Newsletter #123 Less Complexity, Better Results!

Created on 10/06/08

A special hello to all new subscribers. This article is on the Web at this address.

Our last newsletter (23rd April, 2008) was "Teen Net Usage = The Future".

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Feature Article

The Web, more than any other media, depends on a user’s interactions to make a sale, send a query or simply find information. Most other media are far more passive. This difference is obvious if you look at the way we normally describe those who are experiencing the different media:

• Print: readers
• Television: viewers
• Internet: users

As the Web becomes more interactive there is a tendency to encourage more interactions and to make them more complex. Often marketers will devise a set of interactions to be a branding ‘journey’ that should eventually lead to a sale. An example of such a set is a press release that links to a video, which tells a story that links to a Website where the user has to find the correct route to the product being promoted.

Each of the steps may sound logical and the concept may be quite clever, but each step is an opportunity for a user to opt out. Think about it in terms of conversion rates:

• The press release gets good coverage and appears on many major online news sites. Over a week it gets 10,000 unique views.
• 80% of the viewers read down to the video link: 8000 viewers.
• 15% (a high rate) click through to the video: 1200 viewers
• 50% actually watch it: 600 viewers
• Let’s assume a best-case scenario because it’s a great video and the viewers left are highly motivated. 75% click through to the Website: 450 viewers
• 75% click through to the correct product page: 338 viewers

Now let’s assume the press release just linked directly to the product page. There was a lower clickthrough rate as the direct link was less appealing than the video link:

• 10% click through from the press release: 800 viewers

In this, admittedly made-up case, nearly 2.4 times as many people clicked through to the product page when the process was simpler.

Creativity in advertising is something that makes the difference between ordinary and extraordinary campaigns, but on the Web you must be careful to ensure that this doesn’t create extra steps that eat into the potential number of prospects.

Other mediums nearly always require another action to complete an interaction; like visiting a shop, ringing an 0800 number or clipping a newspaper coupon. Normally these actions are singular and straightforward and the customer has had previous experience in performing them. However the success of Web interactions can depend on a number of factors:

• The experience of the user
• Connection speed
• The navigational architecture of the Website
• The number of steps required

Any of these potential factors can significantly reduce the success rate. So when you’re constructing an advertising campaign that includes a Web component or just any process at all on the Web, think:

less complexity = better results.

Hot Tips

Newbies

It is interesting to find out who is linking to your site as it does help with search engine rankings. A good site for this is www.linkpopularity.com.

Power Users

The higher a site's Google PageRank the more important their link to you is. To give you some ideas of what sites are worth chasing to link to you why not checkout your competitor's links and then see what the Google PageRanks are of these sites? A PageRank of 4 or above is good and worth trying to get a link from them to your site. There are a number of sites (and downloadable toolbars) that will give you a site's PageRank; see here for one: http://www.selfseo.com/check_google_pagerank.php

Interesting Sites

The Evolution of Tech Companies' Logos is an interesting post on Neatorama which shows how some of the biggest tech companies of our time started out, in graphical terms. I can tell you that some of the original logos were pretty bad!
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/02/07/the-evolution-of-tech-companies-logos/

InsiteFul Quotes

"It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked." Warren Buffett

You can see our other Quick Quotes on the front page of www.netinsites.com; just refresh the page to see another one randomly selected from our database. Great for presentations or times when you want to appear to be a techno-dude(ss)!

Archives

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Best wishes

Alex Garden

Internet Strategy | Website Design | Website Promotion | Web Text Messaging | Email Newsletters | Online Sports Games | Content Management