Last fall, when executives from McAfee, a computer security company based in Santa Clara, California, found that too few prospects visiting the company's online store were buying, they did a little digging. Through customer surveys, they found that shoppers were turned off by the site's text-heavy home page and were confused by how McAfee's most frequently researched product, its Managed VirusScan ASaP, actually worked.

To create more graspable product messaging, McAfee's marketing group teamed up with Oddcast, a software developer based in New York, to develop a virtual character-essentially an online salesperson-to recite messages with accurate lip-syncing and lifelike mannerisms. The marketing tool is growing in popularity as companies in crowded or complicated markets seek ways to add approachability to their brands.

"Over ninety percent of computers have speakers, yet millions of businesses that sell online are doing it silently," says Adi Sideman, CEO of Oddcast. "The goal [of using virtual characters] is to increase communication," he says. "Increased communication increases conversion-that increases sales."

TAKE-AWAYS

Introduce a virtual talking character and improve your online marketing messages in the following ways:

ELIMINATE CONFUSION
Virtual characters are "most helpful when the product is more complex and there is an opportunity to simplify the pitch," Sideman says. If you are marketing a product or service that's technical or otherwise complex in nature, a virtual character can help explain things on a more relatable level.

MAKE IT FUN
Let's face it: Office solutions and other business-to-business products are not always the easiest items to get audiences excited about. Adding a talking animated face to your campaign can help liven up messages and infuse your brand with personality.

LEAVE AN IMPRESSION
In the same way human beings can leave us with lasting impressions, so, too, can an animated spokesperson, custom-built to speak to your target audiences' preferences. And because the tactic is still relatively new, a quick-witted virtual character is likely to be more memorable than the dime-a-dozen actors appearing in standard video ads.

Using its VHost Studio™ software, Oddcast created a female VHost™ with black hair and a pale complexion for McAfee's online store, to deliver feature and benefit information about the VirusScan ASaP product.

Previously, customers "did not understand that the Managed VirusScan product was truly a managed service," says Gladys Gavlak, a Senior Executive in McAfee's e-commerce marketing and business development group. "The VHost™ helped us explain that customers' computers are always connected to McAfee's network operating systems," she says. "That is a compelling message for the customer, and one we wanted them to fully grasp."

And grasp they did. The average close ratio for customers who experienced the VHost™ character was 10 percent higher than those who did not. (McAfee measured the comparison by randomly assigning the VHost™ to 50 percent of site visitors.) And overall, average daily sales for McAfee's VirusScan ASaP were 10 percent higher than they were prior to deploying the VHost™.