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14 Nov 06

The New Frontier: Complex Sales

www.clickz.com/showPage.html - Preview

complexity personas persuasion scenarios wireframing

Continually research and analyze click-through errors (clicks not part of your scenarios) to help incrementally reduce cost, boost success, enhance customer relevance, accelerate the rate of improvement, execute strategic change, and provide insight into the "right" metrics.
Deconstruct how and why visitors took a particular action. You'll get a clear picture of the road and the obstacles on it.
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- Every word and pixel are deliberately placed to control where visitors click. They focus shoppers in the direction they want, and you want them, to take. Controlling variables in this manner later permits A/B testing, as you can change one variable at a time.
- In the storyboard, we determine what elements we'll need to reinforce the messaging and solicit the actions we desire. At this point, we haven't yet talked to a developer or designer. All we do is develop the patterns and words that will persuade visitors. These patterns establish scenario design and scenario optimization.
- What keeps conversation flowing is wireframe use to anticipate and plan scenarios of how each persona will experience the Web site, click by click. Only then can we begin to write copy and storyboard based on click-through patterns.
- The essence of the Internet experience is how visitors click from one hyperlink to the next. How they feel about that experience is determined by whether each click fulfills the visitor's expectations and needs. Satisfaction with each click (a microaction) increases their confidence they'll get what they came for (the goal, or macroaction).
- The Internet is unique in three fundamental ways:
  
  Almost every visitor to a commercial Web site is there voluntarily.
  
  A Web site is non-intrusive, unlike radio or TV.
  
  Visitors must participate. If they don't click, there's no way to reengage with them. When visitors refuse to participate by clicking, communication ceases. That's a loss of persuasive momentum.
- based on a research study we're conducting, complex sales sites have plenty of work to do before they satisfy visitors.
- Complex sales require a much greater degree of self-disclosure on the seller's part. That's why buying research isn't entirely performed on the manufacturer's Web site.
- complex, straightforward, and impulse sales
- Research indicates most complex sales begin with online information searches.

What Exactly is a Scenario?

www.grokdotcom.com/...persuasionscenarios.htm - Preview

analytics conversion conversion beacon conversion point driving point funnel point linear non-linear planning point of resolution process scenarios waypoint

Visitors themselves define the non-linear aspects of a scenario as they navigate your website. These scenarios can either be explicitly planned or implicit (they occur randomly if they were not planned). In a non-linear scenario, analytics can measure the point at which the visitor starts the scenario (the driving point) to the point at which they complete the intended scenario (conversion point), identifying whether or not the visitor hits the key value pages (waypoints).
It is also possible for analytics to identify the click-through path within the non-linear points of resolution, which can help marketers determine whether they are providing appropriate answers.
Intuitive marketers know people don't interact with websites in straight lines. They understand visitors have questions that need to be resolved.
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- Linear aspects of a scenario come into play when visitors need to start a conversion process or complete a registration process or checkout process.
- The analytics expert describes the success of the linear aspect of a scenario. Linear aspects typically occur at the beginning or at the end of a conversion process.
- Each component of a persuasion scenario is designed with a customer focus that acknowledges the differing needs of each visitor segment and provides persuasive momentum. Into that structure, and always sensitive to it, the scenario incorporates the sales process of the business in a way that benefits visitors without undermining their buying decision process.
- Conversion Point
  This is the point where we know with absolute certainty that a visitor has successfully completed a persuasion scenario. The conversion point is the entity that gets delivered so that both we and the visitor know conversion has taken place. This is usually some form of confirmation.
- Conversion Beacon
  >
  
  A conversion beacon signals the first (or next) step in a linear process through which a visitor must pass to reach the conversion point. Points of resolution and waypoints lead a visitor to the conversion beacon, the place where the visitor demonstrates the intention to convert.
  > For example, if the persuasion scenario is designed to get visitors to subscribe to a newsletter, points of resolution and waypoints would build value for the newsletter while the sign-up button that begins the registration process would constitute the first conversion beacon. Each step in completing the registration process constitutes another conversion beacon - and the visitor must complete each step in order.
- Points of resolution and waypoints are persuasive components that support the non-linear qualities of the online experience. The order in which a visitor hits these pages and the actual number of these pages she views is dynamic. In other words, they allow her to interact with you in a way that feels comfortable to her.
- Points of Resolution
  These are pages that contain information visitors may or may not need to answer questions associated with their individual buying processes. Each point of resolution page or entity must always link to either a waypoint or a conversion beacon (see below) to ensure the visitor never misses an opportunity to convert.
- Waypoints
  These are 'persuasive touch points' that marketers determine are integral to the seller's conversion goals, as well as important to the needs of a particular visitor segment. Waypoints support the sales process and the conversion goal.
- Not every visitor to the site needs to hit every waypoint to be persuaded or complete the scenario - waypoints are selling-process pages that meet the needs of a majority of folks within a visitor segment.
- At this point, you are in a position to control and develop the dynamic of the persuasive process. A funnel point can be landing page or main product category page, and essentially functions as a home page would to build persuasive momentum within the scenario itself.
- Funnel Points
  These are pages that are entrees to the conversion funnel
- Driving Point
  This is the prospecting point, outside the funnel, where a scenario technically begins. It might be a search engine result, a pay-per-click, a banner ad or a home page. It's the concretely identifiable place where the visitor shows a level of interest in entering the scenario.
- A scenario provides for the meaningful measurement of customer activity so you can optimize performance.
- A scenario consists of persuasive components that lead a visitor segment to participate in a conversion action. Some of these components will be linear; others will be non-linear. All must be customer-focused - based on how each segment approaches the decision to buy - rather than business-focused.

