In the previous article Vol.18 – How Social PR in Web 2.0 World Should Be? possible methodologies of planning and executing social PR was discussed. The topic of this article is the ideal journalism and journalist, the primary stakeholder of PR representatives, in web 2.0 online world.
1. What do journalists need to know to succeed in Web 2.0 online world?
Journalist need to be aware of the drastically changing environment of journalism, and the paradigm shift in the business model of journalism. This is supported by Fisher’s article of 10 Industries That The Internet And Social Media Will Revolutionize (2009), which print media is #1, television is #3, and public relations is #9.
Journalists need to change their mindset. They need to know that the emergence of online content is not simply something additional to traditional content business. They also need to be fully aware that their stakeholder management is also changing.
2. How journalists need to become social to survive in Web 2.0 online world?
Journalist need to do the following and acquire skills and competencies necessary for them, in addition to fundamental journalism skills and systems/processes.
1) Be entrepreneurial and business savvy.
First, journalists need to know the value of content in the changing business environment and how their business model is changing. They cannot just be writers who collect materials and write articles, but instead, be business savvy.
In order to adapt and succeed in the new business environment, journalists also cannot be bureaucratic but be innovative, flexible and entrepreneurial. They need to cope with frequent update of news releases of companies and other online contents (news sites, blog etc.). Also, they need to be multi-skilled to be able to leverage multi-platform (traditional media platform and web/Internet platform). In addition, they need to be open and proactive to building relationship with bloggers and web audience/readers, in the online world there PR (public relations) has or is expected to truly become public and they as well as PR representatives of companies can directly reach bloggers and the public.
2) Leverage multi-platform and become multi-media storyteller.
Journalists need to leverage multi-platform in developing and delivering stories leveraging multi-media (print, TV, web/Internet etc.). This is one good way of making differentiation from bloggers, who primarily use only web/Internet.
Leveraging multi-media is, what the author calls, “media mix for online and offline synergy”, which is what marketers, communicators and PR representatives of companies need to do as well. For journalists, the biggest concern would be differentiation of print and online articles. In many cases, it seems that print articles are developed first and then the same articles are posted online, and it is quite natural that journalism business is shrinking and becoming unprofitable. They need to make re-define print and online articles, making differentiation. This needs further discussion and the author would like to do so in the next article.
3) Re-define and re-position journalism and journalists.
There are mainly 2 ways to re-define and re-position journalism and journalists.
(1) Make differentiation from bloggers as professional multi-media storyteller.
First way is to make differentiation from bloggers in re-positioning, and re-define themselves as multi-media professional storytellers. Key word is multi-media and professional. Meaning of multi-media is as mentioned above. Professional is about the high quality story and content.
Professional quality of content and story surpassing that of bloggers is one important factor for differentiation from majority of bloggers, and real-time reporting integration may well help further improve content quality and value. The importance of content quality including reliability (of source) is more than ever, with flood of information and contents in web 2.0 online world, in which everyone can be content developer/owner and quality rather than quantity of information really counts. As Defren (2009) say in his article Mainstream Media Relations: More Important Than Ever, bloggers cannot replace journalists, and mainstream media/journalism do have great value in web 2.0 online world as well.
(2) Become also curators and contextualizers.
Second way is radically change their standpoint and mindset, and re-define themselves as curators and contextulalizers. Journalists may well be annoyed by bloggers easily copying and pasting their articles, which is about copyright issue but cannot be eliminated. They may also well be annoyed with bloggers making links from their articles and excerpt their articles. With this kind of radical change in standpoint, it is better for them to re-define by positioning themselves as curators and contextualizers.
With their professional skills, curators and contextualizers is quite possible and ideal yet not easily imitated by bloggers and other web audiences, meaning this gives high value to their content and is of competitive advantage. Linking and exception is part of a dialogue with bloggers and web audiences, and chances of gaining loyal readers. Blog articles may well be good source of contextualizing. It would be far better for journalists to regard bloggers as people to collaborate with rather than compete with.
4) Become social journalist and make direct relationship with web audience (readers).
This is one big advantage that journalists can make most of in the new business environment. There are 3 KFS (Key Factors for Success) to become social journalists.
(1) Leverage social media ecosystem.
This is about leveraging multi-platform. Journalists themselves need to proactively leverage social media ecosystem (tools) mentioned in the previous article Vol.5 – What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Realize? In doing so, they first need to define objective of leveraging social media, which could be collecting sources, promoting their content, and/or building relationship with bloggers and web audience.
(2) Use social media everyday to make it a routine.
To leverage social media, journalists need to use the media everyday based on the objectives defined. Article of Betancourt The Journalist’s Guide to Maximizing Personal Social Media ROI (2009) introduces live examples of how social journalists use social media everyday as routine and summarizes 5 tips for building a social media routine as below.
a) Look at what web audience and sources already in use and meet them there.
b) Make time to connect to the people on social media platforms, and care about them.
c) Make social media tools one of the things journalists check several times a day.
d) Be willing to share expertise and knowledge.
e) Do not be afraid to involve web audience. Look for opportunities to enlist readers to tell story of journalists.
(3) Build community.
This is about the fifth tip of building a social media routine mentioned by Betancourt. Journalists need to be proactive in involving bloggers and web audiences to build online community by open and interactive conversation, remembering that they are representing company/organization. This enables public hearing and monitoring as well as winning their trust and engagement. This also helps journalists to be successful as curators and contextualizers.
Having briefly discussed ideal journalism/journalists in web 2.0 online world, in the next article, the author would like to touch on news media as the organization (i.e. employer of the journalists mentioned above) and their business.
