A lot of clients seem to come to us having experimented with one Online Press Release distribution source or another. Usually, the first question is whether the distribution service they are using is the correct one. I thought it might be helpful to provide a little comparison, based on our experience, of when each one is most applicable.
PRWeb - This is the best distribution source for online press releases with optimization and social media reach. It is best for releases that are intended to reach consumers and targeted readerships of professionals.
Business Wire - This is a good distribution source for releases that are focused on a business readership. It goes out to both online and traditional media sources such as magazines, newspapers and TV stations.
PR Newswire – This is very similar to Business Wire, but is good for press releases that are not specifically business oriented, but of a more general news orientation.
Marketwire – This is similar to PR Newswire, but has a pretty heavy magazine focus. It’s good for general releases, but does have a large distribution list for category specific targets.
A/B testing is nothing more than performing a test of two elements and measuring the response. It’s called A/B testing because you are likely testing two elements against each other, such as element “A” and element “B” to see which element increases the liklihood of conversion. These elements could be a “50% off” header versus a “Buy 1 get 1 free” header. When performing an A/B test, it’s critical to hold all other elements on the page constant, to enable accurate measurement of the results.
Multivariate Testing, on the other hand, is useful for testing multiple elements on a webpage, for example, to determine the most successful combinations. When setting up and managing a multivariate test, it’s possible to test 3, 4, 5 or even more elements on a page at an assigned or random interval. The benefit of multivariate testing is that it’s possible to determine optimimal combinations, that might take hundreds of A/B tests to arrive at the same result. The negative side is that you need hundreds, if not thousands, of conversions to get an accurate picture of the algorithmic combination that has led to the best result.
In the last week, a friend of mine has been digging into multivariate versus a/b testing. He’s using Google Website Optimizer to setup multivariate testing for his e-commerce website. I like the Google system, since it’s free and provides the basics needed for good A/B or Multivariate testing. SiteSpect and Omniture have good technology as well, but they can’t match Google’s price of Free. Anyway, while he was setting it up I was giving him some advice on different elements to test. On the same day, I happened to notice an A/B test on another website (probably just because it was on my mind). PRweb, which is an online distribution source that we often use for Optimized Press Releases seems to be doing some interesting A/B testing on their registration process. Below are their two versions, let me know what you think:
PRweb-testA
PRweb-testb
Often when we sit down to review a new client website marketing, the first thing we encounter is a problem with their website conversion process. I don’t think conversion optimization requires a PHD, but sometimes it does take some critical thinking to figure out what is stopping customers from converting. It can be a lack of a call-to-action, loud colors, painfully long copy or simply no way to convert. When we go through the process of enhancing a clients’ conversion process, it’s almost a thing of magic.
For example, recently we optimized the conversion process for a service company. Before we started their website was converting leads at about 3%, which isn’t terrible. After we finished a basic usability assessment and implemented our recommendations, the same website now converts between 15 and 20 percent.
I read an article the other day that I thought really summarized some of the basic points of conversion optimization nicely. I’ll recap the main ideas here, and if you want to read more, here’s the link to the article, by Dmitry Fadeyev.
1. Subliminal Suggestion
2. Prevent Choice Paralysis
3. Show The Product
4. Let People Try It
5. AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire and Action
6. Guide attention
7. Always Provide Next Actions
8. The Gutenberg rule (top left to bottom right)
