'Net Features : web marketing

6 Ways to Prime Your Web Design

Linc Wonham — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:30:00 GMT

Just like shopping in the brick-and-mortar world, website users are exposed to direct and indirect cues online that can unconsciously nudge them into making different decisions down the line. This process is called priming.

Web designers can use priming to their advantage if they understand how and why it works, and how different situations call for different methods of priming. Priming describes the exposure to a stimulus that activates mental pathways. At a later point in time when these pathways are still active, they are more easily accessible for a similar stimulus than non-active ones. This leads to a priming effect.

An example of this is seen in television commercials. Watching televised advertising activates different mental pathways, and these pathways usually only link to positive memories – which is exactly what ad designers get paid to do.

The next time you visit the supermarket and see a product from an ad, these positive memories are triggered and they leave you with a positive attitude towards the product. If you need to choose between a hundred different types of yogurt brands, you are most likely going to go for the one that gives you a positive feeling.

How Designers Can Use Primes
Priming does not work by forcing a decision upon your customers, but you can use it as a means to effectively support their decisions. Primes that can be used to guide your customers and support their decisions through website design include the following:

1. Colors
Colors have different meanings and can be used to prime emotions. You can color your background or only specific elements like buttons or content areas, for example. Be aware of your target group and their understanding of colors and the emotions they elicit.

2. Text
Text can also be used as a prime, of course. Include the exact wording of your menu items in your content and build a nice story around them, for example. Then when customers look around your site, the primed menu item will lead their thoughts back to your story -- which makes elements of the story accessible.

3. Metaphors
Use metaphors that refer to information to help your customers make a decision. For example, imagine you try to sell vacation trips. You could use the metaphor of a shell to trigger positive emotions like sun, beach, palm trees, ocean, waves, relaxation, etc.

4. Images
Use pictures to prime your customers. These pictures can either be in the background or a central element of your webpage. You can prime emotions that come with the purchase of your product or you can prime a desirable action that requires the purchase of your product, for example. Both times, you trigger memories that might only be distantly related to your product, as a way to guide your customers’ decisions.

5. Video
Use videos to prime a whole process of actions. Showing the sign-up process with the different steps involved will make it easier for your customers to sign up, for example. Different memories related to a sign-up process will be accessible that help to make the right choice. Besides, when your customers see the sign up button, the process of signing up will be more accessible to them than it would be without the prime.

6. Audio
Include audio on your website to prime any action you want your customers to engage in. Make sure that you don’t tell your customers what to do, but rather give them the idea that they figured it out themselves.

Ensure that you pay attention to the atmosphere on your website. The emotional perception and elements that refer to emotions are important primes when it comes to the perception of your site. And for the rest, be creative! Anything that activates information in the minds of your customers can be used as prime.

It is important to note that priming is not the same as subliminal messaging. The two are related, but subliminal messaging includes ‘hidden’ primes and is considered by many to be an unethical marketing practice. Besides, not much research can be found to prove that subliminal messaging really works.

Priming, on the other hand, has been proven multiple times to influence our judgment and decision-making, and is a recognized marketing tool. Priming includes visual or at least sensible primes that can be identified, such as pictures or odors. These primes should be context-sensitive and part of your website design.

Primes influence our choices, but they support our decision-making processes instead of forcing a decision upon us. However, primes only work if they are not identified as such, which also offers some food for thought.

About the author: Paul Veugen is the CEO and founder of Usabilla, a Web-based usability testing tool that allows marketers, analysts, designers and usability experts to collect visual feedback on their websites. Participants answer questions with points and notes on top of a webpage, mockup or sketch, and the results are analyzed and presented visually with charts and heat maps.

A Blogger's Dream: PRTube

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:40:00 GMT

One of my favorite press release distrubution services, PRLeap, announced last week the launch of PRTube, a way to embed, share and track press releases on any blog or website.

"PRTube takes the social media press release to the next level by allowing anyone to embed the press release on their website, blog or social network profile, making it viral," said Merrick Lozano, co-founder of Condesa, the company behind PRLeap.

Using Adobe Flash, PRTube is essentially an embeddable press release viewer. Where the system will really stand out is in its statistics and tracking capabilities. PRTube features real-time monitoring and tracking, allowing a Web marketer or publicist to see where the press release has been embedded and how many times it has been viewed. This is in addition to the web analytics already available on prleap.com.

For bloggers looking for content, finding it through PRLeap and displaying it through the PRTube interface might be a good option.

PRTube.com is scheduled to be launched as a separate platform and set of tools in the spring 2009, although it's available now within all PR accounts and in distribution of all press releases.

Major Increase In Voucher Searches

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:44:00 GMT

According to Hitwise, one in every 200 visits to an online retail website in the UK now comes from voucher sites like Hot UK Deals or My Voucher Codes.

