Online Conversion & Beyond

Long Time, No Post

For the faithful readers of this site, an apology and explanation are in order.  Since August of 2007, I've had the opportunity to work closely with my friends and colleagues at Future Now, Inc. as they took the critical steps to become a public company.

To make certain that I did nothing that would violate the (SEC) rules, I've been silent regarding my work there.

See you all later in the new year!

Sources of Discontent with Work - Look Deeper for the Real Answers

It seems that every day, there's another study or report regarding how satisfied people are at work.  According to the latest from the Conference Board, the majority of those employed in the US dislike their current jobs.

What's really important (according to the report) is what they dislike. 

• It's not their supervisor - "Somewhat surprisingly, 53% of surveyed workers said they were happy with their immediate supervisor"
• It's not their working conditions - " . . .  52% are satisfied with the physical environment at work. "
• It's not the work itself, which many find interesting and rewarding.

It's the other stuff.  " . . . when the questions turn to money, the discontent shows. Thirty-six percent of workers are happy with their wages, while just 21% are happy with the bonus plan at work. Less than one-fourth of workers are happy with the promotion policy at work, with fewer than a third satisfied with their potential for future growth."

Another factor that is important to consider is age.  The majority of older workers (55+), particularly those making over $50K per year, are happy with their jobs.  Contrast this with younger workers:

"Less than two out of every five workers under the age of 25 are satisfied with their jobs. This segment of the population has the lowest level of satisfaction and the lowest level ever recorded in the nearly 20-year history of this survey."

Given the new emphasis on retention at many companies, where a significant percentage of the over 55 workforce is expected to retire soon, this is a chilling prospect.

Although the shift from minority dissatisfaction to the majority view is new, it's been moving that direction for years.  The problems are not new.  What remains to be seen are (a) deeper looks at the root causes of dissatisfaction with compensation and prospects for the future and (b) some new ideas to address the situation.   For instance, has the continued rise in executive compensation been a major or minor contributing factor to employee dissatisfaction with pay? What other factors are major contributors to the negative trends in job satisfaction?

We've had long enough to admire the problem.  Let's see some solutions.

Please Come Back - We're So Sorry

We live in the age of public apology. And since a week in rehab (or a few hours, ala Britney) is not an option for poor behavior on a corporate scale, new media has become the confessional of choice.  Witness the JetBlue CEO's recent appeal to customers  on YouTube after a horrible week. 

Will this translate into repaired customer relations (and sales)?  It may be too early to know, but it's a good start.  And it is really, really quick, a good attribute for any attempts at "We're so sorry." 

We'll be interested to see whether the buying public responds positively.  Or if this will seem lame after the newness of the approach wears off.

MBODLG Best Practices

Yesterday evening the MBODLG (Mass Bay OD Learning Group) reprised one of its most popular formats, the multi-track "best practices" session, titled Best Practices in Six Work Environments III.  Six teams of presenters provided experience-based overviews of OD work in Internal, External, Healthcare, Biotech/Pharma, Non-Profit and Virtual environments. 

I sat in on the virtual teams session, co-led by Nancy Settle-Murphy (Chrysalis) and Nina Viswanathan (Monster) and learned some new tricks to make virtual environments more engaging, improving the experience of group leaders, facilitators and participants.  We also took a look at a new tool to help virtual teams succeed.

From what I heard in conversations with those attending the other five sessions, the learnings were well worth the time spent in each breakout.  Many thanks to our great presenters.   And thanks also to our hosts Tufts Healthcare, who provided a wonderful facility for the work.  It was  a great night for all who attended.

Nifty New Map Feature

Thanks to Rick Burnes of FaneuilMedia, we're testing a new map mashup tool.  Here's where we work.

Employee Conversion - From Detachment to Engagement

Josephine Rossi's review of the new book from Gallup Press, 12: The Elements of Great Managing in the January T&D magazine poses an interesting question:

"What do $300 billion USD, € 90 billion euro and $3 billion SGD have in common?"

According to the Gallup organization, these are estimates of lost worker productivity due to disengagement in the US, Germany and Singapore, respectively.  And the bad news is that these are not exceptions . . . similar results are found in other countries that Gallup monitors.

The key to reversing this trend, according to authors Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter, lies in improving the quality of managers expected to bring the best out of the employees with whom they've been entrusted.  It's long been known that people "join companies, but quit managers" (source unknown).   So the focus on managers makes good sense, as long as we don't forget the employees themselves.

One interesting aspect of the book, according to Rossi, which falls outside the steps to employee engagement, is the treatment given to compensation.  The authors refer to compensation as ". . . a status-laden, envy-inspiring, politically charged monster."  The authors say that "while higher pay doesn't ensure engagement, compensation disparities among peers most certainly will kill it."  (And keep in mind, we are not talking here about runaway executive compensation, which has effectively stamped out any remaining pretense of meritocracy.)  We're just talking about peer comparisons.

As a follow-up to Marcus Buckingham's 1999 book "First, Break All of the Rules" this is a well done sequel.  The 12 elements are well stated.  Consider adding this one to your reading list.

To Tell The Truth - Consulting Disasters

On Pearl Harbor Day (some real irony here),  I had an opportunity to join four respected local consultants on a panel for the IMCNE/SPC (Institute of Management Consultants - New England/Society of Professional Consultants) holiday meeting entitled “When Good Clients Go Bad: Best and Worst Case Scenarios about Managing Your Clients.”

