They’re annoying, intrusive, and one of the
best forms of marketing your ecommerce site can employ.
Don’t believe me?These 30 ecommerce popups have helped their store owners retain customers, increase sales, and generate leads.
The fact is, popups (loathed as they are)
bring business, period.
But not all popups are created equal. While
regular popups are quickly dismissed and closed by the vast majority of
visitors (close to 99%), exit-intent popups are opened nearly ten times as
often.
Why?
Because they don’t get in the way. A regular
popup jumps in your face like a gypsy with an outstretched hand, demanding
money.
Instead, exit-intent popups wait by the door
as you’re leaving like a dog holding its leash in its mouth, just hoping you’d
like to take it for a walk. Or at least a pat on the head. How can you say No
to that face?
(I wasn’t planning on those metaphors when I
sat down to write this article, but here we are.)
Honestly though, exit-intent popups are
clicked nearly 10x as often just because of that: Because they’re not rude to
the visitor.
But that’s not the only reason they’re
clicked.
Here are the 5 best practices when it comes to
crafting a great exit-intent popup add.
1. Get Their
Attention
You might think a popup that suddenly appears
on-screen as soon as your visitor is about to leave the page has already gotten
their attention.
And it has. As a big square with an exit
button they must press.
To get them to actually read your popup, you have to call out to them. Words and phrases
like “Wait” and “Don’t Miss Out” are great ways to cause your visitor to
hesitate and see what’s so important you just had to get their attention.
But words aren’t the only way to intrigue
them. You can also do so visually. You can use pictures (like models, animals,
babies, motorcycles, you name it) that interest your target audience to get
them hooked.
And that’s not the only way to aesthetically
garner your audience’s attention. In fact, you pictures aren’t always
necessary.
What matters is making the design attract the
eye. Match the template, palette and “look” of your popup to the energy of your
brand and of your offer.
If you have a fashion site, make it sleek.
Selling vibrant accessories? Make it bold. Want them to sign up for your funny
newsletter? Make it whacky and ugly! (Appealing to the eye doesn’t always mean attractive. Ugly has its place in marketing, as
long as there’s a reason!)
Important
Tip: Make your popup match the tone of your brand, but have it visually contrast what’s already on the page. You don’t want it blending in!
2. Give Your
Audience Something Valuable
Don’t just ask them for their email address.
That’s just another form of begging.
And don’t just TELL them what they’re getting,
SHOW them! (And I don’t mean just with pictures, either. Paint a picture in
their mind!)
Tell
me, which sounds better to you?
Enter your email address and receive our
fantasy football newsletter every month.
Vs.
You league won’t know what hit’em. Get insider
news, trade discussions, injury reports, and in-depth analysis so you can have
bragging rights until next year… when you do it all over again.
Don’t lie to me and say the first one, either.
Talking about the features of an offer is one
thing (a discount, an informative newsletter, etc.). But talking about the benefits (the kind of life your visitor
will have if they take advantage of your offer) is what sells.
3. Get In Your
Visitor’s Head
Think about your visitor and how they got to
the page they’re currently on. Did they click an ad to get here? Are they on
the shopping cart page, getting cold feet about checking out? Are they reading
an article about exit-intent popups?
The visitor’s state of mind and virtual
environment are important things to consider when deciding what you’re going to
offer.
For example, on a checkout page, when a
potential customer might be re-thinking their purchase, having an exit-intent
popup offering them a 15% discount might be the difference between a sale and
an abandoned cart.
Think of it this way:
To get to where they are now, your visitor had
to take some kind of virtual journey. Your ad should be like the wise man on
the top of the mountain waiting for them and offering exactly what they need.
4. Give Them a Way
Out
Backing your visitor into a corner and
refusing to let them leave is bad for business.
While the X in the corner of the window can
always be clicked, it bolsters good faith in your brand if you give them a “No
Thanks” button so they can gracefully exit the popup while maintaining their
dignity.
