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Bounces are bad. Bounces indicate that someone visited your website, felt that it did not meet their expectation of what they were looking for, and immediately left your website without taking any other action. Or do they indicate something else? Do they indicate that your finely-tailored web page answered your visitors’ questions so precisely that there was no need for them to look elsewhere for their answers? How can you tell what is really being measured by your Google Analytics bounce rate? More importantly, if you are paying for Google ads, a higher bounce rate will cause you to have to pay more for each click.

Type of website matters

Whether or not you need to be concerned with the bounce rate statistics for your website depends greatly upon what type of website you have. If you are directing people to a landing page, the bounce rate will accurately depict the number of people who leave your landing page without taking action on your offer. For these types of websites, the bounce rate matters, and a lower bounce rate is preferable. If people enter your website as a result of organic searches, and may arrive at your home page, a landing page, an interior page describing your products or business, or a posting on your blog, the bounce rate as calculated may not matter. In those situations, it is more important to know if the person is engaging with your content, taking time to read it over before leaving the website. The simple bounce rate is not a meaningful measurement in this case, since it does not tell you the difference between someone who leaves your page immediately and someone who spends 5 minutes perusing everything you wrote about a subject. That second visitor, even if they have no other interaction with your website, will recognise your name as a subject matter expert, and have more trust in you when they encounter you again.

Using a different bounce rate calculation

In order to incorporate information about how long someone stays on your website before leaving, even if they do not interact in any other way with your website, you need Google to consider only those visitors who leave within a certain timeframe as true bounces. This can be done by adding some customised code to the Google Analytics script. The customised code uses the Google Analytics API to create events, or something that Google interprets as a website visitor interacting with your website. As a result, they are no longer considered bounces. An added side benefit of this is that the Google Analytics measurement of the average time each visitor spends on your website will also increase to more accurately reflect real visit lengths. Using this new calculation for bounce rates, you will be able to differentiate between true bounces and people who engaged with your content without taking additional action on your website.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: Morguefile)

With well over half of all mobile phones being smart phones, and about one in every six computers being a tablet, the desktop is no longer users’ primary interface to the Internet. If your sales pages do not display on tablets and mobile devices, you are losing sales. Following are some of the biggest trends in mobile marketing, and how they impact Internet marketing.

Video marketing

People like viewing videos on their mobile devices. Even business people, who are viewing business related videos, prefer watching those videos on their mobile devices nearly half the time. The mobile format is ideally suited for consuming small amounts of content while you are waiting in queues or waiting for everyone to arrive at a meeting. To take advantage of this, Internet marketers need to ensure that their video marketing displays well on mobile devices, and can be easily shared or responded to from a mobile device.

Social networking

People may like to view videos on mobile devices however they love social networking on mobile devices. Over 90% of mobile users consider their mobile device their preferred social networking interface. Make sure that your Internet marketing can be liked, shared, followed, friended, and all of the other social networking reactions from a mobile device. Avoid pop up screens to perform social networking functions on a mobile display, instead favouring inline icons that will not obscure the content.

Targeted mobile apps

Marketers are quickly realizing that mobile advertising is not as targeted approach as advertising a mobile app that is specific to your target. By creating apps that feature coupons, loyalty programs, receipt processing, or other benefits for your customers, you create a built-in marketing base of people who are predisposed to buy from you. It is far easier and more cost efficient to market to your existing customers, than it is to convince people who have never heard of you to purchase your product.

Artificial scarcity

Consumers no longer leap at the chance for every free e-book available, as a result depriving Internet marketers of valuable leads. They will research at length online, and feel no urgency to purchase, because their perception is that the goods and products will always be available. To counteract this, Internet marketers need to create an artificial sense of scarcity. This can be done effectively with countdowns, timers, and limited editions. Just be certain that your artificially imposed scarcity is true scarcity. Your customers will feel cheated if you say a specific offer is available for only ten days, and on the eleventh day, it is still available. On the other hand, if on the eleventh day the same product is available only the price has gone up by 10%, your customers who were on the fence will feel a strong sense of urgency to get it at the new price before the price goes up again.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: Morguefile)

People associate particular emotional values with different colours. Choosing the right or wrong colours for your website and email branding and calls to action will have a strong impact on your conversion rate and ultimate success as an Internet marketer.

