Customer Site Visits: 3 Seconds to Grab or Bounce

By the time you've read this phrase, a new customer has either visited a site and been intrigued, read more or clicked through OR they've been visually, psychologically or emotionally jarred and have already bounced out.

When clicking a search result, a customer is either very certain that the site name, overview description and/or keywords they sought are there and they have high probability of a match, or they're not quite certain and out of curiosity or desperation they're taking a look at anything that might bring them closer to their desired result.  So net is that by the time a site shows up on their screen they already have a likelihood of delight and satisfaction, or anxiety.

One click and they're viewing the homepage or content page.  

What happens?  Pupils dilate or contract, facial microexpressions react, body posture moves toward or away from the screen, hands stay relaxed or palms get clammy.  Compassion/interest or anxiety/flight reaction.

They're reacting to:

Overall Color Scheme

Whether, to them, it connects in any fashion to the brand/product/service category appropriate to color theory responses elicited from hues, shades, tints and tones:

• White:  Pure, cold, clean, virtuous, goodness, simple, angelic, winter 
• Brown:  Plain, predictable, safe, grounded/earthy, reliable/dependable, dull
• Pink:  Feminine, flirtatious, sexual
• Black:  Morbid, powerful, timeless, elegant, formal, evil, mystery, death, edginess
• Orange:  Hot, fast, fun, energetic, health, friendly
• Purple:  Feminine, rare, royal, romance, luxury
• Yellow:  Cheerful, happy, warm, cowardice, hope, mourning, courage
• Blue:  Peaceful, authoritative, powerful, responsible, fresh, strong, reliable, calm
• Red:  Danger/war, passion, power/importance, luck
• Green:  Nature, growth, health, beginnings, envy, naivete, wealth 
• Grey:  Moody, conservative, mourning, formal, corporate, sophisticated
• Beige/Tan:  Cool, warm, conservative, piety, background
• Cream/Ivory:  Sophisticated, quiet, history, calm, elegant

Balance and Proportion

 The harmony of whether elements above the line appear parts of a unified whole:

• Percentage of real estate taken up by images v. "white space" v. text
• Physical location of blocks of each creating shapes (lines, rectilinear boxes/blocks, curved circles/stars/oblongs)
• Assimilating the familiarity of a newspaper or newsletter with typical masthead/brand ID area, or the newness of being without it

 Font(s)

• Size appropriate to primary, secondary, tertiary importance of message tiers
• Logical/emotional connection to product/service
• Color(s) appropriate to backgrounds, unifying information across the page
• Few enough to differentiate, not so many as to fragment
• Styles consistent with virtual environment standards v. innovative to wildly contrast and create the unexpected

Image(s)

• Connect directly to the brand/product/service
• Connect directly to tagline, topics, headlines, messages
• Convey use (utility)/enjoyment (lifestyle) of the brand/product/service
• Convey their own emotional reaction to the brand/product/service
• Reflect their own demo/psychographic persona (do they see themselves there?)
• Reflect their self-interpreted need for/use and enjoyment of the brand/product/service

 Video(s)

• Proportional size to images and message blocks
• Jarring/in-your-face brightness, busy/frantic speed, flashing imagery or music/sound effects selection/volume
• Overwhelming impact relative to brand/product/service
  

Three seconds is all it takes for a prospect or loyal customer to take in a complete picture of a brand's attitude, its current offerings and customer/market satisfaction with those offerings.  

A customer arrives at the site and asks:

"Do I want/need to be here?  Right here?"  

"Do they have what I want/need?"

"Can I trust that they can/do/will solve my problem?"

A "Yes" or "No" response is just a neuro-cranial impulse away from that finger clicking the "Esc" or back arrow "<" button.

Once they do, will they revisit?  Depends on the picture that's been painted, the story that's been told and how it's been perceived/received.  Is there a second chance to make a first impression?

(c) 2010 Lisa C. Clark
All Rights Reserved.

