Analyzing search trends to gain insight into customer demand
Search Engine Optimization..we’ve all heard of it.
When most people think of “SEO” they think of getting keywords to the top of Google to bring targeted traffic to a website. Fundamentally that is the main purpose of SEO, but very few people consider other ways that SEO can be utilized to help your marketing, innovation efforts and overall business strategy.
Let me explain….
It’s very difficult to know what someone is thinking without asking them, or having some sort of written, verbal or non-verbal (body language) communication with them. We are not mind readers.
Google on the other hand…
The information they gather and have access to based on search queries are staggering.
Think of all the queries that occur every day (Over 4 billion). Multiply that by 365 across many years and you have a very large set of data that can be very valuable to a marketer or business owner.
A person’s search queries can tell us a lot about them, the problems they face and what they are interested in.
In marketing…understanding your key prospect and analyzing search queries is one way to do it. Equipped with this knowledge a business owner or marketer can make much better decisions.
I was recently working with a company that developed an allergy spray and was trying to determine the best places and times for a media buy.
In addition to suggesting they utilize secondary market research I decided to analyze search trends to assist them with this endeavor.
My logic was that if you are able to identify the locations that have the highest search frequency for allergy and nasal spray related keywords that this may provide insight into the best locations to advertise.
When someone searches for a keyword there is a specific intent or motivation they had for searching that particular keyword. Typically intent that is to learn something, solve a problem, do something or navigate somewhere.
Being able to recognize what is being searched, when and why can help you get into your customer’s heads.
In the case of someone searching for nasal allergy related keywords we can infer that they have allergy symptoms and are ultimately looking for a solution.
The number of search queries therefore may strongly coordinate with the actual demand for your product. Therefore if one was able to uncover what areas have the highest demand for allergy relief they could purchase a TV media buy, Facebook Ad, or other form of Online Advertising to reach individuals in your target audience within those areas.
This research could also provide insight into what time periods would be best to launch ad campaigns. I conducted this research by utilizing Google Trends and here is what I found…
I want to note that this research makes complete sense….It seems that I am not alone with May being a bad allergy month for me!
In this case it may be good to launch an ad campaign from April through June.
In addition to seeing the search query frequency overtime I was also able to gather the locations that have the highest frequency of searches.
In addition to utilizing Google Trends I also decided to conduct Long-tail, or niche, keyword research using WordStream.
I was able to identify over 100 niches related to Allergies (some more relevant than others) that can be used in a variety of ways.
Here’s how this niche keyword research can be used to:
- Build ad groups for a PPC campaign
- Provide ideas for custom content or pages that can be created address the intent of each major niche
- Use as market research as a quick screen to gain ideas into customer pain points
- Come up with other product innovations to address a given niche
I hope that you found this post informative about other ways keyword research can be used outside of traditional SEO to be valuable.
10 CSS Tricks for All WordPress Designers
Let’s dive in, shall we? When it comes to WordPress, even the best themes need a little tweaking. Below I have added CSS tricks and tips to make WordPress designer’s jobs just a bit easier. Make sure to check out the resources at the very bottom too. Enjoy!
Columns
Create nice, neat columns of text and images using the following CSS. *Great for responsive design.
[code type=codetype]
.five-sixths,
.four-fifths,
.four-sixths,
.one-fifth,
.one-fourth,
.one-half,
.one-sixth,
.one-third,
.three-fifths,
.three-fourths,
.three-sixths,
.two-fifths,
.two-fourths,
.two-sixths,
.two-thirds {
float: left;
margin: 0 0 20px;
padding-left: 3%;
}
.one-half,
.three-sixths,
.two-fourths {
width: 48%;
}
.one-third,
.two-sixths {
width: 31%;
}
.four-sixths,
.two-thirds {
width: 65%;
}
.one-fourth {
width: 22.5%;
}
.three-fourths {
width: 73.5%;
}
.one-fifth {
width: 17.4%;
}
.two-fifths {
width: 37.8%;
}
.three-fifths {
width: 58.2%;
}
.four-fifths {
width: 78.6%;
}
.one-sixth {
width: 14%;
}
.five-sixths {
width: 82%;
}
.first {
clear: both;
padding-left: 0;
}
[/code]
Image Frame
Make your images stand out with the CSS below.
