Facebook Likes are becoming the new signal on the web, likely to pair with links as valuable across the social graph and search.  Whether you’re a blogger, digital entrepreneur, or local business–building Likes on your pages and content is increasingly important.

Hat tip to @JustinLevy for sharing this awesome freebie from Blue Sky Factory–create a groovy Facebook Like SMS graphic you can use online or print for your local business (window decal, printed materials, etc).

You simply add the username of your Facebook page (don’t have one yet, get one) and it automagically generates the graphic for you.  Be sure to add a space after your username, so that it sets correctly.

Facebook Liks SMS Graphic

You can see an example in the footer below this post,  just for show

Onward and upward!

WTH!?  QR Codes?  Are QR Codes really viable for marketing? Wait a minute, I’m not Gucci, Ford or some other big brand… Indeed, you may not be a big brand–I would argue, as I have done for several clients, QR Codes are not just for the big boys.  A good understanding of your customer and how QR Codes can be used can help you make the decision to QR or not to QR.

What is a QR Code

Wikipedia tells us a QR Code is, “a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera phones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be text, URL or other data.”

Blah, blah, blah… A QR Code is a scannable/readable barcode that allows you to share text, data or a URL with people. Anyone with a smart phone (Android, iPhone, etc) and a QR Code reader can play along.

A QR Code can be almost anywhere, Calvin Klein replaced their racy billboard ads with a “Get It Uncensored” strategy, Best Buy used QR Codes to enhance shopping, and Mashable has featured 5 Creative Uses for QR Codes.

You basically only need 3 key elements for QR Code marketing:

1. Customers with a smart phone and QR Code reader,
2. Free or paid application to create QR Codes, and
3. A compelling reason/place for QR Codes to be used that your customers (or potentials) will recognize and be willing to scan.  (This is the critical element.)

QR Codes from a Users Perspective

QR Code readers do not come pre-installed on smart phones and it is likely the majority of your audience, at this point in the game, will not recognize or feel compelled to participate in the QR Code party.  That said, QR Code scanning is increasing, particularly among the Gen Y, affluent or techie markets.

Adoption of QR Codes is soon to spread with big brands, major retailers and even the government starting to use QR Codes. Smart phone sales have far out-paced stupid phones (non-smart), while iPhone and Android markets have matured significantly.  Needless to say, there are a ton of respectable drivers behind adoption of QR Codes.

Popular QR Code applications include QR Droid (for Android phones) and Neo Reader (for iPhones).  There are also several brands and websites installing QR Code readers as part of their own application, like TriOut (check out Wayne Sutton’s excellent post on their latest iPhone application which includes a QR Code reader.)

QR Codes from a Business Perspective

As a business, you’re probably thinking this is way out of your technical scope.  You’re wrong.  That’s the beauty of QR Codes, they are relatively easy, free and painless to create.  Seriously, the harder part is figuring out if and how to implement them.  Creation is the easy part.

My favorite QR Code creation tool is MyQR.co, which includes analytics into every free account so you can easily track if anyone is even scanning your pretty little codes.  Your QR Code analytics will tell you how often they were scanned, from what devices (Android versus iPhone) and user location.  You can even brand them with color to match your website, printing, etc.

QR Codes from a Marketing Perspective

Now comes the real dilemma, if and when to use QR Codes for your “not-a-big-brand” business.  Rather than go down a long list of do’s and don’ts, I thought it would be more helpful to showcase the many ways my clients and others are using QR Codes in their marketing, with some helpful hints.

Offline Marketing

Back of business cards: Many of my solopreneur, consulting and speaking clients are using QR Codes on the back of their business cards (in addition to a URL) to direct offline contacts to their website or free-no-strings report/whitepaper/offer (PDF).  Scans have been far higher than expected and many have increased their offline to online engagement as a result.

Presentation materials: A great addition (and easy to add) to any presentation materials you are distributing to clients, groups, and audiences that links them to additional resources and information about you, your services, or educational materials.

In-store locations: Windows, menus and other places to promote a special discount for their current/next visit.

Packaging and labels: I have a luxury brand, strategic consulting client that is including QR Codes on product boxes for each seasonal line (Spring, Summer & Fall) that will direct consumers to a branded content video featuring fashion tips/advice for that particular item.

