For our Landing Page Optimization Workshop here in Santa Monica, we're "testing" a new approach with blogging the sessions.

Instead of posting session wrap-ups from our own team, we thought it would be interesting to get a participant's perspective on this live workshop.

So we've teamed up with one of our favorite bloggers, Linda Bustos, who helms the must-read Get Elastic ecommerce blog. While Linda is "getting schooled" and certified in Landing Page Optimization, she'll be tweeting occasionally and later producing a series of blog posts.

We'll try to create a virtual conversation of sorts by latching onto, and linking to, her posts on Get Elastic. And we'd like you to jump in with your questions and comments, too. Stay tuned for updates ...

Value propositions are still a major source of confusion and frustration for marketers, as our most recent web clinic reaffirmed.

While the clinic focused on three problem areas (identifying, expressing, and testing/measuring value propositions), 32% of the 487 marketers in our live poll chose "all of the above" as their biggest challenge. That "all of the above" was the leading answer is telling. Many marketers still aren't sure just what a value proposition is, much less how to craft a powerful one.

The clinic presented examples and a Value Proposition Worksheet (PDF) and is now available online in three formats for your convenience:

• View the complete presentation (slides and audio)
  
• Read the print-friendly research brief with additional links
  
• Listen to the audio-only version

Value propositions vs. branding taglines

To further clarify what's not a value proposition, here's my response to a question from one of our clinic participants regarding the www.JewelryDays.com website, and its tagline ...

The statement "My Life Is Beautiful" makes a catchy tagline, but it's not what we consider a true value proposition. Why not? Because it doesn't answer this question: "If I'm your ideal prospect, why should I buy from you instead of anyone else?" Answer that with "My life is beautiful" and you'll clearly see the disconnect.

I've taken a look at your About Us page, and though I'm not an expert on your market, I'd suggest that your strongest value proposition can be found within this idea:
"[Our] innovative diamond search technology evaluates the cost, size and quality of the diamond to help consumers make informed and customized purchase decisions. Consumers can graphically see the tradeoffs required when weighing each of these factors, and speak to or e-mail professional graduate gemologists with their questions."

I would argue that buying diamonds hinges mainly on quality and trusting the seller; both are especially challenging for websites vs. brick-and-mortar stores because there's not a real face-to-face person, you can't touch and examine the diamonds before you buy, and returns are a greater concern due to shipping. Largest selection means more to wholesalers than an individual who only wants one or two pieces. Lowest prices has appeal, but can also raise anxiety with regard to luxury items such as diamonds, as it naturally conflicts with the desire for quality; skeptical consumers know that the highest quality and the lowest prices don't go together.

So, what could really set your site/company apart is not the selection or prices, but offering a search that truly helps buyers make informed, customized decisions by weighing the tradeoffs. Again, I don't know how many other sites offer something similar, but if your search technology really is superior -- and is the one area where you excel over competitors -- your site needs to express that much more clearly on the homepage.

Right now, that impressive search function is barely even visible on the homepage, much less promoted as your unique advantage over other diamond jewelry sites.

Take another look at the Down & Feather Company example from the clinic, and see how the redesigned site showcases the company's "Perfect Pillow Policy" value proposition. Try to crystallize your innovative search and helpful buying process into concise, powerful language -- and apply it to your site in ways that will drive prospects to use your site. That will be much stronger than the "beautiful" tagline.

We hope you're planning to join us for today's free web clinic: Powerful Value Propositions: How to optimize this critical marketing element - and lift your results.

We've crammed in a lot of information and guidance, but there's much more than one hour will allow.

So here's a roundup of our blog posts and research briefs on this topic, plus our value proposition worksheet:

• MarketingExperiments Value Proposition Worksheet (PDF, 60k)
• All about value propositions - A five-part series
• Value proposition showdown: Your company vs. your product or service
• When did you last conduct a competitive analysis?
• In Search of a Value Proposition

You'll find relevant examples and ideas throughout the resources above, and we'll also compile them into the research brief that will be drawn from today's free clinic.

To be notified when today's presentation and research brief are available online, sign up for the free MarketingExperiments Journal.

P.S. We've received dozens of entries from web clinic registrants for our value proposition contest. We're still evaluating them (and they're still coming in), so we will announce the winner soon.

In the years that I've been writing about sales and marketing, Brian Carroll has been one of the sources I trust the most, hands-down.

He understands both sides in a way that many self-styled gurus don't. He knows what does and doesn't work in real-world situations, and he offers practical advice, not fluff. Best of all, Brian isn't afraid to challenge conventional marketing or sales wisdom.

So having the opportunity to work with him to produce our special guest clinic on lead generation was not only educational, but a lot of fun. The feedback from clinic participants suggests that Brian and Flint delivered plenty of valuable insights that hit the mark with our audience (both B2B and B2C).

