An "Unfair" Advantage on the Web: Director of Conversion

There are still huge opportunities to get a competitive advantage on the Web. Naturally, I believe that being a leader in conversion strategy is one of those opportunities. While "progressive" marketing departments are creating positions such as "Director of Search Marketing" to build traffic to their sites, a company that markets online courses is taking the lead where it counts: at the point of action.

For most marketing departments, conversion is a metric. For this company it is a discipline worthy of a director level position. In creating the Director of Conversion position they are saying:

• We want to fully leverage the qualified traffic we are getting to our Web properties
• We want to get the most from our advertising spends
• We want to provide our visitors with the information and experience they are looking for
• We want to kick our competitors' asses

Does your business need a Director of Conversion? The company was kind enough to provide us with the text of the job description that they used to find their Director of Conversion. I will say that it was a long search, but the conversion team is dealing in terms of orders of magnitude improvements in conversion and new clients.

Imagine what this team will know about their market in a year.

Following is the full job description, and I think they nailed it.

Job Description

Position: Director of Website Conversion

Reports to: Chief Marketing Officer

Supervisory Responsibility: Site Conversion team

Job Description:

As the owner of the presentation layer of our websites, you and your team are responsible for optimizing our conversion from site traffic to lead inquiry and student production across all web sites, micro sites, and landing pages in the company. Project management, web site usability, testing methodologies (A/B and multi-variant), and managerial skills are required as you will be expected to generate, execute and analyze the results of a testing plan for each website in our rapidly growing portfolio of university partnerships. In this highly visible role, you’ll partner with business unit leaders and other core process owners to positively impact the lives of thousands of people each year and improve ROI for our partner schools and fellow employees.

Ideal candidates will have a combination of extensive HTML experience, solid project management ability and past responsibility for managing a team.  This person should have an understanding of the general concepts related to content management systems, search engine optimization, web analytics and user experience design.  A strong set of communication skills is also essential, as the Director of Website Conversion will work closely with many departments company wide. 

A. Daily Duties:

1. Responsible for hands-on development of the front-end presentation for all company student facing program web sites
2. Stay informed of continuing developments in the industry and apply best practices.
3. Recruit, select, train, performance manage, and develop staff
4. Continually improve ROI for dollars invested through this phase of the value chain company wide.
5. Lead and manage a team engaged in implementing tests, building new and maintaining existing web sites at the sales and marketing level (presentation layer).
6. Develop systems to ensure quality and optimize for high volume throughput
7. Collaborate with business unit, infrastructure groups and other core process leaders to plan tests for marketing message, new sales tools and lead generation features, promotional offers, impact of graphical elements like, colors, logo’s, layout, etc.
8. Ensure exceptional quality and usability of all web sites, while optimizing performance and scalability

B. Weekly Duties:

1. Design multi-variant tests to achieve maximum insight in the shortest time possible
2. Develop measure and publish key metrics for site conversion per web site and roll up company-wide
3. Serve as functional process owner on Operations team
4. Publish key learning’s for the benefit of other stakeholders and roll global enhancements across all sites
5. Work in partnership with the IT team to define optimal technology solutions and processes for constructing web applications
6. Work in partnership with various business owners from sales, marketing and product management to ensure the successful launch of short and long term initiatives

C. Monthly Duties:

1. Formally record test variations and results for later reference
2. Manage departmental costs to meet or spend less than budget
3. Apply knowledge gained in accumulating test results into new web sites created
4. Develop and maintain testing plans for each web site and landing page
5. Determine length of test to reach statistical significance for data set
6. Formally present summarized test results to operating team.

D. Annual Duties:

1. Review and refresh team training materials
2. Develop and maintain job descriptions and conduct annual performance reviews
3. Participate as department head in the budgeting process
4. Provide strategic input toward the future evolution of the department and function as the company grows.
5. Develop standards and document best practices as it relates to the web sites development
6. Conduct research into current and emerging Web technologies and issues in support of on-line initiatives; identify influencing industry developments and trends; present recommendations to management in clear and concise manner

Qualifications:

1. Bachelor’s degree in related field or an equivalent combination of skills, training and hands-on experience
2. At least 2-5 years experience designing high-impact web sites using emerging technologies, including management responsibility in an on-line technology environment
3. Familiarity with web site analytics/web site statistics software, such as Google Analytics, Web Trends, etc.
4. At least 2 years experience selecting, managing, and growing teams of at least 3-6 staff members
5. Ability to manage, motivate and teach a team of front end web designers to successfully deliver multiple, concurrent projects with quality
6. Strong organizational skills and attention to detail required
7. Proficient with Microsoft Office
8. Strong analytical and problem solving skills. Ability to work at management level, but willingness and acumen to provide hands-on support when necessary.
9. Experience with testing methodologies as used in marketing practice
10. Project management experience with formal training preferred
11. Expert knowledge of web-based presentation layer technologies, including HTML, CSS, XHTML; solid understanding of content management systems; experience with AJAX and Javascript a plus
12. Knowledge of search engine optimization techniques and experience leveraging web analytics tools to gain insight into user behavior
13. Knowledge of the principles of user-centered design;  experience facilitating usability testing

I don't think I would have changed a thing about this job description. Thanks to Jeff Hoogendam for his contribution.

