Here is the image: There were some very good suggestions on what you would do to improve this picture: Dennis Moons said: The three buttons: Previous, Process and Cancel all have the same colour and visual weight. I would change the Cancel & Previous buttons…
It seems like only yesterday that I typed the following words into my computer: Conversion rate is a measure of your ability to persuade visitors to take the action you want them to take. It’s a reflection of your effectiveness and customer satisfaction. For you to achieve your goals, visitors must first achieve theirs. In order to help you understand what visitors need in order to achieve their goals, you need to have empathy about their journey through the buying process. Too…
We’re hardwired for story. Our brains crave it. And yet, every day, sales and sales enablement teams are stuck trying to sell with slides and stats instead of stories that make customers feel something. Let’s be honest. People don’t buy because of your data, even in the most technical of sales. They buy because your story reshapes the one they’re already telling themselves. Here are the three biggest storytelling mistakes I see every day: 1. Selling Features Instead of Beliefs…