In 2004, wine connoisseur, Neil Monnens, noticed a funny thing about wine – there was no consistency in price across wines with the same ratings. In late 2004, he started publishing WineBlueBook each month to provide a simple wine buying guide that offers an at-a-glance breakdown of how one wine compares to another in terms of quality and price.  WineBlueBook’s goal is to make wine drinking and wine buying more accessible to everyone by helping consumers find quality wines at every price point.

Client Challenge

WineBlueBook’s goal is to signup website visitors to a free trial of its monthly publication. The goal is to show visitors the value of the product and then subsequently sign them up to a paid subscription.

WineBlueBook’s site had undergone extensive search engine optimization (SEO) efforts which were yielding significant levels of highly targeted organic search traffic each month. However, while the organic traffic levels continued to grow, the program was generating very few trials.

In addition to SEO, WineBlueBook launched a paid search campaign on Google to drive traffic but the campaign also yielded very few trials.

Thrivepoint Solution

Thrivepoint conducted an extensive analysis of WineBlueBook’s website usability, organic traffic and keywords to determine where the conversion funnel was breaking. Thrivepoint quickly discovered that the primary cause of poor performance was rooted in the fact that 9 out of 10 visitors were leaving the site less than 30 seconds after arriving.

To engage consumers with WineBlueBook, Thrivepoint implemented Thrivepoint Engage™ – a solution to improve the messaging and layout of the web pages in order to capture more trial signups. Optimization was focused on three pages as a proof of concept.

The focus of optimization was on message, layout and offer testing to determine if consumers viewed WineBlueBook as a way to save money on wine or as a way to discover new wines to try. The testing of messages and layouts were implemented to determine which core theme was going to drive the highest trial rate.

Through the course of the program, Thrivepoint implemented and tested three web page layouts, two core messages and three offer treatments. Test messaging was deployed as eight executions rolled out into matched pairs to determine if “Savings” or “Discovery” messages were the primary motivators for trials. After the test yielded that consumers were more motivated by the “Savings” messages, the test was further focused on drilling down into which specific “Savings” message maximized trial rate.

Campaign Results

The program yielded an overall increase in site wide trials of 192% in two months driven by an increase in signup rate by 103% and increasing organic traffic.

For the three pages targeted specifically for optimization, the results were even better. A key finding in the initial analysis was that visitors were not engaged. Decreasing bounce rate by 6 percentage points increased conversion rate and enabled home page optimization which yielded 776% more trials than months prior to the program. The other pages targeted for optimization yielded a 950% increase in trials.

In addition, all optimizations were handled with care to ensure that no flow of organic traffic was interrupted and pages were further optimized for organic search in cases where it was warranted. The net result was a 22% increase in traffic for the targeted pages.

Read more Case Studies from Thrivepoint or contact us to discuss your business’ needs.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Halé Bob, a Los Angeles-based clothing company globally known for its unique style and celebrity clientele, employs its website as a key strategy in servicing its global client base, but the website itself was not producing the desired customer relationships or revenue impact. Some factors included: declining revenue during 2008-09 recession; most people leave the site without engaging; Poor performance from online marketing.

Thrivepoint Solution

Thrivepoint implemented Thrivepoint Engage™ – its proven marketing optimization solution – to:

• Completely map the conversion funnel and identify new engagement opportunities;
• Engineer design and message test to increase sales and signups while decreasing abandonment;
• Align online media, paid search and social media with the new strategy;
• Implement SEO on each page to increase organic traffic.

Implementation

Through the conversion funnel analysis, Thrivepoint established that repeat visitors were exponentially more likely to purchase and first-time purchases required a high frequency approach. Halé Bob’s current approach emphasized high reach and low frequency. Thrivepoint recommended implementing a conversion funnel that emphasized first time visitors signing up for remarketing programs that would provide them fashion exclusives and discounts on merchandise. Remarketing was defined as signing up for email, following Halé Bob’s Twitter profile or becoming a fan of Halé Bob on Facebook and the goal was to use these cost effective remarketing programs as the primary channel to introduce the higher frequency needed to turn one time visitors into repeat visitors and then customers.

