Central Perk: 17 dec. 2011

sâmbătă, 17 decembrie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Update on Sweden (from Sweden); Another Look at the UK "In Isolation"
European Disunion Blog Makes Solid Case for Ron Paul
Home Prices in Spain Drop 14 Consecutive Quarters; Banks Stuck with Major Losses Not Marked to Market; Expect Conditions to Worsen

Update on Sweden (from Sweden); Another Look at the UK "In Isolation"

Posted: 17 Dec 2011 05:44 PM PST

Following the Merkozy summit, much was written regarding the UK "Standing Alone". While it's true that Sweden, Hungary, and the Czech Republic did not say "No" to the Merkozy agreement, the fact remains they did not say yes.

Moreover, it's just a matter of time Sweden does say "No", according to reader Kenneth from Sweden who offers this interesting political opinion.

Kenneth writes ....

In spite of what was reported immediately following the Merkozy proposal announcement, the Swedish position has not changed.

Rather, Swedish political parties are taking time to think about how they will react. They have even yet not got the detailed draft from the EU (should come within a week).

The greatest opposition party, the socialdemokrats have said NO from the start, and so have the other smaller opposition parties also said. And with the government in minority, the case should be closed. Sweden underwrites the treaty that it is OK for the EURO countries, but NOT valid for Sweden. So Sweden stays outside the treaty in practical manner.

Of course no one knows what happens in politics till March. But the socialdemokrats have stated categorically NO, and without socialdemokrats on the bandwagon Sweden will stay outside.

The socialdemokrats opinion is that it would be a way to take us back doors in to the EURO area, and the Swedish people has voted NO to the EURO in referendum 2003.

Besides that UK is not alone, Hungary has already stated that they will not participate, and the Czech Republic has said that they will take time to take a decision. So there are now four countries that eventually will not go along with the treaty. And then you have Finland which IS a Euro country.

Kenneth

In a second follow-up email Kenneth noted "Recent polls show that at least 80% of the Swedish people should vote NO to the EURO today. So the socialdemokrats can win votes with their categorical NO to the treaty."

As I have said, support for this treaty is rapidly disintegrating in numerous ways and in numerous places.

For details, please see ...

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

European Disunion Blog Makes Solid Case for Ron Paul

Posted: 17 Dec 2011 08:08 AM PST

Support for Ron Paul turns up in interesting places, such as the UK-based European Disunion Blog.

Don't want endless foreign wars, but do want a strong military for defense? Vote Ron Paul. Do want bankers to be subjected to greater scrutiny and accountability? Vote Ron Paul. Don't want the government to tow the line of corporate interests? Vote Ron Paul. Do want to be allowed to say and think what you will - even do what you will - provided that it does not harm or infringe upon the rights of others? Vote Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is the only candidate who does not accept donations from big business - his campaign is funded entirely by individuals. Yet it forms policy from a conservative outlook: pragmatic, rather than idealistic, with any reforms carefully considered before implementation, with a strict doctrine of fiscal prudence to boot. In short, it is the perfect blend for individualistic yet reasoned and cash-strapped America.

That is a rock-solid case in two short paragraphs.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Home Prices in Spain Drop 14 Consecutive Quarters; Banks Stuck with Major Losses Not Marked to Market; Expect Conditions to Worsen

Posted: 17 Dec 2011 02:12 AM PST

The Spanish banking system is in far worse shape than most realize because of unrealized losses related to Spain's imploded housing bubble. Various austerity measures and tax hikes to bail out French and German banks will greatly exacerbate this problem.

Please consider Spain Banks Face 43% Price Fall on Repossessed Homes

Spanish home prices fell for the 14th consecutive quarter as unemployment surged and a drop in mortgage lending crimped demand for property. The average price of houses and apartments dropped 7.4 percent in three months ended Sept. 30 from the same period a year earlier, according to the National Statistics Institute in Madrid.

Repossessed houses in Spain are worth 43 percent less on average than the valuations assigned on the mortgages for the properties, according to Fitch Ratings.

Price declines range from 20 percent to 58 percent, analysts Juan David Garcia and Carlos Masip in Madrid wrote in a report analyzing 8,235 properties funded by loans from banks including Banco Santander SA (SAN) and Bankia SA. The mortgages are in asset-backed securities with high loan-to-value ratios.

Spanish Unemployment Rate

Spain's Unemployment Rate is 22.8% and rising.

Austerity measures in Spain will force down home prices, force up the unemployment rate, and force up losses on Spanish banks.

As I have noted before, Spain needs to restructure work rules, make it easier to fire people (which will eventually make it easier to hire people), get rid of government workers, lower taxes, and implement various reforms.

Unfortunately, the Merkozy agreement demands many counterproductive austerity measures and tax hikes that will crucify Spain in the short-term. Banking losses will soar, GDP will plunge, and deficits will rise.