Analytics from the SMB E-commerce Trenches

The SEO Plunge:  Outsourcing $ v. In-House Headache

[1-800 incoming call, third one that week]  "We've noticed that your website could benefit from SEO.  Give us 30 minutes to discuss how ... [Version 1:  "with just a budget of $5K/month"] [Version 2:  "you really should be spending $50K/month"] [Version 3:  pick-a-$-amount] ... we can do it all for you."

"Give us a keyword list.  [SMB owner provides three-page list based on active homepage.]  No, those keywords aren't right.  Go back and rework the list".  ("Well, what would be right besides words which describe and market what I'm actually selling?"  Several hours of work later, without feedback ...)  "Well, let us know when you're ready to move forward and apply a budget ...."  This type of encounter -- notice the SEO cold-caller hasn't actually invested any time or effort -- can occur multiple times a month based on how many calls an SMB owner/manager receives.

SMB owners, whether start-up solopreneurs or  traditional brick-and-mortar managers becoming e-commerce vendors, are trying to set up all the pieces to provide a product or service.  Invariably, no matter which hosting platform they select, they'll have to learn, or at least become familiar with, html or whatever customizing coding is currently in vogue -- a fact that many don't realize will be required and requires substantial additional ramp-up time.

Customizing a pre-packaged website template doesn't put a site on the virtual map.  Another surprise is learning that an actively running site doesn't guarantee that any customer will actually automatically find it on the Web.  SMB owners learn, without a hosting service necessarily informing them of this, that they have to apply for, receive and embed code from Google, Yahoo and other search engines to "see" each page their site.    If a hosting service back-end is presented  visually/as info blocks and uses drag-and-drop, learning curve is minimal.  If, OTOH, the back-end is coded, an owner/manager has to learn the language of SEO, find the code required, cut and paste it into what they think/hope is the correct line before the correct </command>, click "Apply" and hope for the best.

Getting set up with analytics is relatively simple using Google, whose dashboard is, for the most part, intuitive, except for exceptions like ....  (Then again, if an SMB owner has never laid eyes on a Web dashboard before, they might not even know they're supposed to have/use one.)  Using it most effectively to optimize marketing ROI is another matter.

SEO Necessity:  New Language, New Club

An e-commerce manager must learn SEO vocabulary to survive marketing effectively on the Web.  Whether they self-monitor/manage or outsource they have to speak the language of their environment and/or their service provider.  Step 1:  Define Your Terms.

A first look at a Google Analytics report can feel like a crash course in statistics, when it's simply the quantitative side of basic market research; e.g. what, exactly, is "Bounce Rate"? (a likely first e-commerce vendor question).  

Analytics Use:  SMB Customer Experience Issue

It's great to know how a site is used/visited, which viewers are new v. repeats, where interested viewers/paying customers are located on the map, what product/service content they're viewing and the path they took to get there (and leave), and what technology they use to be assured that they can view everything comfortably and quickly.  BUT many SMB owners/managers still need the basics covered in order to be able to understand, let alone use, the tool, as current language still assumes a great deal and seems to be code spoken internally among Those Who Know SEO, e.g.:

• What's the difference between a "Pageview" and a "Visit"?  
• What is an "Absolute Unique Visitor" and how is that different from a "Visitor" or "Unique Visits"?  
• Does a "Length of Visit" cover all "Pageviews"?  
• What are my options in "Custom Variables" if I don't know how to get started and there's no "Help", "What is This?" or "How to Use This" link provided?  
• And what do I do if, in the list of main keywords reported, the highest number is in the "(not set)" category and I have no clue as to what to do with that or how the information helps me?  
• Does "Direct Traffic" mean that someone found my site by clicking directly on it or by searching for my site or brand name?
• When I look at my site's profile,  what does "Exclude URL Query Parameters?" mean, and how do I know what to put in that box?

