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How to Increase Conversions - The Olivier Chaine Interview
To learn how to increase conversions, I spoke with Olivier Chaine, the CEO of Magnify360. I knew he’d make a great teacher because his company is in the business of increasing conversion rates. Magnify360 offers a software-as-a-service platform which enables Web sites to adapt in real-time to the behaviors of individual visitors
Download the full interview to hear more, but these are some of my notes from the conversation.
You know so much more than you realize
Olivier showed me that even if a user has never been to your web site, you can still predict what will appeal to her. You can tell, for example, if she uses a Mac or PC. If she uses a Mac, you might make your page look more cutting edge. If she uses a PC, you might make your landing page look more official.
Other things you can easy know include: time of day, where your user is, and what she did just before she came to your site. If you take each of those factors into account, you can deliver the perfect pitch to each user and increase your conversion rate.
Why should anyone do anything?
You need to give people a compelling reason to take the action you want, or they won’t do it. I asked Olivier to look at CauseCast.org and tell me what they could to increase conversions. After complimenting them on their use of celebrities and user testimonials, he noticed the registration process and wondered why anyone should register. He suggested they give a strong, clear reason to join and more people will register.
Check out how goodreads does that on their homepage.
You want people to tell you all that?!
Another way to increase conversions is to ask fewer questions. We looked at qtask.com. Olivier loved their use of images, but when he saw the registration form, he said it might overwhelm users. Also, the optional fields aren’t clearly marked “optional” so the form seems even longer.
Do you know any ways to increase conversions? Add them to the comments!
Right click here to download the interview
5 Outrageously Clever Techniques That I Learned At The Mixergy Viral Forum
On Monday, September 22, we did the Mixergy Viral Forum, and brought in experts to teach how any site can get more traffic by using viral marketing techniques. Here’s a recap of the event.
Speakers:
Otis Chandler - Founder, Goodreads (LinkedIn | Twitter | Goodreads)
Ethan Bauley - Dir. Social Meida Strategy, M80 (LinkedIn | Twitter)
Chris Bechtel - VP, iPressRoom (LinkedIn, Twitter)
Neil Patel - CTO, ACS (LinkedIn, Twitter)
Jason Nazar - CEO, Docstoc.com (LinkedIn, Twitter)
Some Pictures:
5 Viral Techniques:
#1 “You Have NO Friends!” - If a site has a friends feature, Otis said it should integrate friends into every part of the site. That way, if a user doesn’t have any friends, she’ll keep seeing “you have no friends,” and will be persuaded to add them.
#2 Bribe Users - To get your viral marketing program going, Ethan suggested incetivizing users with bribes if they tell their friends.
#3 Hop The Bandwagon - When a story takes over the conversation online, Chris suggested incorporating it into your content. That way your site will get swept into the bigger conversation.
#4 Hire Monkeys - Neil revealed that he hired students (who he called “monkeys”) to pretend to be him on social networks. That helped him build an audience of people that he could market himself to.
#5 The Experiment - To illustrate how some of the ideas we discussed worked, Jason said that if anyone in the audience Twittered “You must follow @JasonNazar” he’d give them his Rolodex of bloggers. (See the results here.)
More, More More. We talked about many more techniques for making a site viral. These are just 5 of the most interesting ones that I wrote down.
Do you know of other ways to make a site viral? Add them to the comments or email them to me.
Robert Scoble On Building a Personal Brand
The Results of Jason Nazar’s Viral Experiment
To demonstrate some of the viral marketing ideas that he taught at the Mixergy Viral Forum, Jason Nazar, CEO of DocStoc, came up with an interesting experiment.
He said that if anyone in the audience posted a message about him on twitter, he’d give them contact information for the top bloggers. The message: “You have to follow @JasonNazar.”
As you can see from the chart above, the experiment increased his Twitter followers. It wasn’t a huge spike, but it was a nice increase over 48 hours. And if the experiment was done with a broader internet audience, it looks like the growth would be higher.
What I also noticed is that it got people talking about him.
What do you think of the experiment? Are there any other viral tests we should try?
5 Steps to Becoming a Networking Superstar - The Peter Pham Interview
If you want to know the value of having a good network, take a look at what it’s done for Peter Pham’s new company, BillShrink:
- Networking helped him find a co-founder who is a former venture capitalist.
- Networking helped him land a top creative director without having to pay a recruiting fee.
- Networking helped him get an adviser who successfully sold a startup in the industry Peter wants to dominate.
- Networking helped him get his business funded.
Here are 5 of the steps he took to become a networking superstar. (Listen to the full interview for more.)
Go where they are - To get hooked into the web startup community, Peter went to tech events. He met his co-founder at the very first event he went to, the TechCrunch party in Michael Arrington’s house.