You can now access "A Proven 'Playbook' For Growing Your Leads" in three formats:

• Complete version (slides and audio in Flash player)
• Research brief (print-friendly HTML)
• Audio version (MP3)

You'll notice that this clinic is somewhat different than our usual MarketingExperiments web clinics. As Flint mentions in the clinic, these strategies don't revolve around making your contact form or call to action stronger; this playbook is about what happens after prospects hit the "submit" button, and how marketing and sales teams can work together more effectively to expand their customer base and get the most revenue per lead.

As Brian explores the five steps that make up his lead generation playbook, he also shows how applying those steps helped a partner company achieve gains of up to 375% in a matter of months -- without a significant budget increase.

Ready to be a marketing hero?

Absorb this clinic and the playbook, then apply Brian's five steps to your own lead generation and nurturing process. Then send us a photo of the view from your new corner office ...

We're throwing a curveball at our blog today. Instead of trying to cram all of the content from our Landing Page Optimization Workshop into a handful of posts (that don't do justice to the full sessions), we wanted to hear from our participants.

So our newest team member, Anna Jacobson, asked our Landing Page Optimization Workshop participants about their biggest takeaways from day one. Here are the perspectives she got from three attendees:

Personalized attention
"I was interested in one-on-one, and I got it," said Stephen Doucette, a Web designer and marketer for Radio Systems. "But getting to see other people's pages in the group critiques was surprisingly helpful for my own one-on-one work with clients. It's problem-solving practice."

A proven framework for testing
"We knew [our landing page] had problems and we had a plan to restructure it," said a travel-industry marketing professional who wished to remain nameless. "Flint's assessment of our page was tremendous validation. It's great to have a systematic process for evaluation. Before this, when we were testing, it felt like we were just testing the wind."

Honest critiques, practical recommendations
"I didn't come here to be treated gently. I wanted the real deal - and I got it," said Judie Hart, who manages 14 websites for Boston University's adult education campus. After one of her key landing pages was optimized live by our team, along with input from her marketing peers in the audience, Hart said the value of the workshop was crystal clear by day one. "I don't often attend seminars where I can feel the ROI increase before I even get out the door."

If you've attended our free web clinics, particularly the live optimization sessions, you know that the mix we strive for is three-fold: takeaway ideas you can apply quickly to improve results, plus the deeper foundational principles that help you achieve better results consistently, with a heavy dose of interactive learning.

In our on-site workshops, that mix is even more intensive, and it's combined with a level of interactivity with our team and other participants that extends far beyond our web clinics. It's almost like comparing a live concert to a music video.

What you can do to help us
We're always exploring ways to keep improving our web clinics, workshops, research briefs, and the other tools we use to help marketers optimize their efforts and improve their results. And to do that, we look to our audience for feedback. So if you participated in this workshop, and/or our recent clinics, we invite you to share your comments so we can all do better together. Please fire away below ...

Expressing an effective value proposition is one of the biggest keys to conversions. So it's no surprise that it was a popular topic on day one of our Landing Page Optimization Workshop.

Problem: Most companies still struggle with value propositions.

This is fertile ground for optimization, and we'll continue to cover it in more depth in our clinics and workshops. But for this post, I want to focus on a distinction that can help clarify two different types of value proposition -- and provide compelling tests that you might run with PPC ads, landing pages, SEO, and other marketing channels.

As the image above illustrates, you can focus your value proposition on your company, or on your specific product or service.

In this example, a search for "lap pools" shows the PPC ads and organic search results include a mix of both styles. (Note: What the image doesn't show is that all of the sidebar PPC ads use product-centric value propositions.)

What's the difference, and why is it important?

Product-centric value propositions and company-centric value propositions appeal to different types of searchers, with different motivations and purchase intentions.

So the style you present in your various marketing channels should match the mindset of the prospects in that channel.

In a search for "lap pool", the copy from the second PPC ad states: "Enjoy a lap pool in your backyard. Spa Trainer also seats 12 adults." This line focuses exclusively on the product features.

But the copy from the third ad states: "Whatever Your Needs Are, We'll Do Our Best to Build You a Dream Pool!" In contrast, this copy is all about the company and the lengths it will go to for customer service.

Each approach is likely to appeal to certain types of users. In many cases, the copy that is product-specific will appeal to prospects just starting their search. Once the prospect has zeroed in on the product he or she wants, their search may shift to other factors, such as customer service or installation options. At that point, the company-centric copy becomes more valuable to the decision.

This works with SEO, too. Look at the top organic result for that search -- it's another company-centric value proposition: "Really EZ Pools offers complete portable pool packages starting at $999. A proud member of the Better Business Bureau and a one-stop source for portable lap ..."

