We at FutureNow are big proponents of setting up a business culture of testing, optimization, and continuous improvement.  There are lots of advantages like improved conversion rates, bigger bottom lines, surviving tough economic times, getting past draining internal debates, and so much more.

Another advantage that we haven’t talked about as much is that an optimization culture can get you past the dangers of “best practices.” Many of our clients have implemented the “best practices” of other sites (or even other industries)…

...continue to read "Yet Another Advantage of an Optimization Culture"

When you ask salespeople about their biggest gripe about marketing, they complain about not enough qualified leads. You can often tell that this is an issue just by looking at a company’s lead forms. What you’ll typically see is that the the forms ask for too much information and that can hinder conversions from visitor to lead.

Marketers are often measured by the number of leads they generate. Sales people are measured by sales. Marketers don’t want to be held accountable…

...continue to read "Increasing “Qualified” Leads From Your Website"

I’ve spoken to many people recently who have grown increasingly frustrated with the either drop or stagnant state of their conversion rate during this recession, and after listening to their problems I ask two questions:

1. When did you first begin to notice this drop/plateau in your conversion rate?

2. What have you done to try and fix/improve your conversion rate?

And, 9 times out of 10 the responses I hear are along the lines of “I began to notice a drop at…

...continue to read "Still Waiting for the Conversion Fairy to Come?"

The first set of results are in. We’re not sure that these days will be representative of the entire season as in past years but we’ll take any good news we can get.

According to Comscore Black Friday sales were flat:

For the holiday season-to-date, $10.41 billion has been spent online, marking a 4-percent decline versus the corresponding days last year, while Black Friday saw $534 million in online spending, up 1 percent. For the combination of Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday,…

...continue to read "Black Friday Results Are In, Are You Ready for CyberMonday?"

Well sports fans, here we go.  Black Friday.  Soon, Cyber Monday.  (Forgive me for the brief digression, but did you know neither Black Friday nor Cyber Monday typically deliver results, in the form of conversions, er, sales, mainly just delivering traffic :(  Unsurprisingly, retail numbers thus far have been bleak, to say the least.

Retailers are hopeful however, and doing everything they can to jumpstart the economy and try to turn a profit this holiday season.  Amazon got my attention with…

...continue to read "Black Friday or Bleak Friday?"