And "Why?" questions abound:

• If my e-commerce host has already helped me embed Google search html into my site and checkout pages, how come those pages don't appear for me in analytics? and why am I not told "Go Here If You Want to Add/View XYZ Pages"?
• When I created a Google Analytics account, why was I not first directed to a "Profile" page so I could enter that my business was, in fact, an e-commerce site, and gain full use of the revenue tracking tools there, instead of discovering this page more than a year later?

Before SMB non-Webmasters and non-SEO experts can use their powerful market research/datamining analytics tools well, they have to understand what they're for, how they're constructed and how to interpret what's presented.  Speaking for the USA, if "Small Business Drives the U.S. Economy" (U.S. Small Business Administration) representing 99+% of all businesses, especially in the current economy even the search engine giants might still benefit from redesigning their analytics environments toward being more general businessperson friendly -- and not assume that SMBs are employing SEO expertise to manage this capability.


(c) 2010 Lisa C. Clark
All Rights Reserved.

Web Ad Grammar Reveals Company Attitude Toward Quality?

Everyone makes spelling and grammar errors.  Marketing is supposed to have final eyes and ears on deliverables as they go out the door and, hopefully, catch them.  Some are minor/third line text ads, and some are glaring single message image ads.  I've had days surfing the Web where there were so many I had to start keeping a running tab.  Are there analytics to track Web spelling and grammar errors?  

No format is immune:  Web image block/banner ads, print, radio.  The Web provides vast opportunities for expression in a grammatical free-for-all not usually seen in traditional journalism, as Everyman becomes a publisher.  Examples abound.  

Here are just a couple from a random search of ads over the past 48 hours:

Today's Featured Story Link on Yahoo! News

"Withdrawl from Iraq"

>> More from The Daily Beast

(I checked it out to see if there was a U.S. Deep South angle.  Nope, though the concept of withdrawal from Iraq is certainly attractive.)

Ads.com's Banner Ads Section

Facebook Advertising

Reach The Exact Audience You 

Want With Relevant Targeted Ads.

(They'll reach the Initial Caps On Every Single Word For Emphasis market.  Yes, I've been a Facebook advertiser.  Didn't work for my brand.)

Trulia.com Real Estate Search

Resource Center

View your 2010 Credit Score instantly.

Closing Save on closing costs

("Credit Score" as a document name?  "Closing"/"closing":  Pick one.  Trulia is a good RE site, but no, I don't want to get dinged for viewing my credit score.)

Yahoo! News

Why Most Shampoos Are a Waste of Money

("Are"?  Is this like the recent 'Why You Don't Really Need to Use Laundry Detergent?' headline stories?)

Linked Text Ad

Travel to Iran

Tours to Iran, Iran Travel information, Iran visa,

Iran maps & Hotels

PersiaTours.com

(Random capitalizations.  The closest I've visited was central Turkey, where spelling and punctuation are optional, and quite creative, village by village.)

Linked Text Ad

Pottery Barn

Save Up to 50% on Select Items In-Stores and Online

("In-Stores" seems a Webification.  Traditional "in Stores" works just fine.  PB Teens fan.)

Sponsored Link on Yahoo! News

Spot FX Market Twists

Learn to Anticipate Market Twists

and Turns with this FREE guide.

("this" is a little word, but it still gets initial caps, and what about "guide"?  Most folks who are e-commerce vendors can tell you about market twists, as they have to monitor them daily.) 

Image Ad That Appeared on My Blog Today

Earn an internet marketing certificate.
8-week online programs starting every month.
University of San Francisco
(Wasn't it established a while ago that it's the "Internet"?  And weren't we taught that numbers less than 10 are spelled out?  [Granted, character limits likely drove the "8" choice.]  USF is a good school.)

Errors and/or inconsistencies divert reader/viewer attention from the content of the message and the call-to-action.  They make prospective customers worry about whether perceived sloppiness in advertising is also a reflection of a company/brand culture and behavior.

Sharp marketing is in sweating the details of colorway, font, individual word choice and proper use of grammar, among the other things of positioning, proportion etc., regardless which lettered generation might be the target market.  Hip or not, Web-savvy or not, old school or 21st century, folks can still tell whether or not a message author is ... educated in their language.

