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.

Where are the exciting marketing opportunities in the future? Let’s look at some trends.

• Social Media is here to stay and no longer just an experiment. For many B-2-C companies’ Social Media is already driving more traffic than search! What is the next Face Book? The short history of social media has already shown that no matter what, applications have a limited life, so what’s next?
• Wireless and Mobile Applications. Wireless everywhere and embedded computing are driving the “always connected” concept, and mobile handsets (phones) are just scratching the surface. The applications for convergence or voice, data and video through the mobile internet are endless. What is the next killer app? In the past content has always been the king, but will the trend continue?
• Semantic web and geo targeting. You’re already part of this, whether you like it or not, and it’s going to get a lot more advanced.
• Privacy related concerns are a real issue, particularly in the world of “collaborative” social media sites, where it’s sometimes unclear who really has access to your data.
• Open source, interoperability, both on the system and the application side. Just like we mash up content, we will now start to mash up whole systems and applications. Time to market is the key.
• Cloud computing and SaaS (software as a service). Why invest in your own infrastructure when global systems are already available? But, what about security?
• Emotional branding. A concept that was written about already many years ago, but not well understood. Well, it’s happening today in social media – is your company part of it?

I’m currently evaluating various (inexpensive) tools for enabling an easy way for users to to give website feedback / feedback through the web site.  The ideal is a tab based approach available on each page. Hard to find something that’s just right. Not too heavy, not too light and moderately customizable. So far I’ve looked at getsatisfaction, uservoice and suggestionbox. Getsatisfaction didn’t really fit because it was “too community” oriented and I think our customers would have had a hard time figuring out how to leave anonymous feedback or felt frustrated having to log in twice (separate logins for the site and the satisfaction tool, in the case they didn’t use their face book account the register). Uservoice in play -looks promising.