The survey involved nearly a thousand participants ages 16 to 24, and the good news for us as online marketers was that 75% of respondents said that they “couldn’t live without the Internet.” Wow, that’s a bold statement indicating that the Web will continue to be a central part of that generation’s lives, and will be essential to how they research, form opinions, make decisions, and buy.

Maybe it’s not “bad news,” but the challenge this presents is: How will our generation of digital marketers and online businesspeople keep up with the attitudes and expectations of a new segment that doesn’t remember the absence of the Web?

"Kurt & Smitty" | Image from AMCTV.com

I can’t help but think of my latest TV series obsession, Mad Men.  The fictitious ad agency, Sterling Cooper, hired two young upstarts, Smitty and Kurt, to help them figure out what the youth of the early 1960s was thinking.  They informed their hopelessly old employers that the youth “don’t want to be told what to do or how to act. [They] just want to be.“  Sound familiar?  It sounds corny, but Sterling Cooper did the right thing by bringing in outside perspective to help them better empathize with their target audiences.

So, what are we going to do? Should all marketing teams have their own “Smitty and Kurt” to help them grok how Digital Natives want to interact with businesses?  Should we spend more time spying on our children and grandchildren as they network their always-available lives at lightning speed?  Let us know in the comments what specific tactics you’re using to keep up with what “the kids are into these days.”

Is American Idol’s newest judge an attempt to cover all 4 temperaments and create the natural dynamic that comes with that?

According to the American Idol Website:

“We had originally intended for American Idol to have four judges,” said executive producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz. “We’ve seen from our international series that having a fourth judge creates a dynamic that benefits both the contestants and the viewers.”

Of course, this just means they wanted 4 judges, and not necessarily that they wanted the judges to line up with the 4 temperaments.  But when you look at the roles and personalities of the judges, the overlay with the temperaments is intriguing.

Simon Cowell is the NT/Competitive/Rational. He’s very much to the point and focused on the bottom line.  Speaking the truth is more important than sparing a contestant’s feelings.  Simon thoroughly embodies the rational/thinking approach to judging vs. Paula’s feeling and empathy-heavy perspective.

Paula is certainly an NF. She’s concerned with the performer’s feelings.  She wants to empathize with their situation.  She wants to be as inclusive as possible, and she sees no reason to put too fine a point on negative feedback.  She often finds Simon to be deliberately cruel.

Randy is high Sensing and more than likely an SP/Spontaneous/Artisan. Randy almost always comments on how the singer actually sounded.  He frequently comments on “pitch problems” or the dynamic range of the song/vocalist.  And he’s also most likely to comment on how the song made him feel, not in a Paula/introspective way, but in a “that was hot” or a “it was just kind of alright for me” way.  This is Spontaneous speak – very in the moment and sensing.

And that leaves one temperament missing.

Enter Kara DiaGuardi.  Now I haven’t watched as much of this season and have seen precious little of Kara, so this is purely speculative and tentative, but here’s what makes me think that Kara’s probably a Methodical:

• In her video interview on the American Idol website, she consistently emphasized her operational experience within the music industry.  She knows how things get done on a day to day basis. She knows the procedures all the way from conceiving and writing a song, to finding the talent to sing it, to recording it, producing the album, and finally promoting it.  She knows what works.

• Operations is very much the realm of SJs. They’re the people who get things done and carry out the vast majority of the day-to-day management of the world.  Kiersey refers to them as Guardians, Supervisors, and Administrators.  Kara seems to fit this mold rather well.

• She is Sensing in some of the ways that Randy is, but far more Thinking/Technical in her comments.  While Randy talks about Pitch problems, Kara can not only speak to the technical aspects of singing but demonstrate them as well.  She’ll also go past “that was hot” type comments, drawing on her recording experience to talk about what would or would not “work.”

• And for Kara, as for many Methodicals, what works is credibility – did the performers technical virtuosity allow them to properly emote.  Was the performance believable?  Kara is the first judge to criticize a performer for an uncommitted performance.

• Kara comes off as more definitive and judging than Randy or Paula.  As Rob Salem of the Toronto star put it, she’s “more substantially authoritative than Randy.”  In other words, Kara’s more cut and dry than randy, more factual, more black and white.  And she also comes off as far more level-headed than Paula (though that’s admittedly not that hard to do).  This is what one might expect from a Judging preference (vs. Randy’s Perceiving preference).

• Finally, Kara sensibilities regarding what’s appropriate seem a bit more defined and fiercely protected than with the other judges.  Methodicals are often Guardians of cultural norms.  Want to see this in action?  Just watch Kara’s reaction in this video.

So there you have it.  Obviously, it’s early in the season and my assertions are purely speculative about Kara, but I’d say it’s no accident that Kara’s stage persona has so far shaped up to fill the missing temperament from the Randy-Paula-Simon trio.