Online Marketing

Digital publishing: A current strategic consulting client, digital publishing company, is including QR Codes that link directly to sample chapter downloads and additional branded content (video from author, etc) to promote sales of the book.

Real estate: A current strategic consulting client, real estate broker, has included QR Codes on all home promotional items (on-location and online) that include a branded video showing of the house, complete with show schedule and broker contact information.

QR Code Possibilities

What you need to remember, and this holds true for everything you do in marketing–focus on your customers and potentials.  Every marketing tool may not be worth your time to implement.  The same holds true for QR Codes.  Let this help guide you:

Does my audience fit into the Android, iPhone user category? If so, are they likely to adopt QR Codes now or in the future?

How do QR Codes make sense for my business? At what touchpoint do they make sense?  To collect leads?  To enhance the experience of current customers?  To offer discounts, promotions or special offers?  To offer additional content, guidance, education?  Just for fun?

What is my plan to test QR Codes in my business? What is my goal?  What am I offering or creating the QR Code to do?  How will I promote the QR Code?  How does the QR Code tie into the rest of my marketing?  How will I track success or failure?

Onward and upward!

Update

@SocialQRCode, after seeing this post on Twitter, sent a note about their FREE service… looks very promising, especially for small business.  Features include generating QR Codes for Facebook “Likes”, tweets, share YouTube content and more.  I’m testing it out next week…. keep you posted!

Also forgot to mention, Google’s URL Shortener, automatically generates a QR Code for every link you shorten–quick and easy way to create a QR Code with click-through/scan tracking.  No other features, as of yet, but worth a look if you’re already in Google.

Just this morning, Small Business Trends, has posted a great article, QR Codes, Barcodes and RFID: What’s the Difference? Great information to understand where QR Codes fit into the mobile/scannable technology bucket

Since its  inception, social media–for most marketers–has been about amassing massive amounts of followers, fans, twitter connects and subscribers.  We talk about influence and engagement as if every customer we have is a number, barcode or statistic. So focused on quantity and measurements we often miss the foundational element that makes social, well, social–the relationship.

As with any relationship, the break up sucks. In the case of business and social media, trust me it’s you… not your customer causing the relationship to fall apart. Exact Target has reported some interesting data that tells the story of the business, customer break up.  Are you making these marketing mistakes that cause your customers, readers, fans, or followers to say enough is enough?

You post too frequently…

54% of people said the reason they unsubscribe from an email list is too many, frequent emails.

44% of people who “un-liked” a page on Facebook, said it was because they posted too frequently.

52% of people said they un-followed a company on Twitter is because posts became too repetitive or boring.

You’re just more noise to sift through…

47% of people said they unsubscribe from email lists because their email became too cluttered and needed to get off some lists.

43% of people who “un-liked” a Page on Facebook did so because their wall became too cluttered with marketing messages.

41% of people who un-followed a company did so because their stream became too cluttered and need to clean it up.

It gets worse…

Don’t think because you see very little un-subscribes or un-likes that you’re safe.  You’re likely not.  According to Exact Target, most of your customers will simply delete or hide your presence–rather than completely disconnect.

The moral of this love story is…

Your customer has a choice. Whether they hide from you or shut you out completely, broadcasting is costing you customers. If your social media presence is built entirely on automation and nifty tools to broadcast to as many sites as possible, chances are you’re the loser at the party no one wants to hang out with.  ;-)

This week’s mashup is a collection of must-read, hand picked resources from across the Internet focused on Facebook marketing–how to adjust after recent changes to Page design, how to market your business effectively, Facebook by the numbers and much more.