Colour associations

Black calls up strong, accurate associations, and is best for industries that value precision and credibility, such as construction, manufacturing, mining, and service professions. It is also excellent for giving a touch of stability to industries such as fashion or marketing, as well as being associated with luxury. Green is commonly associated with nature and ecology, making it well suited for anything organic, health-oriented, or related to the outdoors, however it is also associated with education. Blue is considered trustworthy and technical, which is why it is used by so many banks, businesses, and hi-tech companies. Yellow is considered optimistic and youthful, and is used to catch attention of people who are glancing at a store front or landing page. Red creates a sense of urgency while orange inspires taking action. Pink is considered romantic and feminine, while purple is associated with beauty and anti-aging.

Colour differences between the sexes

Women and men both react well to the colours blue and green, and dislike the colours orange and brown. Women also like purple and dislike grey, while men like black and dislike purple. The difference regarding perception of purple between the sexes may be due to its association with beauty, rather than a reaction to the nature of the colour itself. Do not feel that a colour should be avoided completely if it is disliked. These colours can make excellent accent colours, especially with calls to action, since the slight discomfort they induce helps to encourage people to take action and move off of the page. Similarly, favourable colours can make a page seem too calm and relaxing, and prevent people from moving off of it.

Call to action colours

Red and orange are both good colours for calls to action because they trigger strong reactions. People who see the colour red actually experience an increased heart rate, which makes them more excited about your offer and about taking action on it. Orange, especially the redder shades of orange, have a similar although slightly lesser physical effect. The fact that orange is disliked as a colour also contributes to people wanting to take action in order to remove the offending colour from their sight. It is notable that merely changing the colour of a call to action button from green, which is calm and restful, to red, which is energising, increases conversion rates by more than 20%!

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: Morguefile)

There are two types of sales videos — the lengthy video that fully demonstrates your product and gives consumers all the information they need in order to purchase it, and a short video teaser that creates interest or buzz about your product or brand. Think of them as the online versions of infomercials and commercials. These tips will help you to create captivating short sales videos or sizzle videos.

Use high quality content

Your videos do not have to be slick and polished, or look like a high priced advertisement. However, they should not have grainy video or audio that is difficult to understand. Film your video in high definition, which is available from inexpensive consumer cameras. Properly light the subject of your video, and frame the subject of your video correctly. If your product is featured, it should be clearly visible. Film your video in quiet settings so that the audio recording is clear, or use studio voiceovers. Music should be appropriate to both your audience and the message you are sending.

Target a specific audience

You should know exactly who will be watching this video, based on your targeted demographic persona. Each persona should be targeted with a separate video, so that it can be tailored specifically to the needs and desires of that persona. Determine the style of video that will be most appealing to that persona, whether it is full of infographics, slow reveals of key product features, or a rapid montage of images.

Find five features

Each video should mention the benefits of at least 3 and no more than 5 features of your product. Determine which features and benefits are the most important to your target audience, and mention only those.

Keep things moving

Ensure that any still images in your video appear to be moving by using transitions. Avoid using static images or blocks of text, although short catch phrases or important statements can be used sparingly. Titles and closing credits should have some movement to the backgrounds, even if the text is static.

Think reusability

You’ll get more use from your video if the parts that change rapidly (such as sale information) or vary between otherwise identical scripts (such as location names) are done in a voice over or using a replaceable title card. When they change, the video can be easily updated, without requiring an entirely new video production. Similarly, if you are creating a number of different videos for different personas with different collections of featured benefits, careful scripting and editing will allow you to reuse the descriptions of individual features in multiple videos, rather than needing to shoot each video in its entirety.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: Morguefile)

ID-10056827 Are you ready to release your product to the world? If you have a single product that is ready to be released, you can use any method of scheduling you like from a paper calendar to project management software, just make sure you have some type of schedule available that you can look at in a glance. Here are some tips that you can use to prepare for your big day.