Hat top to Mark Fox for asking me this question and sparking the idea for the article.

Assuming you’re familiar with the four temperaments, you know that one of the challenges of Persuasion Architecture is to satisfy the needs of the different buying modes on your website.  We generally recommend certain design principles for certain personas, but it’s often challenging to know how to satisfy a temperament if you personally aren’t in that Myers-Briggs profile.

Take me for example.  I’m an INTJ, which puts me in the Competitive profile, and I have Methodical tendencies (especially when shopping for something really expensive online).  I’m often at a loss to come up with ways to speak to Spontaneous and Humanistic profiles.  Maybe you’re in the same boat.

To that end, I found a great design approach for the Humanistic that I’d like to share.  I don’t know if the retailers over at Zappos subscribe to Persuasion Architecture or not, but they’ve implemented a subtle design element that I’d wager is extremely persuasive to Humanistic shoppers.  Notice on screenshot #1 (on the left), above the “search filtering” tool the little bit of copy about “Zappos Core Value #1.”  Intelligently placed near a picture of a person, the understated line of copy simply states that Zappos strives to “Deliver WOW Through Service.”  These core values rotate, so over time you’d be exposed to all 10 Core Values.

I like this approach for two reasons:

1. It doesn’t get in the way of the other 3 Temperaments.  This single line of copy doesn’t shout and doesn’t overpower other important page elements like products and the ability to narrow search results.  It simply sits there, quietly and calmly, waiting for the Humanistic to gravitate towards it.  The picture of a person serves to perhaps act as a ‘tractor beam’ for Humanistics who want to know a bit more about who’s behind the website.  NOTE:  Most Grok readers are well aware of Zappos because they get so much “buzz” about their marketing, their site design, their Twitter presence, etc., but remember that there are people out there who are still first-time visitors to their site.
2. You can drill deeper to learn more. See screenshot #2 (on the left) for what happens when the Humanistic shopper clicks on the “Core Value” design element.  Visitors are taken to the Core Values page, where interested Humanistics can feast on Zappos.com’s forward-thinking values (the ones you could argue have made them a leader in their space).  They even add a testimonial as icing on the Humanistic cake!  They’ve devoted some real estate outside the active window to talk about shipping promotions and direct visitors back into the browsing/buying process. Well played.

Should your copy this approach on your site?  Not really.  But take it as inspiration to start thinking about the things that make your company and your website unique, and about how to present that information to Humanistic visitors without decreasing your persuasive momentum.

And when in doubt, we always recommend you test and optimize to get to the optimum approach for your unique business.

Remember a few weeks back, when I wrote about the perceived marketing strategy for the Jenny Craig weight loss centers? At the time, I ruminated over the possibility that the marketing and advertising execs at Jenny Craig were either consciously or unconsciously using personas to drive the success of their celebrity spokespeople campaigns. (To read the original post, traverse over here)

I noted the distinct differences between Kirstie Alley (Spontaneous), Valerie Bertinelli (Methodical), and Queen Latifah (Humanistic), and applauded Jenny Craig for being savvy enough to create different marketing “languages” for each celebrity’s ads – language that resonated with the segment of the female market that was targeted. At the time, I wrote:

“It will be interesting to see if the next celebrity spokesperson for Jenny Craig completes the persona cycle by using a Competitive type. Hmmmm. I wonder who it will be. Who would you like to see in the spotlight?”

Guess what? Jenny’s new spokesperson is a Competitive.

It’s also a man.

NBA star Baron Davis of the Los Angeles Clippers is the newest face of Jenny Craig. Talk about competitive – a star athlete who has the drive to win at all costs. The story is that he is trying Jenny Craig as a way to “stay in shape during the off season.” There are no TV ads yet, but check out this copy taken directly from the Jenny Craig website:

“As a powerful professional point guard, Baron Davis never stops improving his game. And as a professional athlete, he knows that a balance of height and weight is crucial to a player’s performance. So when Baron wanted to drop weight in the off season to get into his best game shape, he went one-on-one with Jenny Craig and lost 19 pounds!*

As a busy guy on the go, Baron enjoys the convenience of Jenny Direct®, the at-home program where consultations are done over the phone and food is delivered right to your door!”

This is a Competitive type’s dream copy – talk of improving your game, striving for ultimate performance, and the convenience of the at-home program. It speaks directly to the heart of the potential customer.

Having a man complete the cycle isn’t bad at all; Competitive types in particular are drawn to achievers no matter what the gender. It will definitely bring in more male clients to Jenny, and Competitive women will see that weight loss can mean more than looking good in the mirror. It’s all about performance.

Kudos to Jenny Craig for some of the smartest marketing around – they are quickly becoming my new “poster child” for brilliant marketing to women.

But what about the methodicals – those who want their questions answered BEFORE they jump in and take action?