How Much is a Tweet or a Like Worth to You?
ChompOn has released some interesting findings (pdf) related to social media sharing and its value to e-commerce. Specifically, the firm sought out to answer the question: “What is the value of a social action in online commerce?” What they came up with is that a Facebook Share was worth $14, a Facebook “like” was worth $8, a tweet was worth $5, and a Twitter follow was worth $2. (via @WebProNews)

Facebook Adds New Relationship Status Types, but Not to the Ad Tool
Facebook is rolling out the option for users to set their relationship status to “In a civil union” and “In a domestic partnership”. These types will allow gay couples to more accurately describe their relationship. However, advertisers don’t have the option to target users based on these types, or any other types than “Single”, “In a relationship”, “Engaged”, or “Married”. (via @InsideNetwork)

Why Most Facebook Marketing Doesn’t Work
First, deep campaigns don’t work. Digital agencies love deep, expensive campaigns on Facebook, with tons of pages, interaction, and art. It fits in with how agencies build microsites and websites, and justifies the $100,000-plus price tag that they like to charge. Examples include lightweight games, prediction contests, treasure hunts where you include friends, and such. Unfortunately for agencies and the brands that drop a lot of cash, Facebook users decidedly don’t like deep campaigns. (via @RWW)

Facebook Page Redesign 2011: Marketing Strategies and Best Practices
In February 2011, Facebook launched a major redesign and expansion of functionality of its Pages for businesses, brands, media, and public figures. The Page layout matches the December user profile redesign, and as of March 1st, 2011, all Pages use it. (via @InsideNetwork)

Top 3 Reasons Your Page Gets Unliked
I just came across this report from Exact Target that talks about the relationship between companies and users. Very interesting! In it, they list some of the reasons that your fan page gets unliked.  (via @Hubsze1)

What the Facebook Message Platform Means for Businesses
Last year, Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to Facebook’s messaging platform. Now you can integrate your email, text messages and chat messages into one platform—Facebook. If you would like an @facebook.com email address, you can get that as well. (via @smexaminer)

10 Steps to Facebook Success for Your Non-Profit Organization
Fan growth has flattened, your post quality has dropped, and board members are asking, “What’s going on with Facebook?” The good news is that you’re not alone—the Facebook honeymoon ends at some point for everyone. Now is the perfect time to review the critical steps for success on Facebook. (via @MarketingProfs)

Facebook and Twitter Age Profiles Shifting
Visitors age 35-54 comprised 35.4% of Facebook’s user base in December 2010, down 3.6 percentage points from a year earlier, while Facebook’s share of its youngest users (under age 18) and oldest users (age 55+) made the year’s biggest gains, according to comScore. (via @L2_ThinkTank)

This week’s mashup is a collection of strategic genius, focusing on the most important area of your internet marketing–strategy.  You can not expect any level of success without strategy, let alone know if you’re successful.  If you’ve been checking out my digs online, you know, I’m obsessed with strategy–and, as a result, successful.  ;-)

Personas, Do You Really Know Your Customer?
This is an excellent resource for EVERYONE. Personas are critical to identifying your ideal, most profitable customer. Follow the links in this post, all great resources.

3 Tips to Out-Communicate the Competition
Great strategic tips on how to optimize your communication efforts, without being redundant and consumed in daily activities.

Small Business News: Harnessing Google for You
This is an excellent resource for all marketers, a list of SEO and Google resources focused on strategies.

How To Use Social Media To Bum Out Your Customers In 2011
I love this post! A bit more tactical, but if you pay attention, you’ll understand the obvious strategic implications of this great satire.

3 Questions to Ask When Planning Your Website
Great questions to ask to also optimize your current website for better marketing results.

Social Media Analytics: 6 Steps to Measuring What You Care About
This article is loaded with strategic nuggets and valuable smart tracking tips for everyone using social media marketing.

5 Key Tips for a Successful Social Media Content Strategy
Excellent article on social media content–it’s not just about the updates and friend activities.

Why Your Social Media Strategy Sucks
I love this post from Danny Brown. I love all of his work, but this post, in particular, is a must read for anyone using social media.

Did I miss any? Shout ‘em out in the comments, I’m always looking for a good strategic read

Leading from my discussion about the post offer phase of list building, another critical aspect of social friendly list building is how you deliver your offer.  This aspect is just as important as the content you actually deliver.

There is one key concept to grasp here:

Consumption of content that is unrestricted is more social friendly

and tends to be shared more often.

Sounds intuitive right?  It seems so to me.  Yet, many business owners have a hard time with this one.  In the old days (pre-social media) a lead was not considered a lead unless the lead actually gave something up that was useful to the business for future marketing–a means for future communication.  Hence, the opt-in process for free offers.