With this strategy in place, Thrivepoint implemented website optimization consisting of offer, design, message and content testing on key website entry points — i.e., high traffic web pages — to maximize sales and signups to the remarketing programs. Through the course of website optimization, Thrivepoint also implemented search engine optimization by using proven messaging and content from the testing programs. Finally, the improved conversion flow and messaging were integrated with the paid advertising campaigns to ensure that ROI from paid media was maximized.

Campaign Results

The campaign has been a big success!  Declining revenue trends have been reversed and the channel is growing again.

Due to conversion optimization focused on the engagement model and conversion funnel, engagement rate from advertising increased 15x and overall site-wide engagement rate increased 851%.

Due to the improved conversion funnel and website usability, online advertising effectiveness increased allowing spend to grow by 3x which delivered an absolute increase in the size of the remarketing prospect database of 60% in just four months. Revved up remarketing efforts increased the quality and frequency of visitors to the site which contributed to higher visit to sales conversion rates and revenue. As a result, visit to sale conversion rate increased by 124% because visitors were introduced to remarketing programs and encouraged to come back to the site, which ensured that the quality of traffic to the site was continually increasing.

Thrivepoint continues to work with Halé Bob to optimize its marketing programs, website and search engine optimization.

Read more Case Studies from Thrivepoint or contact us to discuss your business’ needs.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

After listening to the panelists present case studies with results and innovations for testing, we asked the panel about risk management. Specifically, with client budgets on the line, what is the best approach to manage and limit risk from a testing regimen?

Surprisingly, the answer that the panelists unanimously agreed upon was, “It depends on how much the marketer is spending.”

To be fair, the panelists were there to promote the benefits of testing and thinking about the sample size needed to determine when a test has enough data to declare it the winner. However, the assumption that all tests are winners and that risk depends on how much the marketer is spending may not take into account the marketer’s best interests and business requirements.

A test by nature has unknown results and there is always an equal chance that the test will deliver very poor results. Risk management is not a subjective determination based on spend; it is an objective decision based on business requirements. Before setting up a testing regimen, it is critical that both marketer and agency have a discussion to determine and design what threshold of risk will be inherent in the test.

Simply put, before launching a test, always ask, “What is the downside?”

If you would like additional information on marketing tests and risk management, please contact a Thrivepoint Advisor.

© 2009. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

The news is filled with dire headlines and seemingly worse news everyday. The market appears to be moving to a more conservative state. Through all this, you still have a business to run and grow. Here are five best practices for your marketing to help you come out ahead during an uncertain economy.

Establish Metrics: Before you invest any money in marketing, write down what you expect to get in return. A metric helps you establish benchmarks and milestones for measuring spend. Most importantly, it helps you establish an eject button to stop spending if it is not working.

For example, If you spend $1,000 on advertising, how many customers do you expect to gain in return? Or how much revenue do you expect to earn? If you spend $1,000 and expect to have 100 new customers as a result, your metric would be to spend $10 per new customer. If after spending the first $200, you have only gained 5 new customers, you can project that after spending $1,000 you would only gain 25 customers or 1/4 your target. At that point, you can make the determination about whether to continue spending the full $1,000 or to cut bait and save the remaining $800.

Track Performance: We have all heard the adage that, “I know that half of my advertising doesn’t work. The problem is, I don’t know which half.” In a tough economy, having 50% of your advertising not work will quickly put you at a severe disadvantage. The way to improve is to employ reliable tracking to analyze the performance of your marketing and determine which ‘half’ is working. By using data to quantifiably determine what parts of your marketing and advertising are working, you will be able to increase your return on investment and your competitive advantage.

For example, if you run ads three days in a row, the tracking would help you determine which day or which message drove the most customers to your business. More importantly, if you are evaluating a marketing opportunity and do not see a way to definitively track results at a detailed level, then it might be worth putting that idea on hold.

Ensure Line of Sight: Line of sight refers to the complete relationship of your customer with your business from awareness to sale to repeat sale. If at any point in the process, line of sight is broken, it is likely that you will lose the customer and may not be able to find that person again.

Your goal right from the first advertising impression is to not let that conversation end and to keep the prospect engaged until you have had sufficient time to propose your products and services for their consideration. Whether you are a retail store offering sales or a web-based business registering users for a newsletter, not losing sight of each of your potential customers once you engage them is critical to marking the most of your marketing spend.

