A Day in the Life of a Persuasion Architect

Web Analyst -looking for a new opportunity?

Our friend Jeff Bauer from Forbes.com just sent us this open position:

Web Projects Analyst

Forbes.com plans to continue producing innovative web offerings at an increasing rate, and is creating this new position to identify new site development opportunities, keep projects running smoothly and measure the success of live initiatives. Core responsibilities include:

1) Coordinating projects and status reports across departments

2) Working with analytics tools to generate reports

3) Presenting statistical data and project goals and performance

4) Analyzing site metrics and working with developers to ensure accuracy

The successful candidate will have strong analytical skills, an understanding of website metrics, and be adept at communicating complicated statistical concepts to non-technical personnel. You're meticulous and dangerously thorough. You're a self-starter with good communication skills and ability to get results by working across departments. You're smart with numbers and their meaning, expert at Excel, have experience with data management and are capable with PowerPoint. Experience with Omniture, Coremetrics and Nielsen SiteCensus will be invaluable in this role, but are not required.

A minimum of 2 years' experience in project management and/or statistical analysis in a similar environment required.

Come and join the growing team at Forbes.com!

RESUMES AND SALARY EXPECTATIONS TO: jobs@forbes.net

Let them know we sent you.

Are You Ready for Traffic?

It was on Fox.com’s “out there” page yesterday.

A local coin dealer in Dover, Delaware pulled off a publicity stunt that got him some pretty good national attention. He "spent" a penny worth $500 and announced it to the world, or at least to Dover. The world was listening however and he got more publicity than he probably imagined. A great investment of only $500, right?

This could be the end of the story, but I wanted to know more.

Solving Those Niggling Grammar Questions

The hard-core truth is that good grammar builds customer confidence in you.  Good grammar is not a love-it-or-leave-it proposition.

So, when you've got a copywriting usage question or can't remember the correct answer to something you dimly recall a teacher talking about in the only grammar class you ever took back in high school, where do you turn? 

You could turn to a style manual.  Ho-hum.  Or you could turn to The Grammar Girl.  She's dry, she's funny, she's sensible, and she's addictive.  In delectable sound bites that cut to the chase.

I'm receiving her cost-free, calorie-free grammar food for thought through her iTunes podcasts.  But you might prefer reading her podcast transcripts through the Quick & Dirty Tips Web site.

I'm glad I met her ... I think she's going to reduce the number of finger-wagging emails I get from folks who take their grammar seriously.  I'm sure you've got customers like that, too ... so introduce yourself to this delightful resource.

WebTrends: The Great Attraction in Orlando

WebTrends is holding their customer summit in beautiful Orlando. They have a marvelous program and entertainment planned for all attendees. Tonight we head to the Blues Brother review and I apologize for not getting the picture of Greg Drew coming on stage in his Blues Brother's hat and shades.

Greg delivered an insightful keynote and I hope the audience took good notes.  We also had a fabulous birds of a feather luncheon. I was joined at creating the "short yellow bus" table with my good buddies Jim Novo and Tom Hochstatter. Thank you Tara for some of your delightful conversation starters.

Bryan Eisenberg on Blogs, Brands, and Persuasion Architecture

Yet another fine interview with Bryan Eisenberg...

In our Total Picture Radio interview, Bryan Eisenberg, co-founder of Future Now, explains why most online marketing fails to convert traffic to customers, and how companies can use "Persuasion Architecture" to begin achieving success. We discuss how individuals can best use blogs to build their "personal brand" on the Internet. 

Hear the whole interview from totalpicture.com. 

Call To Action - Take Two

We just noticed Amazon is now fulfilling orders for the softcover version of our bestselling Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results (it was due out the end of the month). This isn't just a reprint of the hardcover, this is more the book we wanted to write when we released Call to Action in May 2005, but had to rush it out early for our friends at WebTrends for their seminar series. We stripped out over 30,000 words and put back 11,000 new words. All in all, it is a much better book and we are certainly proud of the extra work Lisa T Davis and Bill Drew put into it to make it a more cohesive narrative.

Persuasive Scenario Analysis

One of our favorite software companies, Techsmith, just launched a fantastic new product called Uservue. Uservue allows you to conduct usability testing via the web, thus removing geographical limitations.

We decided to draft up a basic profile of a typical user and click through the site and see what kind of experience this profile would have. This is a very simplistic execution of what we do when we assemble a "PSA" for one of our clients. 

Watch the video.  (5 min. 29 sec.  11MB Flash)

(Kudos to our bud Betsy Weber, who does a fantastic job 'evangelizing' Techsmith products, we got to test drive the new Camtasia Studio 4 to put this video together, from what I understand the new version will be out October 17th, so if you do any sort of screen recording, get familiar with Camtasia Studio)

The Death of the Web Page

 

The Web page was pronounced dead on October 9, 2006, after a long bought with chronic irrelevance. A large group of marketers attempted CPR and other heroic resuscitation techniques. Witnesses present at the scene told reporters that despite a few minutes of chaos, the Web page's last moments were largely serene and peaceful.