Today, I would submit to you, there are varying degrees of what a lead is.  Yes, the ultimate end point and holy grail of revenue is the collection of traditional lead data such as email.  Yet, the lead process is no longer linear and sequential. Social media and technology have turned the funnel upside down and sideways.

Leads come from different directions and the lead generation process is much more organic than it used to be.  The lead nurturing phase is much longer with much more gray area than before. The days of directing traffic to a landing page and collecting the leads you were going to get are no longer.

Today, you have to build credibility, social proof, and relationships before many customers will consider giving such information.  You may also have to deal with different stages of relationship for different people in your market.  Some will opt-in  on any offer, others will make you do a song and dance for their email.

This is one of the drivers behind social media’s success and spread–the market now has the power and control.  Now, with that said, your list building efforts must be adjusted accordingly. You may have to give before you can get. You may have to forgo an email address for a social connection first and a blog comment second, then leading to a subscription for your offer.

Without beating the dead horse into the after life on this one, keep these ideas in mind as you plan out your next list building efforts:

1. Is it feasible to offer an online version open to all (seriously share-able), along with a downloadable version to build your list?
2. Is it feasible to break the offer into sections (chapters, etc)–turn each into a micro-landing page that is share-able individually to promote the total offer/download?
3. Integrate your blogging efforts with list building, by featuring content related to the offer you’re promoting (excerpts, intros with complete details in offer).
4. Offer your content in different media formats–online, pdf, audios, videos–to create a meatier, versatile offer.
5. Ask for the share and focus the options to 3 main areas based on your overall marketing plan (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
6. Use all touch points in the process, appropriately–focusing on simplicity and share-ability.
7. Publish snippets, in varying forms, across your social media presence with leads back to offer landing page.
8. Deliver what you say you’re going to deliver, nothing less or different, and throw in an unexpected bonus or follow-up bonus.
9. Generate guests posts, targeted to markets particularly interested in your author, use your bio as an opportunity to promote offer.
10. Create a special tab on your FB page, featuring the offer and Facebook “like” only download.
11. Create custom landing pages for key social media sites, presenting offer to your “Twitter Friends” and use link in bio as temporary focus.

…

The list could go on and on with ideas.  The point is, when you plan your list building offer–think through delivery, open-access and integration into social media.  The better your plan, the farther your good ideas will spread.

This is the #5 in a 5 part series: 5 steps to focused, social friendly list building.
Part 1: Focused, Social Friendly List Building and Offers
Part 2: Focused Offers for List Building
Part 3: Focused Process For Better List Building
Part 4: List Building and Post Offer Process

This series is a very small part of the new Social Media Smarts!

In this list building series, we’ve already tackled the importance of focus, social friendly listing building, how to focus your offer, and how to focus your offer process.  Today, I’m going to take a look at the post offer process–what happens after you’ve got the lead?

What happens in post offer phase of your list building, determines the quality of your leads.

Once your customer/lead travels beyond the access point for your offer, you’ve entered the post offer phase.  Unfortunately, this is where most businesses fall short.  They either dump people into a main list and enter them into a generic cycle of updates and pitches or this turns into a dead end.

This phase it a bit more difficult to present in a systematic way because what you do here, will depend entirely on how you’ve designed the flow of your offer.  Is this offer the entrance to a funnel that up-sells people to a specific paid offering (product/service)?  Is there a time sequenced auto-responder series scheduled?  This list of opportunities are endless here.

Let’s say your offer is the pre-cursor to selling an information product. Your planning stage would involve mapping out the best content and flow to take your traffic from offer to lead to sale.  This process may involve auto-responders, additional bonus content, sales pages and the like.

Let’s say your offer is simply a targeted list builder for multiple future offers.  Your goal is to build credibility and build relationships over the long-term.  Your offer is likely more general but still focused on a particular niche related to future paid offerings.  In this case, you’d likely integrate them into your general newsletter list or stay focused on a niche newsletter, specific to the content in the offer.

