A Day in the Life of a Persuasion Architect

Online Persuasion Is All About WORDS

When you surf the net, there is one thing that we can pretty much bank on you doing each and every time you log on.

READING

Obviously, thats exactly why persuasive copy is so critical to your conversion.

As a faithful blog reader we wanted to give you a heads up about an opportunity to learn more about writing persuasively on the web.

Count yourself invited to the...

Persuasive Online Copywriting Seminar

When? - November 11th-12th
Where? - The Cool New Future Now digs in Brooklyn's Red Hook district.
How Much? - That depends if you want to attend one day or two

We only have a few seats avail, so before we blabbed to our entire Grok newsletter list we wanted you to get first crack at 'em.

In the meantime, here's a little bit of persuasive writing advice to hold you over until November.

Interview with The Grok

J. Lipton was recently seen interviewing our very own little green alien, The Grok. I just got my mitts on the transcript of that interview.

What is your favorite word?

You can imagine I had a hard time at first figuring out which words were legit. For instance, I feel in love with the word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. But then someone told me that was a little juvenile. So I moved on to “frabjous”, which still makes me smile. For a real word, I’m fond of “phlegmatic”. Sounds like such an ugly word, and yet it means something so soothing. Oh, relevance, that’s a great word. Relevance.

What is your least favorite word?

You know how some words just sound plain old stupid? Like the person who’s saying it is a complete idiot? And you know how some people can spew soda out their noses when they laugh too hard (and they happen to be drinking soda)? Well, those two qualities came together for me when I heard the word “doily”. We-We is also on my least favorite list.

What turns you on?

People. You all ask such amazing questions and dream such incredible dreams. You believe in “potential,” even when things are pretty mucky all around them. How could that ever fail to inspire me?

What turns you off?

That would be the button under my fancy belt buckle with the ‘G’. Rather like Mr. Data. You’re not really going to publish that are you? Look, don’t put that in … you meant “tick me off”, right? And that would be mean people, angry people, yelling, unpleasantness. Anything falling into that category makes me want to reinvent the world. Really long forms on websites are bad too.

What is your favorite curse word?

Mystery Meat

What sound or noise do you love?

The Theremin. It happens to be the only musical instrument you play without having to touch it, and it’s the noise everyone associates with Grade B Sci Fi film and outer space creepiness.

What sound or noise do you hate?

The sound of a plucked rose screaming. Oh, your ears don’t do that frequency, do they. Just as well … it’s a brutal thing for a sensitive soul to hear. Let’s see … let me give you one you can hear … ah, that would be the sound of fingernails on a blackboard. Except, you humans don’t make blackboards anymore, do you? Geez, a whole generation that can live free of that hideous sound. Imagine. It’s white boards now, isn’t it? Can you explain to me … was that in response to racism?

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

I’ve always thought it’d be fun to be Danny DeVito’s stunt double, oh wait, our Senior Persuasion Architect Anthony Garcia already has that job. Let me think…I’ve always wanted to be The Apprentice.

What profession would you not like to do?

I don’t think I’d like to be a professional mud wrestler. I’m too short, and too much water isn’t good for my skin. I believe mud wrestler’s have to shower a lot.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Well, I wouldn’t mind if He told me Elvis never made it. But I’d really be pleased to hear Him say, “Grok…dude! I read everything you wrote … fabulous stuff.

What Does A Senior Persuasion Architect Do Anyways?

When out and about, while being introduced, or giving out my business card, the conversation typically rolls along like this...

"Senior Persuasion Architect? Hmmmm sounds like a fancy title, what exactly do you do?"

"I help Future Now clients do the work of improving and building more persuasive websites" I answer.

That is my short answer. As you might expect, some find this answer unsatisfying...go figure.

So the next time I sense the other party wanting a tad more detail and elaboration, I will likely just read them this case study of the Persuasion Architecture process from MarketingSherpa.com. (It's about the best description i've seen of the work we do around here day to day. )

Unless you know of a printer that can print this article on the back of my business cards.

Let me know.

Are Visitors Pay Per Clicking Your Company into the Poorhouse?

Unless forking out more dollars for getting much less in return actually excites you, now is the time to get wide eyed about increasing your conversion rate and site ROI.

Keyword costs are quickly mounting to Everest proportions with no end on the horizon, and even if you can afford the costs, losing a visitor that cost you $5 bucks to get has gotta hurt. More must be done to propel those pricey and precious prospects toward conversion.

Have no fear, Persuasion Architecture has got your back.

From Internet Retailer's most current issue...

Right This Way Successful search engine marketing no longer stops at a retail site’s front door—it carries shoppers deep into the store.

