change  December 16, 2010

Brian Sullivan, Technical Director

I can’t even count how many times I’ve been in this situation: I finish some great piece of functionality for a project. It has all the bells and whistles. It functions well and looks even better. Then I test it in Internet Explorer (IE) and it all falls apart.

This isn’t an IE-bashing post. Nor is it a list of IE6’s myriad shortcomings. For better or for worse, IE is here to stay. And IE6, the worst of the worst, is here at least until 2014. But just because Microsoft has committed to keeping IE6 on life support until then, does that mean we must do the same?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is ^%&$* *&^#%!!!....(plaintive sigh)… yes.

Despite the best efforts of those who would like to bring down IE6 now, despite the fact that IE6’s market share is in freefall, and despite the fact that Google has dropped the hammer, IE6 (as of this writing) still commands more market share than Safari and Opera combined. But we’re getting close to the tipping point where we can finally put IE6 in the same category as these other things that were popular in 2001:

IE6 users: Who are these people?
I’ll admit there must be some people who made a conscious decision to stick with IE6. Not many, but they’re out there. Maybe IE7 interferes with their other software – or maybe they’re just trying to be retro. There are also those who are happy with their Pentium II running Windows 98, ME, or 2000 and can’t upgrade, and those who are running Windows XP but skipping browser updates because they are on dialup.

But the largest segment of IE6 users is corporate IT departments who won’t upgrade. Whether they’re putting it off because of cost concerns or because their company intranet only works on IE6, corporate users are the last holdouts. After office hours, IE6 usage drops by over 50%.

The solution? Know your audience
So, how can you determine what level of IE6 support to offer? By answering one question: “Who will be accessing my content?”

If you’re building an internal reporting dashboard that will be viewed only by corporate users, just find out what browser they’ll be using. If you’re rebuilding an existing site or have access to a site with a similar audience, you can learn everything you need to know from your server logs or analytics platform.

Otherwise, you may be able to make certain assumptions about your audience based on the type of site you’re running. For example, if it’s a tech blog, your visitors may skew in the Firefox direction. But if it’s an online store for plumbing supplies, expect to see more IE6 folks.

What you absolutely shouldn’t do is not check. If your site looks terrible in IE6, that doesn’t tell your users, “We’re so cutting-edge that we refuse to support outdated technology.” It tells them, “We’re sloppy.”

Support, don’t enable
We can’t quite drive a stake through IE6’s heart yet. But that doesn’t mean we have to give it the same attention we give to… *cough*… real browsers. In fact, most IE6 users are probably used to things not looking quite right. There’s a point at which rewriting a whole section of JavaScript code, adding CSS hacks, or dumbing down your site to accommodate these users just doesn’t make sense.

If IE6 users can access your content, fill out your form, and do whatever else they came to your site to do, then you probably shouldn’t bend over backwards to make sure they have an identical experience to non-luddites. In fact, it might even be a good idea to prod them a bit.

Five Steps to Tweeting Without Being a Twit

Sean Shoffstall, Director of Product Marketing

For many brands today, social media is a touchy subject. Figuring out how to get your message out there (and where) is often a daunting task for marketing departments.

You hear about it from executives: “Why aren’t we on Twitter?” You hear about it from agencies: “For only X dollars per month, we can put you on Facebook!” But what does social media accomplish if you don’t get out the right message, can’t track engagement – or worse yet, make a mockery of your brand in the social media space?

Fear not! Social media can be fun and profitable if you take the right precautions. Follow this easy five-step process as the starting point for your company’s social media success. It all centers on being L.A.S.E.R.-focused.

Listen
Too many companies jump into the social media space without taking the most important step: listening. Social media isn’t about your brand – it’s about your customers. With tools such as ScoutLabs, Visible Technologies, Radian 6, and a host of others, you can listen in on how your customers perceive you and your competitors’ brands. These tools give you instant insight into not only how and where your customers are talking about you, but also the sentiments of those conversations.

Analyze
Now that you have the tools to listen, be sure to analyze who your customers are and when and where they are active. The answers may surprise you. Facebook and Twitter aren’t the only social media avenues – you may find that other platforms make two-way conversations easier. For example, blogs, forums, YouTube, and Flickr might be more appropriate for your audience.

Find your advocates and detractors; see how they lead their networks to learn key messages. This analysis can also reveal new keywords or phrases your customers are using that you can incorporate into your website or marketing campaigns. Look for trends among your key advocates, and don’t forget to do some research on your competitors’ pain points.

Strategize
Now that you know whom to engage with and where, the next step is how. If you really want social media to work for you, you have to work for your customers (are you starting to see a common theme?).

Who in your organization will be part of the social media team? Think outside the marketing box. Look deep in IT, operations, PR, and even among your administrative staff and interns. Create guidelines to help people understand where to engage (but it is not always best to tell them how to engage). For most organizations, it’s enough to provide employees with simple rules such as, “Keep it professional” and “Our brand stands for X,” and to provide them with paths of escalation for when issues are beyond their expertise.

