Sunday, October 05, 2008

The Wit and Wisdom of David Ogilvy

by Dean Rieck

David Ogilvy was a college dropout, a chef, a door-to-door salesman, and a copywriter. Starting with no clients and a staff of two, he built one of the largest advertising agencies in the world.

He promoted the principles of testing and research and was a believer in the power of direct response advertising, which he considered his secret weapon.

On July 21, 1999, David Ogilvy passed away, leaving behind a legacy of effective selling principles. The most basic of which — one that far too many people forget — is that the purpose of advertising is to sell. That was the idea behind what may be his most famous quote, the first in the list below. But it underscores virtually everything else he said as well.

"If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative."

"Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product."

"I once used the word OBSOLETE in a headline, only to discover that 43 per cent of housewives had no idea what it meant. In another headline, I used the word INEFFABLE, only to discover that I didn't know what it meant myself."

"On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar."

"The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything."

"The consumer isn't a moron. She is your wife."

"The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be."

"The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace."

"There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about 50 per cent more readers."

"What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it."

"You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with something dull. When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire."

"Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine."

"Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them."

"Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals."

"I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information."

"If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out — either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time."

"Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything."

One of David Ogilvy's practices was to make new hires work in direct response advertising for at least a year to learn sales techniques that work. More agencies should follow this practice. I think Mr. Ogilvy would agree with me that direct response principles are widely applicable and could greatly improve all forms of advertising and marketing regardless of the medium.

It was true when he said it. It's true today. It will be true tomorrow. "If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative."

Copyright © 2003 Dean Rieck. All Rights Reserved.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

David Ogilvy - prophet of the digital age?

Over the past couple of weeks a number of bloggers have picked up on an old address by David Ogilvy, filmed in Bombay (now Mumbai) back in the 1970s and now available on YouTube.

The great man’s talking about what was then called “direct response advertising” - now known of course as “direct marketing”.

One blogger, Joe Reis of Androids (http://androidsagency.com), says: “The original ad man, David Ogilvy, gives a prophetic talk about the collision course of direct response and general creative advertising. I’m impressed (although not surprised) about how relevant his ideas of measurable media have grown in alongside the web.”

Another, Efraín Mendicuti (http://thedailyandthenotso.blogspot.com), comments: “Tell me you wouldn’t want to have him as THE ambassador for digital/on-line marketing today”.

But don’t take my word for it, click on the YouTube video below and judge for yourself. Just subsititute “direct response advertising” for “online marketing”.

Always be Testing!

Doing A/B or Multivariate testing to optimize your site used to require some in-house programming expertise or expensive 3rd party software. Thankfully, Google has provided us with a free alternative, Google Website Optimizer. While it may not offer every feature some of the other solutions provide, it is quite an elegant solution and getting better regularly.

Since Google Website Optimizer is free, there is no excuse for not testing regularly. Rather than spending money on more expensive testing tools, focus those resources on creating better copy and imagery. So there are no more excuses for not testing regularly. Remember what Claude Hopkins wisely said in 1923,

Almost any question can be answered cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that’s the way to answer them—not by arguments around a table. Go to the court of last resort—buyers of your products.

Now take action
  1. Do not be afraid to test.
  2. Sign up for and set up Google Optimizer
  3. Write down the 5 things that concern you most about your site and then test them.
Enjoy!

Stay tuned for my next article, tip 9, "Improve the form of your web forms."

Be ready and willing to help

In the e-business world, your customer service, the degree to which you keep your customer delighted, starts the instant he or she lands on your web site. Online, customer service isn’t where you go when you have a problem, and it certainly isn’t what happens after the sale is completed. It is everything that goes into creating a superior online shopping experience from start to finish.

During the buying process, there are a host of questions that are raised. Answer these questions even before your customers think of them. Incorporate it into your selling process so that customers won’t have to leave their buying process in search of answers. In combination with prominent customer service contacts, visitors will gain confidence with their purchase. Reassure your customers that you are there, ready and willing to assist in all questions and concerns and longing to build a relationship with them.

Now take action

a) Keep the visitors engaged with the active window and the buying process, providing an easy and smooth path to the checkout and you’ll surely see higher conversions.

Enjoy!

Stay tuned for a great article, tip 8, "Always Be Testing!"

Point a critical eye to your check out process

Getting the visitor to “add to cart” is only half the battle. You’ve got to keep the momentum going throughout the checkout. A simple checkout is a good checkout, but you also have to answer all of the visitor’s questions as they’re going through the process. There are a few rules that all sites should adhere to when trying to put together an easy checkout that gives the visitor the information they need to make the purchase.

Now take action
  1. Eliminate unnecessary steps. Don’t put to much focus on upselling (upsell in the cart, or upsell on the confirmation page and retro-add it to the order for bonus points) and only ask for information that is completely necessary in completing the transaction.
  2. Let the visitor know that you value their privacy and you have a secured site.
  3. Don’t keep the visitor in the dark about anything—clearly let the visitor know about shipping, return and tax issues.
  4. Remind them what they’re buying ;)
There are many other things that you have to take into account but these are the high level items that you should focus on most when putting together an efficient cart.

Enjoy!

Stay tuned for tip number 7 to start optimizing your website called "Be ready and willing to help"

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Don’t be indifferent to reviews

Reviews have been all the buzz the past couple of years. If you recently purchased something online, has a review influenced your purchase decision?

New research further illustrates their value:
  • 77% of online shoppers use reviews and ratings when purchasing (Jupiter Research, August 2006)
  • 63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews. (CompUSA & iPerceptions study)
  • 86.9% of respondents said they would trust a friend’s recommendation over a review by a critic, while 83.8% said they would trust user reviews over a critic. (MarketSherpa)
Most people don’t seem to focus on all the factors involved in implementing reviews to enhance conversion. It’s important that you test and optimize for conversion and persuasion by focusing on the following areas:

Placement for Visibility
• Above the fold
• Size
• Stars or other graphic
• Near point of attention or action

Review Interaction
• Ease of reading
• Sorting
• Rating Distribution
• Use across the site

Single Dimension versus Multi Dimension Reviews
• What are the key attributes across different categories
• Can review content influence purchase decision

Credibility Factors
• Negative and Positive reviews
• Review Approval policy
• Reviewer Characteristics

What does a review mean
• Number of Reviews
• What questions are you asking
• Qualitative versus quantitative

Reviews are just one trend of the market demanding more authenticity and transparency and these are key factors in getting your visitors to take action. Anytime you have a choice between opening up more or less always opt for giving your customers more. Many companies have an unsubstantiated fear of “negative” reviews. You shouldn’t. Negative reviews don’t mean lower conversions. Research from BazaarVoice indicates that negative reviews can increase product conversion. This is likely due to the fact that customers realize that products are not perfect and want to know a products flaws as well as weaknesses. In addition, overwhelmingly negative reviews can help you pull bad products from your offering and merchandise better.

