Non-Line Blogging

For the past 3 years I have been using the Ford web site as the benchmark for BAD registration forms, specifically the dreadful way that it managed the "Brochure Request" process.  So imagine my horror when I arrived at the site this week to find it had all changed...this could seriously damage my career as a consultant. 

But I should have known better.  Despite spending huge amounts of money on the shiny shiny new site most of the critical tasks that support car sales are still dreadful. Oh yes, the home page is fantastic - they must have spent a fortune on it. In these times of credit-crunchery I'd have thought it was time for Ford to get back to basics and make their site support processes that make the till ring - brochure requests and test drive appointments.  But oh dear, they seem to have forgotten to do that.

When I blogged about the aggregation of marginal gains last year (focus on doing 1000% things 1% better), I got this precient response from Avinash Kaushik.  He said:

This is a fantastic post!

Just yesterday I spoke to 2,400 people in the Auto industry and each and everyone of them was trying to move the ball by "1000%". Yet they have horrible landing pages for even the simplest of keyword searches and their paid search ads.

So there we have it.  Automotive marketers across the globe are spending bucketloads of money (they don't have) on the least important parts of their business process.  

So, just how bad can it be.  Let's pretend I want to get a brochure and, as I have owned 6 Fords in my life, we can assume my "reservoir of goodwill" (from Steve Krug )is filled to brimming as I approach the lovely new Ford site.

First up, what do we think of a home page that is 460K in weight?  To be fair, if the site is great then maybe you have to pack it with features, but this is a pretty big home page, according to the lovely web site optimisation site.  Here is the page size analysis for the shiny shiny new Ford site: 

And here is their report for the "Classic" Google homepage, perhaps the most successful page in web history:

So, the new Ford home page comes with a range of "health warnings" that are probably quick and easy to fix for a speedier (and maybe better) customer experience, again from web site optimisation  

• Warning! The total number of objects on this page is 132 which by their number will dominate web page delay. Consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Above 20 objects per page the overhead from dealing with the actual objects (description time and wait time) accounts for more than 80% of whole page latency
• Warning! The total number of images on this page is 115, consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Recommend combining, replacing, and optimizing your graphics.
• Warning! The total size of this page is 466330 bytes, which will load in 119.34 seconds on a 56Kbps modem. Consider reducing total page size to less than 100K to achieve sub 20 second response times on 56K connections.
• Warning! The total number of external script files on this page is 9, consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Ideally you should have one (or even embed scripts for high-traffic pages) on your pages. 

But anyway, lets say that the page loads and I'm keen to press on with my brochure request.  The navigation has been tucked down in the bottom left hand corner but with a bold heart I click on the right link and come to a REALLY important page.  OK, it's had a lick of paint in the up-date but the page looks awkward, dull and out of keeping with the home page.  It's a few check boxes - where's the passion, the dream of owning a new car - Volkswagen show you pictures of cars - how nice is that?!

Worst of all Ford insists on restricting it's "soon to be customers" to only 2 brochure requests.  Given that the Ford car portfolio often has 3 or 4 cars that overlap a persons needs this has to be a mindless barrier to purchase.  Not only that, we now come face to face with the 1 million pound error message (follow the link to my prevoius post with all the maths) 

So, there we have it - site with a fantastic new home page and vritually no money invested in the key checkout processes that turn visitors into prospects.

So to Avinash's "horrible landing pages for even the simplest of keyword searches and their paid search ads" we can now add "horrible check-out processes".  With customers so thin on the ground shouldn't we all be trying to convert the faintest of nibbles on our site into qualified leads?

Been working with a client this week on proposition building - trying to "distil the product down to its core proposition".  It reminded me of the brilliant quote from Dilbert (Scott Adams) and how many companies struggle with this...

Value Proposition:  

A long, awkward sentence that demonstrates management's inability to think clearly

Looking around the UK marketplace it seems retailers are falling back on slashed prices as their only proposition as they try and soak up the small amounts of cash in circulation.  Sorry to be banging on about retailers right now but they seem to be throwing up a rich seam of email marketing experiences - some good, some bad.