The point of what you do in the post offer phase is to plan it out with the goals you’re trying to achieve.  List building in and of itself is should not be the end result.  Rather it should be one of many benefits achieved when integrated into your overall marketing plan.

Whatever direction your post offer phase takes, however it is integrated into your marketing plan--social media should be integrated intelligently where sharing in the process is relevant and timely, not simply for its own sake.  All of this needs to be the focus on your list building planning, before you implement.

This is the #4 in a 5 part series: 5 steps to focused, social friendly list building.
Part 1: Focused, Social Friendly List Building and Offers
Part 2: Focused Offers for List Building
Part 3: Focused Process For Better List Building
Next up: delivery focus for social friendly list building
This series is a very small part of the new Social Media Smarts!

In part 1 and 2 of this series, I took a look at the necessity of focusing your list building and focusing your offer to ensure your efforts are social friendly among other benefits.  Today, let’s take a look at the necessity of focusing your list building process for better results.

First, let’s refresh on our list building scenario:

The process happens from the point they decide to act on your offer to the final access point for the offer.  Depending on your list building process, this can involve 3-4 separate touch points, all opportunities to strengthen your brand, their experience and your future relationship.

Let’s assume you’re using a double opt-in process:

1. Customer decides to take you up on your offer, they fill in the form.
2. Customer is redirected to a page that directs them to a confirmation email.
3. They confirm their subscription and are redirected to a confirmation thank you page.

…

At this point, you’ve hopefully doubled that thank you page into the download page and sent them a thank you email with link as well.  When deciding on this, always remember to keep steps, emails and redirect pages to a minimum to not annoy your new found lead 

Now, if you look at that process, you’ve got a total of 4 possible touch points. Each should be customized to make the process simple for your user.  Two can be customized to encourage spreading the word about your offer.

1. First redirect page after form completion. This page should be short and direct.  Some people have placed a short video to show people exactly what to do and what the confirmation email looks like.  Some assume people can simply be directed to it.  What you do here will depend on your audience and how tech-savvy they are.
2. The confirmation needed email. This once is pretty basic, at least it should be.  Customize your subject line, with the name of your offer so they can easily recognize it “Confirm Your [Offer] Request!” or something similar.  The email should be just as simple, mention the name of the offer again and let them know, they will have immediate access upon confirmation.
3. Final redirect after confirming. This page should double as your thank you and access point.  Don’t send them to a page that says, thank you and check your email.  This page should match the branding of the initial offer page and simply give them what they signed up for.  I also throw in an unexpected, relevant bonus of some sort.
4. Follow-up email. I typically schedule an auto-responder follow-up 24-48 hours later, as a customer service type touch point.  Thanks for your confidence, were you able to access your download, if not let me help you.  Or, whatever sounds right for your customer.

…

The latter 2 are great opportunities to encourage social sharing of your offer. On the final access point, I always place an opportunity for social sharing of the main offer landing page.  I do the same for the follow-up email, as a side note.  Sounds pretty basic right?  You’d be amazed at how many people skip these simple steps across all touch points.

If you’ve focused your offer, social sharing comes by simply presenting the opportunity at the right time… and ask.

One more note on this. Focus your social sharing options.  An exhaustive list of a gazillion social media icons is not conducive to having people share.  Too many options and confusion create a little thing I like to call “unsupervised thinking time.”  When choices are not clear, you leave people to think for themselves–9 times out of 10 people will not make decisions in your favor.

My recommendation is to focus your sharing options to your 2 main social media channels and an aggregate type option.  For WebSuccessDiva.com this would be Facebook, Twitter and ShareThis (which includes email, social bookmarking, etc).

Regardless of the options you choose for social sharing, keep them focused and minimal, to encourage sharing that makes sense for your presence and customer.

This is the #3 in a 5 part series: 5 steps to focused, social friendly list building.
Part 1: Focused, Social Friendly List Building and Offers
Part 2: Focused Offers for List Building
Next up: list building and your post offer process.
This series is a very small part of the new Social Media Smarts!

In part 1 of this series, I took a look at the necessity of focusing your list building, to ensure your efforts are social friendly among other benefits.  Today, let’s take a look at the most important focus point–your offer.