Now take action

a) Enable customer reviews on your site. Don’t know how? Contact a 3rd party, like Bazaarvoice.

Enjoy!

Stay tuned for my next article "Point a Critical Eye to Your Check Out Process".

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Headlines Must be “Made to Stick”

The headline on your page is the one thing that about 80% of your visitors will read. Most headlines (and copy for that matter) suffer from what Chip and Dan Heath refer to in their book, Made to Stick, as “the curse of knowledge”— once you know something, it’s difficult to imagine what it is like not to know it.

Now take action
  1. Make sure that everyone understands what your headline is about, even if they have no reference to understand it.
  2. The headline should set expectations about the content it is referring.
  3. When sitting down to create headlines be sure they are clear, enticing, and relevant. Then invest as much time as possible testing your headlines’ abilities to both (1) gather attention and (2) entice visitors to invest the next 30 seconds on your page
Stay tuned for tip 5 "Don’t be indifferent to reviews".

Enjoy!

Better Product Images Are Worth A Thousand Calls to Action

Having better-looking product images than other sellers will do wonders.

If recent research is any indication, product images are a major factor in converting visitors. In fact, 83 percent of eBay shoppers skip listings without images, while sites with galleries get 15% more activity and those with so-called super-size photos show a 24 percent spike in sales.

The better photo wins every time.

Most visitors have spent many more hours shopping offline, where the sensory experience is superior. We can touch, hold, smell, and feel products before we buy them. So it is a little puzzling why so many companies have done little to try to recreate the visual aspect of the offline experience by providing better, more and more detailed product images. Many skimp on the quality of their product images and use manufacturer supplied images. Ouch!

Want to see a another great example of product images used well. Check out TigerDirect.com. Not only do they show multiple product images they also redline the features for their visitors. The extra effort is worth it.

A good example is from Swell.com showing larger images and different views.

Companies with thousands of skus cringe at the idea of taking and managing a whole new database of product images. No need, you don’t need 7000 new images to make a difference.

The same holds true if you are in B2B; better product images are worth a thousand calls to action. Many B2B site offer downloads of whitepapers or demos for completing a form but fail to make the most basic of efforts to persuade them. Don’t just tell them about your whitepaper; merchandize it! Show a cover; show them how easy it is to read with all your pretty charts. Test to see which pieces matter the most.

Puma allows people to navigate around a high quality image of any product.

Now take action

  1. B2Cs can start by taking their 25, 50, or 100 top trafficked/popular products and upgrading those images. Consider this a marketing expense rather than a development expense.
  2. B2Bs can merchandise their offerings better. Don’t just tell visitors about your whitepaper. Show a cover; show them how easy it is to read with all your pretty charts. Test to see which pieces matter the most.
Stay tuned for tip 4, " Headlines Must be “Made to Stick” "

Enjoy!

Call Your Traffic to Action

If you don’t ask someone to do something, the odds are they won’t do it.

Every good salesman knows that you have to ask for the sale.

Online, it is essential that a website present its visitors with visible and enticing calls to action. Calls to action must be meaningful concise links that tell the visitor where they are going and why they should go there. Avoid cliches and overused links like “read more,” “click here,” “learn more,” and “submit” buttons. Replace them with something persuasive to get your traffic off their butts taking an action!

This technique is simple and very valuable.

Now Take Action

Build calls to action by combining an imperative verb and an implied benefit.

Example - Which hyperlink is more persuasive: a or b?

  1. George found an investment secret that changed his life. Read More
  2. George found an investment secret that changed his life. See how George doubled his income in one year.
Stay tuned for tip 3 "Better Product Images Are Worth A Thousand Calls to Action".

Enjoy!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

10 Tips to Start Optimizing Your Website

Optimizing a website doesn’t have to be a complex task and, in fact, is more of a continual improvement process. You will never be “done” improving your website.

You can start with just a few of your site’s pain points and begin helping your visitors convert. The following is a list of 10 common problems we find everyday when analyzing websites and some tips on how to solve them. Enjoy!

1. Find Trigger Words That Excite Your Visitors

People navigate the web by “scent.” Scent was first described by Xerox Parc to describe the parallels between human’s information-gathering techniques on the web and animal’s food-gathering techniques in the wild.

People seek information through the “scent” given offby their trigger words. According to research performed by usability guru Jared Spool, when a visitor found the trigger word on the landing page, they were successful at completing their task 72% of the time; if the trigger word wasn’t on the page, they were only successful 6% of the time. The scent of the key words kept them on the right path; lacking that scent, they stopped searching that particular “trail.”

This means your visitors are on a mission, they are goal oriented, and if they don’t see the trigger words they came to the site with, they are likely to move on to a site that has the right scent.

The solution is not that difficult. If a prospect arrives at a landing page having used a term like “buy baseball cap”, they must see “buy baseball cap” on the page.

Now Take Action

Make sure you have your visitors’ triggers words are visible, even use the scent for copy on each major button or link:
  1. Complete this sentence: “I want to _____.”
  2. Includes trigger words / strong scent
I hope you enjoyed this valuable piece of marketing information. Watch for the second tip to start optimizing your website called "Call Your Traffic to Action ".

Friday, September 26, 2008

How to Put Your Websites In An Order That Will Not Confuse Your Target Audience

There are three types of websites you need that are absolutely vital to your sales.

1. The Branding Site allows prospects to learn about you and your business
2. The Sales Letter Site sells a product, service or event
3. The Power Squeeze™ Site captures the contact information of your prospects

If I had to start all over again, the only site that I would ever put up is a Power Squeeze™ site, because that allows me to capture people’s information and market to them over and over and over again. From a sales perspective, realize that a confused mind never buys. Well, when a prospect goes to a branding site and there are tons of little different things to click on, the prospect is going to click away and he or she is never going to reach the outcome that you want them to reach. That’s why we have specific sites.

