When folks are having fun they feel they can let their hair down and put aside their inhibitions. Marketers rarely talk about fun directly, but in designing digital offerings that promise an “experience,” or when focused on building customer relationships, the covert subtext of most advertising should be aimed at creating the feeling of fun.

How do you use the universal desire for fun and relaxing leisure time?

FIVE FACETS OF FUN

1. New. A key word in the experience of fun is “new.” People often have fun when having new experiences, learning new things, meeting new people.

2. Going beyond expectation. To have fun requires going beyond the routine or familiar, to meet what people call “something extra.” Surprise (something new) and the unexpected (something not habitual) contribute to a feeling of the non-ordinary.

3. Feeling open. To have fun people need a sense of “becoming,” wherein nothing is pre-scripted and the end is unknown at the beginning; here there is an unfolding and an exploration.

4. No. Fun often requires the absence of things. In this case, no analyzing, doubting, pressure to conform, pretense, restrictions, judgment.

5. Freedom. Choice and independence are undercurrents of fun. People interpret this as doing what one wants, when one wants, and doing it at one’s own pace (“finding your own rhythm”), without any external demands. This is often called “me time,” which people now deem a luxury.

Ads Should Help Folks Have Fun

Why then do so many landing pages fail miserably? Most often, it’s due to one of five errors. And, thankfully, all five are easily fixed.

• 1 Not understanding what a landing page is best used for. Yes, as I said above, a landing page *can* be any page of your site. But keep in mind I also said that was only true *if* the visitor was being sent to the page from some prearranged campaign. Joe Public who clicks to your Services page because he found a link in his buddy’s blog post does not equal someone visiting a “landing page.” However, if you place PPC ads about your service offerings and use a special URL for a specifically created page to greet and persuade your visitors, then you have created a landing page.

• 2 Failing to coordinate your campaign copy and your landing page copy. Site visitors click to your landing page because they saw something in your email, postcard or PPC ad that interested them. Sending them to a generic page that doesn’t coordinate with the promotion they saw is a deadly error.

If you send an email with a special offer just for World Wildlife Fund (WWF) members, then your landing page needs to make clear that WWF members have found the place they are looking for. If your PPC ad promotes free processing for one month for all new merchant account customers, your landing page needs to clearly and quickly communicate that. Visitors won’t tolerate being offered a free month and then be forced to dig for information about the promotion once they click to your site. Instead, they’ll simply leave.

• 3 Clearly defining your goal and call to action. So often, site owners and managers want to pack a landing page full of goals. “Well, while they’re here we might as well…” What one primary goal do you want to accomplish with this page? Once that’s defined, what specific call to action do you need to give to make your goal happen? Make sure everything in your copy measures up to those two standards. Giving too many options on a landing page is confusing to visitors and fractures their attention while on the page.

• 4 Be clear. Marketing Experiments once published an article entitled something to the effect of “Clarity Trumps Cleverness.” Skip the cutesy headlines and copy; instead, opt for clear information that is well written.

• 5 Write to your target customer and no one else. So many times, copywriters and website owners tend to write about the company and not to the customer. You should be speaking with your target audience singularly. Write in second person (“you” and “your”) instead of we-ing all over yourself with copy stuffed with “we” and “our” and “us.” It’s not about you.Change the focus of your copy to your customers. Instead of:Our products come with a lifetime guaranteewrite:You will receive a lifetime guarantee on all purchases.

True landing pages should never be generic. To work their best, they need to address the visitor, relate to the campaign, give informative copy, focus on a specific goal, offer a clear call to action and speak to your target customer. When you incorporate these elements into your writing process, you’ll find your landing pages convert with much greater success.

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Weddings can be stressful for Brides, Grooms, and their families. As someone who has gone through planning my own wedding, I can attest that there are so many decisions to make. Below is a small sample of 2Checkout Suppliers who can help make some of the important wedding decisions easier:

• Wedding Certificates By Steve
• Adorable Bride
• Milly Bridal
• Perfect Table Plan
• Wedding Books

Once you have logged in, click on the ‘Sales’ tab. From here, you can select the sale number you wish to view. The sale detail page will provide you with the following information for each sale.

• Sale #- 2Checkout order number
• Total - Total amount of the payment submitted by the customer
• Method - Customer’s chosen method of payment
• Card Mask – First 6 and last 2 numbers of the credit card used.
• AVS – Customer’s order location matches bank location (Y/N)
• CVV – CVV code matched card (Y/N)
• Language – The language the customer selected at checkout

• Billing Information
• Customer ID – Customers 2CO ID
• Name - Customer’s first and last name
• Address – Customer’s billing address
• Phone – Customer’s phone number
• Email – Customer’s email address

• Shipping Information
• Name – Recipient’s name
• Address – Recipient’s address

• Invoice – 2Checkout invoice number
• For - Vendor business name
• Vendor - Vendor number (vendor ID)
• Order Date - Order date and time
• Date Paid- Date of the payment
• Status – Status of the payment
• HTTP Referrer - The URL from which the customer was referred

• ID – Product name
• Description - Product description
• Refund - Refund date
• Your Amt - Product amount in your currency
• USD Amt - Product amount in USD
• Customer Amt – Product amount in the customer’s currency
• Purchases- Total price of products
• Shipping - Shipping charge
• Total at Checkout - Total order amount