First, let’s refresh on our list building scenario:

Remember from my online hub checkup list, I outlined the two levels of list building–general and compelling offer.  The latter is your most lucrative list building opportunity, because it is targeted and specific.  However, the key success factor for compelling offers is focus.  You must focus your offer to your ideal, most profitable customers and market it in focused areas–hence the need for planning before implementing.

At this point, your personas and work to identify your ideal, most profitable customers become handy references.  When developing your offer, ask yourself these two questions:

1. Which ideal, most profitable customers is this offer focused on?
2. What type of offer would be most compelling, desired by this person?

…

If you have not matched up the offer to the customer, you’ll not only lower your conversion rates (leads), your list building efforts will be consistently mediocre.  Not to mention, the lack of traction in social sharing.

If your offer isn’t relevant to me, your ideal customer, why on Earth would I share it?

Landing page focus.

Landing pages are a completely different guide in and of themselves.  Landing pages are not only critical to your list building success, they can also help or hinder your share-ability.  To do this topic justice, we’d need to cover best practices extensively.  For starters, keep these focus points in mind:

1. Focus on one call-to-action. Period.  You have one offer, get the conversion.  Social sharing, sub-offers and the like are all secondary and not priority on an offer landing page.  Opportunity placement of focus social sharing buttons should be offered, in an area not to compete with your main call-to-action, but visible.
2. Focus your branding. Create landing pages that align with your branding, make your landing page recognizable and thus more credible.
3. Focus your copy and layout. Simplicity in this area can not be overstated here.  Verbose copy, complicated and unclear navigation to the subscription form–all bad.
4. Focus your requirements. Should you really ask a ton of business information for your customer to gain access to an ebook?  Probably not.  Keep your requirements for subscription comparable to the offer at hand.  Longer forms, lower conversion rates.

…

This is the #2 in a 5 part series: 5 steps to focused, social friendly list building.
Part 1: Focused, Social Friendly List Building and Offers
Next up: list building process focus.
This series is a very small part of the new Social Media Smarts!

Social friendly offers and list building should go far beyond simply placing share buttons on a page.  Buttons do not necessarily make your offer sharable, nor do they compel people to want to share. They are simply opportunities.  Successful list building will require you to not only create compelling offers that convert, but make them social friendly to grow your list exponentially.

Obviously, I can not teach you how to create sharable content, how to write or what offer would work best for your audience at this particular moment.  However, there are two areas of best practice you can use as a guide when creating and implementing list building offers that are social friendly:

1. Focus
2. Delivery

…

For the sake of argument, as we move through this, let’s outline an “ideal situation” flow of an offer, from traffic to sharing:

Focus should be your theme at every decision point when creating list building offers. This is not only important for conversions of traffic to subscribers, it will also make your offer more social friendly.  That is to say, when you’re planning and implementing your offer, remember that any action you want to take is a call-to-action–sharing included.

Remember from above, your offer flow does not stop at the point when they enter their email address.  There are several points within our example that would benefit from focus–all of which should be thought out while planning the offer and making it social friendly.

Let’s revisit our flow, thinking now about focus:

Focus, focus, and focus.

This is the #1 in a 5 part series, 5 steps to focused, social friendly list building.

Next up:  the traffic and offer focus.

This series is a very small part of the new Social Media Smarts!

Yesterday, I highlighted the necessity of compelling, call-to-action list building activities that scale beyond the realm of simply offering a newsletter.  While placement of these offers can be based solely on opportunity, most of the time you’ll want to isolate this type of list building on landing pages.  Whether you’re currently using landing pages or just beginning to implement this strategy, use my checkup list to guide you.

Why Landing Pages

One call to action. Landing pages are designed to compel the reader to take one action–subscription, purchase, etc.

Focus. Landing pages eliminate distractions and noise, helping you keep your reader focused on one topic.

Targeted tracking. Landing pages are an excellent way, when setup appropriately, to target the success or failure of specific campaigns and offers.

When Landing Pages

Compelling offer list building. You’ll want to use landing pages for any of your second level list building activities, those that make an offer beyond your newsletter and target specific lead generation to sales funnels.

Social media custom landing pages. My clients have achieved great success creating custom landing pages for social media traffic, converting into deeper connections and list building.