From a sales perspective, realize that a confused mind never buys. Well, when a prospect goes to a branding site and there are tons of little different things to click on, the prospect is going to click away and he or she is never going to reach the outcome that you want them to reach. That’s why you must have three specific sites, in this specific order.

1) Branding site
2) Sales letter site
3) Power Squeeze™ sites

I’ve noticed recently that either a lot of people are listening to what I have to say, because they’ve started putting their Power Squeeze™ sites in front of their Branding sites. And they’re putting it in front of their sales letter sites to capture people’s information. Have you seen a site where you submit your name and email just to get to the information you wanted? That’s a perfect example of a Power Squeeze™ leading to the Branding or Sales Letter site.

Here’s the interesting thing; If you put a Power Squeeze™ site in front of one of your sales letter pages, you will find what we have tested - your conversion rate does not change. The only thing that is changing is you are capturing more people’s information, so now you have the ability to market to people more and more. It’s just huge for us and it’s going to be huge for you too.

In my next article, I’ll discuss some big website myths.

Warmest Regards,


James Faasse`

Just SUPPOSE you can make money like this...

Would that change everything?

Make E-Mail Pull Its Holiday Weight

Just before Labor Day, I was in the local Food Emporium in UTC picking up provisions for the weekend, when I do a double take. There, in all of its sugar-coated splendor in the cookie and candy aisle, is an end-cap display with an assortment of prepackaged Halloween M&Ms, Hershey bars, and Snickers.

Come on, summer is barely over!

I waited for a couple of minutes to see if anyone had the guts to actually purchase their Halloween candy two months in advance. To my surprise, in literally seconds I observed half a dozen folks pick up multiple bags of Halloween candy. At first, I reacted with great disbelief. But the more I thought about this preholiday strategy, the more I found it useful in thinking about the ways in which marketers must wage their competitive battles during tight economic times.

Let's face it. We're entering the most important time of year for marketers, the peak holiday season, when consumer spending is at its strongest and the vast majority of sales take place. Especially critical during an economic downturn, strong fourth quarter sales can make or break the year, compensating for weak performance during the first three quarters.

E-mail becomes more important than ever during these tough economic times. That's because e-mail is unquestionably one of the most cost-efficient marketing channels out there and it targets existing customers, a group far more likely to listen and respond to your messaging and promotions than new prospects. How can you maximize your e-mail efforts to capitalize on the fourth-quarter buying activity?

A few basic tips:

* Cut through the clutter. Your message is vying for attention within some very full inboxes this time of year. Marketers must ask themselves, "Why would a consumer open this e-mail when there are 25 others in the inbox?" and "Why would a consumer take advantage of this offer when she has 25 others to choose from?" Your communication needs to rise above the proverbial holiday noise. Make sure your offer is compelling and your message action-oriented. This isn't brand-building time, this is "buy now" time. Make an offer the buyer can't refuse.

* Focus on testing, targeting, and analytics. Targeting and testing are the two best ways to ensure that you're sending the optimal message to consumers. Now is a great time to start mining customer data to create more advanced segmentation schemes that would improve relevance during the holiday months. Marketers may find, for example, that some segments respond better to content-based e-mail (such as gift guides) while others are more driven by deals.

* Test to improve response and reduce e-mail fatigue. If you aren't doing so already, consider implementing multivariate testing schemes that would allow you to determine the optimal content, creative, and offer mix for your campaigns.

* Extend your reach. Already have prebuilt marketing campaigns? Increase the number of targeted geographies and the number of lists to which you send. This can have a multiplicative effect on campaign returns. Marketers are finding it much more difficult to keep their e-mail list growing organically, but e-mail list rental, especially during the promotion-driven holiday season, can help grow that list quickly during a period where consumers are primed to buy.

* Use transactional e-mail to up-sell and cross-sell -- but follow the rules. "Thanks for your order" is a nice message, but it falls short in capitalizing on the opportunity to sell additional product and services to current customers. Using order confirmations and service messages to market related products and services can be extremely effective and lucrative, particularly during the holiday buying season. But be certain to follow CAN-SPAM regulations. Keep the main focus of the message, including the subject line and body of the e-mail, on the transaction or service message at hand and the promotional messages as secondary elements.

* Use e-mail to drive a social media strategy. For marketers who have been hesitant to roll out a full-blown social media strategy, this holiday season marks an excellent time to test ways to use e-mail marketing to generate more consumer involvement with your products. For example, product reviews from peers have become extremely important to buyers, as a growing number of consumers say they look to these reviews even more so than to professionals to help them decide about product purchases. Consider including customer reviews in your e-mail promotions and newsletters, and include a link to a feedback page where customers can input their own stories. Once consumers see that your company is listening to what they're saying, engagement will increase quickly.

We head back to work this month for four incredible months of opportunity ahead of us. The fourth quarter each year (regardless of economic conditions and electioneering) holds great promise and opportunity for those who are ready. Are you?

Five Simple Tips for Lead-Generation Sites

Several of my recent columns have dealt with testing and optimization. Today, I'll focus on the other half of the online marketing world, those who must drive leads through their site.

Review Your Lead Generation Forms

Typically lead-gen site forms fail in two major areas:

* Many lead-gen sites simply copy forms from a site they like, giving little thought to the nuances and the difference between their business goals and the site they copied. The result can lead to a slew of unqualified leads, or low conversion to lead.

* Some companies make their complex lead scoring requirements the visitor's job. We worked with a client with a highly complex lead scoring system that, in turn, created an intimidating lead form with a dozen intrusive questions and several drop downs with more than 20 choices. Only the most determined of leads would actually complete the entire form. The obvious result was an offensively high form abandonment rate.

The obvious advantage to collecting information from potential prospects in a lead form is that it can help a business convert more qualified leads. To solve both of the above problems, there's one successful approach: use a two-part lead form.

On the first page, ask the minimum amount of questions possible for a visitor to become a lead, where each field is a required field. Ask for the contact information and little else.

