WDTalk

A compelling call to action is - the key ingredient in every marketing plan. In post card and email campaigns, you’re limited in scope to a very small space in which to reinforce interest and tip prospects over the edge to buy. So what makes for an effective call to action?

Location Location Location
When my wife and I were writing the business plan for our Salon, she told me our success depended heavily on location. In fact, she repeated location, location, location over and over. Why? In the hair styling industry, you need a constant flow of walk-in traffic to augment your existing clientele – if you want to maximize your growth. It’s not much different cross-industry.

You need to capture your prospects attention immediately
In an email broadcast, positioning your call to action above the scroll puts your message where? In the preview pane ! Lots of folks never scan beyond their preview panes. In a world dominated by immediate gratification, this compares to being in the top ten of search engine results. You need to capture your prospects attention immediately. How? Location ! You want them to be able to simply glance at the preview and click.

Multiple calls to action
Is just one call to action enough? Strategists reason by giving multiple calls to the same action, in different sections of your broadcast, you lend weight to the call. The first call to action may be intriguing, prompting your prospect to read further (benefits/solutions), followed by second call to action that puts them over the top – they’re convinced. If you change up the wording or offer different solutions in multiple calls to action, you risk confusing your viewers.

Words and Emotions
Sales are emotional transactions. Setting the right tone puts your prospect in a buying posture. Using power words that demonstrate force (in your face) and personality make a strong impact. You’re looking to prompt specific reactions from their point of view. And it isn’t just the words – it’s their perception of the words. What’s more appealing to you (on the same product) – 20% off or $150 off? My guess would be $150 off. Why? Because 20% is an unknown quantity – it sounds good, but requires some calculation. I understand $150 off immediately.

Text or Images?
The goal is to draw attention to your call to action. Extensive testing has shown that what works for some doesn’t work for everyone – and changing up between text and images works better than locking into one or the other. A word of caution when using images for your call to action – some readers may have images disabled, so always add ALT text attributes to your images.

Does size and color matter?
In testing, it’s been reported that bright colors outperform other colors, and orange, in particular, does very well. I’ve seen a lot of red calls to action, but subconsciously, red means STOP. A good test to determine if your call to action is the proper size and color is to stand about 10 feet away from your ad and see how easy it is to pick out.

My Recommendation to Increase Click Throughs
Wording is key. Instead of using Buy Now, Buy, Order, Order Now or any similar wording, change your call to action to ADD TO CART. Put it where it’s easily seen and your conversion rates will increase.

Always provide value - The psychology of selling transcends to the psychology of writing online content for revenue producing websites. Essentially, every prospect is searching for what’s important to them and their organization.

Whereas in person, you can tailor - your pitch to their personality traits, like number crunchers or socialites – online it’s impossible to know who has found your site. The common denominator is always VALUE to the end user.

Tell them what’s in it for them - Reaching across a broad spectrum of personality types means touching as many of their senses as possible; sound, taste, touch, sight and smell (or the perception of those). Rarely does selling on price alone work.

Ok, so we can’t taste a dedicated server or smell shared hosting - but wording can sway a prospect’s motivation. Conor Treacy gave a great example in a thread on Hosting Discussion – instead of, “we sell lawn mowers,” use “buy a mower that will make your neighbour @#*^ themselves with envy.” Be descriptive without going over the top, addressing the basics of how, who, why and what. Show how your solution has helped other businesses or organizations just like theirs. Tell them what’s in it for them.

Marketing is critically important - to jump-start any new business. Broad access to cutting edge technology has made it increasingly possible for start-ups to compete with established brick and mortar establishments.

Understanding your market - What niche do your competitors own? Would you fare better competing for that niche or creating your own? What will make you remember-able in your prospects eyes? What value could you add to entice them to go with your firm or organization?

Constantly refine your strategy - Once you’ve settled on your initial marketing strategy, tracking and measuring its success is essential. You can’t grow your business on a marginally successful strategy. Marketing strategies need to be refined, to eliminate what doesn’t work from what shows promise.

New businesses are created every day – that could use your products or service - Every new business has to procure products and services somewhere, and if not from you, certainly from your competitor. If you’re not reaching out to every newly registered business in your local community, you’re missing out on a huge sector of the market. And it’s so easy to find them. Every new business in the U.S. has to register with their respective Secretary of State. These registrations are farmed by local chambers of commerce and directory services. I’ve seen lists that sell for as low as fourteen cents per contact. In many cases, one new client from that list could pay for an entire campaign.

Once you’ve established your niche - tweak your approach and close techniques, identify what works and repeat that over and over and over and over. Persistence is key.

Seems like more and more entrepreneurs are – tying their hand at web design, hosting and eCommerce. Obliviously, each demands its own expertise to be successful. The most misunderstood, globally, is eCommerce – at least from the threads I’ve read over the years. There’s a common theme between them that goes something like this, “I want to sell (a product or service) online. Please advise how to do this.”

I recently read an excellent response to this query, written by e-onlinedata, the nation’s fastest-growing and most trusted provider of online payment solutions and the largest reseller for Authorize.net payment gateway. It follows:

There are three vital components that make – online shopping possible: the shopping cart, payment gateway and payment processor. Each is critical to ensuring successful implementation of e-commerce functionality.

