The same way the telephone replaced the telegraph and the Internet surpassed snail mail, email is running out of gas when comes to communicating with Gen Y.

Texting is increasingly associated with convenience, immediate gratification, instant results, friends, and fun. Email is associated with responsibility, work, relentless spam, and long-winded missives from boomer parents.

So I'm going to make a leap: If your business model falls into the convenience, immediate gratification, instant results, or fun categories (or all four of them), and you haven't yet added texting to your marketing mix, it's time.

Let's look at some hard numbers to bring it home.

Papa John's earned $400 million in online sales in 2007, and in November of last year rolled out a text-ordering service. Today, more than 20% of all sales come from online and text messaging, and profit from those channels is projected to grow by 50% a year.

WJBQ (Portland, Maine) just had its second annual WJBQ "Q Baby Idol" contest. According to a recent Mobile Insider article by Steve Smith, the contest drew 400,000 emails and 231,000 text votes last year. This year it saw almost a million texts and just 250,000 emails.

Mainstream marketers are also forging ahead with texting services as a primary way to connect with their customers.

Hearst Magazines has provided a texting option for its Gen Y CosmoGirl! readers for over two years, but recently teamed up again with ShopText.com to roll out text-based coupons, free samples, and contest entries to their Good Housekeeping, O,The Oprah Magazine, Redbook, and Seventeen readers as well.

Amazon recently launched its TextBuyIt service, which allows customers to enter UPCs and product names in their phones, compare prices, and buy immediately if they like the Amazon offer best.

Email obviously isn't in danger of extinction any time soon, but a recent study by The Yankee Group is projecting 1.7 billion global active messaging users by 2009. Why not start communicating with your future customers now via the channel they respond to best?

As Paul Golding said so eloquently: "Email is like placing a letter in someone's in-tray, whereas texting is like tapping them on the shoulder and saying look at this. . . ."

And if you need a translation of this entry's title, check out the links below, courtesy of lingo2word.com:

f UR nt txtN UR lEvN $ on d table

(See optimized version, right, and earlier version, below.)

"Giving your suggestions a chance to show results, I waited sixty days since rebuilding the site following your webinar participants' helpful comments," Eric said. "Conversion rate rose from 3.9% to 6.6% (30-day results)."

"I should also point out that we took the opportunity to target our paid-click advertising on those keywords which were more relevant -- and cut out those which were not productive. That reduced our ad spend by 60% yet increased conversion 200%.

"In conclusion, design and delivery of the message is foremost and many websites would benefit from your work -- I highly recommend you for that."

You can click here to read our brief containing the recommendations Eric received. It also includes the extensive guidance five other sites received at the same clinic.

You're also welcome to join our next free Web Clinic on May 7. Our optimization experts will be reviewing eCommerce websites, making specific recommendations, and answering audience questions. If you haven't participated in one of our live optimization clinics yet, what are you waiting for?

You don't want to pass up the chance for a double-digit increase in conversions, do you?

But while copywriters are focusing on snappy offer language, and designers are worrying about typefaces and buttons, information graphics (like a comparison matrix) can get lost in the shuffle. So does the ROI that these page elements can help produce.

Our sister company, MarketingSherpa, recently reaffirmed this with a test.

By adding a comparison matrix (see image) to underscore the benefits of membership, Sherpa increased free trial subscriptions by 76%.

Testimonials to the right of the new chart and below the call-to-action also reinforced the facts, demonstrated the value of a membership, and helped relieve anxiety.

Why did a simple matrix table get such a dramatic response - especially when its length increased the amount of friction on the page? Because the eyes and mind process the comparison much faster than if the information was written out in copy.

Scan the matrix and the thought process goes something like: "OK, non-members get this. Members get all that. Wow, that's a lot more good stuff for members. Seems worth it to me. And this is a free trial? Let me get my credit card. . . ."

When potential customers are in a hurry, weighing their options and facing a decision, the best thing your transaction pages can do is make their choice easy, comfortable, and fast.

Tony Vacarcel, Marketing Optimization Manager for MECLABS, contributed to this blog post.

What if every time you visited your favorite store, everything looked exactly the same? Or it was so crammed with stuff you could barely move down the aisles? Would you keep going back?

Probably not. So why is this problem so common with eCommerce websites?

Instead of staying lean, they grow larger and larger . . . and things get ugly. The sites end up with dozens or even hundreds of bloated pages with no eyepath; they get overrun by ever-smaller fonts, graphics, ads, and photos; obsolete information and broken links sprout like weeds.

A friend of mine works in a brick-and-mortar store where the owner believes that if you can't turn around without knocking something over, people will think he's going out of business. "The shop looks empty," he says when my friend tries to change things up, knock off the dust, and discount stuff that hasn't sold in years.

The reality is that even the conservative display changes and occasional culls my friend gets away with allow customers to "discover" products that have been there awhile. "The store looks great," they often say. "Did you get some new things?"

On the other end of the design spectrum are my friends Brad, Lew, and Gregory, who own a contemporary home furnishings store in Phoenix. They believe in frequent, major revamps, mashing older and newer things together in dramatic ways that keep their regular customers guessing (and excited).

