Archive for July, 2006
Godin asks “Are You Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?”
“How do you use search to introduce the right buyers to the right sellers when it’s not a frequent transaction of a commodity?” The responsibility is the sellers! . We invented Persuasion Architecture to present the answers the buyer seeks. Chapters 19-21 of “Waiting For Your Cat to Bark” tell you how…
Planning Persuasion Scenarios is the core of Persuasion Architecture and it ensures that that seller will leave a relevant scent of information based on answering each buyer’s questions, addressing each need, each motivation, and even each buying preference. Whether the sale is complex or simple, whether the buyer is late or early in the process, whether the buyer is knowledgeable or ignorant, high price point or low, it doesn’t matter. The seller must account for each customer segment and each angle of entry that customers may take as the need for your product arises.
It isn’t easy, it’s a lot of work. Every touchpoint, every page, every keyword, every marketing communication must be accounted for . Persuasion Architecture handles this complexity.
In today’s landscape the seller is the only one with papable incentive to do the work of Persuasion Scenario planning, so it is unlikely that search or any other middle party will get too involved in solving this. And sellers selling these types of transactions simply can’t afford to wait for search technology to solve this problem for them.
Can you?
Read Seth Godin’s entire post.
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Written by:Howard Kaplan
The Advertising Death March?
Advertising will always be with us. There will always be products, services, and circumstances that will warrant the use of advertising. Still, there can be no doubt that advertising as it is, as it was, must and WILL change dramatically.
It all compounds into one simple dynamic. Customers are ignoring marketing, and today’s advertiser is paying more for less return on their ad dollar. The old advertising template is broken, the carcasses of failed ad campaigns are piling up. The success of our new book is only one indication.
Another nail in the advertising template’s coffin comes to us courtesy of usability guru Jared Spool, whose research also confirms this with a loud echoing shout. Customers not only ignore advertising, they develop techniques to do so.
Ouch.
Who can afford throwing more money at old school advertising and idly wait for their cats to bark?
Volunteers? Anyone?
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Written by:Howard Kaplan
Hear This! See This! Austin Presentation
My thanks to Brian Massey of Hear This who was nice enough to organize a DiviCast (slides plus audio) of my presentation at the Austin, TX American Marketing Association luncheon. Would you like to see the presentation?
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Written by:Jeffrey Eisenberg
#7 BusinessWeek Bestseller
Mike Drew just called to let me know that "Waiting For Your Cat To Bark?" debuts on BusinessWeek’s monthly Hardcover Business Book list at #7. This list is monthly, as opposed to the others that are weekly, so we’ve been waiting.
Bryan, Lisa and I are so grateful to everyone who helped us with this book and to all of you wonderful people who bought and read it. You have read it already, right?
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Written by:Jeffrey Eisenberg
Crackvertising - Are You Addicted?
Crackvertising Pronounciation (krak-ver-tyzing) n. 1) The addiction to and/or business dependency on low cost traffic from Google search and other search advertising.
Signs of addiction include; needing more and more traffic to convert the same amount of sales, paying more and more for less and less traffic; and finally the advertiser’s life becomes obsessed with the next ‘fix’ of traffic. Lack of, reduction of, or fluctuation of paid traffic results in severe withdrawal. The effect is usually a corresponding and parallel fluctuation in top line sales. The potency of the drug (traffic) declines over time, and the addict needs greater amounts to satisfy addiction.
This addiction displays all of the common trademarks associated with a dealer/addict based relationship.
- Dealer provides low or no barrier of entry to try product. In this case Google hosts a perpetual party where Google gives out free ‘traffic’ in the form of organic search results referrals. Once the addict experiences free traffic the addict is offered better access to traffic(impressions) and is charged when traffic shows interest in the addict by clicking on a search advertisement.
- Price of entry rises. At first this charge per click is minimal, but as other addicts are willing to pay more for the same click prices rise creating financial tension for the addict as the addict struggles to buy more and more traffic.