UK Internet searches for discount vouchers (coupons) have increased by 133 percent over the last 12 months, while visits to voucher websites have gone up by 45 percent, according to Hitwise. During the 12 weeks ending 15 November, UK Internet users searched for over 20,000 different variations on the term ‘voucher’, with many of these looking for discount voucher codes to use at the online checkout.

If you're a merchant and you're not using coupon/discount sites as part of your online marketing mix, now is the time to get started! While the data provided by Hitwise was for the UK market, you can be sure that (considering the current global recession) consumers will be looking for deals in the US as well.

Creative Solution Showcase - BGT Partners

Administrator — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:02:00 GMT

What does a great website or effective interactive campaign actually look like and how does it function? Great question! The Internet Advertising Competition (IAC) Awards (produce by the Web Marketing Association) is an excellent place to start reviewing sites which experts believe are the best of the best. The competition honors excellence in online advertising, recognizes the individuals and organizations responsible and showcases the creative work of the interactive industry's finest. Miami-based BGT Partners won 11 IAC Awards this year in a variety of categories. You can see the entire list of winners at www.advertisingcompetition.org.

Here's a sample of BGTs work:

WebAwards - Call For Entries

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:27:00 GMT

The Web Marketing Association is announcing the 2008 Call for Entries for its 12th annual WebAward Competition. As we've noted before, winning a Web award is a great opportunity to secure some recognition in addition to being a powerful marketing opportunity. There are 96 industry categories from Advertising and architecture to real estate and restaurants.

Entries are judged by industry experts using criteria such as design, ease of use, copywriting, interactivity, use of technology, innovation, and content. Being a WebAward judge myself and seeing a few of our readers sites the past few years, I encourage readers to submit for review in hopes of winning an award. Chances are good - nay great - that you will secure some attention! The deadline for entry is May 31, 2008 so sign up today at the competition website at www.webaward.org.

The Changing Environment of Online Video

Mike Phillips — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:49:00 GMT

eMarketer released some numbers late last week, some of which are worth noting. The idea that online video is soaring is nothing new - eMarketer projects that near 80% of Internet users will have watched video online by the end of the year.

Based on data from Nielsen, eMarketer made some calculations about changing unique visitor data to online video portals. From January 2007 - November 2007 shares of unique visitors:

YouTube gained 51.1%.
Yahoo! Video (who recently launched their new, more user-friendly home page) gained 158.9%.
Google Video dropped 35.5%.
MSN Video dropped 4.4%.

A separate study, comissioned by the IBM Institute for Business Value in April 2007 analyzed why online video viewers choose certain channels. Of those, 46% responded with better content selection, 23% said faster downloading/streaming and 21% said because friends go there. In my opinion, those are the numbers that matter.

As video capabilities grow, so do expectations. And that means being able to find what you want, when you want it, and the ability to start viewing that content in a timely manner.

But friends carry a tremendous amount of weight - especially in today's social networking-crazed atmosphere. With the sheer selection of online video, sfiting throught the clutter can be a difficult task. Sometimes, I find myself visiting the YouTube home page without even knowing what I'm looking for. But, if a friend recommends something to me or, better yet sends me a link, the video is watched almost immediately. These days users can share videos through networks like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn (how about sharing an instructional video with all of your contacts?) - even directly from YouTube. You can set up a personalized home page and see recommendations from friends, subscribe to certain channels and more.

I expect that 21% "because friends go there" number to rise. More to the point, I expect a category of "because friends send me videos" to gain some traction. Frankly, I'm surprised that was overlooked.

For businesses, the future of online video promotion is in syndication. And this means getting appropriate videos noticed by those who spread them and have large networks. Simply uploading a video to YouTube doesn't cut it. You need to get that video noticed and as the Internet (and video) gets more personalized as a whole, getting the right syndication partners will make all the difference. In the end, that means taking time getting to know these networks, participating and ultimately offering value.

Bundled Web Marketing Suite at Lyris

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:11:00 GMT

Lyris announced a new pricing structure this week that will bundle many technologies essential to the success of online marketers.

For an initial seat price of $299 per month, marketers get a set volume of 5,000 emails each month, along with unlimited use of Lyris’ hosted digital marketing solutions; Web analytics (ClickTracks), Web content management (Hot Banana), deliverability monitoring (EmailAdvisor), and PPC campaign management (BidHero) technologies.

“For the price of one point solution, we’re giving marketers everything they need to be successful online,” said Blaine Mathieu, SVP Marketing, Lyris, Inc. “Marketers know that everything they do online is interconnected – so why should they have to work with disparate technologies and pay extra for each piece? Search ads, landing pages, Web sites and email messaging – they’re all part of the same ecosystem. We’re giving marketers what they need to manage all of this effectively – a product that integrates everything, and a disruptive pricing model that gives them this valuable product at a great price.”