With the turn of the new year, marketers are presented with a unique opportunity for their campaigns. 2010 aka ‘Twenty Ten’. I have been waiting patiently to see a deluge of spins on this opportunity and was sorely disappointed when Coca-Cola was the first entrants into the race with a “Win $2010 dollars” with their Coke rewards program. Can we get more creative than an dollar giveaway? How long did that take during the morning marketing meeting? I will guess about 3 minutes and would venture as far to say the meeting was either held first thing Monday morning (to Coke employees drink coffee to get their caffeine?) or during a happy hour enthused Friday afternoon meeting.

With that said, let’s put together a nice list… I’ll Start:

A Top Marketing Concepts for 2010 list:

1. “Only two more years to convert!” ~ Christianity (2012 Mayan Calendar)
2. “We’ll have you seeing 20/10 in 2010″ ~ Every local eye doctor on the planet should be on this one
3. The San Antonio Spurs celebrate Tim Duncan, the Big Fundamental, with ” 20 10, a look back ” ~ Gotta be a NBA fan on this one
4. “We got it Wrong”  ~ From the makers of 2010: A Space Odyssey
5. “Together At Last” ~ A pay-per-view TV event from Mixed Martial Arts, MMA, and the X Games … MMX is 2010 in roman numerals
6. “Woah!” ~ From the 2010 Census Department
7. “Looking forward to a Paris Hilton Free Decade” – America!
8. “And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” ~ Revalations 20:10 (This creeps me out for some reason)
9. “We can get it right!” – Microsoft
10. “We’ll still be here when they don’t” – Mac

Keep ‘em coming!

Use Effective Contact Forms to Create Circular Traffic

Often times a ‘contact us’ page is created in a simple process, but what if your contact form could become an effective marketing tool driving users back into your site?

A generic contact page, as on most websites, consists of some text about contacting, plop on a form, maybe create a nice ’submit’ button (I never thought that user’s like having to ’submit’ to anyone… maybe change your button text, huh?) and then everything is followed by a generic ‘Thank You’ message that never really does anything of value.  Sound familiar?

Let’s break this down.  Most communications online that involve a form have three opportunities to speak to the user:

1. The text above the form – Intro text
2. the text on the page thanking the user for whatever it is they did – Thank You Text
3. A confirmation message of some sort, generally sent via email – Confirmation message

Many websites don’t get past number 2.

Here are some quick thoughts on how to make your contact forms stand out:

Intro Text:

• Ditch the ‘By filling out this form…” text and let’s do some actual marketing here.
• Make an offer that the user can receive by filling out the form. Some ideas may include:
  • “Contact us and receive 10% off your next purchase” (its worth getting their email for future marketing efforts and it prompts them to fill in valid data… did I mention they may make a purchase after ‘just’ wanting to contact?)
  • “By contacting us you are automatically entered into our monthly iPod giveaway”
  • “Be sure to check your email for an additional savings offer” (Yes, you can add an offer at the bottom of a confirmation message without it being considered spam as long as the intention of the message is the confirmation)
• Maybe try and be creative with your form… people will stick around longer if you have something interesting to look at.
  • Need ideas: http://www.xmarks.com/topic/form_design here are 10 sites that offer tips on form design.

Thank You Text:

• Don’t let your user get away that easily!  Say something worthwhile and drive them to a new page.  If you can capture some of the data from the form, like ‘Reason for contacting us’,  return a message that helps them solve their problem. FAQ pages, Product Pages, About Us pages can all be destinations to keep the user in your site.
• Make a ‘buy now’ offer.
  • “Thank you for contacting us as a special thank you we would like to offer you 10% off any product or service today only” (Make ‘em bite)
  • “Get a free widget-a if you follow this link to buy widget-b”
• Entice the user to view additional pages
  • “Thanks for contacting us, did you happen to see our special offers ‘Here’”
  • “Thanks for contacting, be sure to register to receive our monthly discounts, simple click here”

Confirmation message:

This is the email (hopefully) that is sent to the user on the client.

• Treat this as a welcome email. Be sure to brand the email, thank them from contacting and provide additional resources on the email that drive them back to your site.
• Communication needs to be circular, use both push and pull marketing techniques to help your user find their way back to your website.
• Provide links to become a ‘member’ of your site or to opt in and receive your newsletter.

Overall, when effort is applied to all aspects of your website, you will see results.  Successful websites do not happen by accident, people are paying attention to all touch points and maximizing the potential of those points.  Take a look at your website, you might find that you have several places that could use some extra attention.