[code type=codetype]
.image-frame {
background: #F8F8F8;
padding: 5px;
border-left: 1px solid #D7DBE0;
border-right: 1px solid #D7DBE0;
border-top: 1px solid #D7DBE0;
border-bottom: 1px solid #B6BCC3;
}
[/code]
Colored Content Boxes
Highlight key areas of content or draw visitors to testimonials using the following CSS code to create colored content boxes.
[code type=codetype]
.content-box-blue,
background-color: #d8ecf7;
border: 1px solid #afcde3;
margin-bottom: 32px;
margin-bottom: 2rem;
padding: 24px;
padding: 1.5rem;
}
[/code]
Gradient Call to Action Buttons
Make your call to actions stand out by using the gradient button code below.
[code type=codetype]
a.cta-button,
background-color: #c93764; /* fallback color */
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #ea4c89, #c93764);
background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #ea4c89, #c93764);
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #ea4c89, #c93764);
border: 1px solid #c93764;
text-shadow: 0 -1px -1px #9d2849;
border-radius: 3px;
box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #999;
color: #fff;
display: inline-block;
font-size: 16px;
margin: 0 24px 24px 0;
padding: 12px 16px;
text-align: center;
width: 150px;
}
a.cta-button:hover {
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #c93764, #ea4c89);
background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #c93764, #ea4c89);
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #c93764, #ea4c89);
}
[/code]
Rounded Corners
Smooth out those corners using CSS to add rounder corners to your design.
[code type=codetype]
.element {
border-radius: 5px
-webkit-border-radius: 5px
-moz-border-radius: 5px
}
[/code]
Images as Bullets
Sometimes, it’s nice to add check marks or other bullet points besides the usual circle or square. Replace bullets with images using the following code.
[code type=codetype]
ul li {
background-image: url('images/bullet.png');
background-repeat: none;
background-position: 0 0.5em;
}
[/code]
Image Shadows
Add some pop to your site’s images using the code below to add shadows.
[code type=codetype]
img {
-webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #7C7C7C;
box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #7C7C7C;
}
[/code]
Google Fonts
Google offers over 625 font families. Use Google Fonts to spice up your content and engage visitors. Once you find a font to use, click the “quick use” icon. Scroll down to #3, click the “import” tab and copy and paste that code into your style.css file.
[code type=codetype]
@import url(http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto+Slab:400,100,300,700);
[/code]
[code type=codetype]
font-family: 'Roboto Slab', serif;
[/code]
Google Chrome
When using Google Chrome, right-click on the page and select “Inspect Element” which will allow you to view the source code. Not only will you be able to view the source code, but you can make edits to get an idea of what needs to be done before wasting your time in the style sheet.
Mobile Responsive Design Testing
Created by Matt Kersley, this responsive design testing tool will allow you to test responsive websites while you design and build them. You can enter a website’s URL into the address bar at the top of the page to test a specific design.
Resources
- CSS-Tricks
- Brian Gardner
- Google Fonts
- Matt Kersley
- And of course, members of the Brand Advance team
What CSS tricks do you find yourself always using? Where do you like to find code snippets to improve your design? Let us know in the comments below!
-Dave Gray
Awareness vs. Persuasion: Taking A Leap Towards Strategy
When it comes to your marketing strategy are you aware of what your ultimate goal is? Are you trying to get people to make a choice or will you profit simply by making your presence known?
Most companies use a mix of awareness marketing and persuasion marketing tactics when reaching out to new customers but if you aren’t sure which is best for you or when to use them often times your message can become jumbled and consumers will either forget your brand all together or remember it for the wrong reasons. So, before you begin it is important to know what you are trying to say – the message is the first and most important step.