The same setup applies to Portugal and Greece. Thus, the idea there will be no more sovereign debt losses will soon be smashed on the hard rocks of reality.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Damn Cool Pics

Laughter Infectiously Spreads in Berlin Train Video Goes Viral

Posted: 16 Dec 2011 07:33 PM PST

They say laughter is contagious, and one can really see the truth in that on this U-Bahn train in Berlin. Two women start laughing at something on their phones and soon the entire car is rolling over in giggles. The video is featured on Telegraph at the time of writing over a million people have watched this video.

Watch Live at 12:30 PM EST: President Obama Delivers a Statement

Your Daily Snapshot for
Saturday, December 17, 2011

Watch Live at 12:30 PM EST: President Obama Delivers a Statement

President Obama will deliver a statement today at 12:30 p.m. EST. Watch live on WhiteHouse.gov/Live.

Weekly Address: Honoring Those Who Served in Iraq

President Obama expresses gratitude for the historic achievements of the brave men and women who have served in the war in Iraq -- and welcomes our troops home as we mark the official end to the war.

Watch the video:

Weekly Wrap Up

Fort Bragg After nearly nine years of sacrifice, the Iraq war has come to an end. The President and First Lady traveled to Fort Bragg in North Carolina on Wednesday to welcome home the troops and thank both them and their families for their enormous sacrifices and achievements. “For all the disagreements that we face, you remind us that there is something bigger than our differences. Something that makes us one nation. And one people…I could not be prouder of you. America could not be prouder of you.” To see more milestones from the Iraq War, from President Obama’s very first day in office through the work his Administration has done to support our heroes as they return home, check out our new timeline.

Iraq Visit On Monday, the President welcomed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The two leaders held talks on the removal of U.S. military forces from Iraq and on efforts to start a new chapter IN partnership between the two nations. “This is a season of homecomings. Military families across America families are being reunited for the holidays. In the coming days, the last American soldiers will cross the border out of Iraq—with honor and with their heads held high.”

Fair Labor As a part of the ‘We Can’t Wait’ campaign, the President announced his support to extend overtime pay protections and a guaranteed minimum wage for home healthcare workers. This effort will raise wages for people like Pauline Beck, a homecare worker who inspired then Senator Obama in 2007. Currently, many in-home care providers earn less than the minimum wage and no overtime for their vital services to assist those who need it most. “We are going to make sure that over a million men and women in one of the fastest-growing professions in the country don’t slip through the cracks. We’re going to make sure that companies who do right by their workers aren’t undercut by companies who don’t. We’re going to do what’s fair, and we’re going to do what’s right.”

Still Ticking Deputy Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese explains in a White Board discussion how President Obama’s payroll tax cut helps families, business, and the economy – and why it’s so important for Congress to act and extend the tax cut for 2012.

West Wing Week: Check out your video guide to everything that happened at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This week we're featuring special clips from the President's Asia Pacific trip.

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SEOptimise

Conversion Conference London: 65 More Takeaways

Posted: 16 Dec 2011 06:19 AM PST

Read the First 58 Takeaways from Conversion Conference London? Here are the next 65, from the afternoon of the first day.

Confessions of a Conversion Rate Optimiser

The afternoon kicked off with a keynote by Bryan Eisenberg, who has been in the conversion optimisation business since 1998.

Conversion rates have increased little over the past decade. Every site has a conversion problem.
Companies typically spend $92 to generate traffic to every $1 to convert people once they get onto the site.
Advertising is seen as sexy, while CRO is hard.
Bryan showed a clip of Sell or Else, in which David Ogilvy tells direct response advertisers that they know the effectiveness of their adverts 'to the dollar', while general advertisers do not, and implores the direct response advertisers to tell them what they have learnt to 'rescue the advertising business from its manifold lunacies'.
Conversion is a journey or process, not an event.
Persuasion Architecture – get personas, plan their journeys, implement and test the results – this takes ages, and so is not popular.
The job of an analyst is to give a to-do list.
There are three CRO elements:

Tools
People
Process

Four variables correlated with improved conversion rates:

Perceived control
Structured approach
Someone is responsible
Staff are incentivised

Don't do slice and dice optimisation. Test changes to things that are important, like headings.
Cutting a form by 25% always has an impact.
Have a clear hypothesis with a clear KPI when you test.
Testing needs to be fast.
Useful tools:

WebsiteTestingTools.com – lists many tools (free and paid)
BO.LT
BTBuckets – free behavioural targeting
Runa – does deal optimisation (creates personalised deals to all site visitors)
Monetate

Putting badges on products can increase conversion rates by up to 50%.
The Conversion Trilogy is made of Relevance, Value and Call to Action.
You can only eat an elephant one bite at a time – and you can only optimise a website one bite at a time. Do quick, dirty tests fast – remember this is for revenue rather than science.

E-Commerce Best Practices

The first speaker was Paul Rouke from PRWD, who went through many examples of retail sites. You can find his slides here, and his immense collection of usability resources here.

The key conversion principles are:

Transparency
Build trust and confidence
Remove usability barriers

Have a bar of USPs across the top of the page.

They don't have to be links, but they must be prominent.
Examples: John Lewis, ASOS and Boots.

On product pages, encourage people to add to shopping basket.