On the second page, ask several more optional questions that will help the company better qualify the lead. Above the form, explain that the more information they provide, the better you can prepare for a conversation with them. With this technique, even if little (or no) information is provided on the second page, you at least have contact information that the sales team can follow up on.

Develop More Than One Lead Form

Many sites still link to one lead form on the site. Consider placing lead forms in several places on the site. Providing lead forms on each product/service pages and on other key pages allows you to track where the lead form was filled out and provides a helpful nugget of data for the sales team as they contact that lead.

Avoid Asking for the Lead Too Early

While recently shopping some demand-gen companies, I did a Google search for Eloqua. The second paid listing for Marketo caught my interest, so I clicked through.


click to enlarge

Someone on my staff ended up on a landing a page that successfully enticed them to learn more -- specifically this person wanted to see the video demo. Unfortunately, one couldn't watch the video without filling out the lead form.

Many visitors in this situation aren't ready to begin the sales process by filling out a lead form with only a promise to watch a demo. My colleague was one of those visitors and bailed. Ironically, another member of my team noticed that the logo on top of the page was a link to the Marketo home page and was able to watch a demo video without filling out a form.

While it may be a "best practice" to limit visitor choices on landing pages, this certainly isn't a persuasive practice, especially for someone in the early stages of the buying process. My colleague didn't know what Marketo was, and certainly wasn't ready to give up personal information at this stage to find out. Marketo is losing conversion opportunities by not providing more actions on this page for visitors who aren't ready to give out personal info until they know more.

How to Do Lead Gen the Right Way

Our partner and marketing to women guru, Michele Miller recently blogged about Jenny Craig's successful persona-based marketing plan. Whether on purpose or by intuition, Jenny Craig's celebrity spokeswomen appeal to specific personas and buying types. As we dug further, we were even more impressed. We Googled both Queen Latifah and Valerie Bertinelli and were surprised to find that Jenny Craig had purchased some AdWords ads on those two terms.

Even better, as we clicked through the ads to their landing pages, we noticed that each landing page was crafted and had elements for the persona type that would be attracted to each celebrity.

We extrapolated that Latifah appealed to a more humanistic persona. The page was filled with relational language giving the overall impression to the humanistic persona that becoming a lead for Jenny Craig meant starting a relationship -- a key motivator for a humanistic buyer. Take a look at the page and see if you can see the strategy at work.


click to enlarge

Bertinelli's page reflects her methodical style, thereby making it easier for a methodical prospect to get more information. Elements on this page are more information focused and allow for the methodical persona to take action their way. Can you see the difference a persona-based page makes?


click to enlarge

Aggressively Optimize Your Lead-Gen Process

Many e-commerce sites pour resources and time into improving their checkout process. Lead-gen sites don't seem to have the same commitment to testing and optimizing their lead generation process. If you're a lead gen site, your lead-generation process is your checkout process -- it's just as critical to your business as a shopping cart is to an e-commerce site.

What have you done lately to improve your lead-gen efforts? Let me know and I'll share it with my readers.

Minimize Shopping Cart Abandonment

20 Tips to Minimize Shopping Cart Abandonment

It's October. Are you thinking about Christmas time conversion rates yet?

Industry research shows up to 75 percent of shoppers abandon their online shopping carts before completing the checkout process. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that statistic, but shopping cart abandonment is a significant problem. Numerous factors influence this rate, but I'll address those that move the lever in the right direction this week and next.

* How many steps are in your checkout process? This is usually what most people focus on. Our clients' checkout processes range from one to seven steps. We've discovered the number of steps is not all that critical. One client was able to bring the checkout process from six steps down to one; we found no correlation between reduction of steps and reduction in abandonment rate. Once people found what they came for, they found the time to check out no matter how many steps were involved.

Should you change the number of steps? Yes! But if you don't have an inexpensive and simple way to test, it may not be worth the time, effort, and expense of reducing the number of steps in the checkout process. Try some of these other ideas first.

* Include a progress indicator on each checkout page. No matter how many steps in your checkout process, let customers know where they are in the process. Number the steps, and label the task clearly for each step. Give shoppers an opportunity to review what they did in previous steps and a way to return to their current step if they go back.

* Provide a link back to the product. When an item is placed in the shopping cart, include a link back to the product page. Shoppers can then easily jump back to make sure they selected the right item. I was shopping for a printer and wanted to know how many and what color cartridges come with the printer. It wasn't obvious where I should click to review the product description. I had to navigate using my back button until I got my questions answered.

* Add pictures inside the basket. Placing a thumbnail image of the product increases conversions by as much as 10 percent.

* Provide shipping costs early in the process. If possible, provide an estimated cost while visitors browse. They want to buy but want the answers to all their questions when they want them. Total cost is one of those critical questions. Also, if the shipping information is the same as the billing information, include a checkbox to automatically fill in the same information.

* Show stock availability on the product page. Shoppers should not have to wait until checkout to learn if a product is out of stock. Also, give an estimated delivery date. Deal with the "I want it now" mentality, and let them know when they should expect to get their products.

* Make it obvious what to click next. Include a prominent "Next Step" or "Continue With Checkout" button on each checkout page. Make the button you want them to click next the most obvious. One top 50 e-tailer mistakenly placed its "remove from cart" and checkout buttons next to each other. Neither stood out. Many people ended up clearing their carts. When they went to check out, they found nothing in there and immediately abandoned the site in frustration.

* Make editing the shopping cart easy. It should be simple to change quantities or options, or delete an item from the shopping cart. If a product comes in multiple sizes or colors, make it easy to select or change values in the shopping cart.

* Make it your fault. If information is missing or filled out incorrectly during checkout, give a meaningful error message that's obvious to see. It should clearly tell visitors what needs to be corrected. The tone should be the system was unable to understand what was entered, not the visitor made a foolish mistake.

* Show them you're a real entity. People's concerns start to flare up during checkout. Let them know you're a real company by giving full contact info during the checkout process.