...Incorporating persuasion earlier in the buying process allows e-commerce sites to reach beyond visitors who arrive at the site ready to buy into the larger pool of visitors who are not yet ready to buy, but could be persuaded to with the right communication, in the right sequence. The upshot? A higher conversion rate that exceeds the lift which might be expected by just improving the checkout process or the shopping cart at the back end...Read the entire article

Your Site's Visitors May Not Be Users

User Centric Design is a tool, but not the solution to constructing a more persuasive and effective website.

Ease of use, and user experience, abliet VERY IMPORTANT, are not meant to address the complexities of needs and motivations visitors carry with them as they land on your site.

You need something more robust than a User Centered Design approach if you are gonna hit all those Key Performance Indicators goals you have set for your company.

The User-Centric Design Trap

User-centric design's (UCD's) aim is to enhance and improve the user's experience with software or a product. This principle has benefits, but can it translate seamlessly to the commercial Web design process? Do UCD principles result in a customer-centric Web site that satisfies the diverse needs of potentially millions of visitors?

UCD complements the process of designing and optimizing a site for conversion, but it was never conceived to address the intricacies of building a persuasive system. Read More.

Would You Let Bush or Kerry Design Your Site? Part 3

In the last post we surmised that the Bush site has a clear advantage over the Kerry site in the areas of A.I.D.A.S. and likely a slight edge in the area of Usability.

In short, the Bush site has more relevant and better labeled content that is more likely to steer visitors towards our inferred conversion goals. One of the conversion goals is to allow media and political junkies to access news, and download media clips. Again the Bush site does a better job. The Bush site also has an eye for the future by providing links to voter registration info as well as a link to "Vote Early for Bush", and even though we stated that the ultimate campaign conversion needed (ie: a vote) cannot actually happen on the web, we applaud the effort to 'seal the deal' on the site itself.

The other conversion goals is to allow visitors to donate to the campaign online. This is where the Kerry site outshines the Bush site.

Point of Action & Forms

Once a visitor decides to participate in a site's conversion mechanism, that is not the end of the process. Many conversions are lost when sites fail to effectively help 'sold' visitors complete the transaction. This is typically a failure to transmit confidence in two areas critical to persuasion(there are 5 of them), Privacy and Security.

It is not enough for a site to have a privacy policy, and/or insure a visitor a secure transaction. A site must inform and reassure the visitor of privacy policies, and third party security verification at the point of action. Why not include links to this information at the point the visitor is entering personal and credit card information. I know, I know, it sounds insanely kindergarten, but most sites, even the big boys neglect this.

When you click the link to contribute on JohnKerry.com the site does of fabulous job in two areas. They address security(notice the Verisign logo) at the point of action, and their form looks short and sweet and easy to fill out. They also give you alternate ways to give via phone or snail mail. The only real criticism we have is the 'submit contribution' button. The button is 'red', a color can easily be associated with 'stop'.

At Bush.com the contribution page form feels lengthy and asks for more than the required data, a big no no. There is no reassurance about a secure transaction and no alternate means of making contributions.

We would encourage both sides to add a step in the process by giving contributors a chance to 'confirm' their contribution one last time before they submit.

Final Conclusion

So who would we trust to build our website, Bush or Kerry?

Probably neither.

But, if we were to trust a presidential candidate to build a website we'll just hold out until 2008 when Bryan Eisenberg runs for the highest office in the land.

Vote Eisenberg '08!

Would You Let Bush or Kerry Design Your Site? Part 2

Last post we started our series by digging a little deeper and making some assumptions of exactly what a presidential campaign election website would likely need to accomplish. To rehash, here are the refined site objectives that we inferred...

1) For candidate faithful - the site must reinforce, invigorate, and help candidate faithful by giving them information and inspiration. To use Future Now Conversion Assessment terms this is the A.I.D.A.S factor.

A.I.D.A.S - The ability of the site to sustain a prospects momentum toward the close at both the micro(page) and macro(site) level.

2) For media and political observers - the site must make information about the candidate and the campaign readily available and easy to use. This is largely a usability issue.

Usability - he ability to implement effectively the body of knowledge concerning the human-computer interface in order to remove any obstacles impeding the experience and process of online interactions.

So keeping these two user types in mind as well as our implied objectives, let's grade our presidential candidates websites...Do they accomplish their objectives?

Bush- Yes, but it is limited. As you would expect, the information and copy on the homepage is mostly about the candidate. A visitor would like to hear more about them and what they can do as well as what Bush can do for them. Site is strong in providing relevant information about the campaign and related issue in the active window. The content here is current and is labeled as 'Latest Headlines", "Latest Videos", "Latest Photos," making it that much easier for candidate faithful, and the news media to find what it needs quickly. Site does respectable job of differentiating important text with exception of global navigation, the buttons are too difficult to read. The site does feel 'cluttered' and some of the colors are little bit dark and gloomy. Female faithful may feel a little alienated by the 'sporty' feel of the site's graphics.