Put the info people will want. Don't hide it.
Example: ASOS has delivery and returns information on the product page, very visibly.

Understand what users are looking for and inform them.
Have social proof – this is becoming more influential in improving conversions.

Have customer ratings and reviews, promoted close to the product's name and price.

Areas with tab navigation are good for product and delivery info – they fit more info into a small space.
On the shopping basket page, encourage people to check out.
Be transparent over delivery cost and options – don't force visitors to check out before giving them that!
Focus visitors' minds on proceeding with a clear Call To Action.
Make payment options prominent.
Say the process is secure:

Show security measures and accreditation.
Use the word 'securely' on buttons.

Remove barriers for new customers to checkout:

Don't force people to register straightaway. Say 'continue' rather than 'register'.
Let people register at the end of the process, when you only need to ask for a password.
Say why customers should create accounts – benefits to them like order tracking and saving their details.

Next was Stephen Pavlovich from Conversion Factory

Mine your analytics!
Look at your Sales Funnel – where are you losing potential customers?
Top Landing Pages – what percentage of traffic lands on the homepage?

Are there any sales messages that are only on the homepage? Not everyone will see them.

Look at Browser Conversion Rates:

This shows if there is a problem with your site on a particular browser.
Use Browsershots or ClickTale to check for compatibility problems.
Note that 'Safari' covers iPhone and iPad users as well as desktops.

Look at Site Search – visits that use site search can convert 7.5 times more than those who don't.

See how people search, and check that they see the right results.

Don't guess visitors' objections. Talk to visitors and customers to see what stopped them or nearly stopped them from buying.

Example: a high end bathroom site thought that people might be put off from converting because they hadn't seen the product in person, but surveying customers showed that the problem was lack of delivery information.
See if you can make business decisions based on this (like improving delivery).

Use Benefit Bars – put your USPs front and centre

Make the USPs believable without having to check the terms and conditions – make them links that open overlays on the page, with basic info and a link to another page for more info, rather than taking you to the other page straightaway.

Show how much the visitor is saving from the RRP in the shopping basket.
Use the principle of scarcity – have messages like "only 3 left in stock!"

If you don't have that detailed stock information, you can say "Hurry! Limited quantities!"

Have reviews for your PPC ads – this increases CTR and trust.

You just need 30 or more reviews on sites, like dooyoo or Trustpilot.
Go for review sites with better conversion processes.
If a customer has a Gmail address, send them to Google Places to review you, as no further registration is needed.

Why Won't You Buy? Finding and Eliminating Conversion Blockers

First to speak was Dr Karl Blanks, chairman of Conversion Rate Experts and former rocket scientist. He listed 16 conversion killers:

Not split testing

Use Which Multivariate

Meek tweaking
Customer not in shopping mode

Someone just browsing may convert later. Capture their details, build up a relationship, and get them to convert when ready

Unclear value proposition – "I don't know what you do"
Lack of trust
Lack of interest

The Amazon Marketplace means that people interested in things not sold by Amazon itself get what they want, and they think Amazon has everything and so return later.

Confusion

Read Strunk and White!
Also read the Plain English Campaign (especially for B2B).
Get someone to read copy out loud and hear where they stumble.

Usability

Use UserTesting.com.
Get someone to use the website and watch them.
Use Ethnio to recruit testers from actual visitors.

Product specific objections

Draw up a shopping list of what prospects ask and check that the site answers them.

Fatal distraction – people may just get distracted from the conversion process

Get contact details as soon as possible.

Visitors don't believe your products are good

Use social proof like expert reviews, media mentions, celebrity associations and customer testimonials.

Competitor gets sale

Use niching. Specialists are assumed to be better than generalists. (This is why there's no general shampoo, only shampoo that claims to be for a particular hair-type.)

Perceived risk – reduce this
Defers decision

Create urgency.
Example: TicketMaster has a timer for how long you can reserve a ticket for.

Affiliates may have a problem that their visitors have to go on to a rubbish site to actually convert

Make sure visitors are persuaded before they leave your site.
Track people.
Get visitors on an email list.

Bad prior experience

Good experience leads to repeat business.

Next to speak was Rob Jackson, founder of Elisa DBI and Conversion Thursday.

CRO is made of persuasion architecture, relevancy and user-centric design.
It's not about having a massive green call to action button – colour doesn't matter.
First conversion blocker: no measurement strategy.
Build a framework of KPIs

KPIs should be the metrics that achieve the website's goals (and the website's goals should come from the business's overall objective).
Have targets and alerts.
Dashboards and relevant reports help persuade business cases.

Second conversion blocker: ignoring mobile internet users

A third of UK adults own a smartphone and a half of internet users in the UK use mobile.

To convince your boss – show mobile conversion rate is low compared to the rest of the site's traffic, then calculate potential by using the return on mobile traffic with the rest of the site's conversion rate.
You don't need a full mobile commerce site – try a holding page or contact page.
Third conversion blocker: ignoring high value segments

Aggregate of all data is rubbish. There are many different types of user.
Analyse KPIs by segment (visitors from social media, people with over three visits, logged in members, etc).