I Have Two Requests

1. Double check.  Triple check as ads are shipped off to a cloud, server or repository.  Then view the work the way the public does, sitting in their shoes and with their perceptions, and correct it if needed.  
2. Pick one consistent style and stick with it.

Sharp and polished always shows, and can go a long way to communicating that an organization is comprised of professionals who know what they're doing and the impression they make.

(c) 2010 Lisa C. Clark
All Rights Reserved.

Start-Up Team Behavior: Known by the Company They Keep

A new venture starts from a glimmer, an idea, discovering a market void, fulfilling a consumer-expressed need or solving their problem ... in a profitable fashion.

There's no guarantee that the initial "idea person" will have the skills to implement, let alone take to market, his/her incubation.  What may begin as a singular activity may quickly prove to require a core team or a substantial organization.

Team Selection Process is Critical

A product/service becomes a brand as soon as it can be described, as it reflects the beliefs and values of those who created it.  Everything associated with that brand creates public perception, whether the "public" is friends and family ("f&f"), investors, alpha customers/users/partners or early-adopter customers (Web or traditional). This period is a prime example of when there isn't a second chance to make a first impression.

Core founding team members may include:

• Design/development/engineering
• Marketing/sales/business development
• Supply chain/manufacturing
• Finance

Service provider partners may include:

• A CFO-for-hire and/or a bookkeeper (this role is fluid and may/may not be a founder)
• Legal (for formation/corporate/IP protection and defense)
• Advisory and formal board members 

Are the selected members generally like-minded in their approaches and outlooks?  Can they come together to create a workable company culture from Day 1 that they're proud to express?

Picking once and picking correctly may be essential at the point of "going public" with a venture's existence, though circumstances change and earliest members may flow in, through and out of a project as it solidifies.

Evaluating Team Members and Partners

Depending on funding, a founding team may come together based on whomever is available, whomever can work for free/equity for a while (if required), whomever is local, whomever has the expertise regardless of situation or location.

The product innovation/invention or service itself should inform team-building direction per its requirements.  

At formation, a team has a prime opportunity to pick and choose, to define itself, to put stakes in the ground as a public statement of its level of polish, expertise, experience.  If a venture will require private equity funding (angels or VCs unrelated to the founders), initial first impression hurdles will include getting to a comfort level with a basic conversation after "Hello".  

As humans connect more quickly and solidly having the advantage of introductions, the same applies to start-up teams:  One of the first questions a prospective partner, advisor or investor will ask themselves after, "Do I know anything about this market?  Am I interested in this market?" is:  "Who else already likes this?" acting as a "Come on in, the water's fine!" invitation.

Partners want to work with start-up teams which are good fit to their investment/professional objectives,  market situation, self image and with whom they can have common and ready intellectual (if not social) understanding.

Reducing Anxiety by Checking Off Partners' Mental Lists

When a start-up team approaches partners, it's critical that they show their pre-work.  Those partners are operating from mental checklists.

• They want to be able to check off items of concern in their first exposures to the team
• They want to be able to add financial and/or operational value if they're going to be involved
• They want to not waste their, or the team's, time and effort.

Are team members able to answer checklist questions, like the following, before they're asked -- so as to reduce/eliminate partner anxieties and the "Do I know you?" and "Why should I want to talk with/invest in you?" questions lingering in their prospective partners' minds:

• Is this the optimal, correct team to be pursuing this venture?
• Have they searched sufficiently to put the right team together before meeting me?
• Do they have the educational backgrounds, expertise and experience to be doing this?
• Presented on one page, does this team look impressive?
• Are they "teachable"? (flexible enough to be guided/corrected/advised)
• Do they know themselves well enough as individuals?
• Will they put the needs of the venture before their own personal needs?
• Are they comfortable with a start-up level of risk and responsibility requirements? 
• Can they focus?  Innovate?  Are they nimble?  Lean? 
• What are the dynamics of how well they work together as a team unit?
• Do they respect/admire/support/defend/teach each other?  Solve problems together?
• Have they answered all the foundation marketing questions?
• Do they have a business model that's supportable, scalable, integrated, profitable?
• Have they sized their market opportunity bottoms-up and with proof? and can they name prospective customers who've committed to testing/buying their product/service near-term?
• Do they have a roadmap, a timeline, a series of offerings showing additive value -- and the details of the ways they'll get there?
• Will they protect my money and make it grow to the return I require?