Friday, August 29, 2008

10 Upsell Strategies That Will Increase Your Profits

10 Upsell Strategies That Will Increase Your Unique Personalized Gift Shop Profits

By James Faasse

It can be very expensive to attract new customers. For a unique personalized gift shop like TheYouniqueBoutique.com, a company can cut down on those expenses by "upselling" to those new customers. For example, let's say you're selling a personalized photo quilt with a
simple photo layout pattern for $159.95. You tell people they can upgrade to a more complex photo layout pattern on the personalized photo quilt for only $10.00 more. Or perhaps when the upgrade the quilt pattern layout they receive a discount gift certificate, which the customer can use for a later purchase or pass on as a gift for whom they are having the personalized photo quilt made for.

That's upselling! Your goal is to get more money out of the first sale. Below are ten upselling strategies you can use to increase your profits.

1. Deluxe Upsell-You could sell a basic product and tell people for a little more money they can receive the deluxe personalized gift edition.

2. Money Upsell-You could offer people the rights to sell the product they are buying from your business as a reseller of unique personalized gifts. You could charge an extra $30 dollars to get the reproduction rights.

3. Discount Upsell-If you're selling a product people may order again in the future like personalized wedding cake toppers, you could offer them a figurine option of one standard wedding cake toppers body with one custom wedding cake topper body at a discount.

4. Time Upsell-If you're selling a product or service people subscribe to, like a blogazine, you could tell them if they subscribe for two years instead of one, they can receive it half
off the cover price.

5. Quantity Upsell-This is similar to the discount upsell. The only difference is you increase the discount by how many personalized cake toppers they order. If they order 3 it's a 10% discount, if they order 5 it's a 15% discount.

6. Package Upsell-When you're selling a personalized baby shower gift you could offer similar products in a package deal. Tell the people the other personalized baby gifts are cheaper with the package deal versus purchasing them separately.

7. Affiliate Upsell-When you're selling a unique personalized gifts you could offer someone else's product as an upsell. You would have to make a commission on the product in order to profit.

8. Free Upsell-You could offer a free sample or trial of your custom bridal jewelry (your first sale would be free) and then tell people if they order the full set right now they will get a discount on wedding tiaras and bridal head pieces.

9. Extra Upsell-There are many things you could charge extra for at the time of sale. It could be personalized gift wrapping, imprinting, custom designs, etc.

10. Extended Upsell-If your personalized gift comes with a warranty, you could ask people if they would like to extend the warranty one more year for only $30.

In conclusion, you can use one or all these strategies to increase your online personalized gift shop profits at the point of sale, or for any online store for that fact. Don't be afraid to use your imagination to come up with other upsell strategies. Use those category catalog pages as Upsell Landing Pages!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

New USB Squibkey: Promotional Non-FlashDrive Device

USB SQUIB™ Web Key Flash Drive E-mail

The birth of a "smarter" usb promotional web key flash drive token!

ImageThe Beta version of the first "web key" idea has finally given birth to a new marketing usb web key flash drive token! This tiny giant has earned it's status as the most successful and savvy innovative promotional tool the market has ever seen. The newly released USB SQUIB™ Web Key flash drive is leaving marketing directors and promotional entrepreneurs asking "What just happened?" and "Why didn't someone think of this earlier?"

iNETready Communications, inc., of La Jolla, California, researched and developed this timely marketing dynamo as a prototype 3 years ago. The amazing promotional value and easy usability of the USB SQUIB™ Web Key flash drive advertising device is nothing short of stellar! Due to a growing and immediate need to drive, capture and track targeted traffic to web sites, iNETready's research team spent years testing the SQUIB™key's "true functional potential", which includes the user friendly, effective value added invested SQUIBtrack™ ROI features.

By integrating USB OEM plug-in hardware with iNETready's™ S.m.a.r.t.™ technology, the digital fuse was lit, which has set off the first truly intelligent promotional explosion to ever hit the World Wide Web!

What is a Web Key Flash Drive?

This promotional USB flash drive keychain is a great way of getting people to remember your logo, yet it saves the trouble of remembering a lengthy URL. When integrated with the new S.m.a.r.t.™ Campaign Response Web-to-Lead Marketing Software, there is unlimited advertising and promotional value with the SQUIB™ Web Key flash drive! Just Plug the Webkey flash drive token into a USB port and your pre-programmed website automatically launches -- just like magic! If you've read Harry Potter, you'll appreciate this Muggle equivalent of the Portkey.

A standard Webkey flash drive is a low cost alternative to USB flash memory devices, and an effective way of promoting your company, new product launch, training material, or recruitment campaign. It's available in a high-tech silver metallic finish in your choice of shapes.

A standard Webkey flash drive is pre-programmed with the URL (up to 200 characters) that you provide. Every device is guaranteed to be virus free.

What is a SQUIB™ Key Flash Drive?

The SQUIB™ web key non-flash drive is revolutionary cutting-edge, money saving, cost effective promotional marketing device. The SQUIB™ web key non-flash drive is a brandable, reprogrammable usb web key that consumers can "plug-in direct" to their personal computers and interact in a results-driven, trackable promotional campaign lead tracking relations management database.

The SQUIB™ web key non-flash drive is remotely reprogrammable, utilizing the SQUIBware™ marketing campaign application. The SQUIBtrack™ ROI feature functions similar to how a television network tracks commercial ad campaigns, using interactive ad intelligence from your own web site.

Profits are soaring for clients that are now able to cash-in on real-time sales leads, score demographics and use that data to gauge campaign success! The new SQUIB™ technology makes all this possible while running your latest promotion directly to a selected audience.

iNETready's SQUIB™ web key non-flash drive is transforming the buyer's experience into a unique and fun adventure that they enjoy. Many promoters are catching on by offering customers exclusive incentives and innovative prizes, to reward them for viewing current promotions.

Potential customers can accumulate reward points and cash-in on the fun by returning to participate in the ongoing promotions you create. Sales soar by offering customers the opportunity to personally interact with your ad campaign who have a chance to win prizes and gifts! The SQUIB™ web key flash drive grants your company complete control over what your customers watch, read and hear on your website's promotion.

Discover the smartest interactive advertising web key flash drive that will turn your browsers into buyers!

Turn the key to increase your sales and drive profits! Marketing studies show that people want to buy, but they don't feel comfortable being sold. The SQUIB™ web key flash drive allows potential customers to interact on the internet in a trusted manner and feel comfortable, and this has created an unprecedented insurgence in profits by increasing the Value Per Visit (VPV) by as much as 1300%!!!