MarketingSherpa Weighs in on Using Personas to Lift Revenue

If you don't get to this content before March 26, signup for a MarketingSherpa trial to get this case study on Personas.

In this case study from H20+, Sherpa give us seven steps for creating and using Personas. I wanted to weigh in.

1. Start with what you know

The beauty of personas is that, by developing them, you are really just organizing what you already know about your customers and Web visitors.

2. Talk to people who interact with your customers

The case study calls out customer service reps, sales people and technical support reps as sources for knowledge that can be shaped into personas. Smaller companies will want to include founders, product managers and marketing managers.

3. Dig into your data

This is pretty intuitive, but don't let a lack of data keep you from developing a set of personas. It is better to market to a specific "wrong" visitor than it is to market to nobody.

4. Identify the holes

Often times, we don't know some of the key reasons that people take action. What information are you not considering?

5. Fill in the blanks

Surveys, focus groups and such are really only effective when you're trying to answer specific questions. You already know what you know. Use these tools to find out what you don't know.

6. Name your personas

I'd go a step further and say give them names that will invoke their personality and role. Some of the persona names I've developed include Naive Nick, Penny Planner, Larry Leftbrain, and Victor Visionary. I also attach a picture of them to each profile.

7. Refine Personas

When developing personas for Web marketing, I recommend updating personas with each analytics review -- typically once per month. The changes may not be significant, but if you realize you're missing a segment of your visitors, you can add new personas immediately. This is better than waiting a year.

I'll also add the following suggestion provided by Lynn Pausic from Expero, Inc. in her presentation to the Bootstrap Network in January:

8. Put your personas up on a Wiki

All too often the personas are shoved into a drawer or buried on someone's hard drive. Put them on a wiki where they can be easily accessed and updated by the entire staff.

Needless to say, you should be subscribe to MarketingSherpa's free best-of newsletter.

MarketingSherpa: How to Use Personas to Lift Revenue 500% in 7 Easy-to-Follow Steps

#11 Do You Understand Signaling Theory

261 Questions

"Yes. Absolutely," he said with some aplomb, yet his head shook back and forth tightly as he spoke the words. Immediately, I felt a twinge of concern that I hadn't been heard or understood. I wanted him to get my point. I felt strongly about it. His mouth spoke the words I wanted to hear. His head signaled something different.

Either he wasn't listening or he was thinking something more than his words communicated. Maybe he was tired of listening to me. In the parlance of Tom Wanek, this was counter-signaling. I recently saw Tom's presentation at the Wizard Academy on Signaling Theory. He gave me permission to summarize it here.

Signaling: Aligning actions with words to gain credibility and trust in your marketing.

UPDATE: Tom Wanek is teaching the workshop Fight the Big Boys and Win at the Wizard Academy near Austin, Texas May 13-14. Free meals and lodging for first 12 students.

The Costs of Signaling

There is a cost to making action and communication match. In the case of my friend, he could have paid with better attention, or with honesty about his doubts. Tom would have called the first a "Time and Energy" cost; the latter an "Opportunity Cost" in that he may have insulted me and lost all opportunity with me.

The key to credibility is the cost of aligning word and action. If you pay the cost, you can gain the credibility.

Tom identified six Signaling Costs in his presentation.

Material Wealth (or your businesses' resources)

To build credibility, don't make claims that the business hasn't made real.

If you're going to offer a warranty as proof of your quality, you're going to have to give some money back. That's a material cost

If you're going to taut your great customer service, you're going to have to hire excellent people to service your customers. That's a real investment of salary dollars.

If you're going to claim industry-leading technology (please never use this terminology) you've got to invest in technology that offers more than your competitors. That's a real capital expenditure.

Time and Energy

Where does the business you're marketing for focus its energy? At Conversion Sciences, I would get more leads if I led with my SEO or SEM resources. It's what people are looking for today. But I spend 75% of my time on Conversion Analysis. Hence, I focus my brand and messaging on conversion. For example, my title is "Conversion Specialist." Better than "Online Marketing Specialist," this signals where I invest my time.