Awareness marketing is typically used for companies who just by entering the marketplace are likely to make a profit. Think insurance, toothpaste, laundry detergent and other necessities. Insurance companies want their name to be in the back of your mind for when the time comes to purchase a new plan or simply change providers. When that time comes consumers will begin to think of any insurance companies they know, next they will stop by a website or maybe a brick-and-mortar location, and finally a decision is made.
The typical awareness cycle goes like this: Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Experience, Opinion, Advocate/Conversion and then the cycle starts over. Take this insurance campaign, it is making you aware of the company’s purpose and what they can do for you when you are in need for insurance.
Photo Courtesy of: Mike Mackinven
Now, just because you decide to launch an awareness campaign does not mean that later on your company cannot decide to use a persuasive campaign. Very often you see one brand of detergent side-by-side with another brand proving why it is the better choice. Take OxyClean for example, they take soiled clothing, swirl the items around in an OxyClean mixture and then the clothes are stain free. Pretty convincing right? When utilizing a persuasive marketing campaign your main goal is to convert the consumer to your brand right then and there, so that the next time they enter the store the consumer will think of your brand first and possibly even seek you out.
Apple uses a great persuasive technique; they show you how the MacBook is made. They describe the unibody design which cuts the metal for the machine from all one piece of metal reducing assembly and increasing precision. They are telling you the story of the MacBook, describing what makes it so special, and how advanced the product is compared to other new computers.
So, when making the decision to use awareness vs. persuasive campaigns there are three things to consider:
1) Are you creating a product that is truly unique or is it relatively similar to what is already available?
2) What makes you stand out from your competition? Is it where your materials are sourced or is it how you handle the materials which makes your product special? If you do not have a unique product this is where you would begin to think of how you can position your brand – make is eye catching, create a brilliant slogan or begin the process of how to differentiate.
3) Where is your product in the marketplace? Is your product one of many but needed regularly or is it one of many and only chosen at distinct times?
Share your favorite campaigns with us!
10 Reasons Why Men Should Join Pinterest
Okay men, I see you slowly starting to warm up to the idea of creating an account on Pinterest. However, some of you need a final push and that is just what I am here to do.
I am ready to tell you how to create the manliest Pinterest boards possible so that you can stop peering over your girlfriend’s shoulder or stealing her phone to browse through her recipe, DIY (…one day), and meme boards. Let’s get started…
1) Man Caves.
I just did a search for ‘man caves’ and found these awesome examples of what you can recreate in your own home:
I also found hundreds of macho accents to turn any ordinary basement or den into the ultimate man cave:
2) Workouts.
I know, I know – You’re a man and you don’t need other men telling you what to do during your gym-sesh. Think of it this way, you aren’t asking for help with workouts, you are simply browsing around picking up a few new tips to show off to your buddies with at the gym. When they ask you why you are getting so ripped all of a sudden you can just say, “Oh, you didn’t know that this exercise (insert demonstration here) totally gives you massive quads/ripped abs/biceps that Arnold is jealous of? Here, let me show you how a real man works out..”
3) Food and lots of it.
4) Kung-Fu.
Find free Kung-Fu lessons and them show off to your friends once you have deemed yourself the ‘Kung-Fu Master’
5) It’s pretty funny.
You can curate an entire library of internet memes and funny ecards ready to share on Facebook whenever the mood strikes.
6) You will always be able to buy the woman in your life the perfect gift
I think this speaks for itself…
7) Become the handyman you have always said you are
Who needs the neighborhood handyman or plumber when you can do it yourself? The next time you go to Home Depot you will be only be asking where to find that super specialized socket wrench for your current Man Project.
8) Gadgets
I did a quick search through the Products section and found two gadgets that I know I could buy for the men in my life: a weather girl alarm clock and a cleverly designed sneaker boombox.
9) Halloween Costumes
Each year men across the country compete for the most bro-tastic Halloween costumes. If you joined Pinterest you would find gems like these for your next costume masterpiece:
10) Cars, Motorcycles, and Tattoos
Who said you can’t have the car collection of your dreams? What about your alter-ego of a tattooed, muscle bulging, leather wearing motorcycle gang member? Even when the wife says ‘no’ you can still pretend with secret boards (let’s face it, your wife is probably going to follow you on Pinterest so these types of things should be hush-hush…).