Click on the link to read about How the SQUIBkey™ Flash Drive Works.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Search Engine Positioning for the Weary

Search Engine Positioning for the Weary
By T. O'Donnell (c) 2006


Do you want to get your site from page five to page one in
Google? Here are a few tips to boost you on your way.

1. Clean Up Your HTML.

Keep a beady eye on Dreamweaver and avoid CMS software.

What, Dreamweaver, beloved program of pro webmasters
everywhere?

Yes!

Dreamweaver adds lots of extra blank space to HTML code, and
breaks lines. This is especially irritating in meta tags. Use
EditPad's 'Find and Replace' function to get rid of newlines
and double blank spaces in your pages.

Content Management Systems are a great time saver. An amateur
can set up a professional-looking site in a few hours. The
problem is they contain lots of code that's irrelevant to
search engines. The top of a CMS page may contain only a few
words relevant to its subject matter.

Then there's the duplicate content problem.

- Blogs have duplicate copies of their own content; sometimes
exact, sometimes excerpts.
- Thousands of people are using the same CMS as you.
- A search engine spider sees the same header, sidebar and
footer content in every page in your site.

Result? Your page is down the SERPs for any competitive
keyword. Assuming it's indexed at all.

These programs are written by geeks. Their primary aim is to
eliminate code errors and add features. Your marketing comes a
very poor second. They're also posting security updates every
few months. More hassle. For you.

Drastic solution:

1. Type your documents in a text editor like Editpad, then
2. Use a Text to HTML converter, then
3. (Use Dreamweaver to add formatting, then)
4. Use a index generator to make a HTML list of those pages,
then
5. FTP them to your web site.

Benefits:

- Search engine spiders get to the 'meat' of your page
immediately;
- You have more control over how the page looks;
- You have more control over what an SE 'bot 'sees';
- You're not relying on a MySQL database to maintain your site;
- Hackers won't be able to deface your site easily.

A clever webmaster would look into Conditional Server Side
Includes. You can use them to 'program' your web pages, while
still presenting clean HTML to search engine 'bots.

And as for Microsoft FrontPage, I wish all my competitors were
using it.

2. Get Lots of Links to Your Site.

- Submit articles to article websites;
- Pay freelancers to make software for you, and give it away
free;
- Submit to the top directories, like Yahoo and DMOZ, but don't
spend much time or money. Only half a dozen are worth a damn
for SEO;
- Post in popular forums and blogs, if they will let you use
straight hyperlinks in your signature;
- Be controversial - assault a few sacred cows;
- Do a press release, and think beforehand about how you can
make it interesting to journalists;
- Make a better, faster, cheaper version of a popular product.

That should get you a few decent links. With millions of
cheapo, 'me too', linkless sites out there, yours will stand
out like a snowdrop on a dungheap.

3. Offer Something People Really Want.

You like chat wear clothing. You think other people do too.
You make a website selling them.

Cue sad disillusion.

People want money, sex, friendship, human contact, cars, drugs,
health and happiness. They know what they want (not need, want).
You've got to figure out a better way to satisfy that want,
for a fat net profit.

Simple, ain't it?

Actually, yes it is.

Save time. Pick a very profitable, popular industry. Think up a
way to give people a better product. Or faster. Or cheaper. Or
all three! Research costs little. Thinking costs nothing.

Or just go off half-cocked. Employ a cheap, angry webmaster.
Half-finish the site for a product you're not 100% sure there's
a demand for. Then sit back and wait for traffic.

Then give up, go down to the pub and gripe to your pals: "The
internet's sh*t, innit?".

Funny thing about offering a popular good with a new twist; you
get links without cadging them.

4. Be First With a New, Popular Good (or a smarter second).

MySpace wasn't the first social networking site, but they did
it better. They designed it to be viral. Members could compete
to get 'friends', and everyone wants new friends, right? Users
could put anything they wanted online, even if it looked
cr*ppy. Censorship was minimal. Result: Huge popularity,
without needing the search engines.

Not easily done, but again, research costs little. Thinking
costs nothing.

Stop the daily slog. Go for a walk. Have a long bath. Play a
game of street-hockey. And see what pops into your head.

If you feel good about it the next day, it may be a good idea.
Test it before committing to it. If it still makes you excited
a month later, you may be onto a winner.

If complete strangers start feeling the same, you definitely
are!
================================================================
T. O' Donnell (http://www.tigertom.com/secured-loans-uk.shtml)
is a credit broker and curmudgeon living in London, UK.
================================================================

Friday, August 25, 2006

Turning Browsers into Buyers

How your Web content can influence the B2B buying process

By James Faasse

ADVERTISER: New! USB Internet Web Key Brings Traffic to Your Website Fast & Easy... Guaranteed to Triple Your Traffic!!!

Today, when people shop, the Web is almost always their first stop. In any market category, potential customers head online to do initial research. The moment of truth is when they reach your site: Will you draw them into your sales process or let them click away?

When prospects use search engines and directories to reach your site, link to it through another site or respond to a marketing campaign, you have an opportunity to deliver a targeted message at the precise moment that they are looking for what you have to offer. Yet chief marketing officers, particularly those in B2B markets, often fail to realize the potential of their corporate websites, which must hook buyers in from the start and hang on to them until the sale is complete.

Where are they coming from?
Individuals don't go to the web looking for advertising; they are on a quest for content. By providing information to them when they need it, you can begin a long and profitable relationship.

The first step is to align Web content to your potential customers' buying processes. Unfortunately, most sites are conceived from an egocentric (or worse, advertising-centric) focus, designed completely from the company's perspective. Well-intentioned marketers may think that providing product information is enough, but the fact is (your) products aren't what people are looking for; they seek solutions to their problems. Approaching Web content offerings from your customers' perspective will form the foundation of a successful sales cycle.

Before creating content, get together with your e-commerce experts, sales and product managers to learn as much as possible about the buying process, focusing on issues such as how people find your site or the length of a typical purchase cycle. Consider what happens offline in parallel with online interactions so that the processes complement each other. For example, if you have an e-commerce site and a printed catalog, coordinate the content and messages so that both efforts support and reinforce the buying process (i.e., include links to your online buying guide in the catalog).

In the B2B world, trade shows should work with Internet initiatives (by collecting e-mail addresses at the booth, for example, then sending a follow-up e-mail with a show-specific landing page at your site). Understanding the buying process in detail, both online and off, allows you to create a quantifiable process that Web content can influence.