Once isn’t enough - Even the shiest networker can start building contacts by consistenly going to similar events. People start to recognize you and relationships naturally develop.
Everyone knows the host - After going as a guest to a few events, Peter switched roles and started hosting his own dinners. When you’re a guest, you get to meet a few people at an event, but the host gets to know everyone.
Tap their lists - To broaden his guest list, he co-hosted his dinners with two other connections: Mike Jones, CEO of userplane and Keith Richman, CEO of Break.com
Watch it grow - Word started to spread about his small dinners and people started asking for invitations. So Peter and his co-hosts created bigger events. The most recent one had over 150 guests. There’s even a web site, now betasouth.org. It’s a “.org” because the goal to make connections, not profits.
What are your networking tip? Add them to the comments.
Right click to download this interview
Pictures from Mixergy Drinks @ 11thr
See the original invitation here.
New Mixergy Event: Lunch 2.0 @ SuggestionBox.com
Lunch 2.0 is returning to San Diego thanks to SuggestionBox.com.
Johnny Negretti told me that he got his business funded because of a conversation he had at a Mixergy lunch in San Diego. That’s why I do these events.
Where:
SuggestionBox.com’s Office, 120A South Sierra Avenue, Solana Beach, CA 92075
When:
Friday, September 26, 2008 from 12:05 PM - 02:00 PM (PT)
Thanks for promoting this event:
Melani Gordon of gWave Consulting, Alex Funk of digital-telepathy, Calley Nye of technews.la, Edward O’Connor of edward.oconnor.cx and Dan Tentler of Aten Syndicate.
Let me know if you’re promoting this event (on twitter, blog, etc) so I can add you here.
See it LIVE:
SuggestionBox.com is going to stream this event live on their ustream account: http://www.ustream.tv/SuggestionBox
7 Tips for Bloggers from Michelle Thatcher of CNET
After listening to Michelle’s tips, if you have any of your own, add them to the comments!
How To Grow An Email Mailing List - The Justin Premick Interview
When you signed up for Facebook or Twitter, did you start using it right away? Or were you like me and only started becoming an active user after getting a few emails for the company to remind you that you have an account and helping you get acquainted with it?
I’ve noticed that many of the most successful online companies–and many well-known bloggers–understand how to use email well. To learn what they know, I interviewed Justin Premick, a teacher at aweber, an email software company.
Here’s some of what I learned about growing a mailing list:
Understand why: Most people don’t understand the power of email marketing so they don’t make growing their list a priority. If you have a good mailing list, you can ensure that you’ll reach your audience–if you don’t, you never know if a user liked your site but never came because because he forgot about it.
I don’t even see it! One reason that users don’t join mailing lists is that they don’t even see where the registration process is. During our interview, Justin and I went hunting for the email registration form on a company’s web site and we couldn’t find it.
“Why should I?” Most people don’t say, “I want more email.” They say, “why should I register?” So you have to give them an incentive to join your list. When Justin looked at my site, he said I didn’t give people enough of an incentive to register and suggested I offer special interviews just to people who register.
Location, location, location: Justin told me that one thing successful list growers do is put their registration processes in multiple locations.
Do you know any other ways to grow a mailing list?
Right click here to download the full interview!
How “Talk Like A Pirate Day” Became A Sensation - Interview With The Founders
Ahoy, me hearty!
Have you noticed how every September 19, people around the world start talking like pirates and web sites start writing like pirates? It’s called “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” and it’s gotten so big that it was even celebrated on the International Space Station.
I wanted to find out where it started and how it spread, so I could learn how ideas take off. That’s why I interviewed the two founders, John “Ol’ Chumbucket” Baur and Mark “Cap’n Slappy” Summers. Here’s what I learned from them.
Random & fun: This was the most disturbing aspect for me. I like to think that everything can be planned. If you listen to my interview, you’ll hear me constantly ask for the techniques the two founders used to grow their movement (that’s what I do). And they keep telling me there was no business plan. It just happened.
Simple publicity: The only formal publicity they did was email humor columnist Dave Barry. They told him how one day on a raquet ball court they started talking like pirates and that their friends thought it was so cool that they too started talking like pirates. They asked Barry to run with it and he did.
What trademark? I think a key reason that Talk Like a Pirate Day spread is that Baur and Summers allowed anyone to run with it, no limits. You can sell tshirts, call yourself “the official” this or that of Talk Like a Pirate Day, or do whatever you want with the concept without asking their permission. That opens people up to creativity and helps the idea spread virally.
You can be uptight: Another reason the “holiday” spread so fast is that anyone can do it. You just have to toss an “Ahoy!” or “me heart!” into your conversation and that’s it.
Why do you think “Talk Like a Pirate Day” spread so widely?
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