I found two different online dating sites with these two different approaches to getting visitors to interact with and sign up with their sites.

Match.com – Their home page is pure spontaneous – one image (is it just me or does that girl look like she’s 13?) and one action you can take  - “start searching now, it’s easy” -  plus one special offer “Guarantee – find someone special in 6 months or we’ll give you 6 months free.”   The whole home page is designed for someone in spontaneous mode who just wants to start looking, no questions asked.

Compare that to Plentyoffish.com - Their home page is mostly methodical.   New visitors see a list of four points (numbered, which the methodicals loved) answering questions that those methodicals want answered BEFORE they take even one action on your site.   (They’re not going to waste their time looking around until they determine it’s worth their while to spend time on this site.) Here’s the text from the home page:

1. We banish anyone who is extremely rude, has anger management issues, uploads fake pictures or is otherwise unfit to date.

2. Unlike traditional Dating sites we don’t put a pay wall between you and everyone you try and contact.

3. Social Dating is all about giving you tools you need to help YOU find someone. Traditional Paid Dating sites care about the exact opposite, raising prices and trying to keep you around longer. If paid dating sites gave you what you wanted they’d go bankrupt.

4. We delete and banish scammers, it’s easy to do. Traditional Paid Dating sites have little interest in deleting fake profiles because they could convince you to pay for the service.

The only image in the active window is actually an ad for a different dating site.    Other than signing in, the only action you can take is almost below the fold where they do actually show you some profiles you can start browsing.

I did notice that when you return to plentyoffish.com, you see a different page that is now designed for the more spontaneous with profiles for you to browse in the active window on the home page.

So – which approach is more effective?    That probably depends on if you are more spontaneous or more methodical.    When it comes to love, I think Woody Allen put it best….

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting this down.”
- Woody Allen,

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Here’s the promise Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, made to media buyers last November:

With Facebook you will be able to select exactly the audience you want to reach, and we will only show your ads to them. We know exactly what gender someone is, what activities they are interested in, their location, country, city or town, interests, gender [etcetera, etcetera] . . .

Several months later, this is the result:

Apparently, David at Broccoli & Cheese wasn’t a good target for this ad:

As you read this, thousands of 18-34 year old men are watching Tampax commercials. Not because they want to, but because television is an imprecise medium that makes it hard to get the right ads to the right people. As a result, we’ve been conditioned over decades to expect irrelevance at the commercial break.

But wasn’t the Internet, and in particular, social media, supposed to turn that tide? Take Facebook—they know more about my day-to-day life than my parents do, and surely enough to serve me ads that I’d find remotely useful. But they’re dropping the ball. Big time.

[...] Will someone out there besides Google please get their [expletive] together?

If MarineCFO’s Chief Financial Officer is reading this, chance are s/he’s not thrilled with Facebook.

To be clear, I don’t think MarineCFO was silly to place this ad. It’s just that, like me and perhaps even you, we’re easily seduced by the promise of demographics. We like to think it’s sufficient.

Demographics are like catnip for marketers.

They make being wrong feel so right. They always seem to have the right answer. They help us justify lazy decisions. They give us such wonderful opportunities to prejudge our audience — specifically, how they define themselves and what they want to hear, see or read — based on a few scant details. Yet by themselves, demographics can never be accountable for anything because they’re based on correlation, not causality.

Marketers, and the advertising platforms that prey on them, need to look beyond the logistics of ad placement and stop thinking of “targeting” as a one-way, two-dimensional process. Demographics are important, but without the context of psychographics [define], they’re quite often useless. To paraphrase Mark Twain, to a media buyer armed with vague demographic data, everyone looks like a target.

I wonder where and how these ads would have been placed had they planned the campaign with personas.

In this 20-minute tutorial, Ian Lurie of Portent Interactive and SEOmoz founder Rand Fishkin discuss how to create simple customer personas and use them to boost the performance and relevance of your website.

As anyone who’s read Waiting for Your Cat to Bark may know, we have quite a bit of experience adapting the customer experience to fit the needs of personas — and I’ll share some more ideas for how to create them in a moment — but first…

Take a moment to watch Ian and Rand’s wonderful crash course on personas:

Ian’s first step is to “Brainstorm 7 to 10 people.” If you’d like some ideas on how to do that brainstorming, here are some specific steps you can take to get started.

Ian’s 3rd step is to measure and research. At Future Now we call that “uncovery” and it’s absolutely key to your success. Successful uncovery plus personas is how you go from knowledge to understanding.Ian’s 4th step is writing out the personas’ stories — usually 500 to 700 words — including who they are, demographics, and psychographics. (If you need some help with the psychographics part, read about the four personality temperaments; a great starting point for understanding how people make buying decisions and how they’re viewing your website.