Don’t Start at the Beginning, Go Straight to the End

When releasing your product, you definitely should go right to the end result and work backwards. For instance, you know that the end of this process, you will release a certain product on a certain date. From there, you will need to work back and think about how your product will meet the needs of the market and how you will communicate to the public how valuable your product will be. You should go even further back and think about dates that are considered to be important in your industry, when industry heavyweights are releasing their products and think about any trade shows that may be coming up. You want to make sure that you are avoiding big launches but embracing important events.

Make the Public Excited to Meet Your Product

The pre-launch of your product is extremely important because this is where you will build excitement and create a demand. There are several things that you can use in order to communicate with the public including direct mail, teleseminars, webinars, affiliate partners and videos. Each type of communication will have a different lead time, so make sure you are taking that into consideration. For example, a email campain will involve at least three emails prior to the launch, one on the day of the launch and two following the launch. You need to make sure you have enough time to produce, review and send everything.

Use Your Resources to Your Advantage

You have a lot of reources out there that you just may not realise you have. Think about events that can build buzz like contests or beta testing. These will need to be scheduled as well. With these events, you can gain even more advantage like asking everyone who enters a contest to provide a testimonial for your product. This will give you content to add to your sales copy and will give you an amazing way to get the word out.

Create a Sense of Urgency

Perhaps one of the keys to a successful launch is a sense of urgency. You can do this by only having a limited number of items or selling it at a deep discount for a limited amount of time. You want to tell people they need to get this product immediately, give them a reason why, and follow through with that reason.

By utilising these tips, you can have a very successful product launch and hopefully a very successful product.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image courtesy of tungphoto at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Getting a lead is only the first step in the sales process. You still need to convert that lead into a sale. The following secret strategies are used by top Internet marketers to maximise their conversions of leads, by focusing on the behaviour of each individual prospect rather than treating prospects as a mass of identical beings.

Pay attention to anonymous visitors

Most people do not pay any attention to their site visitors, other than general website analytics to analyse their behaviour, until they have become a lead. The top Internet marketers know that much can be determined about a visitor’s interests and sales readiness by paying attention to which pages are visited and which actions are taken. This information can be tracked and assigned to an anonymous record. Then, when the visitor finally sees an offer that is too good to resist and gives you their lead information, you can tie that lead with all of the website activity that occurred prior to creation of the lead. This is especially valuable in that it tells you which offers the person saw on your website that weren’t compelling enough to act upon, so that you can incorporate more of what was successful into the offers that were not.

Base reactions upon behaviours

Common Internet marketing practices provide similar website experiences to everyone who enters the website through the same landing page. Top Internet marketers, on the other hand, pay close attention to every action a visitor takes while on the website, and deliver a website experience designed to maximise the conversion of a visitor with those behaviours. For example, the person who takes action after reading the headline of your landing page is exhibiting different behaviour from someone who scrolls to the end of the landing page, carefully reading the entire text, before taking action. The second person may have required more information to become convinced, or may be a more cautious person who wants to know all of the available facts before making a decision. Someone who views information on all of your products has a different buying mentality from someone who jumps directly to the product page for a specific product. By studying their behaviours, you will be able to make your sales offer when it is most likely to be accepted.