Make this option smaller or less colorful so that
it’s less desirable, and you can increase click-throughs on your “Yes” button.
Whatever you do, just make sure to include it.
Morpheus gave Neo the option to take the blue
pill and wake up at home like nothing ever happened. Be like Morpheus.
5. A/B Test
Run two versions of your exit-intent popup and
see which one performs better. Then make a new one and have those two compete
against each other.
Repeat.
Make sure you do this with the forms on your
ad, too. Often, ads with an extra section to fill out will perform better than
an ad asking for less information.
It seems counterintuitive that it would be the
case, but it’s true. Sometimes, people like filling out a little more.
Plus, it’s a great way to get extra
information about your visitors’ demographic, which will help your sales in the
long run, too.
A/B Testing is invaluable. You never know when
a small tweak can bring in big results.
Always A/B Test your ads. Always, always,
always.
—
At the end of the day, popups get a bad reputation
from those who use them poorly. However, a well-timed, non-invasive popup can
actually be great for converting last-minute sign ups.
By following these five practices, you can
create popups that earn you more sign ups without feeling like a UX inconvenience
to your customers.
Thinking of building a website with WordPress but have no clue what it should be about? Don’t worry, there are plenty of ideas to try out. When starting anything, especially an online venture, you need to know what works and what doesn’t.
After all, you will be spending a great deal of time and (possibly) money on it, so you have to make sure you get a return on investment. With that said, keep on reading to discover 10 website ideas that you can try building with WordPress.
Why You Should Use WordPress
Before we dive into the WordPress website ideas, let us discuss why WordPress is definitely a go-to platform.
While there are many tools you can use to build a website, WordPress stands out for the following reasons:
User-friendly, especially for beginners;
The CMS is open-source and free;
Plenty of hosting possibilities. Many providers offer specialized WordPress web hosting for best possible performance;
Plenty of good free and premium plugins for endless customization and extending of functionality;
Plenty of excellent free and premium themes;
WordPress sites usually rank high in terms of search engine optimization (SEO);
The majority of themes are mobile responsive;
A dedicated community for support;
Try These 10 Great Website Ideas
Now that you know why WordPress is the top choice, here are 10 of the best WordPress website ideas.
1. Video Games
If you are a fan of video games, then consider writing a blog or making videos of them and uploading them to your WordPress website. You can do so many things in regards to video games, including walkthroughs, hints, tips, and reviews.
You can easily build a following, which you can also monetize through affiliate marketing (more on this later). And if you can live stream the gameplay, that can even get you more of a following.
2. E-Commerce
If you are looking for a way to make money selling products, then an e-commerce site is one of the best WordPress website ideas. Although you will have to work extra hard for the store to get noticed, it is worthwhile.
Once you overcome the slow buildup, your store will keep you well-fed perpetually. You can easily create such a website with WordPress and use a plugin like WooCommerce to process payments.
3. Learning Platform
Selling courses online has also become one of the top ways people make money these days. There is no shortage of free content that can teach people how to do anything.
However, everyone knows that some of the best content is paid content. If you’re highly skilled in something and can teach it, then you can make money online. WordPress is a good place to build a website to impart knowledge and skill at a price.
4. Affiliate Blog
An affiliate blog is made for the express purpose of promoting products for other people and businesses. You get an affiliate link, which you casually insert into the content (make sure it is relevant and engaging content).
When the reader clicks on that link and purchases the product, you get a commission. You have probably seen these types of blogs before. They usually have titles like “Top 10 Toaster Ovens to Buy in 2019.”
5. Job Boards
Many people go online to look for jobs – 39% of Americans are job seekers and 79% of them search for jobs online. And after tons of hours separating the wheat for the chaff, they find them. If only there was a premium service website that could simplify this process for them.
And with WordPress, you can create such a website where you can provide them with job listings with a high chance of getting hired. You can charge them a monthly fee to have access to the listings – you can even charge employers for posting listings.