References:-
Betancourt, Leah (2009) How Social Media is Radically Changing the Newsroom
http://mashable.com/2009/06/08/social-media-newsroom/
Betancourt, Leah (2009) The Journalist’s Guide to Maximizing Personal Social Media ROI
http://mashable.com/2009/12/02/personal-social-media-roi/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29
Defren, Todd (2009) Mainstream Media Relations: More Important Than Ever
http://www.pr-squared.com/index.php/2009/09/mainstream-media-relations-more-important-than-ever
Fisher, Lauren (2009) 10 Industries That The Internet And Social Media Will Revolutionize
http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/10-industries-internet-social-media-revolutionize/
Kim, Cindy (2009) Social Media reshaping journalism - how will you cope?
http://cindykimblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/social-media-reshaping-journalism-how-will-you-cope/
Lauby, Sharlyn (2009) 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy
http://mashable.com/2009/06/02/social-media-policy-musts/
Lavrusik, Vadim (2009) 12 Things Newspapers Should Do to Survive
http://mashable.com/2009/08/14/newspaper-survival/
Lavruski, Vadim (2009) 8 Must-Have Traits of Tomorrow’s Journalist
http://mashable.com/2009/12/09/future-journalist/
Lewis, Woody (2009) Social Journalism: Past, Present, and Future
http://mashable.com/2009/04/07/social-journalism/
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Vol.18: How PR in Web 2.0 Online World Should Be?
In the previous article "Vol.17: How to Make Social News Release", possible methodologies of making social news release were introduced. The topic of this article is how PR activities needs to be changed from traditional PR activities in offline world leveraging the social news releases, to make it the ideal PR activities in web 2.0 online world.
1. What is the essence of PR activities in Web 2.0 online world?
In short, it is to adopt marketing approach. In order to succeed in PR with new rule of marketing, PR and IR as mentioned in the previous article "Vol.7: The New Rules of Marketing, PR and IR in Web 2.0 Online World" to effectively reaching directly to bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists, marketing approach is vital. This means adopting marketing concept/framework of segmentation, targeting, value proposition, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), AID(M)A (Attention, Interest, Desire, Memory, Action), LTV (Life Time Value) of customers (buyers), Pareto Law and ROI (Return on Investment) or marketing to name a few. This can be said as another aspect of convergence of marketing and PR.
2. How PR activities should be performed in web 2.0 online world?
From the author’s experience, possible methodologies of effectively performing PR activities leveraging social news releases and converging with marketing are as below.
1) Send/distribute social news release whenever there are good reasons to do so, not only when big news and events are present.
In the web 2.0/Internet world, successful PR activities of companies and other organizations is frequent sending of news releases in the framework of total story of the company/organization. This is because PR activities in the web 2.0/Internet online world, PR needs to target all web users including bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists and publishers, information are now usually updated frequently leveraging the characteristics of the Internet mentioned in the previous article "Vol.8: How to Start Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing" and now and web users are used to frequent updating of information on the web.
Each news release targeting every web user is in effective (as in principle in marketing that communication targeting everyone does not meet customer needs and ineffective), and therefore each of them needs to be made and distributed with careful segmentation, positioning and targeting in market-in approach. This is a different approach from traditional PR in offline world in which news release was made and sent only when there are big news and events to journalists and media exclusively, in product-out approach. Strategy, value proposition/offering, story telling (scenario building), and optimization of each news release in total framework are required for the new approach.
2) Broadcast news release and other PR information leveraging social ecosystem.
It is ideal for PR representatives to leverage social ecosystem introduced in the previous article "Vol.5: What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Realize?" and broadcast social news releases and other PR information online such as podcasts and blogs, as some leading companies are already doing. In traditional PR in offline world, news release was faxed to journalists and/or distributed in publicity and press conferences and posted on the company website (in news release section) when Internet emerged. In web 2.0 online world, it is ideal to leverage social ecosystem (social media) to broadcast targeting all web users. This would trigger successful viral marketing.
Some tactics include starting official company Twitter and Facebook account and broadcast by such social media vehicles, and proactively distributing and introducing in e-newsletter, to name a few, with the objective of drawing attention and interest the first “A” and “I” of AID(M)A at the driving point of the persuasion scenario explained in the previous article "Vol.13: How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Persuasion Scenario?".
In addition, when sending social news releases and other PR information to journalists and bloggers, it is often effective to segment and target with cover letter and additional document tailoring to respective target to meet their respective needs with one-to-one marketing approach.
3) Engage bloggers and other influencers in the web 2.0/Internet world as well as traditional journalists by interactive conversation online.
Unlike traditional PR in offline world in which PR representatives interacted exclusively with journalists and media, PR representatives need to reach proactively interact with influential bloggers as well as traditional journalists to win their engagement. This would mean companies/organizations to open the door to inviting influential bloggers to publicity and press conferences as well as interacting on regular basis in the future.
Expanding target to influential bloggers and managing all targets effectively is a challenge. It requires careful screening selection and retention of targets, similarly to cultivating, selecting and retaining loyal customers in marketing with Pareto Law for successful CRM leading to maximization of customer (buyer) LTV and ROI. Such topics as online engagement and social media ROI, as well as viral and one-to-one marketing, deserve further discussion, and the author would like to do so in one of the upcoming articles.
4) Leverage social media vehicles to perform public hearing and monitoring.
Unlike traditional PR in offline world in which PR representatives communicated one-way sending out news release only, PR representatives in web 2.0 online world need to leverage social media ecosystem for effective public hearing and monitoring.
Traditionally, PR representatives used to monitor their PR activities only by clipping of news and magazine coverage and how and when information on their company/organization went on the air on TV and radio news/programmes. However, with emergence and popularization of the Internet, online coverage (e.g. online news) has been under monitoring in many companies. And with the emergence and popularization of social media, PR representatives (and marketers) need to monitor the reputation of their company/organization i.e. what the general public talks about their company/organization in social media world. To do so, they need to monitor major social media vehicles such as news sites (e.g. Digg), major blogs (e.g. Marshable), microblogging (e.g. Twitter), audio/video podcast (e.g. YouTube) and social networking sites (e.g. LinkedIn and Facebook) as well, as some leading companies already does now.
Public hearing and monitoring leveraging social media helps PR representatives better understanding the needs of online audiences including journalists, media, bloggers and the general public (prospects and buyers). Input from such hearing and monitoring contributes to planning and execution of market-in PR instead of traditional product-in PR.
In addition, it is ideal for PR representatives or other members assigned to proactively participate in social media/online communities, by interactive conversation, to positively influence reputation of the company/organization.
Having briefly discussed ideal PR activities in web 2.0 online world, the author would like to touch on how such PR activities are influencing or could influence journalists and media, primary stakeholder of PR representatives in the next article.
References:-
Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1. What is the essence of PR activities in Web 2.0 online world?