01 Nov 06

Are You Designing for Usability or Sales?, Part 2

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keywords persuasion planning relationship research scenarios seo understanding usability wireframing

The objective is to understand the market, the content, and the persuasion processes, not to focus on primary personas, tasks, and software interface design.
Your site has many types of visitors. Very few commercial Web sites cater to only one type of visitor with one set of demographic, psychographic, and topographic characteristics.
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- Conversion rates of 2 to 5 percent are explained by the misunderstanding of personas' roles in persuasion. Not every buyer is ready to buy now.
- Supermarkets plan which items are on which shelves based on who will see them. Take a walk down the cereal aisle. The majority of sweet children's cereal is way below your eye level.
- If you take the time to properly understand search engine algorithms such as PageRank, HITS, or citation analysis, you'll discover at their core hyperlink analysis and keywords surrounding those hyperlinks have the greatest value. Knowing that, wouldn't it make sense to design those hyperlinks? They improve both search engine rankings and persuasion architecture.
- During persuasion-architecture wireframing (not what most people mistakenly think of online wireframing), we define the structure of the interaction and how each page is connected to others. This allows multiple personas to access the same pages but identifies how to address each persona's needs on the page. The goal is to design an experiential model or persuasion scenario that can be viewed by clicking through hypertext (an interactive flowchart on steroids). The wireframe defines the hyperlinked organization of content. It isn't content yet, but rather the definition of the content's objectives.
- The principle value of personas developed for the sales process is understanding how they approach the initiation of relationships, how they gather information, how they approach the decision-making process, what language they use, and how they prefer to obtain agreement and closure.
  
  We're not concerned with what an interface looks like at this point. We use personas to define how people will arrive at the site and what questions they have and to connect them to the content that helps them buy the way they want to.
- Keywords and trigger words for each of these personas also vary by where they are in the purchase consideration process. We tie keyword research back to our personas.
- Personas created for a persuasive experience must initially be defined by completely understanding their needs. Their needs lead into character biographies that represent and convey their worldview, attitude, personality, and behavior. Personas are constructed from research that describes their demographics, psychographics, and topographics related to how they approach the buying decision process for the products or services offered. This provides insight into the language these individuals use.
- Scenario design helps users achieve their goals. How do you plan scenarios? Well, if you're designing scenarios for a commercial Web site, one that demonstrates return on investment (ROI) by getting sales, leads, or registrants, you design persuasive scenarios by turning the information you have on your users into personas.

28 Oct 06

The Payoff of Planning Persuasive Architecture

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development methodology planning prototyping respect scenarios storyboarding wireframing

Using it. No matter how good the methodology, it's worthless if it's not used. Apply methodology to the smallest projects, even if it's not necessary. It's good practice for projects that will need it.
Focusing on people. For group acceptance of a methodology, understanding cognitive psychology and communications theory is critical. Focus on individual team members' roles. The methodology must initiate with an understanding of the people involved and their goals and objectives. This facilitates meeting both end-user needs and business objectives.
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- Being flexible. Methodology must be flexible enough to deal in principles, not absolute rules. It must accomplish the same results regardless of size and scope of a project.
- Successful methodology requires:
- Optimization is where a development project comes full circle. Technically, the site works. That's the point of acceptance test hurdles. Now, test how visitors use the site. By tying in the site's objectives (defined in the uncovery phase) and viewing the persuasive architecture's results in visitor scenarios (created during wireframing), you can determine using Web analytics how close intent is to what actually occurs. Then, follow a disciplined strategy based on measurement, testing, and re-evaluation to get closer to meeting objectives and to improve results of every page not meeting its responsibility.
- If you fail to provide every detail, the developer makes choices for you. If the prototype is complete, there's no guesswork. He'll do what he does best: code.
- Every hour spent planning a project saves roughly three in coding and development.
- Lay out these scenarios, then use them to complete the front end of the development process (no coding yet). No prototype is complete until it accomplishes all client-identified scenarios, and does so in a way the user of each scenario agrees with in an "acceptance test." At the point where both client and development team agree prototyping is complete, freeze the prototype. No other changes can be made (in this version). A final set of acceptance tests are then defined.
- Rapidly go through the uncovery, wireframe, and storyboard processes. Cycle through successive iterations to arrive at a finished prototype. The prototype's appearance is identical to the application to avoid that costly project killer, "scope creep."
- Features are not a site's value. Value lies in a customer's ability to complete the tasks described in scenarios they find relevant. If your team recognizes the difference, they'll strive to create a site that enables users to complete actions they (and you) want them to take.

Use Personas to Increase Conversion rates

www.grokdotcom.com/...personaconversion.htm - Preview

personas persuasion scenarios

Sites designed using personas and persona-based scenarios have the unqualified edge in the conversion rate sweepstakes. Helping people negotiate their buying decision processes is what persuasion architecture is all about. Every site can reap dramatic benefits from persona design. I've seen it time and time again.

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