Nice to read fresh new data that support management acumen:

A recent study from the Corporate Executive Board said that the best thing a company can do in terms of its digital strategy is to “master its own web site” but, unfortunately, most are not currently doing so.

As we blogged earlier, the status quo for marketers is to focus and invest primarily in driving traffic to the site via off-site factors such as banners, affiliates, email, etc.

The problem is that marketers often forget their job doesn’t end there. Now what?

Now marketers must master what their anonymous web visitors are actually doing on the site: marketers can no longer (more…)

Need a Reason to Visit to Vancouver this September? Come to this amazing conference happening in Vancouver September 11 and 12: the IMC (Internet Marketing Conference)

Co-organizers Lennart Svanberg and Lars Johansson have attracted an incredible roster of speakers and participants from Europe, the United States, Canada, and Asia who are traveling to Vancouver, BC, Canada to take part in the conference. (more…)

No, seriously folks, this is big news:

Pew Research, a nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world, reports today that the percentage of internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one-half (49%).

With this increase, the number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60% of internet users who use email, arguably the internet is the all-time killer app…

In other words, your customers are using Search every day more than they did before and are becoming more sophisticated about their response once they land on your website – and on your competitors’ sites.

It’s high noon to make sure your landing pages are the best in town!

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This is the sixth posting in a series aimed at helping you as a Marketer evaluate conversion optimization services providers so you make the best possible decision of who to hire. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here and Part 5 here.

Q6: “What is expected from my team?”

When you hire a conversion optimization services provider, you must start off with a clear understanding of what will be expected from you and your team. If you don’t have this clear understanding, you may be in for a nasty surprise in terms of (more…)

This is the fifth posting in a series aimed at helping you as a Marketer evaluate conversion optimization services providers so you make the best possible decision of who to hire. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here and Part 4 here.

Q5: “Do you work with any of my marketing services partners?”

Your conversion optimization services provider must be able to work with your multiplicity of marketing partners and other services providers, and in this posting we explain why.

First, some context.

While we strongly believe that Conversion Optimization is crucial to a strong and profitable demand-generation strategy (and this is the focus of what we at WiderFunnel Marketing do), we are not narcissistic enough to believe (more…)

This is the fourth posting in a series aimed at helping you as a Marketer evaluate conversion optimization services providers so you make the best possible decision of who to hire. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

Q4: “Do you follow a specific methodology to optimization?”

There are lots of people “out there” who know how to use tools like Google Website Optimizer, Omniture’s Test & target, Optimost and such. (And this is especially true of Google Website Optimizer because it’s an easy to learn, free tool). However, very few of those people know how to increase revenues consistently by using the tool.

To know how to increase revenues by using a testing tool (more…)

This is the third series in a series of posting aimed at helping you as a Marketer evaluate conversion optimization services providers so you make the best possible decision of who to hire. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Q3: “What testing software does the services provider recommend?”

While technology is only a piece of the Conversion Optimization puzzle – it is a very important piece.

I have often listened to presentations where service providers use “testing” language but use no tools to run experiments. As a result, they are delivering nice-looking web designs but for sure they are not delivering statistically valid results!

(And, as anyone who has been reading our case studies or following this blog knows (more…)

At a time in the economic cycle when lead generation and sales enablement is most needed, when Marketers should be rethinking every investment they make and how it helps their company increase sales, a new and important study by the CMO Council comes out reporting that less than 20% of respondents say their Sales and Marketing organizations are extremely collaborative. (Read the report here) (more…)

After only a year as a beta version accessible only within Adwords, Google announced this morning that Google Website Optimizer is going out on its own as an independent non-beta product. And they’ve made it easier to use with its own signup form, more resources and a product information blog. (more…)