In short, it is to adopt marketing approach. In order to succeed in PR with new rule of marketing, PR and IR as mentioned in the previous article "Vol.7: The New Rules of Marketing, PR and IR in Web 2.0 Online World" to effectively reaching directly to bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists, marketing approach is vital. This means adopting marketing concept/framework of segmentation, targeting, value proposition, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), AID(M)A (Attention, Interest, Desire, Memory, Action), LTV (Life Time Value) of customers (buyers), Pareto Law and ROI (Return on Investment) or marketing to name a few. This can be said as another aspect of convergence of marketing and PR.
2. How PR activities should be performed in web 2.0 online world?
From the author’s experience, possible methodologies of effectively performing PR activities leveraging social news releases and converging with marketing are as below.
1) Send/distribute social news release whenever there are good reasons to do so, not only when big news and events are present.
In the web 2.0/Internet world, successful PR activities of companies and other organizations is frequent sending of news releases in the framework of total story of the company/organization. This is because PR activities in the web 2.0/Internet online world, PR needs to target all web users including bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists and publishers, information are now usually updated frequently leveraging the characteristics of the Internet mentioned in the previous article "Vol.8: How to Start Web 2.0 / Internet Marketing" and now and web users are used to frequent updating of information on the web.
Each news release targeting every web user is in effective (as in principle in marketing that communication targeting everyone does not meet customer needs and ineffective), and therefore each of them needs to be made and distributed with careful segmentation, positioning and targeting in market-in approach. This is a different approach from traditional PR in offline world in which news release was made and sent only when there are big news and events to journalists and media exclusively, in product-out approach. Strategy, value proposition/offering, story telling (scenario building), and optimization of each news release in total framework are required for the new approach.
2) Broadcast news release and other PR information leveraging social ecosystem.
It is ideal for PR representatives to leverage social ecosystem introduced in the previous article "Vol.5: What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Realize?" and broadcast social news releases and other PR information online such as podcasts and blogs, as some leading companies are already doing. In traditional PR in offline world, news release was faxed to journalists and/or distributed in publicity and press conferences and posted on the company website (in news release section) when Internet emerged. In web 2.0 online world, it is ideal to leverage social ecosystem (social media) to broadcast targeting all web users. This would trigger successful viral marketing.
Some tactics include starting official company Twitter and Facebook account and broadcast by such social media vehicles, and proactively distributing and introducing in e-newsletter, to name a few, with the objective of drawing attention and interest the first “A” and “I” of AID(M)A at the driving point of the persuasion scenario explained in the previous article "Vol.13: How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Persuasion Scenario?".
In addition, when sending social news releases and other PR information to journalists and bloggers, it is often effective to segment and target with cover letter and additional document tailoring to respective target to meet their respective needs with one-to-one marketing approach.
3) Engage bloggers and other influencers in the web 2.0/Internet world as well as traditional journalists by interactive conversation online.
Unlike traditional PR in offline world in which PR representatives interacted exclusively with journalists and media, PR representatives need to reach proactively interact with influential bloggers as well as traditional journalists to win their engagement. This would mean companies/organizations to open the door to inviting influential bloggers to publicity and press conferences as well as interacting on regular basis in the future.
Expanding target to influential bloggers and managing all targets effectively is a challenge. It requires careful screening selection and retention of targets, similarly to cultivating, selecting and retaining loyal customers in marketing with Pareto Law for successful CRM leading to maximization of customer (buyer) LTV and ROI. Such topics as online engagement and social media ROI, as well as viral and one-to-one marketing, deserve further discussion, and the author would like to do so in one of the upcoming articles.
4) Leverage social media vehicles to perform public hearing and monitoring.
Unlike traditional PR in offline world in which PR representatives communicated one-way sending out news release only, PR representatives in web 2.0 online world need to leverage social media ecosystem for effective public hearing and monitoring.
Traditionally, PR representatives used to monitor their PR activities only by clipping of news and magazine coverage and how and when information on their company/organization went on the air on TV and radio news/programmes. However, with emergence and popularization of the Internet, online coverage (e.g. online news) has been under monitoring in many companies. And with the emergence and popularization of social media, PR representatives (and marketers) need to monitor the reputation of their company/organization i.e. what the general public talks about their company/organization in social media world. To do so, they need to monitor major social media vehicles such as news sites (e.g. Digg), major blogs (e.g. Marshable), microblogging (e.g. Twitter), audio/video podcast (e.g. YouTube) and social networking sites (e.g. LinkedIn and Facebook) as well, as some leading companies already does now.
Public hearing and monitoring leveraging social media helps PR representatives better understanding the needs of online audiences including journalists, media, bloggers and the general public (prospects and buyers). Input from such hearing and monitoring contributes to planning and execution of market-in PR instead of traditional product-in PR.
In addition, it is ideal for PR representatives or other members assigned to proactively participate in social media/online communities, by interactive conversation, to positively influence reputation of the company/organization.
Having briefly discussed ideal PR activities in web 2.0 online world, the author would like to touch on how such PR activities are influencing or could influence journalists and media, primary stakeholder of PR representatives in the next article.
References:-
Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Saturday, 16 January 2010
Vol.17: How to Make Social News Release?
Having gone through the persuasion scenario in the previous article Vol.16 – How to Effectively Optimize Transactional Landing Page?, the author now would like to discuss the PR/newsrooms in the web 2.0 online world as a follow-up of the previous article Vol.7 – The New Rules of Marketing, PR and IR in Web 2.0 Online World because it is one of the fields that are going through drastic changes with Internet and web 2.0 technologies.
1. What is the essence of PR in Web 2.0 online world?
Transparency is the new PR (Public Relations) in web 2.0 online world and PR has truly become “public”. In offline world PR targeted only mass media and journalists but it was something exclusive and not truly “public”. However, in web 2.0 online world in which individuals have equal access to information and can organize, publish and protest on their own without using any professional media outlet online, also directly target consumers and buyers as well, and it needs to be more open and responsive, i.e. transparent.
2. What is the ideal news release in web 2.0 online world?
In web 2.0 online world, the ideal news release, the basic and primary tool, can be summarized as search engine and browsing optimized with rich content, reaching directly to all web audiences to drive people into the sales process. From the author’s experience, possible methodologies of creating such a news release are as below.
1) Target all web users and gain broad exposure.