6. Travel
People love reading about travel adventures, whether they are planning on taking a trip or not. So if you are constantly traveling, consider creating a WordPress website and writing about your travel experiences.
Make sure to also grab your camera and take breathtaking photos of important landmarks and great views. You can even provide people with travel tips, such as pre-flight checklists or must-visit sites in certain countries or regions.
7. Fashion
Some people have no sense of style, but if you do, then why not help them out? Fashion is something that will never go out of style cause people are always looking for the trendiest apparel and accessories.
This is one of the other great website ideas since you can also place affiliate links on the content. Once you establish yourself as an industry professional, your recommendations will carry a lot of weight.
8. Self-Help
The world is a stressful place, and everyone needs someone to teach them the art of getting by. Every day, people need help with something, and if it is something you have experience with, you can help them. You can offer actionable tips and advice or just let them know that they are not alone. Such a website is easy to create with WordPress and has the potential to gain a large following.
9. Cooking and Recipes
If you are a good cook who loves to try new recipes and experiment, then why not share your knowledge? Come up with your recipes and share tips on how to cook them.
You can easily create a cooking website with WordPress. And if you gain enough of an audience, you can even be approached to do paid reviews of cooking items.
Create any Kind of Website With WordPress
With WordPress, you can bring a lot of website ideas to life. No matter what you love, whether it is video games, traveling or cooking, WordPress allows you to create a website for them.
Even if you want to sell products or courses, WordPress supports that too. While this list is by no means exhaustive, these 9 WordPress website ideas are a good start.
An introduction to the scientific, artistic, and computing aspects of digital photography. Topics include lenses and optics, light and sensors, optical effects in nature, perspective and depth of field, sampling and noise, the camera as a computing platform, image processing and editing, and computational photography. We will also survey the history of photography, look at the work of famous photographers, and talk about composing strong photographs.
This course is based on CS 178 (Digital Photography), which I taught at Stanford from 2009 through 2014. I revised and taught the course again at Google in Spring of 2016, and these web pages are from the Google version. The course consists of 18 lectures. The topics, with dates, are given in the course schedule. The lectures were delivered live on Google’s Mountain View campus, broadcast live to Google offices around the world, and recorded for later playback. The videos linked into these web pages are from those recordings, edited slightly to remove discussion of Google internal projects. Keynote slides from these lectures were converted to PDF files and linked into the schedule after each lecture.
I am making these materials freely available, but some of the photographs included in the lectures are individually copyrighted. It should be fine for teachers to re-use this material under fair use, but other uses may be protected. If you re-use the material in substantially the same form it is given here, I would appreciate an acknowledgement.
Have you wondered, “How long should this page be?” A quick Google search gives you answers ranging from “300 words” to “5 paragraphs” to “as long as necessary — but not too long!”
None of these answers are very helpful. That’s mostly because page length doesn’t have a rule, it has guidelines. Here are a few myths to avoid and guidelines to follow when writing your page content.
Nowadays, when digital marketing is a must, you shouldn’t
neglect the power and effectiveness of more traditional marketing tactics.
Print marketing is one of them, and it’s still highly
relevant.
If you’re wondering how this kind of promotion can help you
grow your business, it’s worth mentioning that 56%
of customers believe that print marketing is the most trustworthy type of
marketing.
While online ads and email marketing are great strategies
which will definitely help you stay on your prospects’ radar, print marketing
has another quality which will improve your brand awareness and make it more
memorable in the eyes of your audience – it’s tangible.
Unlike online promotional materials which are in a way
ephemeral and available only on mobile and computer screens, print media items
stick around homes and offices for days or even months, thus having a longer
impact.
Here are a couple of print marketing ideas that you can
leverage.
1. Business Cards
Despite the fact that people have their smartphones with
them at all times, and that they can easily memorize phone numbers or start
following businesses on social media, business cards will never go out of
fashion.
They’re excellent for traditional, person-to-person
networking.
You can hand them out at expos, trade shows, meetups, or any
other industry event you attend. You can also leave them on the counter in your
store or give a bunch to your friends and family so that they can promote your
business within their networks.
