Online Marketing…Get Your Clicks!
Driving customers to action, not distraction

Excerpts taken from “Get Your Clicks” from Dynamic Graphics, February 2009 by Sandra J. Blum

In this article, we will try to consolidate the wealth of available research on building trust and credibility into websites, e-mail solicitations and landing pages so you can get the best response rates. Using a case study and additional examples, we’ll cover design and marketing best practices and how these apply to both business-to-business and consumer marketing.

CASE IN POINT: FLIR

FLIR Systems sells infrared cameras and markets directly to prospects and customers. The target audience includes individuals, medium-sized businesses, corporations and large enterprises like utilities. Sales are both direct and indirect. Leads are funneled to the sales force.

Last fall, FLIR, launched an advertising campaign—with a six-panel insert in a trade magazine—around the theme “We know infrared. Like nobody else.” The ad offered free training with purchase of an infrared camera and a free whitepaper download, “12 Things to Know Before You Buy an Infrared Camera.” That platform supported a lead-generation direct-mail and e-mail campaign. The online campaign went entirely to outside prospect lists. The campaign’s success has been phenomenal by the firm’s standards (and anybody else’s).

12 THINGS

Let’s take a look at the successful 12 Things e-mail, landing page and supporting website home page design and how they follow online-design best practices.

FLIR’s 12 Things e-mail was all text and very simple. All-text e-mails work well in business-to-business, especially mailed from a trusted source—e.g., to the opt-in e-mail list of a trade magazine. Whatever the e-mail format, the e-mail should tell three things “above the fold”:

• What the offer is
• Why the reader should care (key benefits)
• How to get it (the call to action)

The FLIR e-mail offer underscores credibility, because they sell the offer. FLIR doesn’t make the mistake of pitching its infrared cameras and itself as a great company to do business with. The focus in both e-mails is on how to solve a problem from the prospect’s perspective.

DON’T WEAR IT OUT

If you use one e-mail format constantly, change it up. If you use predesigned templates in one format, develop alternate formats that test well. Go from all text to a postcard e-mail format or vice versa. Some research shows there is “wear out” seen in e-mail marketing, just like in direct mail. Wear out means that effectiveness diminishes over time as people become familiar with a format. FLIR employs formats with graphics successfully as well.

THE LANDING

E-mail is not just about driving traffic to the site—it’s about being a gateway to conversion. Whether the desired outcome is a purchase, a download or simply creating a consistent experience that might drive a repeat visit, optimizing landing pages is an often-forgotten, yet crucially important step in delivering results from e-mail.”

The FLIR 12 Things landing page design employs a number of design best practices for landing pages:

• Action on top—cuts to the chase in the top 300 pixels
• Repeats the e-mail headline
• Uses scan able features such as headlines, subheads, lists and boldface
• Uses a very light background for body copy
• Highlights the offer and makes it crystal clear how to get it
• Highlights keywords that triggered the click-through from the e-mail
• Uses an image of the offered whitepaper
• Keeps the fill-in form relatively short, but gets enough info to satisfy the needs of the sales force
• Highlights the call-to-action
• Focuses on the value of the whitepaper (the offer), not the brand or the product line
• Avoids unnecessary links: no links to “About Us” or “More Information” or to anywhere else the responder can get diverted
• No banner ads
• No navigation bars
• Avoids clutter; uses white space and clean design principles
• Makes it easy—easy to understand, easy to respond

The landing page is closely correlated to the language—and look and feel—of the home page rotator, insert, trade ads and e-mail. This close correlation is another best practice.

TRUST US

To close the loop on building credibility and creating trust, the whitepaper itself or user experience has to deliver. Regarding whitepapers, aside from trying to write something that is interesting, engaging, easy to read and even entertaining, the main goal is to leave the reader looking for more to read from the author. If that level of respect is attained, then the details of what you are communicating will shine through.”

As for user experience, Stanford University Persuasion Technology Lab compiled 10 guidelines for building the credibility of a website. The guidelines are based on three years of research that included over 4500 people. It notes that consumers judge website credibility quickly by its design: “Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose). We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone. When designing your site, pay attention to layout, typography, images, consistency issues and more. Of course, not all sites gain credibility by looking like IBM.com. The visual design should match the site’s purpose.”

“Little” things, such as misspellings, bad grammar, an annoying Flash presentation, weird fonts, huge swaths of body copy on a dark background or broken links, are detrimental to a site’s credibility. But visually attractive websites have been shown to produce a positive “halo effect” that persists and can overcome some negative experiences. This first impression can be formed in as little as 50 milliseconds.

Forrester Research’s annual Best And Worst Of B2C Site Design, 2008 report evaluated sites using Forrester’s 25 criteria. Forrester points out that a credible home page provides evidence that user goals can be completed. It turns out the top five failures of the sites examined were in these areas: text legibility, task flow, error recovery, privacy policies and information scent (the cues, or scent, leading visitors to more information or a resulting action). Weak text legibility, task flow and poor information scent are three things designers can fix or influence.

Effectiveness and transparency build credibility and trust. In the end, trust is measured by the willingness of visitors to risk time, money and personal data on your offers and website.

Recommended resources

• The article “25-Point Landing Page Optimization Review” covers transactional, complex landing pages, completed- purchase orientation.
• Landing Page Checklist from “How to Develop a Landing Page (2008),”
  by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Editor, Web Marketing Today (http://www.wilsonweb.com)
• PC Magazine “Top 100 Web Sites of 2008,”

About the author

Author of Designing Direct Mail That Sells, Sandra J. Blum has created winning campaigns and marketing communications for clients such as the National Geographic Society, The Atlantic, JPMorgan Chase, Smithsonian, and ACNielsen. She is a noted speaker at conferences and consults on business strategy and market development. Learn more about her at www.blumdirect.com.

VISUAL EXAMPLES