By this time next year, everyone will know what "conversion" means.

Opportunity

What opportunities are you willing to pass by so that you can signal clearly?

This is the cost that marketing to personas illuminates. In the process of focusing your marketing message on a few visitor personas, you must stop messaging to some segment of your visitorship. That's the opportunity cost.

Tom uses the example of  Toyota's Scion brand, which is targeted and signals to buyers 18 to 24 with non-conformist tendencies. It was a success and they could have significantly expanded the market to older, more conformist buyers. But they felt they would have lost their core buyers. So the capped production and maintained their targeted message.

That's a real opportunity cost.

Power and Control

The social marketing movement has caused us to begin considering this cost. Anytime you let visitors and customer post on your site, you lose power and control. Facebook recently counter-signaled it's community by trying to take back some control with their Beacon advertising platform. This unilateral action was not in alignment with their signaling that said the users owned and controlled their Facebook experience.

Reputation and Prestige

Standing for what you believe can cost you in reputation and prestige. Tom uses the example of Patagonia, a clothing manufacturer that, in the midst of thriving turned "green." They now only offer environmentally-friendly products. Naturally, a portion of their loyal customer base found this to be "preachy" or alarmist. It was inevitable that their reputation would suffer, but the owner decided to signal his beliefs and, by proxy Patagonia's values.

Safety and Well-being

The most extreme example of paying the price of safety and well-being is "betting the company" on an idea or marketing message. Putting your entire marketing budget into Superbowl ad is one example.

Lifelock CEO Todd Davis published his Social Security Number in the company's marketing and advertising. This was bold, and seems to have worked well for them. Of course, if he'd been hacked, the company would have been humiliated and all credibility lost.

The Benefits Must Exceed the Cost

My friend Jeffrey Peltier is an incredibly knowledgeable search marketer. Yet, he doesn't have a Web site. Not even a blog. He has great referral business and the cost of maintaining a site that would pass muster for a search "expert" is too high. While his competition is spending time on their Web site, he's spending time making customers LOVE -- and talk about -- his results.

More From Tom

It is always a treat to spend time at the Wizard Academy, and this past Tuesday's Open House was no exception. The Academy is about understanding communication. The ideas you'll find are generally new ways of looking at how we deliver and absorb messages.

Tom Wanek will be presenting a workshop at the Wizard Academy in the coming months. Enter your email below, and I'll remind you with a post when the date has been finalized.

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#10 Are You Brave Enough to Give Web Visitors What They Want?

Am I a Marketing Sheep? 261 Questions.

"You're nuts."

That's what Justin Singer of SMBology reports hearing from roughly half of the people he's heard from about the Competitors page on his Web site.

Yes, he lists all of his competitors on his Web site. Furthermore, it's a main navigation link.

No, it's not smart to connect potential customers to your competitors, unless that is what they want.

So, who wants to know who your competitors are? According to Justin, its the other half of the people he talks to. In a competitive market (there are 28 competitors listed on his site), Justin wants to differentiate his business on trust. With one word on his home page, he communicates the following:

If we were trying to pull a fast one on you; if we weren't willing to stand behind our service; if we didn't believe we were the best solution for you, would we put a list of competitors on our Web site?

There is no doubt that Justin is losing potential business because some of his visitors will check out his competitors. But, he believes he's gaining the right customers by demonstrating that SMBology is trustworthy supplier who's not afraid to stand side by side with others in the market.

Justin wants to do business with those customers who say "that's gutsy. That's who I want handling my IT services."

In every marketing campaign there are those things that we as marketers know will land with our target audience. When good marketing messages conflict with knee-jerk fears about "looking corporate;" when effective copy is dumbed down so that no one gets left out, are you prepared to defend your best prospects' needs and desires?

Question #9: Do You Show the Product?

Am I a Marketing Sheep? 261 Questions

Advertising Strategy #1: Show the product.

Advertising Strategy #2: Talk about a benefit.

Advertising Strategy #3: Show the product again.

A Coremetrics study reveals that video product tours increase sales conversions. I could go on about how engaging or immersive product video tours are, but I think that's missing the point.

I truth, I think we just do a crappy job of showing the product on the Web. Product tours work because they are the opposite of crappy.

But, don't get hung up on the effort required to generate video or flash product tours. You can increase conversions by simply having lots of high resolution pictures of your products from as many angles as you can think of.

Services Businesses Aren't Off the Hook

If you can't think of a way to "show the product" just because you're a services business, then you're not thinking creatively enough.