In the Internet world, all web users can and will access to press releases of companies, so news releases should target directly them all, including bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists and publishers. This means to leverage news releases for broader exposure, and composing news release suitable for variety of targets. This is also about 2) below.
2) Optimize content.
First, defining and building buyer persona as mentioned in the previous article Vol.10 – How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers, and based on the buyer persona defined create a clear message and content including possible offering and story the buyer persona may find appealing. Make sure to deliver the story in the words of the buyer persona, including their “trigger words”, and never use jargon etc. When story is delivered in such a way, they would be able to understand and find it, and also define tools and methods to share and broadcast.
3) Perform social media SEO while using trigger words.
Ciolek’s article “Top 6 SEO Strategies for 2010” (2010) encompasses well points that are usually not mentioned in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) article. Among social media SEO strategies, the following 2 are the primary strategies that need to be implemented in composing news releases.
(1) Use optimized keywords and phrases, and social media tags.
This point is usually mentioned when people discuss SEO. Carefully define keywords and phrases that make news release rank high up, and include them in titles/headlines, text and social meta tags. However, such keywords and phrases may not be “trigger words” for the buyer persona, as explained in the previous article Vol.15 – How to Effectively Optimize Reference Landing Page?. In addition to key words and phrases, define and include trigger words of the buyer persona, and if they should not be the same, “balance” the two in the headlines as much as possible.
(2) Create relevant, high quality content and post frequently.
Content needs to meet the expectation of the web users clicking the search result link thus the content needs to be relevant with the key words with high quality satisfactory to them, as explained in the previous article Vol.11 – How to Successfully Drive Web Users to Web Contents?. Such content would encourage web users to share e.g. making links, broadcasting etc., which would give positive effects in terms of SEO.
In addition, posting news releases frequently is also a SEO tactic, meaning it would be more effective to send news releases of relevant content whenever good reasons exist rather than sending only at occasions of big news/events. Finding good reasons should not be a big problem because when all web users are regarded as targets, stories of the company, large of small, can be found with more ease.
4) Optimize integrated links for optimized browsing.
Insert links to drive web users to marketing and other related web pages/contents such as product information and reference/transactional landing pages with the objective of driving them to persuasion scenario (buying/selling process) mentioned in the previous article Vol.13 – How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Persuasion Scenario?. This is an extremely good example of converging marketing with PR. Moreover, integrated links would encourage web users visiting back to the websites.
5) Leverage social media ecosystem.
There are many other concrete social media ecosystems realized by web 2.0 introduced in the previous article Vol.5 – What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Realize? that can be leveraged to create or support press release and its pages. Some examples of concrete social media tools are as below.
(1) Audio, video and livecasting
Many companies already leverage audio and video by uploading podcast and streaming contents (e.g. company message, financial announcement webcast) in their website.
(2) Search
Continuous improvement in search within the website/press release section is important and is what all companies have been doing.
(3) RSS
Some company websites already has RSS, as well as distributing e-newsletter to subscribers.
(4) Blogs
Some companies leverage blogs to complement company message and helping promoting engagement with web users.
(5) Social networking, microblogging, and their widgets
Companies will need to become more social by making official account for social networking sites (e.g. Facebook) and microblogging (e.g. Twitter) and leverage in their PR (and marketing) activities, like what some companies already have strategically doing. Also, locating widgets to help web users share the information is another say of becoming more social.
In this article, the author focused on the ideal news releases in web 2.0 online world, and would like to introduce a blog article by Helmer (2009) “The Ultimate Guide to Creating Social Media Press Releases“. This pinpoints what PR in web 2.0 online world offers, and the article itself leverages the social ecosystems mentioned above. The blog article also introduces useful tools and online services that are helpful for effectively creating and distributing press releases.
In the next article, the author would like to discuss how PR activities in web 2.0 online world need to be changed from traditional PR activities in offline world.
References:-
Ciolek, Joanna (2010), Top 6 SEO Strategies for 2010
http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=101442807&gid=2359145&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fjoannaciolek%2Ecom%2Fwordpress%2Ftop-6-seo-strategies-for-2010%2F&urlhash=-tpe&trk=news_discuss
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
Helmer, Gail (2009), The Ultimate Guide to Creating Social Media Press Releases
http://www.gailhelmer.com/2009/11/18/the-ultimate-guide-to-creating-social-media-press-releases/
Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1. What is the essence of PR in Web 2.0 online world?
Transparency is the new PR (Public Relations) in web 2.0 online world and PR has truly become “public”. In offline world PR targeted only mass media and journalists but it was something exclusive and not truly “public”. However, in web 2.0 online world in which individuals have equal access to information and can organize, publish and protest on their own without using any professional media outlet online, also directly target consumers and buyers as well, and it needs to be more open and responsive, i.e. transparent.
2. What is the ideal news release in web 2.0 online world?
In web 2.0 online world, the ideal news release, the basic and primary tool, can be summarized as search engine and browsing optimized with rich content, reaching directly to all web audiences to drive people into the sales process. From the author’s experience, possible methodologies of creating such a news release are as below.
1) Target all web users and gain broad exposure.
In the Internet world, all web users can and will access to press releases of companies, so news releases should target directly them all, including bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists and publishers. This means to leverage news releases for broader exposure, and composing news release suitable for variety of targets. This is also about 2) below.
2) Optimize content.
First, defining and building buyer persona as mentioned in the previous article Vol.10 – How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers, and based on the buyer persona defined create a clear message and content including possible offering and story the buyer persona may find appealing. Make sure to deliver the story in the words of the buyer persona, including their “trigger words”, and never use jargon etc. When story is delivered in such a way, they would be able to understand and find it, and also define tools and methods to share and broadcast.
3) Perform social media SEO while using trigger words.
Ciolek’s article “Top 6 SEO Strategies for 2010” (2010) encompasses well points that are usually not mentioned in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) article. Among social media SEO strategies, the following 2 are the primary strategies that need to be implemented in composing news releases.
(1) Use optimized keywords and phrases, and social media tags.
This point is usually mentioned when people discuss SEO. Carefully define keywords and phrases that make news release rank high up, and include them in titles/headlines, text and social meta tags. However, such keywords and phrases may not be “trigger words” for the buyer persona, as explained in the previous article Vol.15 – How to Effectively Optimize Reference Landing Page?. In addition to key words and phrases, define and include trigger words of the buyer persona, and if they should not be the same, “balance” the two in the headlines as much as possible.