"She was a quiet and powerful beast, and she died doing what she loved," states one observer.

"While Web 2.0 technologies and persuasive scenarios were certainly contributing factors, we have determined they were not the cause of death," said a spokesman for the Web page's care provider. "She was just too irrelevant, and she never quite recovered. She just couldn't keep pace or serve the needs of today's marketers any longer."  Read Bryan's Entire Article over at Clickz.

The Cat Whisperers

You've seen Cesar Millan, the infamous 'dog psychology' dude.  Cesar works miracles with unruly canines in 24 short minutes on the National Geographic Channel show "The Dog Whisperer". 

Now meet Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, the Cat Whisperers.

The authors of "Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing" have set forth an intriguing set of principles which they call Persuasion Architecture. The formula is not for the faint-hearted -- it involves hard work to navigate a complicated matrix of psychological, technical and demographic approaches in order to develop a customer-centric marketing focus. In the process, it requires a business to be willing to relinquish control of information about its product or service; indeed, transparency is key to the entire process. But the authors guarantee results, whether your target clients are individuals or other businesses. Read the entire review over at Wharton School Knowledge @ W.P. Carey.

Have an unruly marketing situation? Will travel.

Utterings of the Truly Desperate

From USA Today "Product Placement - You Can't Escape It"....

"Marketers are saying, 'We must be more innovative — to zig when others zag,' " says Richard Notarianni, executive creative director of media at ad firm Euro RSCG.

"The industry is desperate to find clever ways to reach people, whether or not it has any legitimate value. ... When someone says, 'Let's put advertising in bathroom stalls,' another says 'That's great. It's a captive audience.' "

More...

No space is too odd. US Airways (LCC) is in talks to sell ads on airsickness bags, spokeswoman Valerie Wunder says. It already makes about $10 million a year from ads on tray tables and napkins, she says.

"The game has become one of finding the next blank space that hasn't been covered," says Yankelovich's Smith.

And more...

"I've never seen things changing as much as they are now," says Rance Crain, editor-in-chief of trade magazine Advertising Age and a 40-plus-year observer of marketing. "Advertisers will not be satisfied until they put their mark on every blade of grass."

And finally...

The more consumers ignore ads, the more ads marketers spew back at them, says Max Kalehoff of marketing research firm Nielsen BuzzMetrics. "It's like a drug addiction. Advertisers just keep buying more and more just to try to achieve prior levels of impact. In other words, they're hooked."

This year, marketers will spend a record $175 billion on ads in major media, such as TV, radio, print, outdoor, movie theaters and the Internet, says ad-buying firm ZenithOptimedia. That's up 5% over 2005. Add direct mail and other direct-response ads, and the total will hit $269 billion.

Advertisers are becoming that loud mouth annoying guy at the bar who's flashing his expensive watch, bragging about his job, and buying every prospective girl a drink.  Sorry bud, buying even more drinks, or putting your picture up in a lady's stall isn't gonna increase your chances, you are probably going home alone...again.

$269 billion can buy you alot of stuff, but it can no longer buy you a desirable magnetic personality that people want to buy.  It won't buy you a barking cat.  If you think it will, then I have a 41,723 blades of grass in my front lawn that I will be happy to whore out to a desperate advertiser. 

Buy one blade get one free, captive audience for canines and occasional jack rabbits, 25% more traffic in growing subdivision,  this offer won't last long, call now.

 

Cheap Cheap Cheap

There is a great reason why we don't take on discount merchandisers for clients. Most of them have broken business models. It really is much harder to be cheaper.

Step right up! We can guess your Conversion Rate

The Shop.org Annual Summit is now underway.

Bryan Eisenberg will be presenting "Waiting for your Cat to Bark" on Thursday at 3:15. He will also be at the BazaarVoice booth Thursday at 1pm and again 4:15 signing books and kissing babies.

The folks over at BazaarVoice will be guessing conversion rates at their booth, if they can't guess yours, you get a prize.

Maybe they will get Bryan to get in on the guessing as well. But don't count on getting a prize if he guesses yours. :-)

Web Interaction Optimization Software

It's been fun seeing how focusing in on customer conversion rate optimization has become the 2006/2007 Rallying Cry for Marketers, according to independent research firm Forrester Research Inc. In a report titled, "Marketing Technology Adoption 2006," June 2006, Forrester interviewed 371 marketing technology decision makers and influencers, and more than 40 percent say their organizations "have plans to implement Web interaction optimization software by the end of 2007."