Special thanks to the following pinners for their amazing boards and pins: skyscoolmom, x3kailey26, hkannard, godinfitness, veronicaandrea, manntt and laurakcofer.
The Best time and day to post on Social Media
Over the last couple days I’ve been asked by several clients…what is the best time and day to post on social media?
The truth is that it depends on who you are seeking to reach and engage with. There is no general time across all markets and social networks. Who you are targeting and where they spend their time are definitely key questions to answer before determining when to post.
If the audience you are targeting works during the day away from the computer then it is best to post after hours or on the weekends. If you’re looking to reach a professional audience that is tech savvy, during work hours may be the best time to engage with them.
Recently I came across a great infographic that illustrates the best day and time to post on various social networks. I found it to be very well done and easy to digest and thought I’d share it.
I hope that you found this inforgraphic to be valuable and are able to utilize the knowledge revealed within it to improve your social media efforts.
Time will tell…
Cheers,
David
4 Steps to Social Media Success
Building a community via social media is hard work but it doesn’t have to be. Setting up a Facebook or Twitter account isn’t enough to maintain a campaign and people are often left wondering ‘What Next?’ Keeping a strong social presence going for your business is fairly simple and with a little elbow grease you will master it in no time. To get you started here are the four most important steps for social media success:
1) Make a plan.
Your company may not need an account on every social media site. Facebook and Twitter might serve you well if you are a small online business, whereas adding a Foursquare and Instagram account would be great for a retail store or restaurant. Just because a network exists does not mean that you have to use it.
Stretching yourself thin over multiple social networks (especially unnecessary networks) will only dilute your message and cause you to lose interest from possible audience members.
2) Structure your content.
Find a ‘groove’ as I like to call it. Decide what your message will be – strictly informative about what your company is up to, a mix between company updates and industry news, or maybe you will throw in a little fun with occasional photos and stories about your culture and employees.
It’s important that you find out what your message will be and how you will deliver it. If you don’t come up with a solid plan of action you once again create mish-mosh of information that has no real point in the end – losing interest from your audience. Look at your analytics to see when your audience is most active with your accounts. Plan your posts or at least most important messages around these times so that you can reach the largest portion of our audience possible.
Here is a look at a recent post from our Facebook page incorporating culture.
Now, I know I suggested sharing your company culture and stories about the workplace but I will caution you – this is your company’s social network not an account for group fun. Too much about the culture and you have no real message that you are portraying to the audience; these small and few occasions where you step out of the box to show the inner workings are like tiny little surprises for your community. If someone gave you a surprise every day it would no longer be neither exciting nor special – this is how you have to approach sharing employee and culture related stories.
3) Interact with your audience.
If you make a new friend (I’m talking in real life now…) and you never return a phone call, text, or are a constant no-show there is roughly a 100% chance that the relationship between you and your new ‘friend’ will diminish, right? Well, this is how you have to approach social media; it is called social media after all.
There is no exact science for interaction with your audience, but the following standards should apply:
Be aware of when you audience interacts with your accounts the most. Responding to consumers in a timely manner is very important and appreciated more than you believe.
Be polite. Remember this isn’t your personal account this is the company voice being sent out over the interwebs for all to hear. Occasionally you may run into a disgruntled customer, that’s okay, give them an email address and ask them to send a message there with to that address with details regarding their problem and mention that once the message is received a member of your team will work to find a solution.
4) Teach your audience how to connect with you.
If you are looking for your audience to interact with you in a specific manner or have a really cool idea for your fans to participate in, show them. This video from Marquette University expresses my point perfectly:
Google Author Rank – What it is and why you should care
The web has given everyone an easy way to publish their ideas and content with the world. Similarly, the web has made it very easy for us as consumers to find information about a variety of topics. The issue is that sometimes the content that we find after a search query may not be credible, or add value. A company utilizing black hat, or unethical SEO strategies may have tricked the search engines to rank pages containing low-value content very high on the search engines, while high-value content created by someone extremely credible on the topic may sink to the bottom of the Google results only to go unfound.
