Josue Sierra

I came across an interesting question on Linked-In about web page layout design that gave me the opportunity to write down some thoughts on design strategy and the importance of testing.

Linked-In user, Harekrishna Patel, asked which web design layout give the best conversion rates– 1 column, 2 column or 3 column? Of course, as most usability and design professionals should know, best results are usually discovered through testing. There really isn’t a set “science” in this regards, though as with anything else, there are plenty of best-practices to use as starting points. Click here to read the full discussion and other user’s responses.

The best advice would be to create a few concepts and then use eye-tracking testing or other usability testing methodology to have a better idea of what works.

Having said that, here are some general thoughts that might help guide you:

The usual approach to page layout is to consider your customer-response priorities. So, if you have multiple “actions” you are going to offer, those should be laid out according to priority (the most important element should stand out, be above the fold, and preferably towards the left where the eye first tends to scan).

If you are going to have a lot of copy, this can be laid out on one column, with a second column providing Call To Action banner or button that summarizes what you are asking the customer to do (Sign up, subscribe, contact us, download, etc.).

Home pages tend to work well with 3 column because most of the times you are providing a menu-list of various topics, services, or product offerings — the customer would choose where to drill down.

Once you start looking at inside pages, a 2 column approach will probably provide you with the most useful real estate for your content, which you’ll want to test as far as what works best.

Overall, web design best-practices really isn’t as simple as “1 column, 2 column or 3 column” — You’ll want to take usability, navigation, layout, color, your customer’s demographic, and other unique factors related to your industry or/and products to develop an effective web site.

I-Media Connection has a valuable article on what an organization can do to build an email list from scratch. You don’t have to be a web-marketing guru to execute on these ideas. If you have a website, you should be doing this already.

You can pretty much summarize it into 3 basic steps:

• It’s best to focus on organic growth
• Don’t require so much info that it keeps people from filling out the form
• If you must, choose a reputable list-rental service

This is rather simple and very basic, but so many organizations don’t take the time to execute on these baby steps.

The good news is that there are several ways to grow your lists organically that will enable you to amass a loyal following of happy customers. The first thing you want to do is put a sign-up link on every page of your website — and don’t hide it with small text or bury it at the bottom of your page. Put it in a prominent position that won’t get ignored. As you drive people to your website through various marketing and advertising programs, there should be an obvious path that leads respondents to a simple form for opting into your list. Making it easy to sign up is key, and that involves careful consideration about the number of steps that you require and the amount of information you request.

Looks like the current recession is helping push email into full maturity as a full fledged, reliable and valuable direct marketing channel.  Email has been proven to help increase brand loyalty and retention, and increase the value of a customer over the long term. That, of course, is on top of its cost effectiveness  and its traceability (when executed correctly). AdAge reports on this story.

“The economy has energized this channel,” said Ryan Deutsch, VP-strategic services and market development at StrongMail. “It’s become the rock star of direct marketing in a lot of these retail organizations because it’s the most cost-effective and most trackable.”

Thanks to its cost-effectiveness and retailers’ recession-era emphasis on retention — Shop.org says that the number of companies focused on retention has nearly doubled in the past year — experts say few cuts are being made to e-mail budgets, while areas including paid search, affiliate marketing and social marketing are coming under scrutiny.

And I thought being an email marketer made me “sexier”…but I guess not.

“It’s not sexy, but it delivers results, and it’s focusing on existing customers,” said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org. “E-mail technology continues to advance and allows retailers to be smarter. It’s not about sending more e-mail; it’s about more-targeted and more-relevant e-mail.”

I’m glad to see someone is saying, “It’s not about sending more e-mail…”. I hope more marketers get that message, “…it’s about more-targeted and more-relevant e-mail.”

It’s all about the results.