The last step in strategizing is tracking. What are your goals and how do you measure them? Be smart about using URL shorteners such as bit.ly to embed tracking codes and drive people to landing pages or specific content pages. Make sure your analytics system can properly credit social media sites for referrals. Just for fun, here are a few of my favorite social media KPIs: Sentiment, Message Amplification, Number of Advocates, and Employee Involvement.

Engage
Notice that the “E” in L.A.S.E.R. doesn’t stand for Execute. It stands for Engage, because this is a conversation. Prepare to engage your prospects – not just today, but over the long haul. You might start by presenting a contest or commenting on a blog. The key is to offer something specifically for your readers.

You’ll run into detractors. Craft a plan to turn them into advocates. Meanwhile, provide your advocates with tools to carry your message to their followers. Always remember: this is one of the easiest ways for your customers to engage with you, whether you are in the B2B or B2C space.

Report
In the Strategize phase, you defined your metrics and KPIs. Now, see how you’ve moved the needle. Using listening tools and properly tracked URLs, you can gain significant insight into the effectiveness of your social media. Don’t necessarily expect social media campaigns to drive direct sales (although sometimes they do), but see how they increase awareness of your brand. They may surprise you and help reduce your support costs, or they may simply help drive downloads. In any case, report results constantly and update your strategy according to the results you’re seeing.

With a L.A.S.E.R.-focused approach, you’ll not only engage your customers how and where they want, but also be able to understand the value of those interactions. Don’t forget that your customers are your best sales people. Keep them happy and give them the tools to engage with you.

A final thought: While many of us still tend to think of social media as being “out there,” we have ample opportunities on our sites and in our marketing communications to let our customers engage with us. Provide tools (such as forums) that allow two-way communication. On your web pages and event sites and in your marketing communications, give your customers a way to amplify your message through sharing technologies such as ShareThis. Above all, never forget: social media is about your customers, not your brand.

Elodie Bouneau, Ozone Marketing Intern

Ah, the landing page. It’s all too easy to slap one together as an afterthought to a lead generation campaign. After all, if a prospect has gone this far, you’ve probably got him in the bag, right?

Unfortunately, we online marketers often turn off landing page visitors right before they become leads – and then blame our lackluster campaign results on the offer, the list, or some other element.

How can you turn an underperforming landing page into the ultimate lead machine? Here are some guidelines:

Drive Your Prospects Towards Your Offer
Why did you build a landing page in the first place? That’s right: to convince each prospect to take one specific action. You want him to sign up for your newsletter, download a free trial, or buy your product.

To keep your prospect moving towards the goal:

• Don’t give options. If you offer your prospect the choice of buying either the standard or premium version of your product, she may mull it over for a few moments, give up, and leave your site. Instead, offer only one option per landing page.
• Make the offer easy to get. State your call to action at least two or three times throughout your page. Make a big, bright, appealing call-to-action button, and place it in highly visible locations.
• Be brief. If you’re asking prospects to provide contact information, keep the form short enough that they’ll be able to complete it before distractions arise.

Keep it Simple
According to Interactive Marketing, Inc., the largest percentage of landing page visitors leave within 8 seconds. The lesson? It doesn’t take much to turn off a website visitor.

A good offer speaks for itself. So, there’s no need to clutter a landing page with graphics and special effects. Instead, keep things simple, professional, consistent, and easy to read:

• Make sure there’s enough color contrast between your background and font.
• Use no more than two fonts per page: one for your headline and one for your body copy. Also, use boldface and italics sparingly.
• If you’re using photos and videos to engage prospects, keep them professional – and remember, less is more. 
• Keep your header, product name, and first call-to-action above the fold. Most people don’t like to scroll.

Earn Their Trust
Before your visitors pull out their credit cards, they’ll want to know they’re buying a good product from a reputable merchant. Your landing page can build trust by including:

• The logos of any security technologies you use, such as Trust-E Web, HackerSafe, or Verisign
• The logos of your big-name, well-respected partners
• Quotes from third-party reviews of your product
• Brief customer testimonials

Keep Improving
Don’t settle for “good.” Keep shooting for higher conversion rates. To do so, you’ll need to set up a tracking system. Here’s an easy way to get started:

1. Install a unique visitor tracker on your landing page. Then, to calculate your conversion rate, simply divide your total number of conversions against the total number of unique visitors for the same time period.
2.  Use this data to gauge the effectiveness of the improvements you’re making on the landing page.
3. When you’re ready to dive into hardcore testing, try the amazing Google Website Optimizer. The multivariate testing feature lets you test different variables repeatedly so you can identify which ones are working best. Even small tweaks can have a noticeable effect on your results. Where to begin testing? Conversion Rate Experts has written an in-depth guide to using Google Website Optimizer.

Never stop looking for ways to clarify your content, simplify your design, and earn your prospects’ trust as you lure them towards your offer. Your conversion rates will improve – and your bottom line will be sure to follow.