(2) Create relevant, high quality content and post frequently.
Content needs to meet the expectation of the web users clicking the search result link thus the content needs to be relevant with the key words with high quality satisfactory to them, as explained in the previous article Vol.11 – How to Successfully Drive Web Users to Web Contents?. Such content would encourage web users to share e.g. making links, broadcasting etc., which would give positive effects in terms of SEO.
In addition, posting news releases frequently is also a SEO tactic, meaning it would be more effective to send news releases of relevant content whenever good reasons exist rather than sending only at occasions of big news/events. Finding good reasons should not be a big problem because when all web users are regarded as targets, stories of the company, large of small, can be found with more ease.
4) Optimize integrated links for optimized browsing.
Insert links to drive web users to marketing and other related web pages/contents such as product information and reference/transactional landing pages with the objective of driving them to persuasion scenario (buying/selling process) mentioned in the previous article Vol.13 – How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Persuasion Scenario?. This is an extremely good example of converging marketing with PR. Moreover, integrated links would encourage web users visiting back to the websites.
5) Leverage social media ecosystem.
There are many other concrete social media ecosystems realized by web 2.0 introduced in the previous article Vol.5 – What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Realize? that can be leveraged to create or support press release and its pages. Some examples of concrete social media tools are as below.
(1) Audio, video and livecasting
Many companies already leverage audio and video by uploading podcast and streaming contents (e.g. company message, financial announcement webcast) in their website.
(2) Search
Continuous improvement in search within the website/press release section is important and is what all companies have been doing.
(3) RSS
Some company websites already has RSS, as well as distributing e-newsletter to subscribers.
(4) Blogs
Some companies leverage blogs to complement company message and helping promoting engagement with web users.
(5) Social networking, microblogging, and their widgets
Companies will need to become more social by making official account for social networking sites (e.g. Facebook) and microblogging (e.g. Twitter) and leverage in their PR (and marketing) activities, like what some companies already have strategically doing. Also, locating widgets to help web users share the information is another say of becoming more social.
In this article, the author focused on the ideal news releases in web 2.0 online world, and would like to introduce a blog article by Helmer (2009) “The Ultimate Guide to Creating Social Media Press Releases“. This pinpoints what PR in web 2.0 online world offers, and the article itself leverages the social ecosystems mentioned above. The blog article also introduces useful tools and online services that are helpful for effectively creating and distributing press releases.
In the next article, the author would like to discuss how PR activities in web 2.0 online world need to be changed from traditional PR activities in offline world.
References:-
Ciolek, Joanna (2010), Top 6 SEO Strategies for 2010
http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=101442807&gid=2359145&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fjoannaciolek%2Ecom%2Fwordpress%2Ftop-6-seo-strategies-for-2010%2F&urlhash=-tpe&trk=news_discuss
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
Helmer, Gail (2009), The Ultimate Guide to Creating Social Media Press Releases
http://www.gailhelmer.com/2009/11/18/the-ultimate-guide-to-creating-social-media-press-releases/
Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Vol.16: How to Effectively Optimize Transactional Landing Page?
In the previous article "Vol.15: How to Effectively Optimize Reference Landing Page?" possible methodologies of optimizing reference landing page(s) was introduced. This article will discuss possible methodologies of transactional landing page optimization.
1. What is the essence of optimizing transactional landing page(s)?
It is to navigate the buyer to go through the transaction steps to the end that are usually the same as making transaction offline at stores etc., minimizing operational errors and/or doing things over again. This is quite natural because completion of online transaction to maximize conversion rate is the objective of the page(s), as explained in the previous article "Vol.14: What is Landing Page and Its Optimization?". Transactional landing page is the last part of the persuasion scenario, the conversion point of the funnel, as explained in the previous article "Vol.13: How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Pursuasion Scenario?" For the buyer to have reached this point means that much effort have been made by the web owner as well as the buyer, and it is quite natural that the both parties surely would like to conclude the transaction.
But in reality, it is surprising that many buyers leave the landing page(s) before completing the transaction and there are many reasons. Some attributes to the transaction itself (e.g. the buyer is dissatisfied with price, quality, requirements etc. of the products/services and finally decided not to “buy”. But some others all attributes to failure of optimizing the transactional landing page(s).
Whether the reason for clicking goodbye is the former of the latter, it is business opportunity loss, and it is crucial to optimize the transactional landing page to maximize the conversion rate and minimize loss in business opportunity.
2. What are possible methodologies of transactional landing page optimization for maximized conversion rate?
From the author’s experience, possible methodologies of optimizing transactional landing page(s) are as below.
1) Make clear call to action(s) and focus on transaction.
Making clear call to action(s) and focusing on transaction can be achieved by the following.
(1) Confirm that the buyer would like to “buy” then move to conversion point by navigating the buyer to the transaction landing page and make the buyer that he/she is entering a transaction.
(2) Tell the buyer clearly what he/she needs to do to make a transaction.
(3) Make the transaction landing page a separate area in the total website. It is better to have minimum (or no) links to the main website pages; if such links are to be made, take care so that the buyer would now such links are not for making transaction.
In addition, it is better to make use multiple call to actions in many cases. This is because it is difficult to pinpoint one specific offering that appeals to a specific person (buyer). An example is in a BtoB world might be a free trial, white paper and price quote all in a transactional landing page.
2) Design the series of transactional landing pages in a way that the buyer goes through the online transaction step by step similarly to offline transaction.
Series of transaction pages need to be designed going through transaction processes of offline transaction. The essence of online and offline transaction should be the same and in theory the buyer should be going through the same transaction step whether it is online of offline, or at least the same offline transaction processes is what the buyer (and the seller = web owner) is used to so the processes should go smoother if kept same with that of offline.
Such steps (procedures) include filling forms of the buyer information, selecting/filling what he/she would like to buy, how many/much he/she would like to buy, where does the buyer want it to be delivered and when, how the buyer want to pay etc.
3) Design landing pages that truly help the buyer smoothly go through transaction processes.
KFS (Key Factors for Success) to develop landing pages that buyers can smoothly go through transaction processes are: transaction overview; clear, simple and convincing procedure/operation; confirmation and solicitude, which can be achieved by the following.
(1) Specify the overview of the transaction procedure together with where currently the buyer is.