Recycle leads

Top Internet marketers know that prospects need to complete certain actions on the website before they make a purchase. Someone who downloaded a free ebook may not be ready for a high-ticket sale just yet. Rather than bombarding all leads with offers for all products indiscriminately, top Internet marketers monitor visitor behaviours to determine where they are in the sales funnel and treat them accordingly. Someone who has downloaded free items may be offered more free items, with an option to buy a product, while someone who has already purchased many products may be offered a chance to buy a new product, with a bonus of something free.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: Morguefile)

Businesses create landing pages for three basic reasons, all of which work together. The first is to guide someone along a predefined sales funnel, the second is to capture leads, and the third is to actually sell something. If the landing page directs the person along the sales funnel rapidly, there is no need to capture their lead information, because they will have already become a customer, and you will have sold them something. Since most sales require time for the customer to become comfortable with each stage of the sales funnel before moving to the next, capturing their lead information ensures that they remain in the sales funnel.

Use many individualised landing pages

One best practice is to keep each landing page tightly focused on exactly the information the visitor needs at that moment, and the call to action to take them to the next step in the sales funnel. This one practice alone can increase your conversion rate by 55%.

Use qualified lead capture forms

Another best practice that is similar to using highly specific landing pages is to use highly specific contact forms. You should create a distinct contact form for every offer you are making, reassuring the visitor that they are getting exactly the ebook, downloadable report, or other offer that they thought they were getting. It will increase your conversion rate, and also qualify your leads. Avoid the worst practice of sending all of your lead generation traffic to a single, generic “contact us” form. Also, avoid asking for too much information on the form, since each additional piece of information requested will negatively impact your conversion rate. Only ask for what you need to qualify the lead.

Use informative headlines

Your website visitor should be able to determine exactly what action you want them to take, and what the benefit of taking that action will be, just from reading your landing page headline. Use the standard best practices of headline writing to craft a concise message laden with benefits and inspiring action. Place your first call to action where it can be easily seen and acted upon after reading the headline alone, such as in a column to the right of the main content of your landing page. If your headline is informative enough, the visitor may not need to read any more to know they want to take action.

Use insightful images

The brain processes images some 60,000 times faster than it processes words. If your landing page is offering a free ebook, use an image of the ebook. If you are making a different offer that does not lend itself to an image, use an image that conveys the benefit of the offer. A generic image of a smiling business person or medical professional looks pretty. It does not visually tell the visitor anything about your offer.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: Morguefile)

Google has recently released a significant upgrade to its analytics capabilities with Google Universal Analytics. You can take advantage of the new capabilities by upgrading your existing standard analytics to universal analytics.

Create a new web property

In order to take advantage of the new capabilities, you will need to create a new web property. You can create a new web property from the Admin tab of your Google Analytics account by selecting the account name from the list and clicking on New Property. Fill in the information about the web site that you want analysed, and select universal analytics. This will allow you to use the Google Tag Manager to manage all of the tags for your web property with the enhanced information gathering abilities of universal analytics. Your existing analytics will continue running as well, so you can compare the new information you are receiving with your previous information.

Track what is important to your business

Google Analytics has always allowed you to track both page views and events that occur on that page. Universal analytics takes that to an even greater level of granularity, however. Now, you are able to track anything about that page interaction with customised tags. For example, you can track which affiliate referred someone to your page, and all of the actions people took after being referred, not just whether or not they purchased a particular item. That can help you identify affiliate relationships which you want to nurture. If you display multiple versions of your content for A/B testing, you can track which version was displayed for better analysis of customer behaviours. The easiest way to tag A/B testing at the moment is to include a specific graphic element for each variety of content, even a 1-pixel invisible graphic, and tag the graphic element.

Customise experience by platform

One of the foundational realities reflected in the new tracking capabilities of universal analytics is that people who are accessing your site on different platforms have different needs and expectations. The mobile user who is looking at your website on the go has different behaviours and desires than the person who is browsing your website at leisure from the comfort of their desktop computer. Therefore, while it may make sense to track the overall length of time someone spends on your website when they are coming from a desktop computer as a sign of how engaged they are with your business, that might not be the right measurement for a mobile user. For a mobile user, it might be more important to track how quickly they can get to the part of your website they need to access, take care of their business, and go. Universal analytics helps you to determine what works best for different customer segments.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: Stock Xchange)

As more and more of your Internet marketing occurs on a variety of social media platforms, the time required to manage your social media marketing can grow exponentially out of control. Not only is logging on to each individual social media platform time intensive, you may fail to capture data about overall trends across platforms. While these tools do have costs associated with them, you can try them for free. The right tool should more than cover its cost from your increased business profits.