Start-up teams are known by the company they keep.  Surrounding themselves with like-minded, best-of-breed partners, whose brands quickly open doors and provide votes of confidence, is one of the best ways to accomplish this and is a very important step on a venture's road to success.

(c) 2010 Lisa C. Clark
All Rights Reserved.

Start-Ups: Early Visionary Morphs into COO

Folks who pursue start-ups, enjoy birthing things, like to design/develop-and-toss-over-the-wall -- consumer or tech-focused -- are a unique breed.  They need do-everything flexibility, pit bull-style tenacity, and strategic big picture + laser focused/mission-critical detail breadth.

Been Through It Before?  Process Consistencies Begin to Gel

• There's no business without a product/service, so that focus comes first, before a slick PowerPoint, even an executive summary or business plan
• The bottoms-up business model has to scale, fit current integrated marketing standards, and be attractive to outside investors (if they'll be necessary)
• A team has to be able to name/prove its customers and partners, verify acceptability of price points and feature set roadmap
• "We are ... (already doing xyz and already achieving revenue -- no matter how small)" is an entirely different presentation than "We're going to ..." or "We intend to ..."  Required:  Substance, punch, evidence. 

Understanding and operating on the basis of these foundation elements needs to be second nature.  Which is why team selection is so critical past expertise of skillset, portfolio  or seniority, with careful, iterative discussion to unearth accurate areas of executive or managerial accomplishment and overall familiarity/comfort with thriving in the Do-Everything Zone of Start-Up Land.

Many Hats -- Whatever It Takes

• As Co-Founder/CMO of a virtual worlds venture who wrote the original creative brief to hand-off to the 3D and engineering execution teams, I found myself  voted President filing the entity, writing the plans and presentations, securing counsel and courting prospective investors -- effectively performing the functions of a COO.
• As advisor to a men's Chinese fashion brand favored by Warren Buffett and planning U.S. market entry, I found myself strategizing a reseller coverage model and specifying what was needed in financials.
• As Founder/CEO of my e-commerce fashion brand highlighting Science, Tech, Engineering and Math ("STEM"), I packaged product with a crew and delivered retail boutique launch POS fixtures.
• As CMO of a mobile advertising SaaS venture I found myself walking the inventor through batteries of investor questions and the pitch process in one city, concurrently while I was pitching the venture at tech tradeshow booths in another state -- after writing the Private Placement Memorandum.
• As VP of Marketing for a gourmet retailer I negotiated for A-list technical advisory board members, brought in a five-star Certified Executive Chef and spearheaded both real estate  and design of retail site selection.

Worth It?

Start-ups are about learning, sweating, anticipating, building, gathering, inspiring, understanding, correcting, responding, innovating, risking.  

Definitely not for the faint of heart, they require growing a backbone and nerves of steel, balancing a long view with near-term needs and comfortable with the flow which is part and parcel of in working with a team, product/service and market in perpetual flux.

Worth every bit.  If you're made of Start-Up Stuff.

(c) 2010 Lisa C. Clark
All Rights Reserved.

Yahoo! Merchant Back-of-House Observations

This morning, KPBS in San Diego did a story on Carol Bartz's tenure as Yahoo CEO and the company's current competitive challenges.  

I've been a Yahoo! Small Business Merchant for several years and, during that time, have noted and communicated to Yahoo! tech support, and to Ms. Bartz directly, a number of service design suggestions to the company's benefit.  (Plug here:  Their tech team, in my experience with hardware and Web, has been the most consistently high level professional of any I've encountered to date.) 

