Marty’s Comments (group member since Mar 18, 2010)

Marty’s comments from the Conversations on Website Conversion group.

Maybe it's correct to think of this as a sales funnel - but I tend to think about it as the various channels that customers come to our company. We do measure the effectiveness of each channel and "reward" the channels that produce more customers. I can see that if a company was very oriented towards outbound marketing - comparing the results (yields) from the various channels would be a very effective way to turn the company from an outbound marketing organization to an inbound marketing organization.

I think more and more people want to see real people and not the stock photos - they want to see who they're dealing with or talking to

Grading leads is an interesting concept - but it's not anything I've ever done - As a stock broker I gave a lot of seminars and then sent out a newsletter to keep in touch with those people who weren't ready to start a relationship - but I really left it up to them - Some stockbrokers would continually contact these "warm leads" as opposed to giving another seminar, because it's a lot easier to keep calling people where you have a name and phone number and they "know" you because they came to your seminar - but I found that it was much more effective to focus my efforts on getting new people to come to my seminar than to keep contacting the "warm leads". So I guess I'm influenced by that experience - and in the world of web marketing - I'm much more inclined to get out there and expose my services to new people.

To me there is a fine line between nurturing a potential customer and annoying them. You don't want them to forget your name when they're finally ready to make that purchase - but you also don't want to have pushed so hard that they're turned off. Capturing their e-mail and then over e-mailing them will just relegate your e-mails to the junk mail folder.

To me the best nurturing has to be what would naturally occur - when people engage on Facebook or on your blog - keep the conversation going - Have a newsletter or e-mail system to keep in touch - But let them make the decision to take things to the next level. I know that I really hate being pushed and the minute I feel that kind of pressure I back way off -

But maybe I'm taking some "old school" thinking and applying it to "new world" realities - I could really have this all wrong.....

what's been your experience both as a customer receiving nurturing or as a business owner nurturing your potential clients?

OK Shelby - I know you won't believe this but - you're right! - I checked out a bunch of sites today doing a competitive analysis and wow in the B2C space just eyeballing it - probably 80% to 90% images & max 20% text & probably much less - it's not the same in the B2B space yet - but how far behind can it be - if a significant piece of the population is visual and most people are no longer on a dial-up connection - images will become a big part of everyone's websites - In the B2B and lead generation sites it can be a bit of a challenge - what do attorneys or accountants do? For web designers - they can use samples of their work - but what does an SEO firm do? or in our case - how many different ways can you draw a conversion funnel???? I think to be relevant you also need to put a new or unique slant on the combination of image and text - and that's going to be a challenge

How does the initial free consultation work for you? We tried it for almost 6 months and and interestingly it didn't increase interest or orders - now we just offer 1 good idea instead - we'll see how that goes

We're going to try to start capturing e-mails so that we can send out a monthly newsletter - so we're trying to come up with the valuable offer for that - we'll probably come up with a PDF of some sort that we'll provide - but I agree with you Laura that it's a challenge.

I heard a podcast this morning where Mitch Joel the author of Six Pixels of Separation was being interviewed - and he made a really big point of listening 1st - then act. His feeling was that too many companies get out there - try something or several things & abandon them before they gain traction - either because they didn't really fit with their target market - or they didn't fit well with the medium - His sense was that consistency was far more important than just about anything - that it can't be sporadic or you'll never develop an audience - so listening first & then developing a strategy for your company would give you the best results possible.

He said that lots of big brands may not look like they're participating on the social networks but they really are - they have very active listening programs - they're on google alerts and twitter search and when they see anything that effects their brand they respond quickly - they're not doing it like Comcast or Dell where it's highly visible - but they're behind the scenes monitoring the channels actively.

Shelby - it's a great idea - Carl & I have been talking about video - mostly him doing the video & me asking questions & filming....but as far as text overlays to highlight key words or points...I'm not there yet....what do you know about it?