Business cards help you establish both a mental and visual
link with your prospects. Given that these wallet-sized pieces of paper give
you a chance to make a great first impression, it’s crucial to make sure to opt
for a quality, visually appealing design which will present your business in
the best possible light.
Remember that 72% of
people will judge your company based on the quality of your business cards.
2. Postcards
Postcards are a pretty convenient medium for conveying your
promotional message. They can be read
without opening and turning pages, so that you can be almost absolutely sure
that your prospects will at least have a glance at them even if they decide to
throw them away.
Again, aesthetics play an important role, which means your
postcards have to be eye-catching and printed on high-quality materials if you
want them to stand out from all the other direct mail your prospects receive.
You can score additional brownie points if you decide to
send birthday and holiday postcards to your customers, as this practice is a
great way to build an emotional bond with them.
3. Branded Merchandise
People love freebies especially if they’re functional and
attractive.
That’s
what makes pens, thumb drives, phone chargers, or tote bags with your logo on
them great
for marketing purposes. Your customers will be happy to use them every day,
which means your brand becomes a part of their daily routine.
This is a great example of subtle and nonintrusive brand
repetition – your customers promote your brand simply by using the pen you gave
them, and by circulating around this small item reaches a lot of people and
spreads brand awareness.
Similarly, you can use digital printing to customize your
branded T-shirts and turn your customers into your walking advertisements.
4. Flags, Signs, and Banners
All brick-and-mortar stores need proper signage.
This means that your business will greatly benefit from
custom flags, signs, and banners that you can put both in your store as well as
in front of it.
It’s equally important to take advantage of these
promotional materials to distinguish your company from your competitors at
different trade fairs.
As these events tend to be crowded, it can be hard to stand
out.
Printed banners are an essential element of any successful
trade show marketing strategy, which is why you need to include them in your
trade show kit.
A well-designed display will turn heads and attract visitors
to your booth as well as reflect the identity of your brand.
5. Stickers
Although seemingly obsolete, this old school marketing
tactic has great potential for promoting your small business.
If you look around, you’ll actually see a lot of stickers on
car bumpers, laptops, windows, phones, and any other place you can think of.
Politicians have been using them for decades to promote
themselves and attract supporters.
Popular brands, such as Apple, give away branded stickers
with every item they sell.
The best part is that this tactic is very affordable,
cost-effective, and sticky – these promotional items generate long-term brand
exposure.
Besides, you can use stickers as part of a guerrilla
marketing campaign and place them on signs, poles, bus stops, and other public
spaces – this is a strategy that helped Alexis Ohanian, Reddit co-founder,
promote the social news aggregation website on a budget.
According to him, the company only spent $500 on marketing,
and a big portion of that money was used on stickers.
6. Catalogs
You probably wonder why we are suggesting physical catalogs
in the age of Amazon and digital promotions.
Just like business cards, these colorful booklets are still
here and they won’t go away soon, because they deliver a unique, rich, and most
importantly, tactile customer experience. There’s something irresistible about
flipping through glossy, crisp pages of the latest product catalog from your
favorite store.
For example, IKEA is still big on the idea of print catalogs
– more than 210 million copies are delivered to their prospects in 44 different
countries. And this strategy apparently works, as the Swedish furniture giant
invests in this strategy despite the fact that the online version is available
too.
To make the most of your investment in this strategy,
combine it with customer data and target customers who are likely to spend
more. Another reason for the persistent success of catalogs is that they offer
a more intimate customer experience.
These traditional print marketing ideas can help you cut
through the noise more easily and outperform your competitors who rely mainly
on digital strategies. By combining online and physical marketing, you can
expand your reach and make sure that your message is properly conveyed and
heard by every segment of your audience. Michael Deane is one of the editors of Qeedle, a small business magazine. When not blogging
(or working), he can usually be spotted on the track, doing his laps, or with
his nose deep in the latest John Grisham.