Suggestions to Yahoo! for Its Merchant Back-of-House

• The Merchant Starter dashboard is a full page of text-only/text-heavy, and could use a full icon-based redesign
• Starting with "define your terms", a dictionary/primer explaining terms would be important to non-tech-savvy SMB merchants
• The "Design Wizard" seems to require reloading of product each time a new design is tried on for size -- the ability to preview a new design without committing would be optimal
• A first-time SMB Web merchant will have no clue what "Store Tag Hub" means
• "Manual Transactions" needs to offer a printable/shippable invoice; currently it seems that a merchant has to manually create/e-mail one to customers
• "Orders" search capability needs to go back at least several years, not just the prior 50 date matches
• "Order Range" summaries should include in-state sales tax charged to assist with monthly reporting requirements (not just sales subtotals)
• "Statistics" should include a cluster map (or at least sorted lists) showing geographic locations of customer bill-to and ship-to addresses to assist with targeted advertising
• Sales summaries list quantities purchased by high-level product SKU, and they're needed by merchants per individual sex/size/color SKU breakout for forecasting/ordering
• "Order Settings" processes could be more SMB owner-friendly (when they're not Webmasters) 
• Parts of the site set-up process where new Yahoo! Merchants will really need tech support assist with walk-throughs, should be called out up-front
• Merchants may be very interested, early on, in adding links to their sites; the "Create Links" process could be made more intuitive showing exactly where on the site the links will appear, or even if they will appear as live links
• Adding to "Mailing Lists" is straight-forward; viewing those created is a visual challenge
• "Statistics at a Glance" showing pageviews should present them also geographically clustered; SMBs gain huge value in shipping planning/offerings by knowing where their  global customers are located and the pain their experience from high shipping costs for lower per-unit $ value sales
• The "Affiliate Program" can inform in its title (no click-through needed) that the vendor is Commission Junction and that there are baseline revenue level requirements; a solution for start-up SMBs who have a lot of pre-sales traffic should also be offered as a lower level revenue alternative.

Yahoo! Brand Impact and Why This Matters

In the three years I've been a Yahoo! Merchant, I've never seen redesign changes to its back-of-house design (which could be applied to any level of its Merchant offerings), though features have been added.  I've provided design feedback to at least three tech support representatives, and have been told that they'd "forward along" my recommendations.  No one has ever contacted me back to follow-up. 

As an e-commerce merchant and marketer I'd hope for a two-way, mutual relationship with my Web hosting provider.  Lack of response from Yahoo! to these recommendations from a merchant with global visibility and selling products to customers on three continents, gives a certain kind of impression of their brand's values and/or its challenges and priorities.

Millions of SMBs are still coming online, still discovering the value of the Web to enhance their traditional businesses.  And in today's economy where renewed vigor towards entrepreneurship is providing a sometimes-saving outlet for economic survival, Yahoo! has vast opportunity to make renewed brand impact.

Impact on One Yahoo! Merchant

I launched e-commerce site www.ThinkerClothing.com first with another "top 3" Web hosting provider shortly after they'd been bought out and dealt with a team which seemed to be putting its fingers in the dykes and quite ... distracted relative to the attention I needed anticipating a time-constrained launch.  Found the design/launch/(never occurred) banking connection experience, which took months, to be ... cumbersome -- and they actually missed my advertised launch date by over a month, though took my up-front design money.  I switched to Yahoo! for their simplicity, designed the site, loaded products, and was live (and processing orders) within 24 hours.  Couldn't have been happier, or more relieved.

Generally satisfied to recommend Yahoo!  as a merchant solutions provider, I've appreciated that things work as/when they're supposed to and consistently, and look forward to Yahoo! implementing any recommendations provided to date ... for their benefit and the benefit of their merchant customers.

(c) 2010 Lisa C. Clark
All Rights Reserved