A Day in the Life of a Persuasion Architect

What Kind of Professional…

Clients and employers approach Sales and Marketing professionals wearily because we have a bad reputation. The reputation we’ve acquired has been reinforced by the media. We might remember the stereotypical Hot Shot salesman as the character Alex Baldwin plays in Glengarry Glen Ross, he’s a slick pro who can sell anything to anybody. However, what he does is manipulation not persuasion.

Manipulation - exerting shrewd or devious influence especially for one's own advantage

Persuasion - the act of influencing the mind by arguments or reasons offered, or by anything that moves the mind or passions, or inclines the will to a determination.

As professionals, we often deserve our reputation based on the assignments we take on. Not every product or service is fit to be sold. Not every person is the right person to buy a product or service. Most shocking, especially to Sales Trainers, is that not every objection is simply a question that requires a cunning response. Often, more often than we comfortably admit to, an objection is legitimate and the proper response is a respectful friendly acknowledgement followed by the word - goodbye.

Persuasion takes more work up-front but evolves into the path of least resistance once you’ve done your homework. Take a look at an example of this in this week’s ClickZ column written by Bryan.

If you’re a pro meeting a great deal of resistance with the product / service you offer then you can do your homework and figure out whether or not the service / product you are offering has true value. Then you ask yourself have you become a Marketing Professional or have you become a Professional Liar?

When Clients Share...

We don't often get a chance to share the success stories of our clients. Many of our clients would prefer to keep what we do for them on the QT, so that their competitors won't be aware of what they are up to. Nevertheless, Maheesh Jain, VP of Sales & Marketing of Cafepress.com told our story to MarketingSherpa:

How CafePress.com Lowered Its Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate Dramatically

SUMMARY: If you work for an ecommerce site, this Case Study is a must-read.

Learn how CafePress.com redesigned their shopping cart checkout process to lower shopper abandonment rates from 25-30% to just 15%.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2774

Deja Vu

The following is a recent article from Internet Retailer. The hyperlinks throughout the story were added by yours truly.

INTERNET RETAILER ARTICLE: Content as salesperson: Why it doesn’t sell more

Compared to the number of potential customers that visit retail sites, the number of shoppers who close the deal online is still relatively low - about 3.2%, according to Forrester Research Inc. A new report on “Web content that sells,” sheds some light on one reason content doesn’t sell more: too much of its misses the mark on basic usefulness and usability.

The research firm sees usefulness as whether site content presents mission-critical information consumers need before acting, and usability as how easy the site makes it for consumers to understand the offer. Forrester analyst John Dalton evaluated content at 20 sites, drawn from industry segments including retail consumer electronics and others, on a scale that ran from minus 10 to a positive 10. The tests involved a series of user goals defined for each category of site tested, framed against a back-story modeling the needs of a typical user. The sites were rated on criteria such as whether images and graphics supported decision-making, for example, and whether product descriptions were easy to scan and read.

Burdened in many cases by what Forrester identifies as poor copywriting and typography, none of the sites got an overall passing score of 5 or higher. A first step toward improving the usefulness of content is to delete any content that’s useless. Forrester notes one site operator that tracked customers’ paths over the past two years on conversions to sales and downloads. That exercise showed half the site’s content received little or no use, which prompted the site operator to cut unused pages and focus on improving content on pages its customers actually used.

In terms of usability, Forrester found typography and layout that could have done more to help visitors find and comprehend content. A common issue, for example, was long product descriptions followed by vague links labeled “learn more.” Forrester notes that the consumer web site of Hewlett-Packard Co. avoided this problem by breaking down its general “learn more” link into task-specific links such as “dock your digital camera."

Only one of the above hyperlinked articles is less than 2 years old.

Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie

Marketers, advertisers, brand consultants, or anyone in the persuasion business, our cover has been blown.

We are no longer going to be able to employ our usual mind control tactics and psychotronic radiation to sell our services and products. The public is on to us.

We all feared this day would come.

So spread the word. Plan B is now in full effect.

I guess it is back to pesuading people the hard way. That is until our Future Now research team find a way to penetrate those darn beanies.

Branding Online

Unaided recall has long been a measure marketers use to gauge the strength of a particular brand. Unaided recall demonstrates that someone remembers your brand, the hope being that when the need for your service or product arises the customer recalls YOU. (Please keep in mind, brand recall is not branding. )

In a world of a million brands and thousands of unsolicited messages posturing for our attention on a daily basis, getting noticed, and then getting your brand implanted into memory is quite an accomplishment.

