Convert!: Designing Web Sites to Increase Traffic and Conversion
By Ben Hunt

Every business has a website. The question is whether every website is really a factor in the business.

Ben Hunt’s Convert! is an excellent primer in turning any company website into a tool for attracting and converting users.

The book does a commendable job of covering the macro issues, such as messaging for different buying stages, and micro issues, such as writing great calls to action.

Hunt writes several times that every web page is “an advertisement for the next step,” whether that step is to sign up for a trial, download a whitepaper, sign up for a newsletter, etc. He says engaging users so they take the next step requires a web page to meet four criteria:

1. Affirm the positive signs visitors are looking for.
2. Resolve their concerns and built trust.
3. Build interest.
4. Make it easy to keep engaging.

Fortunately, Hunt provides plenty of examples and advice for achieving all four criteria.

Related posts:

1. Working Knowledge
2. Knowledge@Wharton
3. The lesson of Enron

By Brian Eisenberg

Google and social media have given consumers greater access to information and changed what they expect from the brands they buy.

Waiting For Your Cat To Bark focuses on how brands need to evolve to meet consumers’ new expectations.

Author Brian Eisenberg argues that when media was limited, brands could simply ring their bell enough times and consumers would come running, much like the dogs in Pavlov’s famous experiments. The conditioning worked.

He believes today’s limitless media has caused consumers to act more like cats, who will respond if and only if they feel like there is something in it for them. “Smart merchants know the secret to success is not to make it easier for the seller, but to make it easier for the buyer,” he wrote.

Information is the key to solving the new marketing dilemma. Eisenberg offers a formula called the “persuasion architecture” that answers three key questions:

1. Who are we trying to persuade to take action?
2. What is the action we want someone to take?
3. What does that person need in order to feel confident taking action?

The persuasion model has several steps that anticipate the buyer’s needs and tries to make the right information available at the right time when buyers are ready. We wish he had explained the model in more depth, but that doesn’t detract from the book’s overall impact.

Related posts:

1. Is Your Brand at Risk?
2. Social media suicide
3. Quora

Onward – How Starbucks Fought for its Life without Losing its Soul

By Howard Schultz

In 2000 Schultz stepped aside as Starbucks CEO to focus on Starbucks’ international expansion.

By 2007 the recession, overexpansion, and changes in consumer behavior were affecting every aspect of Starbucks’ business.

In an unusual move for a former CEO, Schultz decided to return to lead the day-to-day operations in 2008.

Onward gives readers an inside look at Schultz’s concern that Starbucks was at risk of losing the customer-centric focus and the agonizing task of finding the balance between product quality, core values, and profit.

In his return Schultz took a number of risks not popular with Wall Street or customers. In 2008 he shut down all 7,000 stores for three hours simultaneously so that baristas could be retrained in the art of making the perfect espresso. And he removed the breakfast sandwiches from the menu until they could find a way to keep the cooking smell from competing with the experience of walking into a coffee shop intended to delight the senses.

Onward is a must-read for all students of leadership, management, and consumer marketing.

Related posts:

1. Authenticity and transparency
2. B2C vs. B2B marketing
3. Be so good…

• Choosing the right topic
• Framing ideas in a way that promotes your brand without turning off the reader
• Understanding why conflict is your best ally
• Selecting the right format
• Promoting your book

Related posts:

1. Generational gaps in communication styles
2. Creating Customer Evangelists

By Frances Hesselbein

Be*Know*Do is an adaptation of the U.S. Army leadership manual for business.

The book’s fundamental lesson is that leadership happens at all levels of an organization. The Army recognizes this need and uses the Be/Know/Do model to encourage development of leaders throughout the organization.

• Be – What are the core values your organization expects of a leader? For the Army, those values are loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage.
• Know — What skills are necessary for leaders to be competent in their jobs? Techical and interpersonal skills are obvious. The Army adds two additional layers: conceptual skills, which are a leader’s ability to think, and tactical skills, which involve how to allocate resources to achieve the desired goal.
• Do — Does a leader act with character and competence? Obviously, leaders are people who act and who accomplish a meaningful goal. The first measure of action is effectively influencing a team’s actions. The second is operating to achieve specific objectives. The third is leaving the situation better than you found it.

Related posts:

1. Five levels of leadership
2. Five bases of power
3. Fearless Leadership

By David Meerman Scott

Sixteen years ago websites started out as “brochureware,” static sites that were merely online versions of sales catalogs and annual reports. They’ve since evolved into what Scott calls a “real-time marketing (and sales) machine.”

Scott’s latest manifesto is a 13-page free download that explains how and why companies can use the information that web visitors give them to follow up on leads quickly.

That’s important because prospects and customers expect answers to their queries almost immediately. When they fill out a form on a website to request information, the company that sends a reply within 5 minutes instead of 2-3 days stands a much better chance of winning that sale.

To take advantage of the real-time nature of the web, companies need two things: a way to capture prospect information on their website (webinar registration, eNewsletter subscription, survey, etc.) and an automated way to distribute that information internally to a salesperson who can follow up. Scott gives an example of a wedding photography company that features different offers, then prioritizes leads and funnels them to the appropriate person.

The key is testing—come up with a few different offers of your own and see what gets the most response.

Related posts:

1. Creating Competitive Advantage
2. Creating Competitive Advantage
3. The Wayback Machine