*This article appears courtesy of Bob Bly’s Direct Response Letter, located at www.bly.com

According to Internet marketing expert Amy Africa, the average user spends 10% more time on web sites that have a lot of photos showing people. Reason: according to Amy, when we see other people’s eyes, we stay longer.

How does this translate into more online revenues? “The more you stay, the more you pay,” Amy notes. (That’s the same reason why Barnes & Noble now serves coffee and puts out comfy chairs for you to sit and read.)

Tip: You can find cheap, royalty-free stock photos of almost any image, including shots with people, at my favorite online stock photo resource:

www.dreamstime.com

Source: Thinking Inside the Box, 6/30/09.

*This post is shared courtesy of Brighter World Cause Marketing, leading firm in marketing communications for cause-related campaigns.

Tomorrow, Saturday the 27th, is Macy’s 6th Annual Shop for a Cause Day. It’s sort of like a shop-a-thon for shoppers who love discounts and want to contribute to a cause.

How it works is any charities, school groups, and religious organizations can sign up to sell Macy’s 25% off coupons for $5. All proceeds of these coupons go to the nonprofit organization, so the more they sell, the more money they raise.

Overall, the promotion is a win-win. Macy’s comes out looking great by generously handing out the 25% discount and hosting the big shopping event (with in-store entertainment included!). Plus, causes of all sizes can get in on the action. Great!

And if you buy a coupon through Macy’s the money will go to the March of Dimes. This is all great stuff. Macy’s let’s small organizations fundraise through grassroots efforts and also supports one specific cause, the March of Dimes.

Clever work, Macy’s! We’d really love to see more social media outreach to promote this. Aside from the Macy’s website, there isn’t a whole lot of information on the campaign.

I discovered this earlier today when the Macy’s website was down. The best info I could find were some grassroots Facebook pages created by some of the participating small nonprofits. These were sites with an average of 6 fans and information to call or email representatives to make the $5 donation. Sounds like a lot of work for a small donation.

I acknowledge that it’s all about the grassroots part of the effort to get these small organizations involved. What surprised me is this is the lack of online info about Macy’s partnership with the March of Dimes. This is the first year the major nonprofit is the sole national beneficiary of the program. I’d love to see more information about the relationship. Aside from one press release and a section on the Macy’s website (including a video, which is always good), I really can’t find much. (Let me know if I just looked over it, but I didn’t see much on my search.)

Give us more info, Macy’s! But all, in all, keep up the good work. Macy’s has raised more than $28 million for charities across the country in the past 6 years. Let’s see what funds they can tally this year.

*This article appears courtesy of Bob Bly’s Direct Response Letter, located at www.bly.com

A common mistake in designing landing pages is to use an underlined word or phrase as the hyperlink to the order page.

Much more effective is to design the hyperlink as an order button. To increase response, says online marketing guru Amy Africa, use big buttons. She recommends telling your designer to triple whatever they think is big.

Color makes a difference. The Mequoda group reports a split test where the only variable on the landing page was the order button color. Red was the control, which was tested against green, yellow, and ochre. The winner? Ochre, generating 27% higher conversion rates than red.

Source: Thinking Inside the Box, 2/8/08; Mequoda Group.