We are glad to see the market catching up with what we have been preaching since 1998 and are looking forward to releasing more features of our Persuasion Architecture MAP^TM suite of software and releasing little micro apps to make the software available to many more interested customers in 2007.

Jeffrey Eisenberg's column in Target Marketing Magazine

My brother has joined me in writing a regular column. This month his article "Online traffic cost inflation is coming to an SEM budget near you" is the featured column. He will be writing for Target Marketing Mag every 2 months. We'd love to hear your feedback.

Marketers 'in the drivers seat' according to Scott Brinker

Every once in a while you read something that makes you stop, scratch your head, scrunch up your forehead and wonder violently about the state of the internet, the country, the delicate balance of the ecosystm, and even the universe.  You wonder if  precicious gifts like life, profit, hope and common sense can stand up to the crap storm of human mental defeciencies.

No no no,  I wasn't watching Al Gore's new movie or reading about the war or Mid East politics, I was actually reading an Article at Ad Age.

The article started out innocent enough...

Historically, the most popular web-marketing metric has been traffic. How many visitors come to your website each month? How many unique, how many repeat? The web grew up with "hits" as a common denominator: The more you have, the better you are.

He continues on and brings up conversion rate as the 'new' measure.  Sure he is a wee bit behind the times(about 7 years by my count) but I am thinking to myself 'at least he gets it."  Then I read this...

"Pitch mode," in contrast, funnels those who respond to an ad down an intentionally narrow path. The marketer is in the driver's seat, crafting a presentation the user sees one screen at a time, usually in a linear sequence.

Now I have no gripe with Scott Brinker being wrong, wrong can happen to the best of us.  What troubles me is when 'experts' play on the fears and insecurities of vulnerable marketers who are desperately trying to improve their conversion rates and might actually start to believe that 'pitch mode' is an efficient means of optimization.  (Yes, despite our best efforts, some marketers still believe they are in control.)

But, Maybe I'm wrong, maybe marketers do have control.  Maybe this bridge is for sale.  Maybe I really am tall, blonde and have a full head of hair.

The Future of Consumer Research

No sooner than Jeffrey Eisenberg posts his rant about the state of consumer surveys do we get another authorative glimpse into the future of research from our brilliant strategic partner Michele Miller.  Check out what she writes over at Inc.

Companies like Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), Pepsi (NYSE:PBG), and Best Buy (NYSE:BBY)  now realize the methods they used to mine  for information in the past were often unproductive and inefficient. The pressure-cooker atmosphere of a group of strangers in an unfamiliar setting, combined with questions skewed to obtain answers favorable toward a product, is often a dangerous (if not deadly) concoction. Over the years, countless products that should never have been introduced made it to market, and vice-versa.

Today, major advancements in science, technology, and human-behavior studies offer new tools for studying consumers that are more natural and provide greater insight into what a customer wants. What techniques should you consider?  Read the entire article.

Late Stages in the Buying Process of Purchasing a Video iPod

Last week, I had the unfortunate experience of having my car broken into and let me just skip to the most horrific part of this story… my video ipod was stolen!

With the time I spend wandering around airports and getting restless in airplanes, you can imagine my panic attack when I realized that my Podcasts, audiobooks, movies, tv shows and music would no longer be accompanying me on my travels.

I’m scheduled to leave on my next trip on October 18^th. That gives me three weeks minus a few days to purchase my video ipod, have it shipped to me and transfer all of my entertainment files onto my new best friend!

My quick solution was to hop onto Google, search for ‘video ipod’ and make my purchase. I am specifically interested in finding out one critical piece of information before making my purchase this time. My old video ipod was lacking substantially in battery life when watching any video. It would die after only 1 ½ hours of playing video and I wanted to find out if this feature had been improved and how much battery life I could expect with a new video ipod.

 

I clicked on the paid advertisement at the top which is the Canadian store. The keyword ‘video ipod’ is not found anywhere in the description or title but I assumed that I would find what I’m looking for simply because I was going right to the source.

 

There was a long description of the 80GB video ipod. I know that I previously purchased the 30GB and I truly didn’t need anymore storage. My only concern was whether the 30GB battery life had been improved.

The copy on this page clearly describes the features of the 80GB and we can see that this model is expected to have 6 ½ hours of battery life for video. I clicked on ‘Compare Specs’ to try and find out the answer to my question for the 30GB.

Once I scrolled down the page to see the comparison, I was offered a price comparison, the storage space available for songs and the expected battery life in hours when playing music. There is no spec comparison on battery life in hours for video play time. I still needed to find this out so I clicked on the ‘select’ button under the 30GB to see if I could find the answer to my question.

There are no features listed here at all! I didn’t care about engraving my ipod! I simply needed to find out if the new battery life of the 30GB video ipod would meet my needs.

I was in the late stages of my buying process and I simply needed one small piece of information to click the buy button! Why couldn’t they answer my question?!

