Our most recent free webinar included case studies and live optimization focused on subscription-path pages. But the underlying principle we covered is just as important to ecommerce, demand and lead generation, email -- across all marketing communications, really.

The principle: Clarity trumps persuasion.

Sounds simple, right? Maybe even too elementary? Perhaps you're thinking, "My CEO and six-figure marketing budget don't need catchy maxims. Give me something I can use."

Don't be fooled. There's a powerful idea hiding in those three little words. But it's easy to miss because we've been trained to persuade. To sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Problem is, that leads to web pages that make prospects wary and distrustful. Sites that make users jump through hoops. Transaction pages loaded with elements that create friction and anxiety in users' minds.

Want to slash through all that on your site, and improve conversions? There are many ways to do that, but the foundation starts with building simple, straightforward pages and processes that match your visitors' intentions. In other words, clarity trumps persuasion.

Click here to learn how to apply this principle and see how three sites used it to lift their conversion rates by 200%, 76% and 38%.

Watching how companies react to shifting market forces can tell you a lot about their leadership.

In a downturn, marketing more aggressively makes sense: As some companies inevitably slash marketing budgets and curb their efforts, new opportunities arise -- better deals on ad space, fewer competing messages, stronger brand-building potential. Wait a minute ... branding?

With online marketing, and for many with direct-marketing roots, increasing brand awareness is an afterthought at best. CEOs want to see revenue and profits from their Web marketing team -- good luck tying those numbers into branding initiatives.

But that bottom-line attitude has a downside. I was reminded of this thanks to a recent Wall Street Journal interview with Stefan Tornquist, research director of MarketingSherpa (our sister company).

Asked about what strategies small businesses should be pursuing now, Stefan replied:

"I'm of the opinion that it's a good time to increase a brand imprint [by buying print or radio ads, or banner ads online, for instance]. A lot of small companies see branding activities as a waste of money....

What we lose sight of is that brand activity makes us trust a company and buy when we see their ad later on. One of the greatest challenges for small companies is to make a name for themselves, and a downturn actually provides an opportunity to do that because it tends to suppress the branding activity."

The interview covers a lot more than branding, but this idea stood out because it goes against the grain. That's what companies should be looking for right now: untapped or overlooked ways to connect with potential customers. And, while competitors are playing it safe, these efforts will likely make an even bigger impact than usual.

Nobody is suggesting companies abandon their direct-marketing initiatives. But trust, credibility, and reputation are vital to generating leads, sales, and repeat sales. So it might be time to revisit your branding efforts and see how they're faring in comparison to your PPC, SEO, email, and direct-mail campaigns.

Some questions to consider:

• How is your brand perceived by prospects? By customers?
  
• Is your value proposition clear and is it being expressed most effectively?
  
• What is the market saying about you -- good things, bad things or nothing?
  
• How often do you talk with your customers?
  
• Do you measure customer loyalty? How?

The answers may not have dollar signs and decimals, but you can bet they'll get your CEO's attention. And that just might get you the buy-in you need to get aggressive, take a few chances, and test some new and unusual tactics.

As Brian Carroll would say, it starts with a lead. Carroll was a featured guest in our recent web clinic, Filling the Pipeline: How a LeadGen Test Strategy Achieved an 86% Increase.

One of the more surprising ideas is a model for increasing friction intentionally and using it to improve lead quality as opposed to volume. If your sales team is always pushing for more leads and better leads, you'll want to start testing this idea immediately.

Our thanks also go out to TruckSchool.com -- the website that our experts and attendees critiqued in a quick-fire live optimization session.

Questions or comments on the presentation? Does the info square up with your own lead-gen results? Post a comment and let us know.

For those who attended our free webinar on lead generation yesterday, we'd like to thank you for your time and trust. Despite some initial tech glitches, the session got rolling quickly and we covered a lot of ground, including:

• three lead-gen case studies, with some surprising results
  
• the impact of friction and incentive on the leads process
  
• a guest appearance by our good friend and partner, lead-generation expert Brian Carroll, and
  
• a live site review and optimization session.

• Never use an incentive that requires you to sell it before the main offer is clear. Even good incentives can fail due to presentation errors.
  
• Friction is typically a negative factor, but not in every case. There are ways to use it to your advantage.
  
• Friction occurs at the page level as well as throughout the lead-gen process. Look for ways to reduce it in both areas.

1. Have you looked at your site pages the way a customer does vs. the way your company does?
   
2. How does your process demonstrate to your ideal customer that you understand him/her?
   
3. Have you analyzed your competition's lead-gen process from start to finish and compared it against your own?

We're gearing up for another lively session with today's free Web Clinic:

Filling the Pipeline: Lead generation strategies that got an 86% increase

We'll examine three tests we conducted with our research partner to demonstrate how you can use Incentives and Friction to generate more leads. We'll also discuss the aspects of the lead-gen process you find most challenging -- and help attendees optimize their own landing pages with a live, rapid-fire critique session.

