Topics, Trends and Techniques from Brooks Bell Interactive
Month: July, 2010
5 More Grammar Mistakes That Make You Look Bad
There’s nothing worse than spending hours working on a client proposal or presentation, only to see a glaring typo in the document after it’s gone out. Unfortunately, just one grammatical error can result in lost credibility in the eyes of a client.
If you missed my last blog post, 5 Grammar Mistakes That You Can’t Afford to Make I highly recommend reading that first. It covers common grammar pitfalls that most people fall victim to – like its or it’s, affect vs. effect, toward vs. towards, than vs. then and who vs. whom. Today I’m going to cover five more.
That vs. Which
This is a tough one that can hang up even the most seasoned writer. Basically the short answer is “that” introduces vital information (known as a restrictive clause) and “which” introduces non-vital, or extra, information (known as a nonrestrictive clause). Here’s an example: The car that I bought last summer, which previously belonged to my uncle, is in the shop.
See Brooks!
Brooks Bell, Founder and President of Brooks Bell Interactive, will be speaking at several places, coming up in the near future. Here’s some more info:
Conversion Conference, San Francisco
August 19, 2010, 10:45 a.m.
“Getting Started with Split Testing”
Simple split testing is a powerful tool when used properly and should be the starting point for all landing page testing programs. Understand when split testing is appropriate, how to design your testing strategy, and what elements to test in this informative session. See real life examples of split testing producing powerful results.
Conversion Conference, Washington, DC
October 4, 2010, 10:15 a.m.
“The Power of Split Testing”
Triangle Interactive Marketing Association (TIMA) Lunch and Learn, Marbles Museum, Raleigh, NC
October 13, 2010, 11:30 a.m.
“Testing, 1, 2, 3: Getting Your Split Testing Plan Off the Ground and Running”
Triangle Interactive Marketing Association (TIMA) Lunch and Learn, Hotel Indigo, Raleigh, NC
December 8, 2010, 11:30 a.m.
Panel moderator: “Interactive Marketing in 2011 and Beyond”
Hope to see you at one of these events!
Social Validation’s Influence on Online Consumers (Part Deux): Tactics
My blogpost entitled Social Validation’s Influence on Online Consumers demonstrated that online consumers typically choose the product, service, movie, restaurant, etc. that received the most favorable ratings and reviews. By reassuring the consumer that they’re making the correct choice, the anxiety that might have prevented them from pulling the trigger is eliminated. “If 50 people purchased this product and gave it 5 stars, then it must be the best. I simply must have it!”
So now that we’ve established the theory of social validation, how can we as marketers take advantage?
Where are you getting the conversions?
I recently created a site to post about online marketing analytics stuff. I haven’t out right promoted it yet, so the traffic isn’t much. However, of the traffic I do get, 50% comes from Twiter– 41% specifically from the ones I tweet out. How do I know this? I put campaign tracking codes on all the tweets I send out that generate traffic to my site.
Anyway, let’s note that Twitter is the main driver of traffic to my site. It’s clearly working better than the other channels so far, so if my goal is to generate more traffic, I should focus on getting more followers. I had a Twitter button on the sidebar, so at least that’s a start.
So I thought about it some more and decided I should test to see if I added another Twitter button on the bottom of each post, that would generate more followers.
How DIRECTV’s Triggered Email Hurt More Than It Helped
Triggered email campaigns are a great way to stay top of mind with customers/subscribers. They are relatively hands free after implementation (aside from necessary testing and optimization that should take place) and can be quite successful. But the trigger email I received from DIRECTV last week did more harm than good.
Let me first start off by saying I love DIRECTV. They are a brand that I am very passionate about. This is partially why I will be so harsh on them right now. Here’s the story:
A couple of days ago I decided to rent the movie The Book of Eli through the DIRECTV Cinema feature. I had seen the movie in the theatre and it’s brilliantly shot and I wanted to watch it with my sister who is an ordained minister… anyway, the point is, it was the type of moment where you speak highly of a movie and you can’t wait to watch it with someone so they can hopefully share in your excitement.