The second organic result is product-focused: "You can put your Endless Pools Swimming Pool and Lap Pool just about anywhere. Take a look at Custom Pools by Endless Pools."

Can we tell you which style will win hands-down every time? Of course not.

That's why you should be testing this with your own products/services, customers, and marketing channels. Especially if your PPC ad or SEO results are surrounded by a bunch of similarly focused (and struggling) value propositions.

This is a powerful way to test how your value proposition sets apart your offer and connects with the right prospects, in the right way, at the right time.

Have you tested similar variations with your PPC ads, landing pages, or SEO? Let us know. And look for more on value propositions, including a contest, in the near future ...

Our posse of B2B marketers has recently been asking for more lead-generation and optimization strategies.

So we called in our lead-gen gunslinger, Brian Carroll, and rustled up a free web clinic on this topic for Wednesday, September 24.

This special clinic is all about getting more leads into your marketing funnel -- and growing your sales through more effective lead management.

As you probably know, Brian literally wrote the book on the subject: Lead Generation for the Complex Sale. (In fact, we'll be giving away 10 free copies of his book to some lucky clinic attendees.)

Teaming up with Flint McGlaughlin, Brian will discuss the strategies that doubled a partner's sales leads in a matter of months, without increasing the partner's budget. He'll also demonstrate his five-step "playbook" for effective lead management, and conduct a live Q&A session to answer participants' specific questions.

This year has been a tough one for many B2B marketers. And with so many economic questions swirling around, now is the time to optimize your funnel and lay a stronger foundation for 2009.

Join us for this free web clinic and get expert insights and answers to help you do just that.

Here's a paradox of successful headlines: the less they sell, the more they can sell.

Our most recent web clinic looked at research and ideas that support a vital, yet often overlooked, principle: The objective of your headline is not to sell, but to connect with your reader.

That split-second connection only has to compel readers to continue -- not necessarily to buy right away. You want them to read the next line (subhead), then the next one (first paragraph), and then start to engage them with your offer.

This idea isn't new. It's just extremely easy to forget. Tight deadlines, heavy pressure to increase ROI, a propensity for sticking with what's worked in the past ... there are dozens of reasons why we approach headline writing from the wrong angle.

Often, we either try to do too much and follow the old "sell the sizzle" formulas, or contort our copy to placate search engines and spam filters and wind up with drab, keyword-laden Mad Libs.

There are better ways.

In the clinic, Optimizing Your Headlines: How changing a few words can help (or hurt) conversion, we explored three key qualities of winning headlines, looked at recent tests and examples, and broke down two methods you can use to test and optimize your own headlines.

That clinic is now available online in three formats for your convenience:

• View the complete presentation (slides and audio)
• Read the print-friendly research brief with additional links
• Listen to the audio-only version

We also polled the audience during the session. Thanks to the positive feedback and the record-breaking attendance of the clinic, we'll be conducting a follow-up webinar this Wednesday, Sept. 10 at 4:00 p.m. ET, that will include a live optimization session with audience-submitted headlines and new test results.

Secure your spot for Optimizing Headlines Pt. II today, as our free clinics are capped at 1,000 attendees.

(Use the comments field to post your questions and/or headlines you'd like to have our optimization team address.)

P.S. If you're looking for more in-depth information about copywriting, including myriad tips and techniques for headlines, you won't find a better resource online than Copyblogger.com.

MarketingExperiments is hosting new Landing Page Optimization Workshops in Florida and California -- and we're extending a special invitation to our blog readers. Here's what you need to know ...

Landing Page Optimization Workshops

Ponte Vedra, Florida (September 25-26)
Santa Monica, California (November 17-18)

At our Landing Page Optimization Workshops, you'll have the unique opportunity to get personalized, hands-on optimization training from our executives and analysts, and receive your professional certification in Landing Page Optimization. You'll also reap the benefits of networking with -- and learning alongside -- your peers.

This is your chance to learn the same research-tested methods and strategies used by our own optimization specialists.

During the training you'll get to apply what you're learning to a key landing page from your ecommerce, subscription, or lead-gen paths -- and experience first-hand how our optimization methodology can bring significant improvements to your campaigns.

To ensure individualized attention for every attendee, we limit our Landing Page Optimization Workshops to just 100 companies.

Bonus: We're extending our special offer for MarketingExperiments subscribers to include our blog readers ...

Join us for either the Ponte Vedra, FL (Sept. 25-26) or Santa Monica, CA (Nov. 17-18) workshop, and save $300 off the regular price. You'll also get the updated edition of MarketingSherpa's Landing Page Handbook, which provides practical guidelines for each step of the optimization process.

Find out how these workshops can dramatically improve your ROI.

We look forward to seeing you in Florida or California!