Good idea Hope - I never really thought of writing a remarkable article and then presenting it in video format - I've been trying to come up with video ideas & that's a great one

For me it has been a slow migration to social media tools... I'm not transitioning easily from e-mail to Twitter and Facebook - I'm still much more comfortable with one-on-one or small group conversations than putting things up on my Facebook page or Tweeting about it. On the other hand - getting articles or blogs written and up either on our website or out on the web has been a priority. I think video is very important but figuring out something "remarkable" to talk about on a video is still eluding me - but it's something I'm thinking about alot ... I love listening to podcasts but sort of seize up at the thought of producing one every week. Maybe it's like so many things - out of all the possible Social Media portals - you pick and choose based on your customer's preferences, your company's goals and then what you find easy and natural...

Since I've started reading this book - I've been focusing a lot more on my writing skills - and particularly the headlines to my blog posts and articles and those first few sentences. I really liked the tips for headlines in this chapter, because I've struggled with getting those SEO keywords into the headline and at the same time make it something that will grab the reader and compel them to read more. I really admire the people that can do this well.

I've started writing articles and placing them out in places like squidoo and ezine articles - in an effort to build links - I'm not that good at asking for links from other sites - so that probably isn't a great option for me - So I'm working on my writing skills and trying to improve my content with each attempt.

It's interesting - I've really had a hard time finding compatible blogs to comment on - on the "Big Dogs" blogs they're getting so many comments that I feel that it's really all been said by the time I can get to reading & writing - so far I haven't found interesting blogs in our target market to comment on - still looking - but not yet. I do try to comment on our clients blogs -

On the Diamond Website Conversion Blog -I do approve the comments - I've thought some about what they said - and maybe I'll give it a try - I have to say though, I've never deleted a "real" comment - however I can get up to 5-10 spam comments in a given day - no idea how these people find us but the whole comment is just a bunch of links to websites promoting things like weight loss drugs - so those I delete

I like to read the blog DoshDosh - I really enjoy the writing style and the depth of the content - and i guess I'm really partial to Japanese Anime so I really like his (yes it is a guy writing the blog) images. In one of his posts he said that he took 20 hours just to put together one article for a new website that he wanted to get found....the time paid off because the article generated huge traffic for the new website and as I recall something like 800 links back to the website. As the authors point out in Chapter 4, it's no longer the width of your wallet - it's the width of your brain - it's figuring out how to create remarkable content - write it and they will come.

How does a person who's not a writer by trade become a creator of remarkable content? I do know that the more you read the better your writing skills - but are there other things we could/should be doing to give our writing that boost?

Laura wrote: "My business website is still more of a megaphone. However, I think I am slowly moving in the right direction. I get traffic from Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, as well as some smaller social netw..."

We've been trying to move clients into more of a "hub" type website too - but convincing clients has been a bit of an uphill battle - the big issue seems to be the time/money conundrum (not enough hours in the day already & no extra money at the moment for hiring it out)

I had a really hard time with this chapter - In fact I had a lot of resistance to the ideas - they made me uncomfortable - even the title - Are you worthy? If I'm completely honest with myself I'd have to say no, I guess I'm not worthy... and as far as being the best in the world at something - that feels both arrogant and something like the impossible dream.... How did everyone else react to this chapter?

I thought that Table 2.1 on Page 16 was really telling - the difference between most websites (ours included) and what a true inbound marketing hub looks like is pretty dramatic - in a way it's almost intimidating - going from 0 to thousands of fans - and should that be your goal? What about having a small but fiercely loyal group of customers - granted you will never be a marketing hub in the sense that they're taking about - but within your own sphere of influence you would be a hub.... I think the concept is excellent - and maybe each company needs to determine the scale that works best for them... or maybe I'm just being whimpy here

Do you think it's possible or even good for everyone to strive to be the type of inbound marketing hub they're talking about - or is there room for different types/sizes of hubs?

In Chapter 1 the authors talk about how we gather information for shopping or other purposes....Maybe it's a generational thing - but I don't really use blogs or social media to gather information or shop - I guess I got started with Google and that's all I use.... what is your experience? Do you use blogs or social media to gather information? If you do - how do you do it?