Being remembered is simply the result of a simple formula that cognitive neuroscience has been aware of for quite sometime.

Salience X Repetition = MEMORY

In old school branding, when salience was lacking, marketers would compensate and buy repetition in mass media. But now mass media is being fragmented at an alarming degree and advertisers are sweating to find efficient offline means to buy frequency (repetition) and reach (number of people exposed to a message). It simply costs too much to reach too few people as often as needed. But repetition isn't the only contributing factor.

Salience X Repetition = MEMORY

In other words, the more we care about something, the more likely we are to remember it.

Great marketers know this instinctively and build salience into their campaigns. But great instinct, does not change the currently brutal offline advertising and marketing landscape mentioned above.

The other option available to marketers is to just sidestep the need for memory altogether. Direct response marketing singularly focuses on selling customers in the market TODAY. The pitfall with that approach is that every day that you wake up you are pushing to persuade an entirely different set of customers to buy. Doesn't sound like much fun does it?

So how does one go about maintaining and building a brand and brand equity into the future?

Kevin Lee writes the following in his most recent ClickZ article...

Brand marketers have long considered the idea of brand lift through search engine marketing (SEM) no more credible than the idea of a real Santa Claus -- a nice concept, but fabricated to change behavior with no evidence to back it up.

This week, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Search Engine Effectiveness Committee published a study on the brand lift of textual paid search results. The results will knock your Christmas stockings off. Search can cause brand lift to soar! Read More.

If you are looking for brand lift don't discount the potential of an online branding strategy. While the entire world has been treating the internet exclusively as a direct response vehicle (and it is a darn good one) Future Now has been successfully deploying these types of online branding strategies with our clients for quite some time.

Salience X Repetition = MEMORY

Each time a customer enters their search terms, or clicks a hyperlink on your site they reveal what is most salient to them, making the internet a natural and efficient means to build 'unaided recall' for your brand.

When TigerDirect speaks...

I don't know about you but when some of the best people in the biz of sellin' stuff online are willing to share how they got to be that way...I pay attention.

Future Now's Chief Persuasion Officer Bryan Eisenberg writes the following in this week's ClickZ ROI Marketing article...

We looked at several e-tailers' approaches to online merchandising last week. One company has pushed the limits of online merchandising and is willing to share some of its best tips. TigerDirect.com is one of the most-visited consumer electronics sites on the Web, with sales exceeding $350 million. Shoppers spend an average of 12 minutes on the site with an average ticket of over $200. Read More.

Power Of Suggestion

Do Dumb Blonde Jokes Slow Mental Activity??

BERLIN (Reuters) - Blondes perform intelligence tests more slowly after reading jokes playing on their supposed stupidity, said psychologists in a newly published German study.

Some 80 women of various hair colors were tested on their mental capacity to work quickly and precisely in a series of psychometric tests. Before sitting the tests, half the participants had to read "dumb blonde" jokes, such as:

"Why do blondes open yogurt pots while still at the supermarket? -- Because it says 'Open Here' on the lid." Read more.

Isn't that amazing? Just the suggestion of a common (and ridiculously untrue) stereotype can rock a mega-smart blonde's confidence.

As human beings with or without hair, we are all vulnerable to such illogical and emotionally charged suggestions as this. The good news is that the power of suggestion can work in the opposite direction. It really is effortless for us to believe someone who is telling us that we possess all the traits we have been aspiring posess and embody our entire life.

Great persuasion occurs when someone whipsers in your ear that which you believe most about yourself, your values, and desires. Harley Davidson does a nice job doing this , and of course J. Peterman does too. Notice how each of these pages lead with copy about the reader, not the product or even benefits of the product. Great persuasion is the opposite of a dumb blonde joke, it empowers us and reinforces our loftiest of dreams.

Only crooks and grave-robbers play on our unfounded insecurities and use those to manipulate and control us . I'm glad we don't have any of those reading this blog.

Short Copy Vs. Long Copy SMACKDOWN!

***tap-tap-tap microphone feedback***

Ring Announcer: Laaaadeeeeess aand Gentuuuullllmen, welcome to this week's persuasive copy Smaaaackdoooown!

