Even heroes need good internet marketing
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 - 10:18 am
What do you tell a guy who gets a TON of exposure and traffic to his site but isn’t converting that traffic in to sales?This is a “before and after” story still in progress.If you could care less about sports you can skip the next two paragraphs, but they are somewhat relevant to the story.I play some pretty serious basketball a couple times per week with a bunch of guys which isn’t unusual at all around here even for guys in their late 30’s and even older. This is Indiana after all.
For anyone that thinks they might have more basketball in their blood that I do here in Indiana here are some facts for you to consider…we’ve got Larry Bird, the movie Hoosiers, Bob Knight, any given year 4-6 teams in the NCAA tournament and I actually played my high school basketball for the same school as the legendary John Wooden. And yes - the gym is named after him. Don’t even try to top that!
Back to work…
One of the guys I’ve been playing ball with for years is a local Marine hero that served bravely in Iraq until he was severely injured in the line of duty. He fought his way back to be healthy enough to hang with the “serious ballers” as we call ourselves.
He’s got a couple of websites that he needs our advice on. Ready to use your thinking cap? Ready to see what I told him to do?
Recently I’ve gotten to know Klay (my Marine buddy) better. I’ve realized that he is pretty well known around the U.S. as the founder of a website that supports injured U.S. soldiers. The site is VeteransOfValor.org (and also a sister site OCP247.com). As we started talking about his sites he shared some of his frustrations in marketing the site.
Klay and his parents have poured money, blood, sweat and tears into these sites…and they are barely staying afloat. They need help so I’m volunteering to do what I can to advise them.
The problem isn’t TRAFFIC though…it’s CONVERSION RATES.
He gets steady traffic because Klay has been on the news locally and nationally frequently. His story is mesmerizing and energizing. He’s bee in national magazines, newspapers radio programs, etc. He’s got quite a following. Everyone wants to support a hero so they get a lot of traffic, but the conversion rate on his sites…let’s just say…it’s awful.
Check out the sites and let us know (as briefly as possible please) what things you would do differently if you were in charge of the “upgrade”. Try to focus your advice on improving CONVERSION rate for now…not MARKETING IDEAS.
I’ll reveal what advice I’ve given them based on the concepts that I KNOW WORK WELL. It’s the same stuff I talk about every week in my free newsletter!
Work will be starting on the two sites soon so I’ve attached a pic below of the “before” look of both sites so you can give your opinion.
http://www.silentsalesmachine.com/images/ocp247dotcom.bmp
http://www.silentsalesmachine.com/images/vovdotcom.bmp
What changes would you make to these sites?
While you are looking it over…why not make a donation to a fantastic cause?
Again the two sites are:
http://www.veteransofvalor.org/
http://www.ocp247.com/
Click the reply button below to leave your suggestions or comments on these two sites.
I’ll reveal the same RELATIVELY SIMPLE yet EXTREMELY POWERFUL ideas and strategies I’m telling Klay’s design team in an upcoming newsletter.
Replace (Make a soldier smile) with Let your Hero know you care with one of our gift packages.
My Adopted Hero My Hero
There’s very little CONTENT on this page.
No OPT IN and no real sale page.
This coming from a vet when JFK was my comander and chief. Now you know I’m a real old GOAT.
bob
Newsletter Opt-in tied to autoresponder (upper-left corner)
Google AdSense (upper-left corner)
I want to know the story first. I want to know what I’m getting into. I need to know I’m safe to contribute.
I’m wanting to help. I want to be involved in more ways than one. Apart from ‘give’ - how else might I help? Or is money the only thing?
When I went to this site - the first thing to catch my eye was ‘Donate’. And then I had to hunt around for leads to more info.
Tell me first. Let me become engaged. Make it safe to opt in and out ‘cos even if I can help now it might not always be so.
PS the link was not the greatest. I ended up going through the address line.
The links across the top would not work for me. I agree with Rae’s comments: I would like to see more engaging content on the home page. It’s a great program.
I think that he needs a blog dedicated to human (soldier/Marine) interests. With so many out there who need the help he might get more people involved and more willing to “help”.
Have Klay design an image/banner for us to display on our sites to advertise his sites.
veteransofvalor.org
1) I’ll be brutally honest, the pictures in the upper right hand corner were a complete turn off and made me want to click away as soon as possible.If I had that reaction others will too.
2)None of the tab links worked and I would gut them anyways
3)the three columns doesn’t work,move all of the important links on the right hand side over to the left.
4)Don’t make me download the video, convert it to flash and feature it prominently,just below a short intro.If cash is a problem and you are worried about bandwith, host it on youtube or google video. In fact the whole focus of your front page should be to establish trust.What you want to convey is your story, here’s who I am and what I do.Remember, it’s about conversions, just think about who you give your money to and why, and let this be your guiding philosophy when designing your ad copy.
5)Testimonials from some of the vet’s you have helped. A picture and a short statement is fine.
6)An opt in box for your newsletter ON THE FRONT PAGE.What to offer as an incentive is a challenge in this case and needs careful consideration.
7)Don’t ask people to donate, just explain to them how they can help.
9)Theres more but this post is already to long.
These are all great ideas but I think that Nicks is the best way to engage your visitors and make permanent guests out of them. Blogs hook people and get them to return again and again. Incorporate ads, put another opt in box there too. Blogs are a great way to keep a site fresh and get your page rank up there as well.
This is another idea, but I would consider using twitter.com on that page as well. Put some tweets there. I’m just now beginning to see it used and I think it holds promise… But definitely get a blog rolling.
Can’t add anything else as every one else pretty much covered how to fix it.
My feeling was when I looked at the sites was “Who the hell is this guy? Is this a scam for money?”
It really is an important factor to have your own story as content. Tell people your experience. Tell the truth. Let them know what you have been through and why this is important to our soldiers overseas. Show them how to care for our soldiers by letting them know what you missed and needed while there.
People do care, show them how to. Add to the soldier testimonials with pages about them. Make it very personal.
As people send care packages, add the soldiers profile to the blog, i.e. James from Glenview, Colorado just sent a package to Sara Finkelstein, PFC, APO, etc. so that everyone will be involved with the process.
People are sheeple and want to be part of the flock. Give them a reason to be involved and they will be.
If the receiving soldiers can post comments on the blog or add video or an email posted - whatever. The social part of it will get more moving as numbers begin growing.