(2) Before starting the transaction, specify important information such as terms of use and reasons for the buyer providing his/her private information, and make sure that the buyer agrees.
(3) Ask for minimum information and operation to minimize burden of the buyer. This can be done by:-
- Retrieving data already exist from the DB etc. (e.g. customer name etc if the buyer is already a member, province/prefecture and city from zip code)
- Allowing the buyer to select instead of input (e.g. pull down menu, selecting to tick).
Minimum operation leads to minimum human error and contributing to response rate improvement. This is because the buyer is likely to abandon the forms if he/she is asked to input so much data and/or he/she needs to correct the input data again, leading to reduction in response rate. Also, from privacy perspective, it is far better to ask them for minimum information.
(4) Clarify what the buyer needs to do to. This includes:-
- Clear indication: copy, link button, input box, how and what the buyer needs to input and/or click/select
- Clear distinction between required items and optional items
- Clear instruction on how to input: For numbers, must be half-width or full-width also acceptable. For phone number, hyphen needed or not. For date, order of year, month and day, how to input the numbers (e.g. 1 or 01)
(5) When all data has been input, allow the buyer to confirm and ask the buyer if he/her do want to buy i.e. to complete the transaction and make him/her click “yes” if he/she does want to buy.
(6) If the buyer wants to change the data (e.g. number of products, how to pay), let him/her make changes with ease and confirm again.
(7) Clarity the completion of the transaction. Display the confirmation message and/or send an e-mail to address the completion of the transaction.
4) Make sure to follow up.
Possible follow-ups include the following.
(1) After effective call to action and leads are to come in, follow up with responses in a timely manner.
(2) Let the buyer know the status of delivery of the transaction(s) (e.g. notify when the product is sent, online payment transaction is complete).
(3) Clearly let know how the buyer can change the transaction in some cases (e.g. subscribe or unsubscribe, making change in personal information and settings).This can be done by clarifying the URL of the page to make changes and how.
(4) Let the buyer see the history of the past transactions.
The author would like to add that maximizing the use of the past transactions as effective CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is extremely important as well. This may well lead to one-on-one personalized offering to buyers meaning higher buyer/customer satisfaction and more possibilities of upcoming transactions, thus higher ROI and customer equity. Amazon is probably the best example of this. Customer equity and customer life time value is one of the topics that deserve further discussion so the author would like to focus on this in one of the upcoming article.
The author now has completed explaining how to plan and develop website/web contents, driving prospects to the web content and navigating them to go through the persuasion scenario to complete the transaction.
Next, the author would like to discuss the PR/newsrooms in the web 2.0 online world as a follow-up of the previous article "Vol.7: The New Rules of Marketing, PR and IR in Web 2.0 Online World" because it is one of the fields that are going through drastic changes with Internet and web 2.0 technologies.
References:-
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1. What is the essence of optimizing transactional landing page(s)?
It is to navigate the buyer to go through the transaction steps to the end that are usually the same as making transaction offline at stores etc., minimizing operational errors and/or doing things over again. This is quite natural because completion of online transaction to maximize conversion rate is the objective of the page(s), as explained in the previous article "Vol.14: What is Landing Page and Its Optimization?". Transactional landing page is the last part of the persuasion scenario, the conversion point of the funnel, as explained in the previous article "Vol.13: How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Pursuasion Scenario?" For the buyer to have reached this point means that much effort have been made by the web owner as well as the buyer, and it is quite natural that the both parties surely would like to conclude the transaction.
But in reality, it is surprising that many buyers leave the landing page(s) before completing the transaction and there are many reasons. Some attributes to the transaction itself (e.g. the buyer is dissatisfied with price, quality, requirements etc. of the products/services and finally decided not to “buy”. But some others all attributes to failure of optimizing the transactional landing page(s).
Whether the reason for clicking goodbye is the former of the latter, it is business opportunity loss, and it is crucial to optimize the transactional landing page to maximize the conversion rate and minimize loss in business opportunity.
2. What are possible methodologies of transactional landing page optimization for maximized conversion rate?
From the author’s experience, possible methodologies of optimizing transactional landing page(s) are as below.
1) Make clear call to action(s) and focus on transaction.
Making clear call to action(s) and focusing on transaction can be achieved by the following.
(1) Confirm that the buyer would like to “buy” then move to conversion point by navigating the buyer to the transaction landing page and make the buyer that he/she is entering a transaction.
(2) Tell the buyer clearly what he/she needs to do to make a transaction.
(3) Make the transaction landing page a separate area in the total website. It is better to have minimum (or no) links to the main website pages; if such links are to be made, take care so that the buyer would now such links are not for making transaction.
In addition, it is better to make use multiple call to actions in many cases. This is because it is difficult to pinpoint one specific offering that appeals to a specific person (buyer). An example is in a BtoB world might be a free trial, white paper and price quote all in a transactional landing page.
2) Design the series of transactional landing pages in a way that the buyer goes through the online transaction step by step similarly to offline transaction.
Series of transaction pages need to be designed going through transaction processes of offline transaction. The essence of online and offline transaction should be the same and in theory the buyer should be going through the same transaction step whether it is online of offline, or at least the same offline transaction processes is what the buyer (and the seller = web owner) is used to so the processes should go smoother if kept same with that of offline.
Such steps (procedures) include filling forms of the buyer information, selecting/filling what he/she would like to buy, how many/much he/she would like to buy, where does the buyer want it to be delivered and when, how the buyer want to pay etc.
3) Design landing pages that truly help the buyer smoothly go through transaction processes.
KFS (Key Factors for Success) to develop landing pages that buyers can smoothly go through transaction processes are: transaction overview; clear, simple and convincing procedure/operation; confirmation and solicitude, which can be achieved by the following.
(1) Specify the overview of the transaction procedure together with where currently the buyer is.
(2) Before starting the transaction, specify important information such as terms of use and reasons for the buyer providing his/her private information, and make sure that the buyer agrees.
(3) Ask for minimum information and operation to minimize burden of the buyer. This can be done by:-
- Retrieving data already exist from the DB etc. (e.g. customer name etc if the buyer is already a member, province/prefecture and city from zip code)
- Allowing the buyer to select instead of input (e.g. pull down menu, selecting to tick).