The panel, moderated by the lovely Martha Hopewell of Seven Centers Strategic Management Consulting, consisted of John A. Boisvert, founder and CEO of Greenwood Consulting, Roy Sequeira, President of Sequeira Consulting, Hinda Sterling, PhD co-founder and senior partner of Sterling & Selesnick, Inc. and your's truly.   

Presenting in case study format, each of us related a story of an engagement gone wrong and provided our own perspective on causes and corrections.   The stories ranged from runaway sponsors who left the consultant to face an angry audience to client/consultant issues with scope and budget. 

When we asked the audience to join us in the analysis and provide us with their thoughts on "rescue," the meeting came alive.   As consultants, we've all had less-than-successful engagements, so the responses were both empathetic and helpful.  And thanks to Martha's gentle facilitation, we were able to get to the heart of the matter in each case, leaving both the panelists and the audience with an appreciation of the skill and courage it takes to do consulting well.   

Hats off to my colleagues.  It takes guts to talk about the "ones that didn't go well."   And many thanks to the audience for their thoughtful participation, friendly advice and willingness to admit that they've been there too.

Connecting Online Ads, Offline Ads and Telephone Responses

Tracking online PPC results for activity that starts and finishes on the site is reasonably easy.  However, when offline action follows online prompting, it gets a little tricky.  So, we'd like to tip our hat in thanks to Bill Hartzer, writing in WebProNews for a concise article profiling "Voicestar . . . (a) company that allows you to track all of the phone calls to your business and know exactly where you're getting the greatest ROI, whether it's from print ads, organic search results, PPC ads, or even a printed catalog."

Reading further, we find out that:

"Calls can be tracked by their status: good calls, voicemail calls, hangups, are all tracked, and all the Caller ID information is saved. The calls themselves can be saved for future reference, and the calls can be heard through your PC’s speakers. Certain “groups” can be set up: you can assign certain types of calls to certain groups and see which ads out of the group are producing results. Some of the reports allow you to compare certain campaigns (reports can be emailed daily, weekly, monthly). Data is pulled if there is activity. Some of the types of reports that are available include an ad report, a user report, a top callers report, a top zip codes report, an ROI calculator, a calls by hour report, and a user access log report. "

Bill got a lot of good comments on this post.  One answered my most pressing question, namely, what other services are out there offering to support tracking at a reasonable price.  From "samplevoice" (name not given), commenting on Bill's post we learn:

"There are many call tracking providers out there and price points have gone down considerable thanks to some of the newer VoIP-based providers.

The leaders in the field include:

eStara -- www.estara.com
Who's Calling -- www.whoscalling.com
Call Source -- www.callsource.com
Ingenio -- www.ingenio.com

Of these, eStara and Ingenio specialize in pay for performance applications, in print and offline campaigns."

From our readers, we'd be interested in your comments on any of these services.  Have you used them, or recommended them to your clients?  What happened?  Were you satisfied with the results?  Please let us know.

Conversion Tools - The Conversion Multiplier

We are very skeptical of "magic bullets" in any form whatsoever.  We are particularly skeptical when the miracle-working tool purports to increase our conversion rates.  So, it is with no small degree of caution that we carefully read through the ad copy for The Conversion Multiplier mentioned in connection with an article in this weeks MarketingSherpa entitled How Multivariate Testing Made Conversions and Newsletter Sign-ups Fly for Ebook Marketer.

The case history of ParrotSecrets.com's foray into market testing (multivariate testing rather than traditional A/B stuff)  was a facinating read.  The two-phased approach started with "seven factors and 20 variations " for the headline,  site copy,  pricing, color scheme, etc. that would have taken years to test in the A/B format.   

After feeding the data in to "the program" (The Conversion Multiplier) created by the owner of the parrot site (Sumantra Roy) and his marketing colleague (Dick Shaver), the research team was presented with 16 versions of the offering plus a control for Phase I testing.  The program apparently did not like any of the 16 versions after testing, and generated 3 new versions, all at the highest test price, with a red (gasp) background for Phase II testing.

At the end of the story, the site owners were delighted to report an order increase of 40%, a dramatically reduced abandonment rate and increased conversion for the newsletter (0.4% to more than 3%).   

Given the inducement offered by Roy (owner of The Conversion Multiplier), namely a pay (only) for performance scheme for using his software, I'm wondering if anyone else out there has taken him up on his offer and generated comparable results?   If you have, we'd love to hear about it.   We've been looking a long time for a tool to recommend to some of our clients who struggle with conversion even after their traffic has taken a favorable bounce. 

Take a look at the article.  Visit Roy's website.  And let us know if you think he's on to something, or if it's just too good to be true.  We're hopeful!

Focus on Conversion

One of the more difficult aspects of maintaining (posting, comment handling) a highly focused blog like Online Conversion & Beyond is resisting the urge to add material that is "off message."   And yet, we are constantly made aware of happenings in the world that beg for reportage and commentary which have no logical link to conversion.

For that reason, I've recently begun posting to a more personal blog on the new Vox platform titled Malchus' Blog.  For those readers who enjoy this blog, and would like to see our consideration of other topics (e.g. global perspectives on the workplace, comments on the economy, and our commitment to public service),  I recommend a brief visit.  If you like what you see, then bookmark us in your aggregator or visit us on a regular basis.

But when you come here . . . expect to see postings on conversion in its many manifestations.   That's what we are about.