thefunnel

I came across an interesting web application that I’m probably going to try out.  This tool greatly improves on-site conversion rates by being able to present content to web site visitors dynamically, based on a certain set of user defined rules, such as keywords, visit frequency, location, referred / visited URL and so on. What this means is that based on what you know about the visitor as a persona, you can present the visitor with more relevant content, which leads to higher conversion. For example, if one of the web sites visited prior to yours was one of your competitors, you would have a different message compared to if the visitor was a frequently returning loyal customer. Not only does this helps in being more targeted in your messaging, it also provides a potential solution for reducing “page sub optimization” (this is when the same one web page is trying to target multiple audiences, by scrolling messages / banners, etc.), and the need for specific landing pages, which are not helping to build your SEO equity on your main site.

There are lots of words in marketing.  Strategy, objectives, vision, goals etc. , but what is really required for marketing to be successful? One of my managers, a few years back explained this by saying, “there are five key questions, to which you always need to have the answer,  and if you do, it will help you to be successful  marketer”. These five questions, permanently stuck into my mind are:

• Do you know the size of the market, customer segments, customer buying cycles and the your current position in the market?
• Do you have clear priorities?
• Does your plans align with, and reflect the goals of the sales organization?
• Are there clear measures of success and failure?
• Do you have a vision of the most outstanding growth opportunity?

The most important thing for any marketing / communication plan! Way too often marketers forget the basics and jump straight into messaging or even tactics, when following the simple rule of segmenting – targeting – positioning – messaging. When positioning is done correctly there’s no doubt about what and who the product / service is for and what it’s uniqueness and value, out of which the messaging almost flows ”automatically”. Positioning is a very good acid test, and if not convincing enough the success rate diminishes. One other common mistake is trying to write a positioning statement like a message or tag-line. Fails every time.