Posted by: Daniel Levis
January 31, 2007
Issue WMA #35

16 Web Marketing Blunders, and How to Avoid Them!

In this article:

• The number #1 most common mistake web site owners make that almost guarantees lackluster results …
• A simple
  tactic for dramatically reducing shopping cart abandonment …
• How
  to tell them what you’re going to tell them… tell them… and then tell them what you told them… without sounding like a broken record …
• And more!

Dear Web Business Builder,

Last week, at the Easy Writer’s Marketing Club monthly webinar, Clayton Makepeace and I revealed a few of our best kept secrets for creating online sales campaigns for our clients, including 4 real-life case studies.

Judging from the comments that came in after the webinar, it seems to have been a big hit …

“In my 6 plus years of learning on the web, this was the very finest webinar I have ever experienced. Over the years, I have attended literally thousands of teleseminars and many, many webinars and I must say, this one was in a league all of its own! The education I received was truly priceless. I am so happy I found out about you and Clayton."

Matt Lopilato
MortgageMediationConsultants.com

We took a ton of questions, and were not able to cover the full agenda, so Clayton asked me to deliver a condensed version of the last part of the program  — Web Marketing Blunders — right here in Web Marketing Advisor …

If you’re not already registered to attend future Easy Writer’s Marketing Club sessions, why not take a moment to sign up before we begin?

OK, so here are the 16 most common web marketing blunders I see when people ask me to critique their websites and consult with them on their online marketing. Some of them are very simple to correct and can make a big difference in your results, almost overnight …

1. Trying to make a single web page accomplish too much.

The most common mistake web marketers make in my opinion is to try and do too many things on their web pages at once. Each page should have either a single purpose, or a very strong dominant major purpose. That’s one of the reasons direct response style pages are so much more effective than traditional catalog style sites with multiple attractions all over the page.

Simply by separating your objectives and creating focused pages that are solely dedicated to a single objective, you can usually increase your overall conversion results dramatically.

2. Lack of Testing.

You’ve probably heard that the Internet is the ultimate direct response vehicle because the actions your prospects take are so easily measurable. That’s true, but it’s a double-edged sword.

Because marketing on the Internet is so cheap, there’s an overwhelming temptation to skip the due diligence phase because if you make a mistake, you’re not going to get hurt that badly.

But testing is equity for the future. It’s how you learn things that will make each successive outing incrementally better and better.

3. Inadequate order device copy.

Not having good strong positive acceptance copy is another very common shortcoming. Without it, you’ll suffer a very high abandonment rate on your shopping cart. When somebody clicks on those order links it’s a delicate moment. You’ve got to reinforce your strongest benefits and reasons why they’re going ahead, and it works best if you write that copy in the prospect’s own voice.

Be sure to write a nice dense benefit statement, summarize your offer clearly, and reverse the risk by restating your guarantee. YES [Your Spokesperson’s name here], I’m ready to [blank benefit], I get this and this and this, and thanks for the ironclad guarantee …

4. Lack of Follow-Up.

Sometimes I see marketers trying to sell front-end products with high price points or significant adoption hurdles where it’s not realistic to expect decent numbers with just one shot at the customer.

What they really should be doing is breaking the sales process down into steps, getting the prospect’s contact information first, and then following up with an autoresponder series.

5. Jarring transitions between pages requiring the prospect to mentally work to connect the dots.

This is a big one that I see all the time. The Internet is unique in that you’re almost never telling your entire sales story on one page. Consider the life of a sale for a moment. Your initial touch point for acquiring a new customer is never on the same page that makes the sale.

If somebody comes to your website, it’s because they’ve been sold on taking a look. They saw your ad on somebody else’s website, or they received an endorsement by e-mail, or they read your metatag copy on a search engine listing. Somehow, they were compelled to click through to your site.

Very often, marketers get so caught up in the copy on their landing pages that they don’t look at the whole prospect experience closely enough. People are clicking through to their site and getting lost when they arrive, having to think to make the connection between why they clicked through and what they see on the landing page.

