Early adoption is a lot of things. Addictive is one of them.

Who’s addicted to early adoption, you ask?

Both business owners and consumers.

You see, the relationship between business owner and early adopter is symbiotic. You need them as much as they need you.

Not a single day goes by without some question or comment from clients, potential clients, or subscribers to our RSS on the validity of personas for an ecommerce website. Of course, once we get our clients results, they are certainly on board. But convincing them of the personas role and effectiveness at the ecommerce front before beginning a project, has posed as a challenge.

Let’s get something out of the way though: is it possible to optimize without the use of Personas? Definitely.

So why personas for an ecommerce website? Let’s dissect this further:

Warning: this is a rant post.

I’m starting to wonder if there’s any other kind for me.

Today’s topic of choice: the new trend of online businesses removing email support from their websites.

You read right.

Yesterday, I started a discussion about conversational marketing and its relation to conversions.

Today, I want to give you a few tips on how to make the most out of your conversational marketing attempts.

How do five tips sound?

Good?

Well, then read on….

If you believe that “markets are conversations”, as proposed in the book The Cluetrain Manifesto, and that their true nature relies on the free exchange of ideas, products and reviews, then you should believe that you’re having a one-sided conversation with prospects if you’re not actively engaging with them.

This is bad if you’re at all interested in using a democratic and dynamic marketing approach. Really bad.

First, let’s describe what “conversational marketing” is…

Shopping cart abandonment is one of those topics that I could really go on and on about.

Instead of giving you the usual, though, I’d like to give you some tips with unconventional twists to help you minimize it

After all, shopping cart abandonment is one of those things that has to be aggressively fought every day that you’re in business. Making a few unique choices about how your shopping cart presents notices may help to increase your conversions.

Cross-selling and up-selling on a digital platform is something that has only recently been taken seriously by online business owners. Eight years ago, only about 24% considered up-selling. That’s a criminally tiny percentage, considering the profit potential that cross-selling and up-selling boasted even back then.

Reading that particular percentage made me wonder if business owners truly understand the ideas behind cross-selling and up-selling. Sure, there are now those who implement some form of them on their shopping carts, but I would guess that there are more who don’t understand why they work.

If only I could read my clients’ minds . . . Do you ever find yourself thinking this? What if it were true? Landing pages and ecommerce sites could be created in a snap. Your copy would feel personalized and genuine. Customers would feel like they know you personally because your site does such an excellent job of catering to their needs, offering their wants and alleviating their fears. You would have a whole and untainted understanding of motivation, one of the most basic elements of conversion optimization. Linda Bustos of Elastic Path points out that motivation is the most …