The guy was in his late 20’s-early 30’s and I could tell from his body language that he was definitely up to something.  I knew he wasn’t going to rob the bank (which coincidentally we were both near) so I tried to figure out EXACTLY what he was going to do.   (Yes, this is indeed the type of thing I do when I am avoiding e-mails and BBM.)

I watched him stare at the hippy-chick with the dandelions in her hair who was screaming at someone in Tagalog on her phone.  (The romantic in me was actually hoping he was going to propose to her.)

I saw him glance furtively at the three scantily-clad college girls whose combined outfits used less fabric than a scarf.

I looked at him chin-nod at the surfer dude; purse his lips at the skateboarder with the pants that STARTED at his knees; and grin at the bimbelina who was stuffed so full of Botox she couldn’t smile back.

I was so focused on him – the suspicious guy — that I completely missed what was really happening…

A flash mob.

As I watched the “suspicious guy” I came up with all sorts of notions of what he was doing. 

Sadly, none of my ideas were right because I wasn’t looking at the whole picture.

Very similar to the twisted way in which a lot of folks look at web conversion these days.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a big conversion proponent.  I write about it, I give speeches about it and I pimp out our kick-ass conversion services on a daily basis.

However, conversion is NOT the end-all be-all.  I repeat.  Conversion is not the end-all-be-all.

It’s like this morning. One of our newer clients called me yapping about how their conversion was tanking.  He went on and on for a little over twelve minutes before I could get a word in sledge-wise.   When I finally got to ask “so, how much are sales down?” I was met with a deafening silence. 

“Sales are up almost 30%.” The voice on the other end replied.

It was all I could do not to slam the phone down.  “So, your traffic is up.  Your e-mail subscriptions are up.  Your sales are up AND your profits are up.  What exactly are you bitching about?”  I asked.    (Yes, this is why I’m not really allowed to deal with clients these days.)

Before he had a chance to say a word, I continued.  “This is the thing about conversion.  Anyone can improve your conversion.  If I wanted to just improve your conversion, we would have blocked all the garbage traffic from your site. Your conversion as a percentage would have skyrocketed but what exactly would that have done for you?  Yeah.  Notsomuch.  It would have done jack.”

Conversion isn’t a flash mob. 

You can learn from it but you’ve got to look at the big picture.  Look at it as a percentage trend alongside your sales and profit numbers; the number of new customers you’ve brought in; the number of customers you’ve reactivated; your traffic numbers; and so on.  If you do that, you’ll get a much better idea of what’s going on…

P.S.   If you’ve never seen a Flash Mob before, click here now for a good example…

Hi Jessie, thanks for writing.  I get this question a lot and it’s really difficult to answer without seeing your stats.  With that said, there are two ways you can fix almost any situation online.  One is to drive more traffic and the other is to improve your conversion.  Online, everything is a funnel.   To get the most stuff out of the bottom, you need to either dump more into the top or squeeze more from the middle and hope it trickles down.

You need to know where the rat is stuck in the snake. 

I’d encourage you to really do a deep dive into your stats to figure out where the biggest opportunities are.  (In other words, look for your screaming girls.)

However, since you specifically asked about creative design tips, here are a few of the biggest bang for the buck things you can do.

1. Ask for a lead more times. I don’t need to see your site (or anyone’s site for that matter) to know this one will work.  The more you ask for leads, the more you’ll get ‘em — and NOBODY ever asks enough.  It’s important that you ask for leads on every “page” of your site. Users see each view as a page (meaning every time they scroll, it’s a new page.)  You also want to capture leads in each quad of your site.  At a minimum, make sure you’re capturing leads at the left, at the top, and at the right.
2. Ask for a lead more ways.  A lot of B2B companies dump “request a quote” on their site as their only lead generation method.  This sucks.  You need to offer several different ways for the user to connect with you – request a quote is fine (and recommended) but also consider offering a free newsletter, free tips, a free webinar or podcast, ask the expert, a poll/survey, contact us, and so on.  
3. Work your lead forms.  Only ask relevant questions and remember “relevancy” is determined in the user’s mind, not yours.  What does this mean?  Basically that you need to ask the MINIMUM you can to get the lead.  Too many service companies ask for too much stuff – company size, purchasing authority, etc. can be answered AFTER you get the base information (which includes the user’s name, e-mail address and possibly phone number.) 
4. Add a “perpetual lead form.”  Yes, perpetual carts are for e-commerce sites but they also work incredibly well on sites that don’t have products as perpetual lead forms.  Basically this is just a reminder to the user what they are supposed to do on your site.  (On B2B sites, they work in the righthand column, either in the tippy top or at the righthand side just underneath the offer box. (The offer box should be the first thing you see after the top navigation. The perpetual lead form goes underneath that.) 
5. Personalize your site.  Even “Welcome Back Wally” in the upper middle column is a good start. 
6. Add a deadline.  Deadlines create urgency and they cause people to focus.  They’re very effective in B2B because the AAUS (the active average user sessions or the length of time the user stays on your site in an active capacity) are usually low.