Please note that our recent Clinics have maxed out, so if you sign up, dial in promptly at 4:00 p.m. EDT to secure your spot. (Our free Web Clinics are limited to the first 1,000 attendees.)

Even if you can't attend, registrants will be able to access the Clinic content later, via links provided in the MarketingExperiments Journal. Registration includes a free subscription to the Journal.

We hope you'll join us and we look forward to your participation.

Reserve your spot for today's Webinar here.

What can you do when your order path is eight pages long and "corporate headquarters" has strict policies that essentially tie your Web marketing hands behind your back?

Fighting the system, or sulking around the office out and aggravating your co-workers would get you nowhere. Your only option is to accept the parameters you have to work within and find a solution that gets results.

Now what? How could we break out of the constraints to improve results?

Every online marketing professional is familiar with the idea of the order process as a funnel. From the start of the process, say your landing page, the number of prospective buyers gradually erodes with each ensuing page.

With that in mind, we took the path element with the highest impact on abandonment and moved it to the last possible step. The objective was to get prospects as deep into the funnel as possible before they ran into the most anxiety-inducing part of the process: facing a decision to submit sensitive information.

The results? Even we were surprised by the impact of this change: Our partner achieved an 86% increase in conversions compared to the original order process. Look for more details on our tests with this partner in our upcoming Web Clinics.

Marketers, we've got some good news: You don't need to fear the "fold" any longer. (Tell your designers, too.)

Many, if not most, of our recent Landing Page Optimization Workshop attendees were convinced that their call-to-action, email capture, or sign-up form must appear "above the fold" on a page.

That's all true. And many of our landing page tests have done well with important elements near the top.

However, there's a limit to how far you can go in trying to accommodate visitors within an 800x600 pixel space. At a certain point, trying too hard to keep everything above the fold actually negates the effectiveness of the layout.

When you start cramming images, headlines, body copy, fields, buttons, navigation and other elements into a page, the impact of the message you're trying to communicate can easily be overshadowed. We've seen an adverse effect in several tests of this scenario.

It's much more effective to disregard the fold and focus on clearly stating the value of the product or service. Make it abundantly clear to visitors why they should take the action you want them to take (fill out a form; give an email address).

We've seen countless landing pages that throw an email capture form at visitors without offering anything in return or describing what the site or offer was even about. These are classic examples of site flow disruption -- and you can tell that concern about scrolling below the fold influenced the layout.

So here's your chance to break the mold and create landing pages that run counter to the conventional wisdom (while your competitors stick with the myth). Consider testing a landing page design that presents the offer and puts the call-to-action right where it should be ... even if that happens to be 700 or 1,200 pixels down the page.

Research analyst Adam Lapp contributed to this post.

The test is over, the scores are in, and I'm happy to say that the vast majority of the students at our two-day workshop passed the Landing Page Optimization professional certification exam today. We certainly hope that we met our goal: Help marketers improve their landing pages and give them something substantial to take back to their respective businesses.

Thanks to everyone who made our event a success. Here are a few more pix from the sessions:

Until you are the best choice for your ideal customer, you do not deserve to exist in the marketplace.

That was just one of the interesting suppositions the students of Dr. Flint McGlaughlin heard this morning during the first day of the MarketingExperiments LPO workshop in Ponte Vedra Beach.

The context was the importance of value proposition.

"88% of all landing pages I see have a problem with the value proposition," said Flint. "What you must answer for your customer is this: 'If I am your ideal customer, why should I buy from you instead of from any of your competitors?' ... You must figure out why you are best and learn to communicate it effectively."

The students I spoke with at the lunch break were certainly eager to get started on that effective communication, expressing a range of goals for attending the intensive training. Some hoped to take back "evidence" to a boss to show why a company's landing pages should be changed, others were expanding their portfolio of professional certifications.

At least two students were shipped here by a marketing-savvy CEO.

Kacy McRae, a marketing communications specialist and graphic designer for Illinois-based B2B Pacific Bearing, and Dominick Doyle, the company webmaster, were sent to the conference by CEO Robert Schroeder, a long-time member of MarketingSherpa. McRae and Doyle confirmed their number one goal is to better manage Schroeder's marketing dollars.

They certainly got his money's worth for him today.

From how to design a channel map, through that great overview of the importance of identifying and expressing a value proposition, to the importance of reducing friction (but not completely), balancing it with incentive, and alleviating anxiety, Flint guided students through the "sequence of thought" required to achieve optimal conversion results for their companies, backing it all up with solid test results ranging from the 1,052% cumulative gain we achieved with the New York Times, to impressive lifts for lead generation, retail, and B2B sites.

I'm sure that most students who attended today will agree: The training they got was not only fast-paced, detailed, and useful, it was definitely thought-provoking. Here are a few of my other favorite "Flintisms" from today's sessions:

• Optimization happens in the mind, not on the page.
• Adequacy is the enemy of excellence.
• Service is a threshold expectation.
• Clarity trumps persuasion.

Day two will encompass a review, then a comprehensive test. Those who manage to be at least 80% correct will come out on the other side with their certificate.

Good luck, you guys.