Segmenting your buyers
The online relationship begins the second a potential customer hits your home page. The first thing he needs to see is a reflection of himself. That's why you must organize your site into distinct buying segments. Do your potential customers self-select themselves based on their job function or by industry? It's important to create a set of appropriate links based on a clear understanding of your buyers so that you can quickly move them off of the home page and onto pages built specifically for them.

One way to approach this is to link to landing pages based on the problems your product or service solves. Start by identifying the situations in which each target audience may find itself. If you are in the supply chain management business, you might have a drop-down menu on the home page with links that might say "I need to get product to customers faster" or "I want to move products internationally." Each path leads to landing pages built for buyer segments with content targeted at their problems. Once the prospects reach those pages, you have the opportunity to communicate your expertise in solving these problems—building some empathy in the process—and move them further along the buying cycle.

A friendly nudge
After you've demonstrated expertise in the market category and the knowledge about solving potential customers' problems, you can introduce your product or service. When creating content about your offerings, remain focused on the buyer and her problems, rather than elaborating distinctions between products.

As people interact with your content at this middle stage in the buying process, it is appropriate to suggest subscriptions to related content—an e-mail newsletter, Webinar or podcast, for example. This enables you to trade something of value for a registration form. But remember, if you're asking for someone's contact information, you must provide something equally valuable in return.

Prospects want to poke, prod and test your company to learn what sort of organization you are. They also have questions. That's why well-designed sites include a facility for people to inquire about products or services. Be flexible; offer them a variety of ways to interact with your company and make contact information readily available from any page on the site (one click away is best). Also keep in mind that, particularly with expensive products, buyers will test to see how responsive you are so you must make responding to these inquiries a priority. At this stage, you want people to think: "This is an organization I can do business with. They have happy customers and they are responsive to me and my needs."

USB iWebKey helps Close the sale—and continue the conversation
As the customer approaches the end of the buying process, you must provide tools that facilitate the sale. Buyers may be unsure which B2B Super Widget is appropriate—so you may need to provide a tool that allows them to enter specific details about their firm (employee numbers, annual billings, etc.) and then suggests the appropriate product. One product we recommend is the new usb internet WebKey™ that automatically launches your browser and takes customers directly to your web site fast and easy! Click here to read about it!

At this stage, it is also acceptable to lock content behind a password-protected part of the site and only make it available to qualified buyers. Depending on your product, you could offer a copy of the sales agreement with terms and conditions or information about warranties and financing. B2B companies might offer sample RFPs and ROI or TCO calculators. These types of tools go beyond simply selling to a buyer; they arm them to sell the solution to their boss or others in their organization. At the same time, the tools continue to keep the client engaged with your site and sustain the message that you are there to help them.

Once the deal is closed, there's one more step. You must continue the online dialog with your new customer. Add them to your customer e-mail newsletter or customer-only community site where they can interact with experts in your organization and other like-minded customers. You should also provide ample opportunities for customers to give you feedback on how to make the products and process better.

Effective marketers constantly measure and improve. Benchmarking elements such as the self-select links and testing different landing page content can help you make modifications on the fly. Of course, product superiority, advertising and branding remain essential to the marketing mix. But on the Web, smart CMOs understand that an effective content strategy, tightly integrated to the buying process, is critical to sales success.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

3 Steps to a Customizable Landing Page Plan

3 Steps to a Customizable Landing Page Plan


Landing page optimization has finally taken hold among most companies: for the most part, we know that if we create custom landing pages for PPC campaigns, conversions will go up. And, we know that if we test and tweak those landing pages, we can improve conversions even more. But how do you create custom landing pages when you buy thousands or tens of thousands of keywords?

Obviously, you can’t create a custom page for every keyword, or even every keyword bucket. But by crafting a comprehensive keyword strategy, you can consolidate your landing pages into a sensible (and manageable group) without much trouble.

Here’s how:

Step #1. Look at keyword groups by intention

The inclination with keywords is to bucket them by category. An electronics retailer might group car stereos in one bucket, home theater systems in another, etc. But for creating a landing page optimization plan, look at how keywords signal intention.

For example, “Olympus D320” as a search is pretty high intention, and should land on a very targeted page with not just price and product, but any trust statements or information about shipping and bundling. But what about “Olympus D320 review”?

Depending on your business, visitors might be browsers or buyers, job seekers or employers, searching for a car loan or searching for an auto loan. Define intentions into two or three reasonable groups.

Then, look at those intentions and divide keywords into buckets accordingly. At first, it might be as simple as brand words (for browsers) versus category words (for higher-intentioned shoppers). As time goes on you will want to begin segmenting out people looking for speed from those who quest for massive quantities of information prior to purchase.

Step #2. Break out your categories of landing pages and create templates

Once you’ve bucketed your keywords by intention, consider the broad type of landing page that works best for each intention group and create a template for each landing page category.

For example:

º Homepage-like landing page

For many terms, your best bet is to frame the landing page with the standard home page components. This doesn’t mean that you don’t target the product or offer, or limit options in order to be relevant, but you would want to be heavy on branding, trust statements and imagery that reflect a visitor’s desire to talk to you as a company.

In the case of homepage landing pages, your goal is to get people to self-identify as quickly as possible. On comparison shopping sites, for example, you might try to discover if the visitor is interested in news, reviews, or price comparisons.

Visitors arriving from the keywords you designated as “brand” words or relatively broad categories like “loans” could be sent to this type of landing page.

In this example, selecting TurboTax from a search page for “tax software” will link you to the following page: (To see the full-size image, click on the image.)

You can see the obvious home page “look” coupled with some more targeted content for getting started. This was not inadvertent.

º Offer-based landing pages

These pages are very offer-specific with a goal of convincing visitors to act on the interest they’ve already expressed by clicking on the original ad. These pages have more limited navigation or off-linking.

For a retailer, there is the classic product page, with a product shot, pricing, features, and other elements.

For lead generation and direct marketing, this type of page will usually hit the major selling points and get you started on the order form or application.

For publishers, this could be an article that had advertising or other links to content.

In all of these cases, the key is to reinforce the source of traffic and experiment with the balance between focus on the offer and availability of off-links and branding elements.