***Crowd roars!!!!!***

Ring Announcer: Let's meet today's fighters...in the blue corner, he's a lean mean fighting machine, weighing in at under 150 words, it's SHOOOOOOOOORTTTT COPEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

***Cheers & Jeers***

In the red corner, he's the giant master of disaster, weighing in at over 200 words, it's
LOOOOOOOOONG COPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

***Jeers***

Booth Announcer #1: Whoa! The people do not seem to like Long Copy, Short Copy is clearly the crowd favorite...
Booth Announcer #2: Well, we live in a busy world, who has time for Long Copy
Booth Announcer #1: Good Point, let's take it back to the ring, the fight is about to get underway

Referee: OK Boys, watch your grammar and punctuation. Misspellings will not be allowed. Shake keyboards, go to your corners and wait for the bell.

***DING DING***

Booth Announcer #1: Short Copy goes for the quick knockdown, but Long Copy is too big to be taken down. Short Copy is landing jab after jab after jab

****smack! smack! smack! smack! smack! smack! smack! smack! smack! ****

Booth Announcer #2: Ouch! That's gotta hurt

***Cheers***

Booth Announcer #1: Long Copy has had enough of little henpecks from Short Copy and is climbing the ropes, hoping to smother Short Copy once and for all....

***FWAAAAAP!!!!!!!***

Booth Announcer #1: He misses!!! Short Copy is just too fast, was able to just side step the slower albeit more powerful Long Copy
Booth Announcer #2: Wait a minute! Who is that entering the ring?

***Crowd Erupts in CHEERS***

Booth Announcer #1: I can't believe it, it's Relevant Copy!!!!
Booth Announcer #2: It's not even a fair fight, he's kickin' both of their a%^%#
Booth Announcer #1: The Crowd is going NUTS, they can't get enough of Relevant Copy!!!
Booth Announcer #2: Well..He IS the CHAMP!

Senior Persuasion Architect: Trying to judge the persuasiveness of copy by it's length is like trying to tell how fast a car is by looking at the color of its paint. We've seen some very persuasive short copy, as well as some awfully persuasive and interesting loooooong copy.

Nigritude Ultramarine

Anil Dash just got added to my list of mini-heros. (I don't throw around the term 'hero' lightly, thus the 'mini' addition)

The beloved blogger just won an international search engine placement contest with a single post to his blog.

Sweeeeeeet!

The organizers of an international search engine placement contest crowned their champion Wednesday. In the end, the victor was a popular blogger who got his readers to do his work for him.

Anil Dash won the second, and final, round of the two-month SEO Challenge, which called on webmasters and site owners to use any method at their disposal to score the top Google ranking for a made-up term, "nigritude ultramarine." Read story.

Dash comments on his victory... "A page that's read by people instead of robots is going to do better"

We are not surprised.

You see as much as we like robots around here at Future Now, we prefer people much more.

Church of Closing The Sale

If just 'closing the sale' is the alpha and the omega of your business model, you could be needing a drug prescription really soon.

In our world of rampant connectivity, we each possess instant access to a spread of information about almost any product or service we are in the market for today. It is inevitable, the word about your company will get out..... good or bad.

This makes spending too much time worshipping at the Church of Closing the Sale a teensy bit short-minded and flaccid. Businesses can no longer afford to worry exclusively about closing sales, they must begin to focus on the entirety of the customer's experience before and especially after the sale.

Now, I'm not advocating abandoning current sales efforts, just the opposite. What I suggest is that you find ways to drive sales by enhancing customer experience with your company both pre and post sale.

What could happen when a customer touches your company is likely your greatest un-leveraged asset.

I'm not talking about customer service, which typically describes a companies defensive posture to unhappy customers. It also goes way beyond treating customers well, this is what is expected of all businesses, and making this the target is reaching for the average denominator,. What I'm talking about is maximizing the relationship your company enjoys when a customer decides to spend some of their invaluable time with your company.

I suggest we begin attending the Church of the Customer's Experience FIRST, and closing sales will naturally and abundantly follow.

Customer retention and customer experience are not areas of business that should be delegated to fast and shallow talkers. One should find a great prospecter like Future Now's own Jim Novo as you begin drilling down into this underground ocean of income potential.

Also scope out my buddy Steve Rae's blog Touch Points for his take on customer experiences.