Minimum operation leads to minimum human error and contributing to response rate improvement. This is because the buyer is likely to abandon the forms if he/she is asked to input so much data and/or he/she needs to correct the input data again, leading to reduction in response rate. Also, from privacy perspective, it is far better to ask them for minimum information.
(4) Clarify what the buyer needs to do to. This includes:-
- Clear indication: copy, link button, input box, how and what the buyer needs to input and/or click/select
- Clear distinction between required items and optional items
- Clear instruction on how to input: For numbers, must be half-width or full-width also acceptable. For phone number, hyphen needed or not. For date, order of year, month and day, how to input the numbers (e.g. 1 or 01)
(5) When all data has been input, allow the buyer to confirm and ask the buyer if he/her do want to buy i.e. to complete the transaction and make him/her click “yes” if he/she does want to buy.
(6) If the buyer wants to change the data (e.g. number of products, how to pay), let him/her make changes with ease and confirm again.
(7) Clarity the completion of the transaction. Display the confirmation message and/or send an e-mail to address the completion of the transaction.
4) Make sure to follow up.
Possible follow-ups include the following.
(1) After effective call to action and leads are to come in, follow up with responses in a timely manner.
(2) Let the buyer know the status of delivery of the transaction(s) (e.g. notify when the product is sent, online payment transaction is complete).
(3) Clearly let know how the buyer can change the transaction in some cases (e.g. subscribe or unsubscribe, making change in personal information and settings).This can be done by clarifying the URL of the page to make changes and how.
(4) Let the buyer see the history of the past transactions.
The author would like to add that maximizing the use of the past transactions as effective CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is extremely important as well. This may well lead to one-on-one personalized offering to buyers meaning higher buyer/customer satisfaction and more possibilities of upcoming transactions, thus higher ROI and customer equity. Amazon is probably the best example of this. Customer equity and customer life time value is one of the topics that deserve further discussion so the author would like to focus on this in one of the upcoming article.
The author now has completed explaining how to plan and develop website/web contents, driving prospects to the web content and navigating them to go through the persuasion scenario to complete the transaction.
Next, the author would like to discuss the PR/newsrooms in the web 2.0 online world as a follow-up of the previous article "Vol.7: The New Rules of Marketing, PR and IR in Web 2.0 Online World" because it is one of the fields that are going through drastic changes with Internet and web 2.0 technologies.
References:-
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Vol.15: How to Effectively Optimize Reference Landing Page?
In the previous article Vol.14: What is Landing Page and Its Optimization?, landing page and its optimization were defined. This article discusses possible methodologies to optimize reference landing page(s).
1. What it is to optimize reference landing page(s)? How web owners can optimize reference landing page(s)?
In short, it is by connecting between expectation of the online prospect (to later become buyers/customers) and what is actually delivered on the landing page and overall website/content, to make what is delivered the same or greater than the expectation, so that the buyer will be satisfied with the web service provided by the web owner. This needs to be done in line with total web marketing programme, integrating with SEM (Search Engine Marketing) etc., to make the landing page(s) logical extension of the advertisement or link for prospects. If that is successfully achieved, contents on the landing page(s) meet expectations of the prospects, who then will take series of micro actions to go through the persuasion scenario defined.
2. What are possible methodologies of reference landing page optimization?
From the author’s experience, possible methodologies of optimizing reference landing page(s) are as below.
1) Execute consistent branding based on the buyer/customer persona to make an excellent first impression and maintain it.
Similarly to any other things, there is only one chance to make first impression, and making positive first impression is inevitable. It is almost impossible especially in web marketing to change the first impression from negative to positive once the prospect gets negative first impression. Moreover, with negative first impression, the prospect would likely to click-away saying goodbye immediately.
The key to make excellent first impression of the landing page is branding aligning with the buyer persona defined, taking approaches mentioned in the previous article Vol.10: How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers? And the factors for effective branding to make excellent first impression include:-
(1) Look, feel and tone of the buyer persona
(2) Appealing design with attractive visual and graphic
(3) Attractive yet simple layout in order
(4) Attractive and simple headline (with trigger words)
Regarding headline, Vara‘s article about “9 Proven Headline Styles that Get Read” (2009) will be extremely helpful. In addition, the author added “with trigger words”. This is because headlines need to contribute to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to drive prospects to the landing page, but “trigger words” for the prospects also needs to be embedded in the headlines to maintain and increase prospects’ interest to make them read the contents. The trigger words are to be defined by successful buyer persona building.
What is delivered as the first impression, i.e. branding of the first impression, need to be consistent throughout the web page/content and website. Otherwise, the landing page(s) (and following pages of the persuasion scenario) would not be delivering what the total web marketing programme has promised, so the prospect would be dissatisfied and click away.
2) Include relevant information for the online buyer and make it stand out.
To make landing page a logical extension from online ad/search result etc., relevant information for the online buyer also needs to be included. The relevant information needs to be stood out so that the prospect would know find it, which can be fulfilled by:-
(1) Effectively using trigger words in headlines, subtitles, texts and captions.
Search engine keywords and tags usually focus on algorithms, which is not always equal to trigger words of prospects. The trigger words are of buyer person’s word and therefore defined by buyer persona and what stage the prospects are in the buying process.
(2) Improve text/copy.
This can be done in many ways by improving construction and logic, simplicity, style, font and its size and colour, content itself and so forth.
(3) Focus on communicating the value of the offering to the buyer.
Reference landing page(s) are not for advertising. Advertising should have been cone before the prospect accessed the landing page. Reference landing page(s) need to maintain and increase the interest of the prospect, which is effectively fulfilled if the value of the offering is delivered to the prospect/buyer, from consumer psychology logic. Such communication needs to be performed with care; it must not be advertising nor selling because it is still too early for selling. Providing quote from a happy customer and/or story telling of the organization is often effective.
2) Navigate web users effectively so that they will not get lost but take series of micro actions aligning with the persuasion scenario.
Effective navigation is also vital; if prospects cannot find relevant information and/or cannot smoothly take action they desire, they would be frustrated and click away. Effective navigation is fulfilled with logical architecture and navigation of website/web page(s). Navigation is designed and fulfilled by left hand menu, tool bar, tabs, link icon and link text, taking note of the following:-
(1) Make navigation simple with logic of “industry standard”.