Implement a Testing Regimen: Testing is the foundation of smart marketing. By segmenting a small portion of your budget to test new ideas and messages, you will create a center of excellence within your marketing to continue to evolve and improve. Testing allows you to try new ideas without risking the overall performance of a campaign and when you identify ‘winning results’ to easily implement on a broader scale. Most importantly, as the market dynamics change, your marketing program will be designed to always be evaluating, improving and evolving itself to meet new market conditions.

Confirm Out Clauses: Before signing a contract with any provider, evaluate the payment terms and out clause to ensure that you can cancel should you not be happy with the results. Most marketing partners will offer an option where you can cancel for any reason with advance written notice. You will still be responsible for payment of all services prior to the end date, but you can put a stop to your spending should the results not be what you expected. Most importantly, be wary of any marketing partner who does not offer an out clause.

If you would like additional information on this topic or a free consultation on your marketing efforts, please contact a Thrivepoint advisor.

© 2008. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

The conversion rate is the number of visitors that come to your website who actually become leads or customers. In other words, if nine visitors buy from your website every day and your website has 150 visits per day, then your conversion rate is 6%. This metric is important because it helps you understand how effective your website is at ‘converting’ visitors to customers. More importantly, it lets you know the opportunity cost of the current performance of your website. In the example above, 94% of visitors leave without buy or buying or becoming a lead. This represents a significant opportunity for growth.

The first step in improving your conversion rate is to track your website visitors, leads and sales. To do this, you can purchase a website analytics package or install Google Analytics for free. We recommend using Google Analytics if you do not have experience with website analytics. It offers a very easy way to get started without the need to make an extensive investment in time and money.

Once you have installed analytics, the data will start flowing in and you can evaluate the performance of your website and marketing campaigns. These analytical attributions provide you clues about the make-up of your customers and offers you an opportunity to better tailor your website to serve them. For example, if your physical business is in Arizona, you may currently focus your website content to people from Arizona. But what if you see that 80% of your website visitors are actually from Florida? The analytics package enables you to see this data very easily and to start thinking about how to address potential customers from Florida as well as Arizona.

Customer data in hand, start designing opportunities for your website visitors to interact with you. Using the example above, 94% of visitors are leaving without a trace and no way to contact them again. Leverage the learnings you have about your users via analytics to create programs to build relationships with users who do not purchase directly from the site. Collecting contact information via newsletter subscriptions, product updates, product demos, free whitepapers, free research or other means is a great way to build a relationship with your customer.

Lastly, do not forget that building the website and implementing analytics is just the start. The best part of a website is that it is a living entity that can be amended and improved on an ongoing basis. We highly recommend that any company spending money to drive people to their website use Website Optimizer – for free – to test out different messages and pages to increase conversion rate. Using statistically driven testing can lead to dramatic improvements in performance especially if implemented as an ongoing regimen and practice.

If you would like additional information on this topic or a free consultation on your marketing efforts, please contact a Thrivepoint advisor.

© 2008. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Google Analytics is free but it does cost you when used to evaluate your Adwords campaign. It hides the most important piece of data when evaluating your campaign – the search query – and instead shows you the keyword you purchased. This seemingly minor distinction can make the costs of your Adwords campaign soar if you do not take steps to fix it.

First let’s define the difference between the keyword and query:

• The Keyword is the term used to target your advertisement.
• The Query is the term the user actually types into the search box.

Both Keyword and Query are usually different on each click transaction given the complicated nature of how Google, Yahoo and others’ algorithms match their ads. These sophisticated algorithms take your keywords and match it to queries it deems relevant to users. This is done to promote a good user experience but it also helps maximize their revenue by attempting to increase the amount of clicks each advertisement generates.

This approach works well for all parties so long as your goal is to generate relevant visits to your website. However, if you have a specific conversion goal in mind (like generating leads or sales) on your website, then the bluring of the difference between Keyword and Query by the algorithm will hurt your ability to effectively target your ads because of the default Broad match type which takes many liberties in targeting ads.

Looking at queries can help you pinpoint target the queries that are generating your conversions and get rid of those that do not. Generally, marketers use Website Analytics to look at the query log files to determine which queries drive traffic to your website and then adjust their keywords to save money from being spent on queries that are not driving conversions. However, Google Analytics does not let you see the query in its basic functionality. Using the 80/20 rule, you might find that 80% of your spend is on queries that do not work – - wouldn’t it be nice to spend that 80% on the queries that work?