I attempted one last thing and I clicked on add to cart just to see if the features would be listed once in my cart.

Nope, they failed to answer my question! They are just trying to sell me accessories on this page.

Although it was very difficult to find contact info, I finally found the phone number and was able to find out the answer to my question through speaking with a customer service rep. I made the purchase over the phone and was told that I should expect to see my ipod in 8 days. The confirmation email I was sent upon purchasing said that delivery could take up to 12 days. It’s unfortunate that the info that the rep told me was not consistent with the confirmation email information regarding delivery time but at least the purchase has been made and I will get my video ipod in time for my travels!

Wouldn’t it have been more efficient to just have me purchase online? Perhaps you have customers who weren’t ready to call in an order but who were ready to purchase online. I had my credit card in hand and wouldn’t have had to speak with a customer service rep. All I needed was a point of resolution link somewhere in my buying process that would bring me to the information that would answer my question!

You likely have visitors who are in the late stages of their buying process and they probably have some specific buying decision questions. You must provide these potential customers points of resolution to bring the visitor to the information they are searching for in order for them to complete the sale.

What questions are people asking your customer service reps? Are you tracking this information? Are you updating your content online with the points of resolution to the answers to these questions?

Survey Takers: Do They Have An Agenda Or Just Too Much Time?

We're not usually big fans of marketing data collected from surveys. We've written about it several times. We often find the methodologies flawed, the questions suspect and the respondents even more suspect.

AdAge just published an article that confirms what we've been saying. Jack Neff wrote about it in "Consumers Rebel Against Marketers' Endless Surveys: 30 Top Industry Execs Gather to Discuss 'Opinion Fatigue' Crisis". The article is disturbing especially the following:

"VNU's Nielsen Media Research has actually seen respondent rates rise from 36% to 45% the past five years, said Paul Donato, chief research officer. That's largely because it pays respondents handsomely for their two-year commitments -- so handsomely that Mr. Donato acknowledged that some on the Media Research Council think it may bias results -- allowing panelists to buy cable subscriptions and DVRs.

Ironically, no one in a roomful of market researchers suggested researching what might best persuade nonrespondents to participate, though Dennis Murphy, VP of the technology practice at Directions Research, said it's time to find out how different nonresponders really are from responders -- something largely neglected since the 1970s."

Secret Ingredient for a More Persuasive Website

While this secret ingredient is not a requirement for a good website, it certainly doesn't hurt.  We are always on the lookout for it when we consider taking on a new client.  This ingredient brings focus, energy and authenticity to marketing efforts and customer communications.    It is infectious.  Sometimes it is subtle, other times it is in your face.  Most visitors can sense its presence, but few can articulate what they are sensing. 

This ingredient cannot be bought.  It cannot be manufactured or manipulated. Either you have it, or you don't.

The only thing worse than not having it at all is having it and hiding it from view of your customers.

Can you tell me what the secret  ingredient is?  Here is a hint.  One of these two sites has the secret ingredient, and one doesn't.

Site one
Site two

It's OK Not To Blog, Really!

Mark Healey's post "Follow The Leader" is worthwhile reading. He's correctly identified why so many people blog and why they can now take comfort in their decision not to blog any longer.

I'm hoping that the citizens of the blogosphere take note of their newly found me-too justification for not blogging. It will be nice to see the clutter and the me-toos reduced.

Large Agencies Take It On The Chin

Persuasion Architect Holly Buchanan wrote a post titled "Do We Need More Women and Minority Hiring in Advertising?" on her blog. She takes on the subject without regard to political correctness. I'll give you an excerpt below. You decide if it is worth reading the rest.

"One - if you're talented, you're in advertising, and you're a minority - go the big agency route if you want - but also look at the smaller shops that are doing amazing things and blowing away the competition with their insight and successful track records. 

Two - I want to hear from you - what do you think about the whole minority in advertising debate?   Good or bad - bring it on.   Do you think the whole thing is just a misguided "affirmative action" for advertising that will force agencies to lower their standards in order to hire minorities?    Is the attitude of Neil French one that is actually held by many advertising executives - that women are too busy with mommy responsibilities to work as hard as their midnight oil burning male counterparts - is this a view that is more widely held than we think?   Is the glass ceiling still firmly in place for women and minorities?  Is that why so much advertising aimed at women doesn't work?  because too many white men are making the decisions and doing the creative - creating ads that they like?   

Or is this just more political posturing by those damn minorities and feminists with nothing better to do than whine and complain.

Speak up!"

I'm not a big fan of large agencies.  They're not competitors, they're mostly in a parallel business to Future Now. The ones who do online marketing are usually good for a laugh. Take a look at Jonah Bloom's column in AdAge if you want his take on large agencies and why they have become caricatures of themselves.