Search engine landing pages. When building search traffic never dump people from the search engines onto your homepage or other obscure page.   You’ll want customer landing pages, specific to the search terms/activities in which the searcher found you.

Advertising landing pages. The same theory behind custom landing pages for search engines applies to advertising (such as AdWords).  You’ll optimize your results by customizing and directing advertising traffic to landing pages.

How Landing Pages

There are many ways to build landing pages, the best advice I can give you is to tell you what not to do–landing page killers–and other tips.  Use these to check up on your current efforts and as you move forward.

Pop-ups suck. Internet marketers love pop-ups and hovers and other nonsense that ticks users off.  These have no place on landing pages.  Remember, one call to action–having one on a landing pages says, “I want you to do this, but wait… do this first.”

Give me what I expect. I touched on this in the when.  If you’re advertising for one thing, make sure your landing page is what I expect to see when I follow your link.  Misleading your traffic will kill your landing page.

Paint me a picture. Landing pages are most effective when the call-to-action you want a user to take is not only written in words, but presented visually.  The design and flow of your landing pages, will paint a picture that either confuses or directs to action.

Do I know who you are? Branding your landing pages, similar to your overall branding, will help users recognize who the offer is coming from.  Yes, you’ll place your logo and such on there, but branding consistency is important.

Keep me awake. Stop using lame templates for everything you do, especially landing pages.  Headline, bullets, call-to-action button, and stock photo are basics and so will your results be.  Match your landing page to the level of compelling offer… hence the word compelling, video and other media should be tested.

Don’t get nosey. Statistically, the more information you require–the less response you’ll get.  Make sure the amount of information you ask for is comparative to the offer–don’t ask me for my life story if you’re offering me an ebook.  Ask only what you need to ask.

Flow, baby. For the most part, users scan a page top to bottom, left to right–just as they read a book.  Make sure important information is above the fold and your sequence of information makes sense with the flow of your user.

Keep it simple, stupid. As my friend Rick Butts says, stupid doesn’t self identify (i just love that!).  Keep your landing pages simple, stupid.  Keep everything you do online simple.

Review and test. There is nothing more powerful in killing a landing page than dead links, missing images, files that won’t download.  Before you go live, review and test the entire process.

That’s it friends.  Focus, compelling, and simple.  Landing pages are very powerful, if you’re not using them, step it up in 2011 for better results.

Have you missed the other checkups?

Marketing Checkup List

Social Media Checkup List

WordPress Plugins Checkup List

Online Hub Checkup List

Your online hub is the center of your business universe, its the machine behind everything you’ll do to build traffic, grow your list and convert your leads into your ideal, most profitable customers.  Because your hub is at the core of your business existence, you’ll want to spend time to make sure it is optimized and ready to perform.

If you’ve spent anytime reviewing my Social Media Smarts guide, or others, you’ll know I’m a big proponent of the hub and spoke approach to internet marketing:

With the hub and spoke approach, your hub must be optimized to perform at three levels:

Going Hybrid

There tend to be two, extreme camps when it comes to building an online Hub: hard-core internet marketing and new media purists. One will build a website driven solely on lead generation and sales conversions, the latter builds based on conversations, community and social features. Neither is the correct answer for most businesses.

A hybrid Hub blends the best of both, integrating the important principles of internet marketing (static pages, landing pages, etc) with the best of new media (blogs, social media, etc). This works for the same reasons the Hub and Spoke approach works.

List & Lead Opportunities

To begin here, let me be clear–lead generation involves activities far beyond simply building a list. While list building is important, you’ll want to consider all opportunities that will ultimately lead to a sale. Your list will be your lifeline when communicating with your ideal, most profitable customers–in addition to being one of your main tools to segment your funnel.

Your hub needs to be capable of integrating two levels of list and lead opportunities.

1.  General Communication List Building

This level typically involves your newsletter or email updates.  Whether you simply offer company updates or email updates for blog posts, this type of list building involves opportunity as the driver.  General communication tends to under perform because there is no direct, compelling call-to-action other than simply connecting to updates.