Here is how you can start saving money today by looking at query analysis without switching from Google Analytics:

• Use the Google Adwords Query Report.
  • Pros: This report will show you the queries that generate impressions and clicks for your campaigns.
  • Cons: It tends to aggregate queries with low volume into an “other” category and unless you also use Google Conversion Tracker, it will not show you conversions.
• To take it a step deeper, you can customize your implementation of Google Analytics to track queries.
  • Pros: You can track both keywords and query side by side down to the conversion.
  • Cons: The implementation is relatively advanced so you may want to hire someone with specific experience doing this.

Contact us if you need help configuring Google Analytics to save money from your Adwords campaign.

Step 1: Understand your audience
To sell, you need to understand your customers. Start with a tight definition of the customer – who, where, how many. Then walk a mile in their shoes to try to understand their attitudes, needs, and wants. The more clarity you can bring to this process, the more successful you will be. The following two examples show two different definitions for the same service – a deli located near a college campus:

• Definition 1: College students
• Definition 2: Under-grad and grad students attending State University; Aged 21-24 (21+ drinking age); typically live off campus in local apartment complexes. Active fans of the university sports teams… etc, etc. etc.

Why define in this detail? Because it will be easier to identify your customer’s problems and to create solutions to meet their problems.

3rd party data and research is extremely helpful during this exercise. Great data can be found through business organizations, research companies or on the web. Just make sure to weigh the data carefully and it is usually a smart idea to find multiple sources of data to support any assertion you make.

Step 2: Identify their problem
Once you have a good definition and understanding of your target audience, then you can start to think about what problems they face every day and how your products or services can help them. Using the deli example above, you may identify problems such as:

• Lack of available food options for late night cramming during mid-term and finals
• Local games are not shown on local TV if there is not a sell-out
• Money is tight for college students
• Etc.

With the target customer’s problems in mind, you can create a smart marketing plan that will capture their attention and hopefully get them converted to a customer.

Step 3: State your solution
All things being equal, customers are usually focused on their needs, not your product. Communicating with the customer in their terms will help them quickly understand how your product or service fits into their life. If you simply state what the service or product is, then you are putting the burden on the customer to figure out if they want to buy from you. Continuing with the deli example:

• Example 1: “College Street Deli offers fresh sandwiches, salads and cold drinks.”
• Example 2: “You study. We cook. College Street Deli is open all night during finals week and this week offers free delivery of any of our fresh sandwiches 24 hours a day.”

Example 1 describes the service while example 2 provides a solution. For the cash-strapped, time-starved, tired student, which message is going to resonate more? The solution sells.

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These steps are the foundation of a good plan and will lead you to discussions about where to advertise, who to partner with, how to change your offering, etc.

And if you make the process fun, update your assumptions frequently, realize you are going to get some things wrong, and expect that things are going to change, you are going to build a powerful marketing machine that will ensure your ongoing growth and success.

Unlike a cocktail party where conversations are face to face, the web is anonymous which creates a seeming disadvantage to effectively communicating and carrying a conversation. However, the anonymity of a web audience, in particular when you analyze your own target web audience, can provide subtle clues as to the needs and intentions of the website visitor.

No one visits a website without a specific need – be it information, research, contacts, etc.. The thought you give to why your audience would anonymously visit your site can be used to your advantage to develop content and hooks that create more value for the website visitor and ultimately engages them in the long-term conversation. That visitor may not contact you right away, but by engaging the audience on their terms, you are building trust, credibility and value in their mind which may ultimately lead to them clicking that ‘contact us’ link.

This is where the content becomes critical – the longer you can keep the visitor engaged, the more likely they are to ‘speak up’. Content that delivers value to the visitor will create a memorable experience and increase the likelihood of that visitor to be engaged long enough to become a customer or visit the website again.

The best part is that improving your website likely only requires a minor shift in your schedule – carve out some time each month to think about your customers and about what value your website can provide to them. If you provide ongoing value to your anonymous website visitors, you will likely see dramatic improvements in your website’s overall contributions to your business.

If you would like additional information on this topic or a free needs assessment, please contact a Thrivepoint Advisor.

© 2008. Thrivepoint LLC. All Rights Reserved.