Online Marketing Stuff – internet marketing – online strategy – websites

I know I’m a bit of a web addict, but this morning I was eating my breakfast and reading my new Nett Magazine and I realised that I really wanted my computer on beside me so that I could follow through from the articles and check out the corresponding websites online too.

Given that a lot of the articles in this mag involve a website related story it seems only logical to be able to follow through and check out the website that Ive just invested a few minutes in reading about. I also noticed that I responded in a similar way to advertisements I was interested in which listed a URL.

So of course I went and got my laptop, checked out the links and decided to write about this topic while I am here too.

So how widespread is this habit? Do you combine media in this way? Studies have shown that people are multi-tasking much more across media and I think marketers are finally catching on,  allowing them to further leverage campaigns by having interlinking components across different mediums.

Check out Marketing Charts stats on multi-tasking across different media.

Now the trick for me is to explain to people like my husband that me turning on my computer during breakfast isn’t actually working, a key problem with being actually interested in the area I work in for a living!

I’ll let you into a secret. One of our upcoming Interactive Minds events is about Digital Trends and Predictions and I want to know what you think is going to occur in the digital and interactive industry in 2009?

• What effect with the market down turn have?
• What will be the next big thing?
• Which companies will buy who?
• Will online ad spend continue to grow?
• Will marketers allocate more budget to online?
• How will we progress beyond web 2.0?
• What will Google do next?

Let us know your thoughts and take part in this discussion!

This Friday, Interactive Minds is running an event on “What Customers Want: Improving Your Customer’s Website Experience”.

If you’re interested in hearing about how companies are measuring and improving on their website customer’s experience then come along!

We have some great speakers lined up including Adam Goodvach from Global Reviews, Tania Lang from Peak Usability and Andrew Cooper from dStore.

There aren’t many tickets left so visit www.interactiveminds.com.au to find out more and make sure you register to attend.

I have tried to join a few websites as a member recently and have been confronted with what seemed like a laborious double opt in process in order to join. This has got me thinking about the value of a double opt in process for a membership based website. Does it help or hinder the cause? Does it add value and if so what and would I use it if I ran a membership based site?

What is Double Opt In
A double opt in process in this context involves a user filling in a form (to become a website member) and then before getting access to use that membership, being asked to verify the account by clicking on an email link sent to them.

Reasons for Using a Double Opt In Process
The key reason for using a double opt in sign up process is to ensure that the person registering is who they say they are and that they are using a legitimate and correct email address.

The Downsides of the Double Opt In Process
In my view the double opt in process does have quite a few negatives associated with it. Primarily I feel it partially hinders marketing efforts as companies have potentially spent a lot of time, money and effort in getting a person to the site in the first place only to then send them back to their email (a potential distraction) before letting them interact with the site.

I think the impact of a double opt in process on your site will depend on the nature of your offering and also how well known your brand is. If you are a popular site with a strong value proposition or if you will be providing access to content that is sensitive in nature it may be more important to verify the user’s identity before you let them “in”. This may be particularly relevant for sites that focus on transactions or user generated content as this can then form part of the moderation process.

Nevertheless, I personally find the double opt in membership process rather annoying as I am focused on doing one task and sometimes waiting just a minute or two for that confirmation email to come in can be enough to take my attention elsewhere. It makes me question how badly the site wants me to be involved. Or perhaps it just demonstrates that I need to focus a bit more and do one task at a time! Still in the day and age of “busy people” it would be interesting to get some insight into the drop off rate between the initial sign up and the confirmation process for companies using this method.

Sites That Do and Sites That Don’t
When I looked around at large membership based sites, a few were making new users go through a double opt in process, but many also weren’t. Here is a snapshot of what I found:

Sites Supporting a Double Opt In Process

• Facebook.com
• Ebay.com

Sites Without a Double Opt In Process

• MySpace.com
• Twitter.com
• LinkedIn.com (they do get you to confirm your email address via an email, but still let you use the site in the meantime – clever blend)
• Seek.com.au

Alternatives to Double Opt In
So are there any alternatives to double opt in? I personally would look at other methods to verify a person’s email address rather than putting this speed bump in so early in the process. Here are a few options to consider:

• Verify the membership request using Captcha text (to check it is a person not a machine completing the form).
• Ask users to enter their email address twice (and verify these match) to limit typing error issues.
• Send an email to the new user confirming their membership and providing a link to advise if they did not request the membership (effectively an opt out process). This can also include membership details.

What Do You Think?
Have an opinion different to mine? Let us know by leaving a comment.

If you work in digital media, you may be interested in entering the AIMIA awards which are now accepting entries. These annual awards now have a broad range of 23 different categories including Best Word-of-Mouth, Best Mobile Product or Services and Best Use of Social Media (plus heaps more).

If you have been involved in a great campaign or interactive project recently, why not enter it – you have to be in it to win it!

The judging criteria looks fairly straight forward and includes all the expected items…

• Fitness for purpose
• Design innovation
• Visual impact and aesthetics
• Technical expertise
• Conformance to W3C standards
• Useability and accessibility
• Special characteristics

Only AIMIA members can enter, however that process is pretty easy so I encourage you to check it out, especially the Queenslanders – let’s showcase our stuff too!

Entries can be submitted until Tuesday 4th November which only gives you a few weeks to get your entry sorted. Find out more on the AIMIA website.

I was reading one of my favourite “web updates” emails by TechCrunch and saw them talking about a new ad by Nintendo on YouTube.

It’s worth a look and is something different in terms of a “video” leveraging its on screen environment. It also pushes some of the boundaries technically from what we often allow ourselves to think is possible.

Worth checking out the TechCruch article and also the YouTube site.

This week Interactive Minds ran their first networking and education event for digital and interactive professionals in Brisbane. We had Louis Moore from REA Group as well as David Jordine from Omniture presenting about how they measure online success.

Some of the interesting things I learnt from the presentations were as follows:

• RealEstate.com.au (and the REA Group) is such a big empire. They think of their success measures in terms of Customers, Agents and Vendors & Advertisers.
• Unique visitor and unique browser measures are still really important to companies and one of the first metrics looked at (regardless of how successful the site is).
• Email is leveraged by REA across all audience groups as a way of maintaining relevance and engagement.
• REA use a beta site (property.com.au) to test new methods before they are rolled out across the main sites.
• There are 4 key categories of why companies have a website presence: (1) eCommerce (2) Lead Generation (3) Content/Subscription (4) Service/Support
• Omniture look at 3 types of optimisation for success: Campaign Optimisation, Site Optimisation and Customer Optimisation
• Omniture have some good reporting for drop off positioning on conversion funnels
• Ways to measure success online include the expected UB’s, session duration, conversions, revenue as well as things like cost per acquisition, response rates to ads, interaction metrics (content related) with customers, referrals, repeat traffic and lots more! More and more companies are starting to track and leverage this information which is great.

The turnout for the event was great with almost 70 people attending, a great effort everyone!
Thanks to everyone who came along and for those who weren’t able to make it, I hope to meet you at one of our next events!