General communication list building should be strategically used as a consistent and continuous part of your big picture efforts, including company updates, content updates, news and events, press releases, and the like.  Delivery of your general newsletter must also be scheduled consistently and offered in various formats (html, text, and mobile).

2.  Call-to-Action, Compelling Offer List Building

List building based on offers typically involves specific content.  This content is designed to create a funnel for those that subscribe–to sell a product, or enter an auto-responder series, or segment by topic or niche.  The possibilities here are endless, the focus is to provide a compelling offer (whether free or paid) to cause one call-to-action, subscription.

Offer based list building is different from your general newsletter, because:

1. subscription opportunities tend to be strategically placed;
2. subscription opportunities should be built on single call-to-action landing pages;
3. will either be used as a pre-cursor to launches or special offers or as general interest;
4. you’ll use different offers to segment your market by topic, qualification, etc; and
5. offers tend to be designed as a first part in the purchase process/funnel.

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Because these list building efforts are more focused, in most cases, you’ll build your list faster, with greater quality–given best practices.  The magic happens in your offer, follow-up and exceeding expectations of your subscribers.

Listen, you need both levels of list building to succeed. And, you need to integrate your email marketing and list building efforts across most of your marketing channels–including two-way integration with social media.  Your social media connections will become subscribers and your subscribers will also be connections.

Track to Learn and Improve

The most overlooked aspect of internet marketing and an online presence, is the necessity to track and improve results. Many people mistakenly look at this part of the process as something that costs more than it returns. Wrong. Tracking and improving your results will directly impact your bottom line.

Think about it. Imagine what could be done in your marketing if you knew what was working andwhat was not working. You could optimize your results, lessen the time you waste on strategies that do not work and increase your revenue opportunities across the board. Very powerful indeed.

Your online hub should be set-up to ensure systematic and consistent tracking efforts.

platform matters

While I won’t spend much time on the topic of Hub platform, I would not be doing you justice if I did not cover this important topic.  Your platform, or what your Hub is built on, will either create future opportunities or greatly hinder your efforts.  This will be inevitable as your online presence grows.

After 12 years in the business of building online businesses, I whole heartedly recommend WordPress.  Wordpress will far exceed your development, integration and customization needs–often, without the need for an expensive developer.  If you’re serious about your online success, you’ll want to consider it.

We have used WordPress to build Hubs that include blogs, landing pages, multiple author networks, membership websites, private learning communities, niche social networking communities, complete e-commerce websites, and a hybrid mix of all the above.  Seriously, there really is nothing you can not do with WordPress.

hub necessities

Go hybrid to be the master of your domain. If you are building an online presence centered around one niche, one business or one brand you’ll want to ensure you become the master of your domain.  This ultimately means you’ll want to build a Hub that can accomodate the various aspects of an effective online presence–blogging, website features, landing pages, etc.  This will not only make management and integration easier, you’ll also gain all the benefits of branding your business to one domain–for all intensive purposes, your namesake online.

Examine your current Hub, and assess the following capabilities:

1. build static website based pages, including about, contact, and services/products?
2. quickly build landing pages for special offers, lead generation and selling?
3. create and publish various formats for content marketing, like blogging, podcasting, video marketing, etc?

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Integration is essential. In addition to your development capabilities, you’ll want a Hub that allows for easy integration to the outside world, including your social media spokes.  Integration can include such features as automatic content publishing, content distribution, social media updating, branded linking, and much more.  Without the ability to integrate, you’ll spend much more time than necessary completing necessary tasks.

Customization will rock your results. In order to achieve this, you’ll need the ability to customize every aspect of your Hub.  While there are varying degrees of customization, you’ll want to have the basic capability of customizing the how and when of personalization and far beyond.  There are no set rules for customization–just know, as the social customer advances, you’ll want the ability to present an increasingly personalized experience on your Hub.  This can be as simple as customized offers based on content consumed, personalized lead generation and e-commerce features for social shopping.

Take the time, to evaluate your online hub for performance and fill in the gaps.  Your overall marketing efforts will be better for it!

Segments of this post come from my new Social Media Smarts guide.

Missed the series?  Check out:

Marketing Checkup List

Social Media Checkup List

WordPress Plugins Checkup List