Reminder of How We Use the Web: Email First

How we use the Web:

• Email (94%)
• The use of search engines (87%)
• The use of maps and finding directions (86)
• Checking the weather (81%)
• Getting news (75%)
• Buying a product (66%)
• Using social networking sites (61%)

Read more on this quick data study by Docstoc as reported by MediaPost's Reasearch Brief.  

 

The report also suggests that the least amount of click through rates earned are those emailed between 6am and 12pm.  I recommend always testing variables for a particular cause, product, and/or service and setting internal performance benchmarks. In an earlier blog post, What Works for Twitter and LinkedIn, the numbers indicated mornings, rather than afternoons.  As I said:

Test, test, test.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Digital Savvyite, February 11, 2013, Portland, Oregon.

Pay Attention to Heat Maps of Web Pages

Sean Henri Marketing folks published last June an article on why Facebook ads are not garnering the clicks you may be hoping for using a heatmap to illustrate their main point summarized as location, location, location followed by the second -  context, context, context.  While the agency suggests Facebook is improving the advertising environment, referencing "sponsored stories" (subject of a legal settlement) the advice I generally give is test, test, test.

I'm repeating myself because the number of folks I have worked with on Websites who reference what we have learned from heatmaps and, when it comes to social media, pay attention to location, context, and testing, I can count on one hand.
 
Graphic Design is a creative discipline.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Digital Savvyite, February 10, 2013, Portland, Oregon.