Triangle AMA’s September luncheon: Converting Prospects to Customers Through Online Marketing Brooks Bell, Founder and President of Brooks Bell Interactive, presents how marketers in diverse organizations succeeded in driving customer acquisition with online marketing campaigns.

1. Triangle AMA September Luncheon:
Converting Prospects to Customers Through
Online Marketing
Brooks Bell
President,
Brooks Bell Interactive

2. You’re going to learn:
 How can I convert more customers?
 Why should I test?
 What are ways that I can make my creative more effective?
 What are some steps to get started?

3. Converting Prospects to Customers: Point #1
IF THERE’S NO COMPETITION, THERE’S
NO WINNER

4. A story about how XM
Radio created a
competition

5. The competition: Three alternative email versions
SHORT LETTER HYBRID
Short Copy. FREE. Simple. Long copy. Official. Educational. Medium Copy. Lifestyle. Hero shot.

6. Which won?
Let’s VOTE!

7. Then, after analyzing the data, XM
declared “Hybrid” the winner!
Hybrid
Outperformed
others by
21%!

8. However, XM learned found a curious fact digging into the data further
ZERO out of
33,345 clicked
on this button

9. So there was another “The Control”
competition: the follow-
up element test
(An element test is when you change ONLY
ONE ELEMENT to isolate the variables)

10. “The Control”
19% increase in response!
fold

11. Converting Prospects to Customers : Point #2
NEVER, EVER LEAVE OUT THE VALUE
PROPOSITION

12. FACT:
The effectiveness of the
user experience is crucial
to converting prospects
to customers.

13. How do I know if I have an effective message for
converting prospects to customers?

14. LIKLIHOOD OF
CONVERSION
It’s VERY simple:
C = 4m + 3v + 2(i – f) – 2a
Customer Clarity of Incentive Friction Anxiety
Motivation Value Proposition
Source: MarketingExperiments.com

15. What does a clear
value proposition
look like?

16. Let’s play a game. Find the value proposition!

17. Converting Prospects to Customers : Point #3
THE EYE PATH IS REALLY IMPORTANT

18. (What’s an EYE-PATH?)
Your EYE-PATH is the path that your
eyes take when you look at a
creative.
It’s measured with a HEATMAP.
Heat mapping is where an
EYETRACKER detects where your
eyes are looking and creates a
heat map of where they have been.

19. A story about how WSJ
learned from the eye-path

20. WSJ converted their winning DM letter into an email to
try to convert prospects to customers.
“The Control”

21. Heat-mapping to follow the user’s eye-path

22. New Email Design
22

23. New Email Design
23

24. “The Control” 25% increase in response!

25. Converting Prospects to Customers : Point #4
IF YOU CAN TEST, YOU WILL WIN

26. Only your users can tell
you if the experience is
effective.
The only way to get them
to tell you is to test.

27. The Four ‘T’s of Testing
1. Time
2. Traffic
3. Technology
4. Trust

28. Time

29. Time
• Time is not FREE, so neither is
testing
• Plan for:
– Baselines
– Test design
– Additional creative
development time
• Iteration is key
• You could test forever!!

30. Traffic

31. Traffic should help you create a test plan.
• You need fresh, recurring traffic
• Know some basic statistics
– Confidence level
• “Statistical Significance”
• 95% is common
– Margin of error
• 150 successes is a good rule of thumb
The Normal Curve
“Is it Significant?”

32. Technology

33. Technology
MINIMUM:
• Split Traffic into separate groups
• Track click-through separately for each group BEST:
• Test your groups at the same time
Start with what’s
meaningful and ac4onable
EVEN BETTER: and build your technology
• Use a database of some sort and test design to support
– Email Service Provider that
– Can you segment?
– What can you track?
– Can you personalize, and how?

34. Trust

35. Trust that you will WIN!
What and Who you need to trust:
• The Data
• The Process
• The Customer
• The Designer
Just relax. It will be OKAY. 

36. A story about how AARP
tested and won

37. The AARP “Webletter” Newsletter
• Time: Tested WEEKLY for over a year
• Traffic: List is in the millions
• Technology: Worked closely with
AARP’s ESP
– Segmented by usage
• Active
• Passive
• Inactive
• Trust: AARP was focused on results,
and had the political leverage
internally to test almost anything

38. Testing = Success!
• Webletter became the #1 traffic
driver to AARP.org
• Active segment up by 59%
• Inactive segment down by 38%
• Open Rate up by 39%
• Click-through rate is up
by 180%!!!

39. Introducing
2 Beautiful New igns
‐25%
‐2 %
Control, April 008 Test Cr 4ve

40. OMG, Does Ugly Work?
Lots of copy
above the fold
Simple Eye‐
path Ads are small,
unobtrusive
Image‐blocking is
not an issue

41. OMG, Does Ugly Work?
Only 1 feature
Complicated above the fold +
Eye‐path confusing image
Ads are wide,
Blocking content
Image blocking is
an issue

42. 8 WEEKS OF TESTING GOES BY….
Simple Eye More above the
path fold
Ads are
Smaller images consolidated
AND System text and aligned with
images

43. Finally, a break!
+11%
Control, April 2008

44. So, Does Ugly Work?
That’s the wrong question.
• Beauty is one of several factors that drives performance
– Can you name two?
• Your audience probably doesn’t care how good the creative looks.
• Your audience cares about 4 things no matter what the decision is…

45. The four things that your customer cares about when
they are in decision mode:
1. What is it?
VALUE
PROPOSITION!
2. What’s in it for me?
3. What are you asking of me in return?
4. Why should I trust you?

46. Converting Prospects to Customers: Point #5
TESTING JUST TAKES A LITTLE
PLANNING

47. Six Steps to Test Planning
1. Set a control and/or baseline
2. Establish a goal
Do these steps before
you call your designer
3. Design a test based on the 4 T’s
4. Think like your customer (4 Questions)
5. Create a hypothesis
Do these steps with your
designers
6. Design the creative(s) according to test design

48. Tip:
Create a worksheet to help you organize your
thoughts

49. See Test Planning In Action!

50. Established a control/baseline
“The Control”

51. Established a goal and designed the test based on 4 T’s

52. Think like a customer!
Our hypothesis was that control creative did not address the top
value propositions.
But, we didn’t know which value proposition was the best
Four initial value propositions to test:
1. General/Offer
2. Leadership
3. Convenience
4. Life Change

53. Designed the Creative Versions

54. Run the test. Then, analyze and declare a winner!

55. Established the continuous testing rhythm to
optimize response
Focused on actionable
learnings in our test
Then identified the next
hypothesis, and are
testing again!

56. Final takeaways on how to convert prospects to
customers through online marketing
1. Your user experience is crucial to converting more customers
2. Testing is the only way you can systematically improve your user experience
3. You can make your creative more effective if you start by focusing on your value
proposition and eye-path (and then, motivation, incentive and anxiety)
4. Test as soon as you have the 4 T’s in your organization
- Time
- Traffic
- Technology
- Trust
5. Think like your customers, and make sure you’re answering all the questions
they will ask
6. Testing can be as easy as planning ahead and following a disciplined process

57. Thank you!
Questions?
Brooks Bell
President, Brooks Bell Interactive
brooks@brooks-bell.com
919-836-0504