It worked when Howies did it in an "out of character way"...their 20% proposition was a surprise because this is not what they normally do.

Great Little Trading company just sound a little bit desperate and in too much of a me-too way, (In My Humble Opinion)...  

Boden are not shy in leading on price...all their on-line propostitions start with at least 10% off.  However, last week Boden showed a glimpse of quick thinking and quick actions to mask the recent reduction in Value Added Tax from 17.5% to 15%.  It's done with a light touch and a patriotic heart... 

So maybe the companies that will survive will be those most able to respond to opportunities, as we have seen this week with the Howies case study.  Aside from the "biggest single day in Howies history" quote I want to share something else with you.  Our man at Howies also said to me... 

So yeah, it went really well.. and I think the success made us realise we have to be a lot smarter and a lot faster about marketing in the future. Especially in the current climate.

Meanwhile I was chatting to another retailer, this time a big traditional retailer, about being quick off the mark.  He wanted them to go with an email campaign the other day -  a swift, tactical response to market conditions.  But no, it was all too much for them.  (Reminded me when I asked a UK high street bank team how fast they could get an email out the door...the response was "6 weeks")  Howies said in their email to their customers...

We didn't need a board meeting, we didn't need to get the idea signed off by loads of departments. We didn't even have to get the calculator out. We just decided whilst we were walking over the bridge to work. 

Maybe that's the difference between success and failure.  Not just having the ideas, but having the process efficiency and corporate mindset to "just do it".  So the challenge for 2009 is to create a way of working that allows you to dream up great propositions and also execute them swiftly.  And in the next post I'll outline 10 ways to speed up the time taken from "thinking" to "doing"...which may just keep your company afloat in 2009!

By way of validating my thoughts about email working brilliantly, here's proof that it can make you shedloads of money in a recession...

I emailed a link to my blog to the lovely people at Howies asking them if they could share any feedback on the success of their email.  Without giving away too many trade secrets here is what their marketing man, Ruben said...

We literally made the decision to go to sale on the Thursday morning, and by Friday lunchtime, it looked like we were on for the biggest single day in Howies history!

Way to go, Howies.

And if you really want to know, this is the jumper I bought that helped make a little bit of retail history in Cardigan Bay.

I am Course Tutor for the Institute of Direct Marketing's “Email Marketing – Beyond the Basics” for the next 2 days and it was a delight, as always, to hear John Ashton from Screwfix share some thoughts, this time on “email marketing in a recession”.   He waved a copy of today’s Sun newspaper and it was filled with BIG discounts from BIG retailers – 20% off at Marks & Spencer, 25% off at Debenhams and 6 pages of offer-driven ads from Argos.  In the face of all this, he warned, email marketers need to respond.  Here are 3 of his observations that every marketer should act upon: 

• Know what your customers are thinking – tap into forums, send them surveys and make sure you are in touch...are they deferring all spending plans for 6 months or just until Christmas.
• Remind people that you won’t be going bust – if it’s true.  Whilst other suppliers are engaged in ever-more desperate measures to get sales, maintain your dignity.
• Focus on existing customers – if they have loved you in the good times they may well be prepared to love you through the bad times. 

Interestingly, earlier today I dipped into an article from Lyris entitled “In this economy, its survival of the fastest”.  Here’s a thought from them:

“Don't assume the plan you created in September is still relevant. It isn't. Right now, any survey on future purchasing intentions that's more than a week old is probably obsolete.”

Now what is spooky about all this is that as John was speaking I received an email from Howies a company I have bought from before, that seemed to echo all the things he and Lyris were telling us we're supposed to do.  As a result I spent £50 with them 10 minutes later so maybe I should share the email they sent...talk about precient! (here’s the email on-line) 

So, there is an email marketer who got my £50 in a recession by being relevant, engaging and timely. Let's hope they thrive in a recession - as well as Screwfix.  And just as a compliment to John at Screwfix, here is a screenshot of a fantastic "persuasion device" he's put on their home-page...an offer with a countdown clock!  Who said we can't be a little bit cheezy as well in a recession if it makes the till ring? 