You’ll also want to include BIG action buttons all over your site; contact information (especially your phone number) on every page; and address security/privacy on every view.  Forms should be simple to fill out; include a temperature bar if they are more than one page (just like an e-commerce cart would); and really consider online chat as a way to collect leads.  (It works like gangbusters in a lot of B2B companies and very few folks use it.)

By the way, I mentioned looking at your stats above but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that in B2B, one of the easiest ways to see if you’re doing something wrong is to look at your SPV’s.  Single Page Visits (aka SPV’s) are a good indication of your traffic quality and/or your ability to get your users to act.

If your number is higher than 20%, you’ll want to figure out if you are sending the right traffic to your site.  Look at the words people are using to find you, maybe they’re right, maybe they’re not, you’ve got to find out.  This is important because a lot of times B2B companies get a lot of traffic but it’s not the right traffic.  For example, a company that does genetic mining used to get a ton of traffic to their site because they talked about the periodic table on one of their major pages – this traffic was mostly coming from high school kids doing their homework, not the researchers in their core market.  

Got any more tips that have worked for you?  Please add them in the comments below…

In the past month, I have encountered so many Nutter Butters that I’ve started checking wrists for “if lost, please return to the psychiatric ward” bracelets.

Not only have I met too many full-on wackadoodles to count, I have also come across several people where the only thing I can wonder about them is what planet they are from. (And I am not talking Mars and Venus here.)

Take the other day for example….   I was not-so-patiently waiting in my dentist’s office.   As always, he was running late and if that wasn’t irritating enough, his big, fat liar assistant said that he was only twenty minutes behind.  Twenty minutes times four was more like it.

Anyway, I had plopped myself in the only seat available, right next to the fish tank.

My dentist has a huge fish tank – and when I say huge, I mean Boston-Aquarium-scuba-divers-inside sized.   (Since fish tanks are supposed to be relaxing, I personally think he’s compensating for being a dentist.)

Unlike a lot of fish tanks, his tank is impeccably clean and he has interesting fish, not just those bottom-sucking fish that refuse to die that most folks have.  You know, the leftover fish.

Like moths to a flame.

As if it was some sort of rite of passage, every five to ten minutes, someone (an adult, not a child) would come to see the fish.     

What did the MAJORITY of folks do when they got to the fish tank?

Yes, you guessed it.

They tapped the glass.

I repeat: THEY TAPPED THE GLASS.

What the hell?

You don’t have to be a poker player to know that if you tap the glass, you scare away the fish.

I won’t embellish the story to add that folks said “here fishy-fishy” when they tapped the tank, because they didn’t.  Yet all but one of them acted as if the fish were cuddly creatures and they’d come running, er, swimming, to the front of the tank when called.

As if.

Tapping the tank scares away the fish in the SAME EXACT WAY that tapping-type behavior scares away users on your web site.

Here are a few examples of tapping the tank when it comes to your site…  (Note: these are not best practices.  They aren’t even mildly good practices.  These are things to AVOID.)

• Auto-starting sound (yes, it is sometimes effective but unless you’ve tested it, it’s NOT a good idea)
• Scary errors – especially security warnings.  (If you want an easy way to figure out how the “average person” (yes, even in B2B) sees your site, download the full version of AOL and look at your site from there.
• “Nothing to do” on the entry page.  Companies – ecommerce businesses, bloggers, almost everyone – underestimates this.  Because of the way the brain works in conquer mode, the user will be most successful overall if they have a sense of purpose and then accomplishment.  This is beyond the library and bookstore analogy – this is about getting the user to “act” or “do” as fast as you possibly can.  Your web site is a VERY visual medium and the user has to get their “orders” (aka action directives) within thirty seconds (or less) of being there.
• Poor navigation.  Navigation accounts for over half your success online.  You get what I give you.  If I don’t give it to you, you don’t get it.  It’s as plain and simple as that.
• An abundance of white picket fences.  Far too many sites still have no other choices but for me to marry you , have your babies, get a Golden Retriever and a house with a picket fence.   If I don’t want to fully commit (for example: request a quote or order), there’s nothing else I can do.  (Offering an e-mail sign-up, ask an expert, a poll/survey goes a long way.)
• Too much SEO text.  Yes, there is a balance.  No, it’s not taking up the entire first view.  Search engines “see” things in text.  People see them in pictures.
• Carousels and banners that are too speedy.   Flow is important so just because you want to jam eight rotations into your space doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.  Nor is it a wise tactic to have all sorts of competing rotation(s).  (In other words, using a slammer and a carousel on the same page is typically a bad idea.)
• Midis, catfishes, sidewinders, and pop-ups without purpose. Pop-ups (and similar tactics) really work.  (And no, I don’t care how much everyone says they hate them) but they are COMPLETELY dependent on creative – ESPECIALLY graphics – and they need to have something for the user to do.  Just asking them to close the box is not enough. 

