All For You by Brian Keith

I am looking for clients in the chocolate industry, and I came across landing pages for the top 5 ranked PPC ads under ‘extra dark chocolate.’

I rank each on the three basic landing page principles.
1. Is it easy to tell what is being sold?
2. Is it easy to tell why I should buy it?
3. Is it easy to buy?

In no particular order:
Hershey’s

1. It is selling 5 things- a tin full of chocolate, a crate full of chocolate, a thank you card, Cherry kisses, and a collection of dark chocolates. But I searched for ‘extra dark chocolate.’
2. Because it is Hershey’s? Though that doesn’t help when Hershey’s is not know favorably for their dark chocolate…
3. I would bet that I would click on the image to buy it, and I would be right- that takes me to a product detail page that answers more about why I should buy it.

Scharffen Berger

1. “Image not available”?!? You just paid upwards of a dollar (is my guess) but you don’t care enough to show me an ad? I called and left a message. UPDATE- they fixed the page. As a result of my call? Don’t know.
2. Well, I can’t tell what they are selling, soooo..
3. If I click on the Image not Found, it takes me to a category page for the whole Scharffen Berger store… not anything in particular to do with Extra Dark Chocolate.

Secret Spoon

1. They are selling hand-dipped strawberries, clearly.
2. Because they look really, really good.
3. Click the Buy button I assume.

Target

1. They are selling Choxie, which I think are chocolate balls, but not totally sure.
2. Because it is only for connoisseurs.
3. No buy now button, no anything. I can click around, but no add to cart. Help!

Teuscher

1. They sell chocolate. From Switzerland.
2. Well, I don’t see any specific benefits… but I am also not looking at a particular item.
3. I have to click on one of the boxes to get to a product page.

You may want people to call you. They may not want to- maybe fax, or email, or just dropping by is more comfortable for them.

Unless you are willing to lose them as a customer, you should engage them in the way they want to be engaged.

2 groups of people who do this poorly:

Telemarketers
They want to interrupt someone at the office. I say they can email the person. They don’t.

Companies that share only their email address, not a phone number
Google. Yahoo. Everyone else. Sometimes, I just want to call.

Don’t waste my time by trying to interact with me in a way you know I don’t want. That’s all I’m asking.

Gittomer says ‘give value first, and give without expectation of reward’ in his Little Red Book of Selling.

I am seeing how true this is with Romi of True Bride Confessions.

We got connected through Jade’s review on Bridezilla of Romi’s site.

Romi liked it, called me up, we chatted, she put a banner on her site for us, I gave her some internet marketing advice…

Now I find myself setting up analytics goals to help her better promote her site. For free. Because I like her and she is being nice to us by having the Bridezilla banner on her site.

What I am seeing here is that, while I hope we do business together, it is the giving and receiving of basic value that begins the relationship.

Feedback on this post says that sales is like gardening- put in effort now, nurture your contacts, and eventually some will bear results.

And, it’s a long term effort.

Gittomer and Romi, thanks for the lesson!