What will you do with the 97% of visitors who won’t “convert” on your website today?  You know, the hundreds of people you’ve paid lots of money to get to your site?  Probably nothing – unless you have worked on your registration strategies.  Here is the quick and easy way to convert more of your hard-earned traffic for a really low cost... 

Some companies are recognising that they are wasting money on driving traffic just to harvest a small percentage of sales:  There are probably a lot of non-customers who will soon be customers, but sadly with your competitors because you can't get back in touch with them.  Avinash Kaushik in his excellent blog illustrates this with his usual elegent simplicity...

This suggests that as people move around your site they are seduced by your marketing and may gradually become tempted to convert.  But quite often there is no chance for people to register their interest and you cannot re-market to them. No email address means no future contact that you can initiate and there's nothing you can do.  What a waste.  How frustrating

That therefore means that we have a chance to introduce a second tier into our conversion programme, taking some of the non-converted customers and working hard at getting them to part with some personal data.  I've taken the liberty of amending Avinash's diagram to explain this.  It is not unrealistic to expect 5% or even 10% of your most qualified prospects to want to enter a permission-based email marketing programme.

Without this view we only have one way to convert visitors, so let's pretend we are looking at people who have arrived at our site via a premium search term.  Your only way to value them is via conversion rate...

All your acquisition marketing is invested into the “converted” visitors and they carry a hefty £16.70 cost per sale.  However, what if we could work really hard on converting some “suspects” into “prospects” so we can build a file to re-market to...

Now, let’s be realistic and assume that in the next week we can convert 20% through a follow-up email (or better still an email programme).  Now we can pick up sales for peanuts...

So, factoring in the new sales through a follow-up programme into the overall campaign cost we have a really staggering conversion rate that is almost 40% less than...

If we can create a “value exchange” that gets 10% of interested visitors to part with an email address we can therefore increase sales and reduce cost per sale for a campaign. This means that you can probably afford to pay more per click and generate even more sales or make poor-performing media cost-justify.  And all it needs is a couple of days working on your registration strategy.

I will talk about this in more detail in my next blog but for now here are 3 really quick wins for kick-starting your registration programme, all relating to the visibility of the registration form

Be bold.

Quite often the registration is a sad forlorn box tucked beneath the fold of the home page.  Ironically, once people leave the homepage they are probably more engaged and would have been likely to register...had they been able to see the registration form. 

MarketingSherpa is using a cookie-based “Roadblock Registration” at present so that every single visitor will see their email registration.  It may scare a few people off but it may also dramatically increase conversion rates...test it yourself and see what impact it has. 

Be seen

One client I worked with recently only had a registration form on the home page.  By placing the form on 4 pages they generated 4 times more email addresses straight away.  It’s that easy.  Failing that, have it on the primary navigation so that it is visible on each page.  Once you understand the immense value of prospect registration you will probably give your form access to much more valuable web site “real estate” at the expense of other weaker content. 

Be relevant.

Working for the fashion brand Kangol a few years ago we worked hard on making the “value exchange” relevant to where people were on their site journey.  It was not hard and it made the experience more relevant and boosted registration rates by 10% for every page...  

• If you were on the “Find Nearest Store” page the copy was “Want to hear when new stores near you stock our products?  Sign up for our emails”. 
• If you were on the “Spotted wearing Kangol” pages the copy was “Be the first to know what Kangol stuff the stars are wearing – sign up for our emails.”  
•  If you were on the “Products” pages the copy was “Hear about new products as soon as they’re launched – sign up for our emails” 

So, think strategically about why you should gather “non-converted” prospect details and work hard on making the process as efficient as possible.  Next blog we’ll look at what the US market calls “reciprocity” but what we in the UK still refer to as “bribery”...what ”value exchange” will make prospects part with their valuable personal data.