For most retail websites, the sweet spot falls somewhere in between. And they have an advantage over brick-and-mortars, because eCommerce sites can test a radical redesign idea and see what happens before rolling it out. Multivariable testing gives online businesses the opportunity for "breakthrough thinking" and much higher conversion rates if executed properly.

As our research brief on the subject says:

"When you can test only one change at a time, you are under pressure to think of a 'good' change . . . something you think has a high likelihood of delivering improved results. This can lead to cautious thinking. However, with multivariable testing you can test as many changes as you like. This takes the pressure off and gives you enormous creative latitude, opening the door to breakthrough ideas you might otherwise never have tested."

The caveat is whether a site will get enough traffic in the time allotted for a test. That determines whether the tested changes are statistically valid and significant. In other words, if showing your redesign to only 10% of your traffic means it will take years to get to 95% confidence in your findings, you might want to up the ante.

So go on, move some things around. Try a whole new approach. The payoff could be huge.

And if you're looking for ideas to test, come to our 5/7 Web Clinic on optimizing eCommerce websites.

One of my favorite “Flintisms” is a warning against “unsupervised thinking.”

In essence, it means that when a visitor gets to your landing page, it should be easy to find what they really want. Make sure they know they’re on the right site, and don’t obscure what they came for. Think Alice, always keeping that Brady house in order.

Simple, right?

Not so fast.

Our TSS team was recently brainstorming ways to help a partner with a very cluttered landing page, “featuring” at least twelve different, competing products, plus an extensive left nav list for a hundred product categories, a deal alert sign-up competing with a search field, warranty purchase options, shipping account logins, shopping cart item counts.

The page looked like a Moroccan bazaar.

“You have a shotgun approach on this page. It takes you everywhere,” Flint said.

Now, some folks enjoy strolling through the Internet equivalent of a Moroccan bazaar, nav’ing and clicking through pages and pages of products they didn’t necessarily come for.

It’s called shopping.

Some folks like it, and some (including me) just want to go in, get what they came for, and get out.

In my humble opinion, the current design was friction-city because of all the competing information blasting visitors.

“They’ll lose to someone with a cleaner Value Proposition,” said Flint. “Why should someone buy from this site and come back again?” AKA, no relationship was established.

Another problem was no—zero—eyepath, due to competing constituencies. It looked to me like LP turf battles had brand managers and co-op manufacturers fighting like The Brady Bunch kids (plus Alice) all trying to get in the front seat of Carol’s 1970 station wagon.

Key questions began to emerge. We needed a framework.

What new page design would result in the best "mind trail"? That is, what are people doing now; what do we want them to do; and what’s in the customer's mind? Where do we want to send people to make the most money?

This page needed help, and that’s what we’re all about—what will get it done; for the partner, and for the customers. We’re here to eliminate that unsupervised thinking and clean up that confusing clutter.

Stay tuned to find out how we do it.

FADE IN: GENERIC OFFICE CUBICLE — DAY

A man, shopping online for a high-end product.

We see flash cuts between the man’s face—looking increasingly aggravated—and his computer screen, showing dozens of similar Web sites, each one just as friction-inducing as the next. . . . .

CUE DRAMATIC SCORE, CUE MOVIE TRAILER VOICE-OVER GUY

In a confusing world of online stores all offering hundreds of choices, the lowest prices, and discount delivery, two companies will join forces to optimize a landing page that millions have seen before. . . .

SWITCH TO SUMMER FUN SCORE

This summer, get ready for one of the best landing page tests ever, when MarketingExperiments and their ideal partner team up to increase conversions beyond their wildest dreams. . . .

CUE NEEDLE-BEING-PULLED-OFF-A-RECORD EFFECT

Or not.

CUT TO: OFFICES OF MARKETINGEXPERIMENTS – DAY

FULL SHOT: Director Flint McGlaughlin, backlit by 10 computer screens.

FLINT: What’s the partner’s willingness and ability to make changes?

CUT TO. . . .

Okay, so this work in progress is not likely to be a blockbuster hit, but it does have a viable premise — “X leads to Y” — the movie producing equivalent of a Value Proposition.

In this scenario, lack of data leads to less than ideal project results.

“The point of finding the right thing to test is having the right data,” said Flint in a recent Training and Solutions meeting, as we discussed the challenges of a recent project. “All of the information we need to design this [landing] page is in [the company’s] metrics program.”

Unfortunately for those who partnered with us, someone in their organization was unwilling or unable to get us the information we needed to help them achieve the best results.

Whether you’re a hired gun or an internal testing team, the roadblocks to optimization efforts — corporate politics or culture, bureaucracy or malice, laziness or indifference — may well be insurmountable without one critical element: professional project management.

Marketers should insist that their online testing and optimization projects follow the same project management best practices that have shown real results for corporate IT projects.

Let’s start with project sponsorship. If you’ve ever attended a Project Management Institute course, you know the importance of engaged sponsorship from a strong leader or leadership team within the organization. That sponsor must be empowered to cut right through the smoke, the flak, or anything else being blown or thrown, in order to achieve the established objective of the project.

