A Day in the Life of a Persuasion Architect

AdAge: Waiting for Your Cat... is #5 in '06

What a great end to 2006!  Not only did Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing reach #1 on the Wall Street Journal list, as well as charting big on the New York Times, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and Amazon bestsellers lists, but now Advertising Age is chiming in with a meowing high-five.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot?  We're still not sure if that's rhetorical.  One thing's certain, though: if 2007 shapes up any better than this year, we'll be entirely bored with congratulating Lisa T. Davis and Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg for their fantastic work.

So, for those who haven't gotten around to reading the book, what are you waiting for?

Book of Tens 2006

10 books you should have read

18 December 2006 (Volume 77; Number 51)
(c) 2006 Crain Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Rex Briggs and Greg Stuart: "What Sticks: Why Most Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds" (Kaplan Business)

Uses data from experiments by real marketers to cut through the doomsday hype and cynical opportunism that surround the slow death of conventional advertising.

2. Charles Hughes and William Jeanes: "Branding Iron: Branding Lessons from the Meltdown of the U.S. Auto Industry" (Racom Books)

Uses lessons from the car business to hammer away at the importance of creating world-class brands, chastising the industry for going "safe, soft and somnolent."

3. Chris Anderson: "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More" (Hyperion)

One of the most-discussed concepts and most-used catchphrases of the year, the "long tail" theory has its fair share of lovers and haters.

4. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton: "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management" (Harvard Business School Press)

Denounces many modern management practices based on hype and conventional wisdom.

5. Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg and Lisa T. Davis: "Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing" (Nelson Business)

Breaks down tools such as consumer-generated media and word-of-mouth marketing to help marketers reach today's aloof, independent customer.

6. Seth Godin: "Small Is the New Big, and 183 Other Riffs, Rants and Remarkable Business Ideas" (Portfolio Hardcover)

Tips and ideas culled from Godin's blog and Fast Company column for everyone from McDonald's to business schools. The, er, big idea: Act small if you want to be big.

7. Robert Gordman and Armin Brott: "The Must-Have Customer: Seven Steps to Winning the Customer You Haven't Got" (Truman Talley Books)

For companies looking to expand, this book lays out the steps to not just retaining core customers but winning over those who are more elusive.

8. Glenn Reynolds: "An Army of Davids" (Nelson Current)

How advances in technology "empower ordinary people to beat big media, big government and other goliaths." Podcasts and blogs are the least of your worries.

9. Pat Fallon and Fred Senn: "Juicing the Orange” (Harvard Business School  Press)   

Unlike many advertising books, this is smartly written and fun to read. But it must be said that the "aha" moments are evened out by the number of businesses no longer making juice with Fallon.

10. Fred Reichheld: "The Ultimate Question" (Harvard Business School Press)

Reduces customer-loyalty quandaries to a breathtakingly simple question: "Would you recommend us to a friend?" Of course, after that, things get more complicated after that.

Deja Vu: Web Rage Still Lurks

I had to do a double take when I read this article. I am still irked that these fundamental conversion issues keep popping their ugly head.

It's Mouse Rage Syndrome, and it infects all Internet users sooner or later, according to a study of 2,500 Web users that was released Tuesday. Conducted by the Social Issues Research Centre in the United Kingdom, the study identified key factors that can negatively affect cardio functions, as well as the immune and nervous systems.

What's the root cause of Mouse Rage Syndrome? It's primarily caused by badly designed and hosted Web sites, according to the research center.

All Web surfers are familiar with the causes: slow-loading pages, layouts that are difficult to navigate, pesky pop-ups, and unnecessary ads, including banners. And, of course, the killer cause: site unavailability.

"The test results indicate that users want Google-style speed, function, and accuracy from all of the Web sites they visit, and they want it now," according to the SIRC report. "Unfortunately, many Web sites and their servers cannot deliver this."

Courtesy of EETimes

I thought we had beat the drum one too many times when we published "Get That SIte to Me Fast" in GrokDotCom in 5/2002. In case you need more evidence, in November Akamai and Jupiter Research put out a press release about research that shows 4 seconds as the new threshold of acceptability for retail web page response times.

If you aren't sure how long your site takes to load you may be held liable for Web Rage!

Preparing for Panama: another case for Persuasion Architecture

A new Ad-Age article offer strategies for winning at Panama, namely:

Instead, marketers' focus will shift from managing their bids to managing the entire conversation with their customers. By improving attributes such as the relevance of keywords, ad copy and landing pages, advertisers provide a better user experience while having an positive influence on their own ad costs.

Panama certainly raises the stakes for all those who have yet to realize how critical true Customer-centricity has become (let's not forget transparency either).  With the added competition, it's nice to have a methodology to follow...

Sorry It's Been So Long...

Jeff and I are headed back today from visiting our friends in Burbank, Sunnyvale and Mountain View. Many of you know we have been traveling since June, mostly related to the book tour for Waiting For Your Cat to Bark? but thankfully that is all done. We have had lots to share and I'll give you some of the top level ones:

First off a gift for you - we have completed the Table of Contents and Index for the paperback version of Call to Action. You can download it in PDF format.

At Future Now we've hired a new president. We hope you get a chance to meet Sondra Stewart soon.

There has been a ton of new stuff we've been working on behind the scenes. You will be seeing some major enhancements to GrokDotCom (lots more content). We have a bunch of new extremely affordable products and services coming out early next year. If you are interested in reviewing some of them, we'll be selecting a few people who may be interested; just contact us.

Many people have been wondering about our tactic behind unsubscribing people from GrokDotCom. Like many of you, we subscribe a bunch of newsletters. We realize many people don't have the time to read every issue, so we planned a campaign that informed people over 3 months to resubscribe to continue getting their subscription by email or to get The Grok either through RSS or Podcast formats. The thinking is if you don't engage at least once in a 3 month period then all those issues that come in, for many people, become annoying and it is an erosion in their mind of our brand. In the words of A.G. Lafley, CEO of P&G - the customer is boss and let it go - you are in control. The response to this has been phenomenal by the way.

Howard Kaplan and I will be judges in the ad:tech awards recognizing the talented designers and strategic thinkers that lead the industry, demonstrating excellence in interactive marketing. Over 30 winners can claim the limelight... Make sure it’s you! Visit http://www.ad-tech.com/awards for more information.

I am sure there is lots more I am missing, but we'll be publishing more often come the New Year.