How about those pictures of pleasant-looking ladies smiling with their headsets on? That's a pretty good way to "show" customer service.

Spokespeople are a great way to "show" a service. How is the Go Daddy Girl showing a domain registration and hosting service? Well, she just is.

Your whitepapers should have pictures of the report as if it were printed. Let the user click on the image to get a large (e.g. readable) image of the cover.

Your testimonials and case studies should have pictures of the smiling customers with them. They are the product.

When you can't show the product as a services business, your only alternative is to blather on about your service. And that's what we sheep do.

Video Product Tours Yield 35% Increase in Online Sales Conversion - MarketingVOX

Photo Credits: Capqros, panda68

Why You Have Time to Use Personas

Jason at 37signals made a great point about personas.

You are already using them.

However, the ones you're using are probably versions of you. If not, the personas you are using is an amalgam of the last customers you talked to.

And furthermore, the person writing your copy is using a persona: himself. The person doing your design is designing for a persona: their last customer.

And the beat goes on.

Then you review the work and ask them to nudge it to be a little bit more like you, or maybe just your last customer. No wonder your site continues to be a mix of headings, copy, images and navigation all working against each other.

Pick personas that will work for you. Do an intimate profile so that everyone can understand who they're working for.

It's powerful stuff. And you won't have to redesign the site over again when the one you have fails to deliver.

Ask 37signals: Personas? - (37signals)

Thanks to Brian Eisenberg for the pointer.

Photo courtesy gun.

Personas Do More Than Increase Conversion Rates

There was a long pause. "Wow, that could be our tag line."

I was on the phone with three executives of a $150 million telecommunications services company. We were in the middle of a Conversion Analysis Interview in which I was taking them through the process of organizing what they already knew about their customers.

The process includes discovering the core benefits of each of the "features" of what they offer. In this case, we uncovered new ways to look at and talk about the business.

The interview is part of a process designed to create Personas, or "named profiles that represent members of each key customer group, and describe their characters, personalities, tastes, and quirks." Once we're done with the process, then entire team -- copywriters, designers, marketers -- talk in a different way about their visitors.

"Tom Techie isn't going to relate to this copy."

"Mary Meticulous needs a more detailed spec sheet on the site."

"We'll put a big read button in the header for Peter Paniced."

Tom, Mary and Peter are Personas, virtual stand-ins for larger segments of my clients' visitors. The names draw to mind intimate details about each persona and give the entire team a uniform focus.

People can relate to people easier than they can relate to analytics reports.

Unexpected Benefits

In almost every one of the conversion interviews I've done over the past year, we've accomplished more than we expected to.

• We've simplified messages by boiled long lists of feature statements into a few core benefits
  
• We've reduced the workload of marketing teams by making it intuitive to prioritize content development
  
• We've redefined the company tag line or value statement
  
• We've gotten previously unheard salespeople into the marketing process
  
• We've helped executives understand "what the hell was the marketing team thinking" when proposing experimental projects.

We've also increased conversion rates and revenues.

If I haven't personally introduced you to Conversion Analysis using Personas, then read this InternetRetailer.com article for a great summary of what they are and why they work. Thanks to GrokDotCom.com for the reference.

InternetRetailer.com - Persona-lizing a site

GrokDotCom.com

Photo Courtesy bigevil600

So Is This Just a Link Bait Article?

For those of us with short attention spans, lists with more than 5 things on them often get passed over. Stoney deGeyter fails to expound upon his great little list of ways to keep our visitors sailing on toward conversion, which makes it perfect for us Spontaneous types.

But is this just a link-bait article that Stoney tossed together to generate links back to his site and raise his page rank?

There are some things in here that designers will rebel against, such as "Navigation must maintain simplicity of use." This means that three-tiered auto-rollout javascript menus are a BAD IDEA.

Has your designer ever wanted to do something cool, like put navigation in bubbles around some central image? Stoney's got it stone cold. "Location of main navigation should be near the top and/or left side of the page."

Some of these things don't necessarily make design sense, but are now Web conventions. An example of this is the requirement that the company logo ("Site Indicator") link to the home page, rather than the contact us page or the CEO's blog.

Link Bait?

Stoney has a good SEO back-link to his company's site in his sidebar bio "search engine marketing company." However, the destination of that link is hopelessly broken.

The URL tells us that this page wants to contain quotes, perhaps a testimonial page. If Stoney's building the page rank of this page, he's wasting energy.

Stoney's written a number of articles for ISEdb and there is value there, so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Yes, this article is link bait, and it's done in the right way: by providing good content.

20 Ways to NAVIGATE to Higher Conversions by Stoney deGeyter

Brian Massey