AuthorRank is Google’s solution to this problem. Google is essentially seeking to bring accountability to the web, which will intern improve their search engine results for their users.
Anyone can create content related to a given topic, but not everyone is an authority on the content that they create. In the past Google looked heavily on the quality and quantity of back links a webpage, or website received to assess their authority. More recently Google and other search engines incorporated social statistics related to a brand, or specific web page into their assessment of a website’s authority and rankings. If a certain webpage received more tweets, shares, likes, and comments these metrics were considered along with the other rankings factors. AuthorRank goes a step further and assesses not only the statistics related to the domain and webpage itself, but also that of the individual author of that content.
Imagine if people were forced to associate their social security number with every piece of content they published online. Ok, well maybe not your social security number, but a unique identifier for every individual. This unique identifier would essentially act as a digital signature to reveal to the world, and Google, that you are the one who created a certain piece of content regardless of what website you published the content on.
Now imagine that we also associated our social media accounts and interactions with one another through this unique identifier. With this knowledge Google would be able to incorporate many different factors about each of us into their algorithm that will improve their search engine rankings.
Some factors could include:
- Amount & quality of your social connections
- Quality & quantity of inbound links to previously published content
- Number & quality of social shares or +1s for previously published content
- Credibility of websites you contribute to
- Your Interactions and Engagement on social networks
- And more!
Equipped with this information Google could determine not only if you are likely real person, but also what influence you have, and have historically had related to a given topic. They could also assess if your online behaviors appear natural, the quality of your network and how your previous content has been received by others. All of this could then go into how they index and rank the content you publish online.
Well stop imagining…this is in the process of happening right now! Google is encouraging people to associate their Google+ profile with the articles and blog posts they publish. This can be done by adding a snippet of code into the html of the page your content appears on, or linking to your Google+ account in the author box of the post. If you choose to utilize the snippet of code to claim your authorship, simply add the code below into the head section of your webpage’s html. Be sure to replace the number with your unique Google+ profile number or vanity url.
<a rel=”author”href=”https://plus.google.com/109331020051967029928“/>
Soon after you have claimed your authorship for a given piece of content or blog post, you will notice that your Google+ picture will begin showing underneath the posts. This image helps to differentiate your listing in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) and can help your content obtain a higher amount of click through rate, which means more traffic to that particular article.
Searchers can also view other posts that you’ve created around the web by clicking “More from Author Name“.
More on Google+
Recently I’ve had a lot of people ask me about Google+. What is it? Why should I be using it? I don’t get it, can you explain? etc.
Google+ is a social network that Google launched in mid-2011. If you have a Google account you can easily sign up for Google+ by visiting http://plus.google.com/.
This video gives a great (and funny!) overview of Google+. I thought I’d share…
Once you have set up a Google+ profile you want to add a link to all of the websites you contribute to in your Google+ account and verify your authorship. More can be learned about Google Authorship here: https://plus.google.com/authorship
I hope you found this post to be informative!
10 Free Plugins to Enhance Your WordPress Site
Last month I proclaimed my love for WordPress and wrote about 16 tools for every WordPress designer including themes, plugins, tips, tricks and other resources. Today, I decided to focus on WordPress plugins. Below are 10 FREE plugins that will enhance your WordPress site. Enjoy!
1. Custom Sidebars
The Custom Sidebars plugin allows you to create custom sidebars in any widgetized area available on your WordPress site. Custom Sidebars also makes it possible to add custom sidebars to not just pages and posts, but to categories, post-types, archives (date, author, tags) and search results.
2. WooCommerce
The WooCommerce plugin by WooThemes is a free e-commerce toolkit for your WordPress site. Easily create products to sell, including downloadable products, and easily keep track of your inventory, shipping rates, marketing, and payments. WooThemes has many theme options available to make your online business a reality with WooCommerce.
3. WordPress SEO by Yoast
The WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin is the most complete SEO plugin available for Word Press and incorporates many helpful features such as snippet previews, page analysis, image titles, meta descriptions, XML sitemaps and more, to easily optimize your content for Google and major search engines.