Having said that, if the project’s scope isn’t adequately defined at the outset, if establishing the key requirements (for example, access to specific data) has fallen short, then producing the deliverables will be a nightmare. The project is set up to fail from the beginning.

Paraphrasing Flint, it’s all about a company’s willingness and ability to make recommended changes.

Even if you get access to the data you need, if the IT team can’t or won’t help you implement, if the project sponsor is a sponsor in name only, or if inertia cannot be overcome . . . well, your optimization project is really done before it’s over. Stick a fork in it and . . .

FADE TO BLACK

Still sifting through plain old text search results? How old school of you.

Apparently, “blended” search results are becoming all the rage for GenY, says a new iProspect study. That is, search results containing images, videos, news, blogs, and reference results on the same page.

The study found that 31 percent of users are now clicking images, with twice as many searchers aged 18–34 clicking them compared with those over 35. 17 percent are clicking on videos. The most frequently clicked vertical within blended search is news.

While Google kicked off the blended results craze nearly a year ago, and MSN and Yahoo followed suit later in 2007, newbies Askx.com and searchmash.com are among the blended search engines trying to find a toe-hold in Google’s world.

What does it mean for online marketers? It’s time to optimize all of your digital assets.

Video press releases. That podcast of your CEO giving a brilliant speech. Sneak preview images of sexy new products. Post them to your own site, tag them, and inject them into other high-profile content streams, like YouTube or top blogs like BoingBoing.

Start paddling now to catch the blended results wave.

One-third of those surveyed also said they consider those in the first few pages of search results the leaders in their space. The assumption is that if you’re really a player, you’ve got search all figured out by now.

Another interesting finding: We’re getting more impatient in our pursuit of instant gratification, regardless of our generation. More users than ever are clicking only on the first page of results, the study showed —68 percent in 2008 compared with 62 percent in 2006 and 48 percent in 2002.

The new bottom line for CMOs?

• Page one of search results, “classic” or blended = product/information/service leader.
• Page two or three = your company is middle of the road, maybe a nice fallback option.
• Page four or higher = start packing your cardboard box (don’t forget your stress ball).

According to a new Nielsen Mobile report, 90% of cell phone users with data services think pushing ads to their device is unacceptable. (Of course, irritation with the process didn’t stop half of those who had seen an ad from responding).

Now, at least two companies are working on technology that enables cell phone users to easily pull digital content to their phones when they want it instead.

They’ve created a two-dimensional code (think UPS packages -- and see the "Space Invaders" image at left) that, when photographed with a cell phone camera and processed with onboard software, pulls content to the user from pre-loaded databases. Essentially, it turns your cell phone into a barcode scanner, but better.

Any business using the technology can upload content to the system then create a unique 2D code to use on packaging, billboards, flyers, newspaper and magazine ads, display windows—anywhere it can be photographed with a phone camera.

For example, Mobile Discovery, a company associated with Case Western Reserve University and Scanbuy, partnered with cell service providers and Billboard magazine to use the 2D code in an ad for a new album. Readers photographing the code instantly received content such as sample songs without having to type in URLs or use search services.

The beta test project requires users to download the software to their phones, but Mobile Discovery envisions a day when the software comes bundled on all new cell phones.

Scanbuy says the marketing applications are virtually limitless, from using it on business cards to buying tickets or entering contests to accessing the latest bus schedule.

I can certainly picture it in viral campaigns – think 2D code stickers on light poles, bumper stickers, and fast food packaging.

Will it catch on as the latest marketing craze? What do you think, mobile marketers?

Mission: Take a Web site with multiple domain names, channels, and products, and make it sleek, sexy, and ready for boffo business (in other words, optimized).

The twist? This major optimization project has to be completed and live in mere weeks–when the site will get a tidal wave of traffic from its promotion on an upcoming TV series.

At today’s Training and Solutions Session (TSS), analysts and managers from the MarketingExperiments science and journal teams learned several techniques to help us deconstruct and solve online marketing challenges like these.

The question posed by Dr. Flint McGlaughlin: “What is the most effective way to help [the company] capture the highest yield from the TV opportunity?”

Put another way: What can we, or should we, change or test–with only four weeks until showtime? We can’t test everything that needs to change.

As most marketing researchers know, to achieve confidence in your findings, a test must have run a certain number of cycles. Four weeks isn’t much time to complete valid tests. Within these constraints, Flint asked, what is the best that we can accomplish?

After hearing which elements the group would change first, Flint recommended a simple, linear “ultimately optimizable” approach:

• Pare down the number of confusing, competing URLs;
• Sequence the offers, highlighting the product being advertised during primetime;
• Create a moderately-priced subscription offer to complement the main product; and
• Capture email addresses at every opportunity along the transaction path.

The thinking behind that approach: Maximize simplicity and revenue. And focus on the areas with the biggest potential impact given the time crunch.

Which of these changes will be implemented? How well will they meet the objectives? Will these ideas continue to drive revenue long after the series ends its run? That’s why they call it a cliffhanger.

Tune into our summer or fall Web Clinics for the answers…