I've been sitting on this for months and need some help to get moving on this.

I want to add an audio hello to my home page, but I can't figure out what to say or how to say it.

Maybe part of the problem is that while I've seen people do this in ways I do not like, I don't have a model in mind of someone who's done it right. (I definitely do not want an audio message playing automatically, which irritates the heck out of me.)

I know how to write a home page that is going to appear in words on a page, but I'm having trouble translating that to an audio message.

I am guessing that someone, somewhere has already worked this out and come up with some best practices and advice... but I don't know who that person is.

Any hints on this?

Thank you,
Marcia Yudkin

One thing I've seen used to great effect is more or less restating your headline and deck copy, or lead or bullets. You'll want to make it more conversational and informal; just don't get too far away from what your copy says.

Even if these aren't exactly what you're after, they might spark some ideas... (warning, these pages play instantly upon loading, but they've tested response and for landing pages like these instant playback seems to do better.)

MarketingMakeoverGenerator.com

Audio Generator - Streaming Audio Service

The best thing is just to play around and have fun.

Hope that's helpful...

Andy

Marcia, one thing I'd suggest is having the button/playbar under a captioned photo of yourself, so that it personalizes it. I don't have any reference urls, but that's one tactic that looks effective. And of course carefully writing out a solid 15- to 30-second script that starts with a benefit hook and ends with a call to action (like opting in), would be successful. If I see a good site w/audio button style intros, I'll post it.

-k

Hi Marcia

This is a great idea. Both audio and video can increase the length of time visitors stay on your site. I've seen it used very effectively to encourage visitors to sign up for an e-zine with the incentive of a free gift (report, MP3 audio, or even a hard-copy CD).

Alexandria Brown (aka the Ezine Queen) did this very effectively on her page which sold her e-zine kit. She had her photo on the left hand side of her page and the opt-in form on the right had side, all above the fold. Beneath her photo, she had the play/pause/stop buttons for the audio message and beneath that she had "Click Play for a 60-second Audio Message" in parentheses. She's since revised the page and no longer has this, but it was a great message.

She kept it to 60 seconds and it began playing when the page opened. Normally, I don't like audio or video that automatically begins playing as soon as I open the page, but because it was a short message, it never bothered me.

She used Audio Generator to call in the message and it went something like this:

"Hi this is Alexandria Brown calling in from Los Angeles, California. See the big orange box to the right of my photo? Yes, that one. Simply put first your name and primary e-mail address in fields and you'll receive my free report '3 Simple Secrets to Publishing an E-zine That Makes You Money.' You'll also receive a complimentary subscription to my e-zine 'Straight Shooter Marketing' which comes out every Thursday and is full of marketing articles designed to help you build your small business."

There was a little more to the message, but I'm not on my own computer right now, so this isn't exact. The message was designed simply to get her visitors to sign up for her e-zine and build her list. It was very well done and I've since used it as a template for my own audio messages.

She used Audio Generator and I used Audio Acrobat, which is basically the same thing but is about $10 cheaper.

You can see some other good examples at TheBookSistah.com and ClientAttraction.com. ClientAttraction.com has a video, but you could use the audio as a template.

Hope this helps!

Michelle

Michelle,

Thanks a million for the suggestions! I love the idea of using the audio welcome to invite people to sign up for the newsletter. It's free, it's non-threatening, it's something they can do in 20 seconds, and it starts the relationship moving forward.

I hate it when audio starts playing automatically. Right now, for instance, I am only half awake, waiting for my morning coffee to take effect, and if I clicked to a site that started talking to me automatically I would be out of there so fast...

Marcia Yudkin

What I've used and what I've been told by the Internet Marketing people I trust is, whatever is the main purpose of your page, that is what your audio should 'sell' them on. If you want an opt-in, give them instructions for that. If you want them to watch a video, read a sales letter, etc. tell them that. I typically also give them the 2-3 biggest benefits of doing what I want them to do.

If you don't have one thing you want someone to do on your site, you should. It's typically very hard and very expensive to be doing multiple things on a single web page.

Hi Marcia,

Here's a link to an affiliate page of mine where I market a basketball video, so you can see a sample...
www.MakeMoreShots.com

I just recorded a simple wav clip. Here's the html code for the audio bar and the caption:

----------

<embed src="clip_name.wav"
width="200" height="40" autostart="false" loop="FALSE">
</embed><br>
<font face="arial" size="1"><b>Push the Play Button for a message about...</b></font>

----------

Autostart is set to "false" so it doesn't automatically start playing.

Absolutely use Audio and Video. I take it one step further though and add personalized audio and video. Depending on where I am marketing I can actually setup my landing pages to speak the visitors name when they visit.

So let's say I send them a postcard has a personal URL to visit. When Jeff visits that page I have an audio message that might say "Hey Jeff...thanks for visiting...Jeff I know you are..." or whatever. Yes it blows people away when you greet them by name.


These techniques dramatically increase conversion.

Email me and I will show you a couple of examples of Personalized Video as well.

Marcia,

I should have mentioned that you can check out Alexandria Brown's Web site @ EzineQueen.com. She has a video there now instead of just audio, but you can still certainly use it as a template for your audio. The message and squeeze page is still designed to do just one thing: build her list.

The only differences now are 1) she's using video instead of just audio and 2) she converted the sales page to a squeeze page and added a few extra freebies to entice her visitors to sign up for her e-zine. Excellent lead generation marketing.

Hope that helps!

Michelle

I've finally come up with a three-part formula for an audio welcome. It sounds simple and it should have been obvious to me ages ago, but it wasn't.

1. Hook – overview questions or overview statements, or a provocative claim
2. Introducing yourself – “I’m so & so, and I…”
3. Next action(s) – What would you like the visitor to do? Could be one option or more than one

Now that I put this down in writing, it looks like the old AIDA. Again, that would have simplified things had I thought of it.

This is for a content-rich web site that sells professional services as well as products. The approach might be different for a site selling just one product.

Your comments, please?

Thanks,
Marcia Yudkin