4. ShareThis
The ShareThis plugin accesses over 120 social channels like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and more, to provide a quick and easy sharing solution to engage your audience and increase traffic to your WordPress site. The ShareThis widget is easily customizable to fit your needs and theme layout.
5. Akismet
The Akismet plugin was created by Automattic (creators of WordPress) which checks your comments against the Akisment web service to filter out your comment and track-back spam for you. The Akisment plugin is free for personal use.
6. Lightbox Plus
The Lightbox Plus plugin for WordPress allows users to view larger versions of images on your site without having to leave the page. Lightbox Plus can add a lightbox to WordPress galleries, display slideshows, videos, forms and external content.
7. Jetpack
The Jetpack plugin uses the cloud power of WordPress.com to supercharge your self-hosted WordPress site. Here are a few of my favorite features:
- Publicize: Connect your WordPress site to your social profiles and your new posts will automatically be shared.
- Jetpack Comments: Allows users to post comments as a guest or using a WordPress.com, Facebook or Twitter account.
- Sharing: Displays social media buttons at the bottom of your posts so users can easily share your content.
- Contact Form: Lets you easily insert a contact form anywhere on your WordPress site.
- Mobile Theme: Automatically displays a mobile version of your site (using the Twenty Eleven theme) displaying your content in a clean, uncluttered interface that will load quickly on mobile.
- Enhanced Distribution: Jetpack will automatically share your posts with search engines and other 3rd party services in real time.
8. Google XML Sitemaps
The Google XML Sitemaps plugin will generate an XML sitemap which will help major search engines easily index your WordPress site. This sitemap makes it easier to crawl and see the complete structure of your site. The Google XML Sitemaps plugin supports all kinds of WordPress generated pages and notifies Google, Yahoo! And Bing whenever new content is created.
9. Google Analytics
The Google Analytics plugin is very simple; just install the plugin, enter your Web Property ID and your Google Analytics account will automatically connect to your WordPress site.
10. Formidable
The Formidable plugin allows you to easily and quickly create forms using a drag and drop interface. Contact forms can be created from scratch or by using a pre-made template. Forms can easily be customized using CSS and displayed on pages or posts using shortcodes.
BONUS: Since I enjoy creating sites using StudioPress themes which use the Genesis Framework, here are a few of my favorite plugins developed for use on the Genesis Framework:
11. Genesis Connect for WooCommerce
The Genesis Connect for WooCommerce replaces the WooCommerce built-in shop template with a Genesis-ready version. This saves time from having to customize the shop pages yourself and keeps all pages looking consistent with your Genesis child theme.
12. Genesis Responsive Slider
The Genesis Responsive Slider helps you create a simple responsive slider that can display the featured image, along with the title and excerpt from a page or post. The slideshow will automatically adjust for the screen size its being displayed on such as desktops, tablets or smart phones.
13. Simple Social Icons
The Simple Social Icons plugin is a very easy to use and simple, customizable way to display your social media profiles on your WordPress site. Use it to add Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and many other profiles with adjustable colors and sizes.
What are some of your favorite WordPress plugins? What plugins do you have to use on all your WordPress designs? Leave a comment below…
14 Must Have Apps & Games for A Successful Valentine’s Day
Have you been looking for love in all the wrong places? Maybe you were hit by cupid’s arrow and now all you see is love. Either way we’ve got 14 must have apps & games to get you through Valentine’s Day.
1) Last minute shopping for the perfect gift or your lonely pint of ice cream? Don’t let time rush you into a bad gift disguised in hearts and bows. Use Red Laser to scan the bar-code on items and see all the latest prices from around the web and even check out reviews.
2) Staying in for a romantic dinner? Let Jamie Oliver teach you a thing or two about how to move in the kitchen. His app is free and contains 200+ recipes, color photos, and HD videos; you can also purchase recipe packs for around $1.99 each.