Although both sites offered the access to the current ads and archive of ads in a variety of file formats , the Bush site takes it one step further by providing links to the media releases that provide supporting information about the ad as well as text of each ad.

Kerry- Somewhat and slightly less effectively than the Bush site. The first foul of the Kerry website is a 'flash' page that brazenly solicits for donations and campaign involvement, this is a risky tactic because it assumes that candidate faithful are ready for this level of involvement and may be seen as 'pushy' with more methodical and humanistic types that like to take their time before jumping in. Some elements on the landing page, like the "Take Action" section are nicely differentiated. Color scheme is less brooding than the Bush site, and menu fonts are much easier to read. Some of the sites most relevant content, the content that will inspire the faithful, like the "Bush-Cheney: Wrong For America" link, is buried below the fold on the right hand column . The latest campaign info should be labeled as such in the active window.

In terms of A.I.D.A.S, Bush has a clear online advantage, but once a decision is made by the site visitor to convert Kerry's site seems to fare better than Bush, but we'll discuss that on the next post.

Would You Let Bush or Kerry Design Your Site? Part 1

Since President Bush shamelessly promoted his own website during his acceptance speech last week I've had somewhat of an obsession with his site as well as his competitor, Mr. Kerry's site.

From the perspective of a Persuasion Architect there is alot to be fascinated with when you consider a Presidential campaign website, and I think there is also a lot to be learned as we dissect both of these sites.

So let's put politics aside, and study JohnKerry.com and GeorgeWBush.com as sites, and see if we can learn anything about persuasion and conversion. The first advantage to doing this is that we know the obvious objective of each site(to do it's part to help propel the candidate into the Whitehouse). Second, we can also easily infer the responsibilities each site must perform and we can contrast and compare the two and their relative effectiveness.

Take off your politcal hat, put on your persuasion beenie and let's get started.

Site Objectives and Responsibilities

Before we can begin analyzing a sites effectiveness, we must ask...what are the responsibilities of this site? Not always an easy question to answer.

Because the actual 'transaction' or 'conversion' or 'vote' occurs offline the best a campaign site can do is act as a mechanism to reinforce and encourage support for the campaign and indirectly win votes. Because presidential elections are so polarizing it is my opinion that a presidential campaign web site cannot actually swing a vote. It is unlikely that undecided voters will attempt to make a decision by visiting a 'biased' candidates own website.

That being said, a good campaign website gets traffic, and we need to help those visitors achieve their goals in hopes of having some influence on the voting outcome. So lets consider how best to use a websites visitors for that means. We start by getting to know about a site's visitors.

In this case a little common sense indicates that visitors to these campaign websites sites likely fall into three categories- candidate faithful, candidate enemies, press and political junkies. Now let's infer their objectives as they visit a campaign site.

Candidate enemies - their objective is simple, to destroy your campaign. Why waste time trying to do anything for them on your site? Our suggestion, ignore them.

Press and Political Junkies - are here to get 'updated' on any news, ads, picutures, or any new positions on current issues that your campaign has to share. The press need deliverables so we suggest making it easy for them to navigate, read, and download information about your campaign.

Candidate faithful - are your most important site visitors. Your site must continue to give them reasons, and information, and excitement to not only keep their vote, but empower them to 'campaign for you'. A campaign site's primary objective should be to support and empower the campaign. It can do this by giving the faithful information in relation to the days news cycle, information about the candidates position, family, pics, bio, blog, etc. . The site should make it easy for candidate faithful by reinforcing their support, helping them get involved and/or give money to the candidate.

Lesson 1- A Great Website Starts with Clear Objectives and Goals

So this process applies to your company as well. You must ask what can you reasonably expect your website to accomplish? What are your visitors trying to accomplish at your site? Once you answer those questions you are best able to start talking about a sites responsibilities. We have watched many companies err by only focusing on one of these questions and ignoring the other.

Ok, now that have inferred site responsibilities we can now look and see how our little presidential candidates are doing in the above mentioned areas...but that will have to wait until next post. Feel free to comment on your assessments of each website.

Web Analytics For Retailers

The all seeing, all powerful Bryan Eisenberg just wrapped up a 3 week ClickZ Article series on Web Analytics.

Pour some coffee, find a comfortable reading nook, and click these 3 articles. Oh yeah, clear a little room in your wallet, you will probably need it.

Part One Part Two Part Three