- Dealer gets rich.
- Addict displays common love/hate attitude towards dealer.
- Dealer uses and develops more techniques to keep the advertiser addicted.
- Addict attempts manipulation of the dealer to lower cost of addiction. This usually fails.
The Cure - Weaning a company off this addiction is not easy, takes time and is typically very painful. To begin the road to recovery the addict must first turn their attention away from driving new traffic and towards satisfying current traffic. The first step in breaking any addiction is admitting you have a problem. If you know of anyone who may be addicted please send them this link right away.
Etymology - "Crackvertising" is word coined by Future Now, Inc.’s Bryan Eisenberg on June, 2006 Staff Training.
Like this article? Digg it?
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Written by:Anthony Garcia
The Transparency Imperative: Moving Beyond the Suggestion Box
Your business can use transparency to its advantage, turning ordinary customers into tireless advocates for your brand
Do you ever get annoyed when a business’s online communications are as poor, if not worse, than their offline customer service? One of the most sacred promises of the Internet is that we have the power to chat with total strangers, regardless of how fragmented the information or disproportionately strong the opinion, to piece together the bigger picture about a given experience anytime, anywhere. Access to third-party information is always a good thing for any current or would-be customer; it’s the quickest way of saving ourselves the time, money, and opportunity cost of a bad decision. Besides, most customers take information from peers with a grain of salt. So why should business be afraid of online transparency?
Read the rest of this article.
Read the entire newsletter: Volume 136
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Written by:Robert Gorell
In Sales? At Least 9 Things You Can Learn from Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?
Implement strategies to improve your sales efficiency while meeting the needs of your customers
You’ve got online sales. You’ve got offline sales. To complicate matters, neither of these exists in isolation. According to a recent BIGresearch survey, 87% of the customers who research their purchases online actually buy offline!On top of that, websites and flesh-and-blood sales staff must continually field product and service questions from customers who increasingly are as, if not better, informed than they are!
How can you implement strategies to improve your sales efficiency - within and across channels - while at the same time meeting the diverse needs of your customers?
Read the rest of this article.
Read the entire newsletter: Volume 136
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Written by:The Grok
It’s Amazing Even Harry Potter Sells Any Books
Jeff Jarvis strikes again. I know my brother Jeffrey blogged about him recently. And we reference him in connection to his "Dear Mr. Dell" post in "Waiting For Your Cat To Bark?".
This time Jeff blogs about some terrifying statistics about the book market. Did you know that 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school? It gets worse than that. Only read his post if you want to spend the weekend depressed.
We know roughly how few books it took for us to hit #1 on the Wall Street Journal’s Business best-seller list this week.
Are you as concerned about this active illiteracy as we are?
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Three Steps to Creating Better Category Pages
You step into a garden-variety department store.
Today, you’re purchasing a burgundy leather belt. You orient yourself; you scan for visual cues that may steer you in the right direction. Hanging from the ceiling in the far corner of the store is a sign that reads “Footwear.” You start in that direction.
Why?
Continue reading my column at ClickZ…
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Buying and Selling in a Finicky World
Brian Steinberg of the Wall Street Journal has this to say…
“Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?” will be most instructive to the advertising crowd, of course. It’s hard to find a book about marketing that is truly appropriate for anyone but people who practice the stuff. But general readers may find something valuable here too: the latest Madison Avenue methods for getting inside their brains and massaging their decision-making logic. If the Web offers marketers new opportunities, it also allows picky consumers to become — with a feline cleverness and caution — ever more finicky.
Read the entire article (subscription required).
Brian references our book in the context of the ad agency BBDO, a poster child for the Madison Ave. glitz and glamour brand marketing philosphy. On the opposite end of the marketing philosophy spectrum you would find the direct marketing philosophy , as represented by the president of the Direct Marketing Association John A. Greco, who also reviewed our book. Seems that all ends of the marketing spectrum see value in Persuasion Architecture.
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Written by:Howard Kaplan