3) Maybe staying in isn’t your thing. The Ness Dining Guide will help you find restaurants that are right up your alley. Described as the “Pandora of Food” you can rate where you eat, see how your tastes compare with your friends, and find new local spots – all for free.
4) Every girl deserves flowers at least once a year so why not make it Valentine’s Day. 1-800-FLOWERS has an app for Valentine’s on the go showing you which arrangements are available same day and allowing to order your sweetie some stems from your phone. This is also a great way to secretly order yourself a bouquet, have it delivered to your office, and then pretend that your super hot new beau is oh-so romantic.
5) Don’t want to spend money buying flowers? Not a problem, you can play Flower Garden by Snappy Touch and grow virtual flowers in the palm of your hand. When they are ready send them via text to the special people in your life.
6) If you are looking for a last minute date you should try out the Virtual Boyfriend. It is free, but there is also an option to purchase the full game for $0.99. Create the man of your dreams, he even talks to you!
7) Chocolate is a V-Day staple. The Divine Chocolate app gives you step-by-step recipes, video tutorials, and even a map to find the nearest location selling their brand of chocolate.
8) Avoid a fashion emergency with the Swirl Fashion app. It has a Pinterest feel so you will be able to navigate easily through the app. You are able to create your own style profile and collect offers from brands. While you shop you can use Swirl to remember what you liked and avoid spending hours searching through the store.
9) Pairing the perfect wine for your meal can be a challenge, unless you have the Hello Vino Wine Recommendations app. With this app by your side you will be able to pair wine with food, by taste preferences, and occasions. You can also snap a photo of your wine label for perfect pairings.
10) Use BeeSocial (in BETA right now) to find local events and plan a night out for you and all your friends. Who says Valentine’s needs to be a night for two, anyways!?
11) Guys, if you are out on Valentine’s Day hitting up the bar for a ‘Bros Night Out’ you definitely don’t want your fun cut short by V-Day Stalkers. You know who I’m talking about, the lonely, boy crazy girl at the bar thinking that today is the day she will meet Mr. Right – a stage 5 clinger ready to strike! Prepare yourself and become familiar with escape routes by playing Valentine’s Day Stalker before you step out of the door.
12) Remember your Valentine’s Day forever with A Love Pic Booth. This app is free and lets you edit your photos to add romantic borders and saying. You can even record a message to go along with your photo.
13) A good staple to have on your phone is Angry Birds Seasons, kill time during your long wait at the restaurant or occupy yourself during that terrible blind date.
14) Set the mood tonight with Valentine Radio. A selection of 40 lounge style radio stations will help you perfect the atmosphere for you and your special someone.
Using Conversion Rate Optimization to Better Your Conversion Rates
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is self-explanatory. It is the process of optimizing a website, landing page, email campaign or any type of revenue generating page that leads to a conversion/sale.
Why is Conversion Rate Optimization Important?
CRO is important for so many reasons and the end result is to maximize conversion rates for a product or service you offer. Not all landing pages are created equal. End of story! A landing page or email marketing campaign may look amazing from a design perspective, but may convert poorly. We have seen this hundreds of times. A company will spend hundreds or thousand of dollars developing landing pages for a product, and they come to us asking why they are not making money or why their online campaign is performing so poorly.
Only Conversion Rate Optimization will determine the best layout, design and call to action for a landing page.
My personal motto is “Test, Test and Retest”. If are spending hundreds of dollars per day or week on a Paid Search Campaign or have an Email Marketing Campaign that is being sent to several thousand subscribers, it will behoove you use Conversion Rate Optimization to test for Conversion Rates.
10 Things You Can Test Using Conversion Rate Optimization
1. Page Content
2. Images
3. Call to Actions(s)
4. Button Placement
5. Design and Layout
6. Value Messaging
7. Product or Service Benefits
8. Bundled Product Offers
9. Testimonials
10. Your Message
The question you have to ask yourself is, “Would I spend money on a campaign without knowing if my campaign could have performed better”. The likely answer is no.
Ask our team of experts how we can setup a Conversion Rate Optimization for your website, email marketing campaign, paid search campaign or landing pages and maximize the money you are producing.