I saw something today that disturbed me a bit (see pic). What you see is a free icon set I found with the standard 30, 60 and 90-Day Money Back Guarantee emblazoned in gold. I’ve been seeing similar graphics on websites more and more lately.  We’re partly at fault because FutureNow helps businesses of all sizes by recommending design elements like these be put on their “to-do list.”

The disturbing thought is that if this style of “starburst” guarantee seal has…

...continue to read "Beware of Copycat Credibility"

I’m not gonna lie…what you’re about to read was inspired by a real-life online shopping experience.  I won’t mention the guilty site, but I’ll say they sell clothing and jewelry to young urbanites.

As I relate the following three eCommerce mishaps, be thinking about whether you can eradicate all of them from your business by the time the “Holiday Rush” hits. ALL are preventable, if you start today and take one item at a time.

Let’s start at the “precipitating event;” the spark…

...continue to read "3 Ways to Lose an Online Sale"

Or at least why the assumptions behind the review are off-base

According to the nifty pie-chart to the right and the related study, because  print newspapers reach people who are actively looking for, or “checking,” ads, they are still a solid advertising medium.  How these people can conclude one thing from the other is utterly beyond me.

While newspapers may be a medium that still draws people  who are actively searching out ads, that hardly means newspapers are…

...continue to read "Radio and the Internet Put the Smackdown on Newspapers"

You probably won’t like the website I’m about to show you.

In fact, you may not like the product, either, simply because you’re probably not part of their targeted audience.  So make up your mind now to look past that in order to see the marketing decisions behind both the product and the site.

Let’s start by imagining that you’ve just been challenged to enter the fitness category. Not to sell some machine or piece of equipment, but to sell…

...continue to read "On Target Copywriting and the next “Buns of Steel”"

HE HAD A VOICE NO LIBRARIAN COULD LOVE – CAUSE HE ALWAYS TALKED LIKE THIS.  But look past the booming voice and easily parodied stage persona of the late Billy Mays and you’ll find an extraordinarily gifted pitch-man, worthy of his own TV show.

A pitch-man whose fame and success made him the target of more pitches than he ever gave.  Pitches made by desperate inventors looking for him to save them after they’d already mortgaged the house, spent the…

...continue to read "Billy Mays: If All You Remember is the Voice, You’re Missing Out."

Sometimes you never know.

While cleaning the last remnants of unsolicited and undesirable e-mail from my inbox a few days ago, I had two interesting thoughts. First, spam can actually be good for something. And second, inspiration does indeed strike in uncanny places.

The thoughts started while deleting spam e-mail number 12,874. It was targeting the otherwise happy man who only needs a little help in the sack, offering him the solution in a little blue pill.

Are there really that many men…

...continue to read "Marketer’s Impotence Syndrome"

In the offline world, have you ever been chased by retail staff because you opted not to buy something at their store?

Never?

You mean no one has ever blocked the exit and said something like, “Hey, I saw you put that bottle of wine in your cart, why didn’t you buy it?”

It sounds funny until you realize that most online remarketing services offer to do exactly that to your website visitors.  They’ll pester them with e-mails, pop-ups, and phone calls should…

...continue to read "Can Bad Assumptions Lead to “Gorilla Marketing”?"

You know the kind of surveys I’m talking about, the ones that ask you to rate something on a scale of 1-5, they are called Likert surveys.  I doubt if anyone actually likes them, but I truly loath them.  Here’s why:

The rating system is too clunky. Most people get stuck between 3 and 4, usually with 4 sounding too good and 3 too wishy-washy, meaning that the results are often more indicative of a temporary mood than an honest…

...continue to read "On a Scale From 1 to 5 Surveys Stink. Here’s Why!"

After my initial post on blog-ified and geographically falsified landing pages, I ran into a few more such pages and they all shared the “2-product combo with a free trial of each” strategy.

So it’s only fair to ask: can you get sophisticated and wary audiences to buy pseudo-snake oil simply by switching from extolling the virtues of a single miracle product to praising the miraculous combination of two semi-wondrous products?  As in this teeth whitening example:

Well, yes, actually.  …

...continue to read "Are Two Products More Credible Than One?"

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” ~ Michael Altshuler

In January, I was sitting with Jack Love publisher of Internet Retailer as he was being interviewed on WebMasterRadio. Jack told my friend Jim Hedger that it didn’t take much to look good over the last 6 or 7 years in the ecommerce space while industry growth was 25% or greater year after year. A rising tide lifted all boats. Most people could just be…

...continue to read "Sully Sullenberg’s Secret to Online Success"