Best for social media beginners

If you are relatively new at managing social media marketing, consider Crowdbooster. This tool focuses on only two platforms – Facebook and Twitter. It tracks all of the activity regarding your social media each day, including shares, likes, retweets, comments, and replies. Not only do you receive a numeric aggregate, you have the opportunity to see who it is that is engaging with you. What makes this a stellar tool for beginners, however, is that it includes recommendations about the actions you should make in response to the reported activity, whether that is commenting, following, or some other response.

Best for analysing customer response

If your social media marketing activities have been scattershot, with a wide variety of post topics, a mix of photos, videos, and text, and occurring when you have the time to make them, you will benefit from a tool like Socialbakers that allows you to analyse which of your posts get the highest rates of engagement. Find out the times of day and days of the week that people are most receptive to your message, as well as the types of content that most resonate with them. If you are modelling a successful Internet marketer or competing for mind share against another business, this tool will also allow you to see how your efforts stack up against theirs across the big three social media platforms, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Best for instant response

If you are already working a detailed social media marketing plan, and simply need a tool to help you manage all of the pies in which you have fingers, Sprout Social will do the trick. It monitors mentions of your brand or product across multiple platforms, allowing you to respond from whichever profile is most appropriate, and in whatever manner is most effective. You can see overall demographic breakdowns of your followers at a glance, to help you to better appeal to their needs, or to identify potential growth areas of market segments that are underrepresented. It also breaks down your social media statistics into both an influence level, which reflects how many people are exposed to your message, and an engagement level, which reflects how many people are taking action as a result of your message.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: Stock Xchange)

Branding goes beyond have a common look and feel to everything that leaves your office, although that is certainly an important part of your branding strategy. Ideally, your brand becomes so recognised that people can use the name of your company as shorthand for all of the value attributes that are associated with it.

Research current opinions

Before you can create a new brand for your business, you need to know what your current brand identity is. Even if you never created a brand, you will have one in people’s minds. Existing customers can tell you what values and attributes they associate with your company, as can your employees and business partners. If you are a new company, you can compare and contrast your product line with existing products and ask prospective customers what attributes about your products would make them switch from the products they buy now.

Identify chosen values

From the list of attributes and values identified, select all of the positive values that you feel are core attributes of your business, or that you want to be known for. Weed out any values that are shared by other companies in your industry, such as good customer service. If any negative values are identified, find a value that puts a positive spin on that value. For example, if people think your company is “slow”, assert that your company “takes the time to do it right”. The values that remain should be those that are necessary and sufficient to define your business – all of the values that are distinct to your business and no others.

Visually represent those values

Design a logo for your business that expresses all of the core values you have identified. The logo should use images, colours, and fonts that combine to express your values. It is well worth hiring a professional for this, rather than attempting to do it yourself with some clipart and a basic graphics program. Your logo will form the visual centrepiece of all of your product packaging. You will be using colours and fonts from your logo to create thematically consistent product literature, product packaging, and advertising.

Make a promise

Finally, create a tag line for your business that goes with the values expressed in your logo. The tag line is not simply a memorable rephrasing of your core values. It expresses the emotional reason why someone wants to do business with you. Think of the original Federal Express tag line, “When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight.” That tag line conveys the desperation of the customer, and promises that the problem would be solved with rock solid reliability, so they do not need to worry about it. The emotional reason being promised is peace of mind.

Thanks!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Managing Director

The Internet Marketing Academy

http://www.internetmarketingacademy.com

(Image: MorgueFile)