The prospect can apply logic = what he/she has learned to utilize navigation from web surfing to the website/landing page of the web owner.
(2) Clarify the next step of the prospect.
This can be done by improved (link) copy as well as simple navigation. The improved (link) copy means that the information displayed after clicking the link button needs to be anticipated. Of course, the next step is carefully designed from the 5 steps of basic buying mentioned in the previous article Vol.12: How to Make Web Users Stay in Website and Finally "Buy"?
(3) Making links to related pages.
In increasing prospect’s interest, making links to related pages can be effective. However, in other cases, it is effective NOT providing links to main website page but make landing page unique and exclusive place in the website, as a self-contained unit, in order to secure traffic to the pages of persuasion scenario. It would really depend on the total architecture of the website and relationship with the landing page, persuasion scenario and assumed actions and pages accessed by the prospect.
Possible methodologies mentioned basically above can be applied to optimizing transactional landing page(s) and other micro action pages.
In the next article, possible methodologies to optimize transactional landing pages are discussed.
References:-
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Vara, Suzanne (2009), 9 Proven Headline Styles that Get Read
http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=92209699&gid=1935280&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ekherize5%2Ecom%2Fblog%2Fbid%2F24176%2F9-Proven-Headline-Styles-that-Get-Read&urlhash=Lge6&trk=news_discuss
1. What it is to optimize reference landing page(s)? How web owners can optimize reference landing page(s)?
In short, it is by connecting between expectation of the online prospect (to later become buyers/customers) and what is actually delivered on the landing page and overall website/content, to make what is delivered the same or greater than the expectation, so that the buyer will be satisfied with the web service provided by the web owner. This needs to be done in line with total web marketing programme, integrating with SEM (Search Engine Marketing) etc., to make the landing page(s) logical extension of the advertisement or link for prospects. If that is successfully achieved, contents on the landing page(s) meet expectations of the prospects, who then will take series of micro actions to go through the persuasion scenario defined.
2. What are possible methodologies of reference landing page optimization?
From the author’s experience, possible methodologies of optimizing reference landing page(s) are as below.
1) Execute consistent branding based on the buyer/customer persona to make an excellent first impression and maintain it.
Similarly to any other things, there is only one chance to make first impression, and making positive first impression is inevitable. It is almost impossible especially in web marketing to change the first impression from negative to positive once the prospect gets negative first impression. Moreover, with negative first impression, the prospect would likely to click-away saying goodbye immediately.
The key to make excellent first impression of the landing page is branding aligning with the buyer persona defined, taking approaches mentioned in the previous article Vol.10: How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers? And the factors for effective branding to make excellent first impression include:-
(1) Look, feel and tone of the buyer persona
(2) Appealing design with attractive visual and graphic
(3) Attractive yet simple layout in order
(4) Attractive and simple headline (with trigger words)
Regarding headline, Vara‘s article about “9 Proven Headline Styles that Get Read” (2009) will be extremely helpful. In addition, the author added “with trigger words”. This is because headlines need to contribute to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to drive prospects to the landing page, but “trigger words” for the prospects also needs to be embedded in the headlines to maintain and increase prospects’ interest to make them read the contents. The trigger words are to be defined by successful buyer persona building.
What is delivered as the first impression, i.e. branding of the first impression, need to be consistent throughout the web page/content and website. Otherwise, the landing page(s) (and following pages of the persuasion scenario) would not be delivering what the total web marketing programme has promised, so the prospect would be dissatisfied and click away.
2) Include relevant information for the online buyer and make it stand out.
To make landing page a logical extension from online ad/search result etc., relevant information for the online buyer also needs to be included. The relevant information needs to be stood out so that the prospect would know find it, which can be fulfilled by:-
(1) Effectively using trigger words in headlines, subtitles, texts and captions.
Search engine keywords and tags usually focus on algorithms, which is not always equal to trigger words of prospects. The trigger words are of buyer person’s word and therefore defined by buyer persona and what stage the prospects are in the buying process.
(2) Improve text/copy.
This can be done in many ways by improving construction and logic, simplicity, style, font and its size and colour, content itself and so forth.
(3) Focus on communicating the value of the offering to the buyer.
Reference landing page(s) are not for advertising. Advertising should have been cone before the prospect accessed the landing page. Reference landing page(s) need to maintain and increase the interest of the prospect, which is effectively fulfilled if the value of the offering is delivered to the prospect/buyer, from consumer psychology logic. Such communication needs to be performed with care; it must not be advertising nor selling because it is still too early for selling. Providing quote from a happy customer and/or story telling of the organization is often effective.
2) Navigate web users effectively so that they will not get lost but take series of micro actions aligning with the persuasion scenario.
Effective navigation is also vital; if prospects cannot find relevant information and/or cannot smoothly take action they desire, they would be frustrated and click away. Effective navigation is fulfilled with logical architecture and navigation of website/web page(s). Navigation is designed and fulfilled by left hand menu, tool bar, tabs, link icon and link text, taking note of the following:-
(1) Make navigation simple with logic of “industry standard”.
The prospect can apply logic = what he/she has learned to utilize navigation from web surfing to the website/landing page of the web owner.
(2) Clarify the next step of the prospect.
This can be done by improved (link) copy as well as simple navigation. The improved (link) copy means that the information displayed after clicking the link button needs to be anticipated. Of course, the next step is carefully designed from the 5 steps of basic buying mentioned in the previous article Vol.12: How to Make Web Users Stay in Website and Finally "Buy"?
(3) Making links to related pages.
In increasing prospect’s interest, making links to related pages can be effective. However, in other cases, it is effective NOT providing links to main website page but make landing page unique and exclusive place in the website, as a self-contained unit, in order to secure traffic to the pages of persuasion scenario. It would really depend on the total architecture of the website and relationship with the landing page, persuasion scenario and assumed actions and pages accessed by the prospect.
Possible methodologies mentioned basically above can be applied to optimizing transactional landing page(s) and other micro action pages.
In the next article, possible methodologies to optimize transactional landing pages are discussed.
References:-
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Vara, Suzanne (2009), 9 Proven Headline Styles that Get Read
http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=92209699&gid=1935280&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ekherize5%2Ecom%2Fblog%2Fbid%2F24176%2F9-Proven-Headline-Styles-that-Get-Read&urlhash=Lge6&trk=news_discuss
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