The connection between one page and the next has to be crystal clear.

6. Page Transition Redundancy.

On the other side of the coin you see overly repetitive transitions between pages that bore the prospect, causing him to tune out. You see this often with endorsed e-mails or other longer copy teasers designed to drive traffic to a landing page.

When you have identical copy carelessly repeated on the landing page it’s going to lower your conversion. You’re basically training your prospect to scan your copy instead of reading it.

There is a lot of value in the old selling maxim: tell then what you’re going to tell them… tell them… and then tell them what you told them. Repetition is crucial to selling, but it should never feel like repetition to the prospect.

7. Lame landing page copy.

Needless to say, if you bore or confuse your prospects, or fail to substantiate your claims properly you’ll lose them.

8. Pages lack center of gravity and attention getting power above the fold.

Often I see web page designs that aren’t taking the fold into account, and forcing the prospect to scroll before presenting a clear and cohesive opening to the sales message.

9. No spokesperson, or spokesperson lacks credibility.

This is a big one. Our tests show that people respond far more favorably… and buy far more frequently when they feel as though they’re interacting with a real person — even though they know they’re not.

By it’s very nature, the Internet demands you communicate with as much personality as possible. So I like to see a spokesperson pictured prominently above the fold looking prospects squarely in the eye when they arrive, and of course copy that reads like a personal communication from that person.

10. Poor message to market match.

This is just where the copywriter didn’t do the necessary research on the target market, and the copy doesn’t read like the ideal buyer talks. It doesn’t resonate with them. There’s no rapport created. And things just don’t gel.

11. Difficult to read.

Long paragraphs, wide lines, tiny font, lack of strong sub-heads, and illogical use of white space. Often I see websites that are just a chore to read, and of course if they don’t read, they don’t buy do they?

Reading from a computer screen is more difficult than reading from the printed page. It’s critical you do everything you possibly can to minimize eye fatigue for your reader.

12. Order links too early in the copy before adequate selling has taken place.

Before you present an order link or button, make sure you’ve at least gotten the main gist of your sales argument out of the way, otherwise you’ll have all kinds of people clicking on your order links just to check the price and then click away without buying because they’re just not hot for the product yet.

13. Order links too late in the copy.

Sometimes it’s just opposite. The copy sells past the sale. You’ve got to think carefully about when people might be ready to buy. And if you’ve got good solid positive acceptance copy (see blunder # 3) you can usually increase the conversion rate by moving your order buttons up higher on the page.

Order link placement is also a function of price and ease of adoption. The lower the barrier to entry, the earlier you can start presenting order links. If your offer is free, put a call to action right at the top of the page.

14. Sloppy aesthetics.

A professional looking presentation is very important. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it should be clean and neat. Web site visitors make an assessment about the kind of business you are by the care you’ve taken to communicate with them. So spelling mistakes, multiple fonts, inconsistency of formatting, unprofessional looking images etc… are all statements about the quality of the product for sale.

Imagine a salesman showing up at your office to make a presentation, and he’s got a sprig of spinach stuck between his teeth, his shoes are dusty, and he’s wearing an ill-fitting suit. How likely are you to buy from him?

15. Misreading metrics.

Sometimes I see people making flawed decisions because they don’t understand the context of the statistics they’re looking at, especially when they’re dealing with banner ads and pay per clicks.

A common example is split testing banner ads and making decisions on which ads to roll out based on click through rates. Click through rates are irrelevant. What matters infinitely more when comparing one ad against another is visitor value, or cost per lead.

16. And finally, statistical validity of testing.

I’m convinced the vast majority of people marketing on the Internet do not have a good handle on what it takes to draw solid conclusions from the split tests they’re running. It’s very easy to get fooled, and make an erroneous conclusion about what’s working for you and what isn’t, and by what margin.

If you want a reliable tool to determine statistical validity for the various tests your running, check out planalyzer from Drake Direct. It’s designed for direct mail, but it will help you to determine how long you need to run a given test to know if your test results are statistically valid.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
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