In this example, the “site” types of elements are almost entirely absent, with only the logo and simple text. This is an E-LOAN landing page for “loan” search results.

Category landing pages

When somebody has clearly shown an interest, but the interest is in a relatively unstructured area, such as “loans” or “jeans” or “concerts,” your goal is to funnel them more deeply into your content or offering.

You might do this by grouping information in a way that allows them to make choices based on their own preferences for searching -- for example, by price, theme, editor’s recommendations, most popular, etc.

Visitors from the terms you designated as category words would be sent to this type of page.

In this case, I am going to show a category page for WEGA TV as a search term. I question whether this is an effective landing page for a category term, as it has very little reference to a highly branded category. That said, I would suggest testing to find the truth!

The category landing page is the most difficult landing page to execute well. But it is relatively easy to determine the type of tests to run. First, figure out how you want to merchandise the depth of the category – through subcategories? Best picks? Customer favorites or reviews? Second, determine the best balance between site elements (navigation bars and branding elements) and the actual category. Finally, determine how to use copy and other buying aids to help define the category and keep the sale moving.

Here’s the key:

In each template, leave “content slots,” or real estate in which you can switch content in and out, depending on the purpose of the landing page. Now you have a template that can be targeted for an endless number of keyword groups, simply by changing the content in one or two content slots.

Step #3. Test templates for general effectiveness

You can begin to test the templates with various buckets of keywords, altering the content in the content slots depending on the keywords.

Finally, once the templates have become relatively successful, you can begin testing the variables within the landing page to further improve conversions. (We’ll discuss just what variables to test, and how, in the next issue.)

This doesn’t have to be a gigantic task or mean an overhaul of every existing landing page. Consider choosing a single group of your landing pages, deciding which of these categories it fits into, and diving into it until it’s right. Then, move on to the others.

4 Effective Elements to Test on Your Category Landing Page

4 Effective Elements to Test on Your Category Landing Page


Now that marketers have embraced the idea of sending customers from paid search to targeted landing pages whenever possible, managing those landing pages has the potential to become almost as complex as managing a PPC campaign itself -- but it doesn’t have to be.

Generic vs. Customizable Landing Pages
Rather than settling for rather generic landing pages for large groups of keywords, or sending visitors to internal pages that are even less targeted, we talked in last month’s newsletter (3 Steps to a Customizable Landing Page Plan) about a customizable landing page plan you can create in order to offer visitors targeted content based upon their origination keyword and intent.

We suggested that you create a series of landing page templates geared toward visitors with specific intentions, and that you then customize them for keyword or keyword group as necessary.

One of those templates -- and perhaps one of the most ubiquitous landing page types -- is the category landing page.

Why Create Customizable Category Landing Pages?
Bringing visitors to category pages can be difficult because they may be searching broadly -- by a general keyword such as “accounting” rather than a specific keyword like “QuickBooks” -- or they could be narrowing in on a specific category -- “Puma,” for example, rather than “sneakers.” That gives you very little information on what their goal is.

When a visitor arrives from search, they’re likely to be high-intentioned, but in this instance, it is difficult to discern just what that intention is: To research? To buy? To waste time until lunch?

You can’t assume that someone who uses broad search terms is less purchase-focused than someone who uses specific ones. Broad search terms may simply be an indication of the type of person -- less specific person in nature -- rather than an indication of what their goal is. Likewise, someone who searches with targeted keywords may simply be a strategic surfer who knows how to find just what he wants, and not necessarily someone with more desire to buy.

How to Begin Testing a Customizable Category Landing Page
So when customizing a category landing page template that will meet your needs for many types of visitors, you'll need to encourage them to self-select and define for you just what they’re hoping to accomplish.

Consider testing these four basic elements:

Element #1. Key product

Since you can’t tell what their goal is, try testing a single key product or key offer. Guess, as best you can, what might give a visitor what they are looking for, and then test it.

For example, you might test a single hero shot of your absolute best product (The Sharper Image, say, might show the Ionic Breeze) versus a beautiful image that entices a visitor to click more deeply into the site (a happy couple playing with a child and a golden retriever) versus a value proposition (“lowest rates guaranteed!” or “free shipping all the time!”)

Element #2. Depth of category offering

Whether you have hundreds or thousands of products or only two or three main offerings, you want to convince your visitor to give you a little more information on what they're seeking. Showing them the depth of your category offerings is a good way to get them to self-select.

Ask, What device should I use to get them into the dept of my content or products? You might consider testing:

º Traditional tabs with categories and subcategories
º A gift finder
º Staff picks or recommendations
º “Most purchased” recommendations or “most viewed articles”
º Editorial content

When you use one of these devices, what you're really saying to the visitor is, “I have more things to offer than I can actually show on the page.” You’re attempting to entice them to make another click to get them to the next level of interaction.

Element #3. General branding and treatment

Remember, a visitor coming from search is arriving from a whole different experience, on a page that you didn’t control. No matter how excited they are to land on your page, the experience can be jarring, because you will likely have a different mode of interaction than the site from which they arrived.

If you’re trying to persuade them to do something with you, each step calls for a different nature of interactivity.

This means that you need to make an impact not only about your brand experience, but also about how they’re interacting with you. The goal here is to make the experience seem continuous.

At the same time they have to recognize that they’re at the next step of interaction. It’s a tricky balance. You might try testing:

º whether you’re very spare like Google or dense with content
º whether it looks more like a homepage or more utilitarian like a general category page
º whether you use very interactive elements or traditional, static ones.

Element #4. Off-navigation

There are two schools of thought, here: do you want to offer only content as targeted as possible in the hopes that you’ll funnel the prospect right on to the sale, or do you want to show the other categories in the hopes of snagging their interest in another area?

This is a simple, relatively straight-forward element to test.

Then What?
Test and optimize these elements to find which work best for your visitors. Then, when the category landing page template has been finalized (at least until you decide to test again), simply switch content out for new landing pages, depending on keyword group -- remove all content relevant to books and swap in content relevant to CDs, for example.

You’ll find that you have created a simple and effective way to increase conversions and average order value by sending visitors to targeted landing pages -- that behave as though they know just what the visitor is seeking -- without having to create those landing pages from scratch for each and every keyword group.