Shopping Cart

* The shopping cart acts quite literally as a virtual shopping basket. It holds the items customers select from a Web site until they are ready to proceed to the checkout stage, where their credit card information will be processed.
* Keeps track of items until they are purchased
* Automatically totals the amount of a customer’s order, including shipping and tax
* Allows shoppers to securely enter address and credit card information

Payment gateway

In order to accept credit cards through the Internet, a payment gateway is critical to transport the credit card information from the shopping cart to the payment processor once the consumer clicks the “Buy” button. In most cases, this transaction happens almost instantaneously. The payment gateway receives encrypted transactions from the merchant’s shopping cart. An encrypted transaction simply means that credit card numbers can’t be read by people who are not supposed to read those numbers. Authentication is provided, then the decrypted payment.

Payment Gateway Functionality

When information is transmitted for authorization, the payment gateway:

* Fulfills the same function as a point-of-sale (card swipe) terminal at a physical retail location.
* Takes information provided through a shopping cart and transmits it electronically and securely to a payment processor to be routed for authorization of payment.

Payment Processor

* The payment processor transmits a customer’s credit card information via the Internet to the merchant bank for authorization. It also sends data back to the merchant’s bank to approve payment or the transfer of funds. Specifically, a payment processor:
* Acts as a link from the merchant to the acquiring bank or merchant bank
* Receives information from the merchant through the payment gateway and packages the information for delivery to the acquirer, ensuring that all necessary transactional data is present and valid
* Later transmits information back from the acquirer for delivery to the merchant to settle the transaction

With the shopping cart, payment gateway and payment processor in place, merchants have all they need to offer convenient e-commerce solutions that deliver superior security and service.

With a little research, you can find the best merchant provider to accommodate your business needs.

Think about all the advertisements you’ve ever seen. Do they share any common ingredients? Successful ads focus on a specific niche, revolving around an emotion. Why? – Because sales are extremely emotional transactions. I know when I have to pull my wallet out to buy anything, I cry.

What kinds of emotions work in advertising?

Here’s where your creative juices need to start flowing. The range of positive and negative emotions is endless, but I’ve included a few to consider.

On the positive side:

• Comfort
• Excited
• Glamorous
• Inspired
• Superior
• Interested
• Thrilled

On the negative side:

• Annoyed
• Exasperated
• Frustrated
• Anxiety
• Impatient
• Apprehensive
• Concerned
• Pressured
• Stress
• Disappointed

Analyze the emotions your competitors are marketing to

As you browse the Internet, start looking for indicators of emotions that your competitors are using to target prospects. What emotion would “No contracts or hidden fees” target? What about “100% Uptime Guarantee?” Or “Self Healing Technology?”

I see ads all the time touting Internet speed, broadband versus DSL. The emotion targeted there is frustration – over sloooooooooooooooooow downloads. I know if I have to wait too long for a site to download, I move on, and I’m on a 10 Meg connection.

Advertisements, proposals and quotes devoid of emotion rarely perform as well as those that do. Even CFO’s have SOME sense of emotion.

You expend considerable resources in terms of time and money attracting visitors to your website, so why stop there? Conversion ratios are the measure of a successful eCommerce venture.

Security
At the top of the list is security. How secure do your prospects feel placing an online transaction with your organization?  I think the majority of prospects shop with ‘branded’ companies – meaning those companies that are already highly recognizable. Seriously, if you’re shopping at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, there’s a heightened perception of security, but what if you’re shopping at xyaz2f.com?

If your site is backed by a brick and mortar presence, that also helps – I think because it demonstrates financial stability. At least the prospect knows that you’re not a one man show operating out of your Mom’s basement. Factor in TRUST.

Is your site secured with an SSL certificate (lock icon)? I’m still amazed how many sites I see selling products or services without this. No lock icon = no sales.

Value
Does the product or service you offer provide value to the prospect? You obliviously think so, but how is that value presented online? It begins with a professionally designed site. Nothing will send prospects packing faster than a poorly designed or difficult to navigate website. Getting from point A to point BUY has to be easy, fast and COMPELLING.

Reachability
Does your site have contact information? I mean like an address and a phone number. Business identity is important, especially if you’re not highly branded. No contact info = no sales.

Increasing Conversion Ratios
There’s no real secret here – demonstrate security, promote trust, project value and be reachable.

Within the web hosting industry
Competition is fierce, with everyone from on-vacation high schoolers to laid off factory workers trying their hand at hosting. Many are here today – gone tomorrow, or soon will be.

SSL is a technology that protects confidential transactions between a website and its visitors/shoppers. As a protocol, it uses a third party Certificate Authority (CA) to identify one or both ends of transactions. This enables you to collect sensitive information using an encrypted channel (transparently). In the URL, you’ll notice the http switches to https. Using an SSL Certificate increases your prospects trust factor – an important ingredient in promoting your products and services.

When do you need SSL?

If you accept online orders and process credit card information on your site, however you do NOT need SSL if you use PayPal Standard and credit card transactions are handled on their servers.

Obviously, if you’re required to comply with privacy and security requirements.

If you need to secure email servers (POP, IMAP & SMTP), VPN or FTP Servers, Control Panels, WebMail or any other web applications.

If you offer a login or sign in on your site.

Types of SSL
The most common type of SSL is a domain validated certificate. This is used to establish an encrypted communication channel between a website and its visitors. Another type identifies you are who you say you are. It validates identity at different  levels, protecting the data flow to/from your website.

Going Green
If you’ve ever used PayPal’s order system, you may have noticed your browser’s address bar had turned green. This type of SSL Certificate is called Extended Validation SSL. Most financial institutions use this type of SSL.

Some trusted Certificate Authorities
Some of the trusted Certificate Authorities are RapidSSL, VeriSign, Thawte and GeoTrust.