There are lots of other no-nos so what’s important to remember is that you can determine whether or not you are scaring away YOUR fish by looking at your “screaming girl” stats.  Yes, screaming girls.  Every site has ‘em.

Facebook? Twitter? FriendFeed? Utterz? Social networking is all the rage. Everyone seems to want to know more about Web 2.0. That’s especially unfortunate for traditional catalogers and direct marketers whose sites are still at Web .05

Here are the reasons:

• These days, most businesses get more than enough Web traffic.
• They just don’t know how to convert it effectively.
• And to mask their inability to actually enable people to easily add stuff to their carts and check out seamlessly, these companies send more and more traffic to flawed sites. Short term, it can be a great idea. Long term, it’s destined to fail.

So what can you do to convert traffic without breaking the bank? Here are eight of the best tactics:

1. Employ a perpetual cart.

A perpetual cart stays with customers throughout the buying process. It consists of a cart icon, the number of items they have in their carts as well as the dollar amounts. If you have a good perpetual cart, you’ll have a tagline that says “100% secure shopping guaranteed.” If you have a great perpetual cart, you’ll have links to view cart, save cart, print cart and e-mail cart. If you have a fantastic perpetual cart, a big, red “CHECKOUT NOW” button will pop up when there are items in it.

Perpetual carts typically work best in the upper right-hand corner of a Web site. However, the truth is the more perpetual carts, the better. The highest-converting sites use a second cart in the right-hand column — near the hot spot, which is where users scroll down — and one in the bottom navigation. Some sites are even featuring a perpetual cart in a fourth spot: the middle of the left-hand navigation.

2. Use several add-to-cart/buy-now buttons on each product page.

Many sites have one buy-now/add-to-cart button per page. Often, it’s not on the first view; you need to scroll down to see it. Users see each screen view as its own page, so usually the more buy-now buttons, the better. In fact, some of the best sites have eight to twelve buy-now buttons per page.

Do you have a complicated product with color, size and delivery choices? If so, still use as many buy-now buttons as you can — when customers click the button, jump right to a central place where they can make their selections.

3. Use multiple visuals.

Search engines read text, but users see visuals. So the more pictures the better. Be careful, though: More pictures doesn’t just mean one of those fancy-schmancy viewers to see things in a perfect 360 degrees. It means using silo shots, lifestyle pictures, spilled tiers and more.

4. Empower user reviews.

Web 2.0 gets credited with user reviews, but they’ve been around since the beginning. The good news is they’re easier than ever to implement. If you want to show reviews but can’t do them right away, use testimonials and/or pictures of your customers throughout the site.

5. Look closely at referring URLs.

Referring URLs show what sites users visited before they got to your site — this can often have the biggest impact on conversion. If, for example, you know someone is coming from an affiliate program, not a catalog, bury (or hide altogether) all your Ordering From a Catalog? (aka Quick Order) information.

It’s valuable space you can use for something that better serves the user.

This works in reverse, too. If a customer is coming in directly with no referrer, or on a specific catalog URL, make sure something says, “Ordering from a Catalog” in the top navigation, left-hand navigation and bottom navigation.

Have a large plug (namely, a nonanimated banner) in the right-hand column, complete with a picture of your current catalog to go along with it.

6. Personalize your site.

This is yet another thing credited to Web 2.0 that’s been around since before Al Gore invented the Internet. Personalizing users’ experiences based on who they are or what they do works almost every time.

The biggest fallacy of implementing a dynamically personalized site is that you have to do everything all at once. You don’t. If you can’t offer a sidebar with what you think users should buy based on their past or intended behaviors, it’s OK. Try something simple, like welcoming customers back in the middle column. It’s OK to start small; just keep adding as you see it working.

7. Offer a recently viewed items box in the site’s right-hand column.

This sounds-too-simple-to-work idea is one of the best things you can do on a shoestring budget. It gives users an easy, at-a-glance way to figure out what they’ve seen in case they want to go back to it. That’s especially good for the more than 92 percent of adult users who aren’t great at searching.

8. Employ the perfect checkout.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Dozens of companies have spent millions of dollars figuring out what works and what doesn’t when it comes to carts. Steal from them liberally.