Avoiding Stereotypes

In Ian’s 4th step, the issue of stereotyping comes up. Stereotypes are incredibly harmful to personas. Why, if stereotypes are based on common attributes shared by a group, how can that be all that bad? Well, stereotypes keep you from digging past a few surface-level facts to truly understand the real person. They are a shortcut used by people to try to understand those who are different from them. This shortcut prevents you from having real empathy for that person, especially since the majority of stereotypes are negative. Ian seems to send some (understandably) mixed signals on this point. On one hand, he explains that it’s not so cut-and-dry as it may seem. Meanwhile, he recommends giving the personas funny nicknames (like “Ian The Angst-ridden”) to help us remember their core motivations. Although this does help you get inside their heads, be careful that the qualities you lump onto your personas don’t end up causing new, unintended stereotypes just from the name you give them. But Ian’s right; it’s not as simple as it seems.

(NOTE: Ian and Brian Bond can discuss these finer points in their upcoming panel discussion on personas at the Search Marketing Expo in Santa Clara. In the meantime, here are a couple more ways to get started with personas.)

Personas are powerful. Sure, some people claim they’re useless because they are artificial, not real people. But here’s the thing: Not everyone thinks or behaves like you do. (Yes, I hear the echoes of “Duh!” reverberating from your monitors right now, but how many times have you had an argument with a client or colleague because they want to run a commercial, create copy, or add functionality that they like. Personas give you a framework to have informed discussions about who your customers are, how they behave, and what they want.

Personas allow you to have empathy for customers who aren’t like you. Besides, if they don’t work, you can always fire them.

Finally, Ian’s 7th step is perhaps the most important: TEST your assumptions! Personas give you a framework for not only seeing what people do on your website, but for understanding why they do it. Think about it. You may run a test to see what happened, but do you really understand why? That’s where personas can really yield fantastic results.

P.S. If your personas aren’t working as well as you’d like, we can always help you optimize them.

“A lost wallet lies on a Manhattan street, stuffed with cash. A white middle-income male New Yorker, between 30 and 44, picks it up. Will he look for the rightful owner, or pocket the cash? Who knows? But if George Costanza, the white middle-income male New Yorker between 30 and 44 from Seinfeld, picks it up, everyone knows exactly what he’ll do. He’ll almost certainly keep the money, yapping endless self-justification to his friends at the coffee shop to conceal his feelings of guilt.”

This brilliant opening to Elizabeth Gardner’s Internet Retailer article, “Persona-lizing a Site,” shows exactly how personas [define] can lead to actionable insights that demographic and psychographic data alone can’t provide. But for me, her next example illustrates something far more important: How and why most of what passes for “personas” falls short. Here’s what she writes:

“It’s hard to target a message to a generic 35-year-old middle-class working mother of two. It’s much easier to target a message to Jennifer, who has two children under four, works as a paralegal, and is always looking for quick but healthy dinners and ways to spend more time with her kids and less time on housework.”

Of course, Elizabeth is just sketching her example persona to save space and to illustrate a broader concept, but you’d be surprised how many companies purchase (or create) “personas” that are little more than this kind of demographic segment with a name and photo attached.

Compare “Jennifer” from the last example to George Costanza, or any favorite fictional character, like Carrie Bradshaw or Atticus Finch. Can you imagine Jennifer speaking to you as easily as you could these other characters? Can you hear her express her likes and dislikes?

Of course not. Jennifer isn’t a living, breathing persona — she’s just a cardboard cutout, masquerading as a persona. She’s effectively mute, and that makes Jennifer all but useless.

If your marketing personas won’t talk to you the way your favorite fictional characters will, how can you possibly use them to plan conversations? How can you create persuasive content/copy for your personas if you can’t imagine their reactions as easily as you can simulate Costanza’s rationalizations?

Quite simply, you can’t — a point that Jason at 37 Signals drives home in his post on Personas. Notice that first on his list of things personas don’t do is “talk back.” Well, he’s right. Far too many so-called “personas” don’t talk back. And he’s also quite right in concluding that non-talking personas are all but useless.

But he’s stunningly wrong in two areas:

1. (Real) personas DO talk back (and answer questions, have opinions, etc.). Three-dimensional characters, such as Costanza, do talk back. And while personas aren’t a replacement for real life testing and results, the insights and answers they provide can guide and direct testing far more effectively and profitably than any other method currently used.
2. Personas are meant to facilitate persuasion, not usability. Good usability is generally a human thing. Effective design impacts all humans/users (within a given culture) similarly, whereas persuasion is very much an individual thing. What’s convincing to one person can actually be offensive to another — which can make relying on one’s self as a model for persuasion a particularly bad idea.

Without personas, we naturally tend to craft messages that are persuasive to ourselves; messages that often miscommunicate to our core audience. Even when we consciously try to account for the psychology of others, our abilities as intuitive psychologists often fail us; something that’s been well documented by social psychologists.

We’re all prone to misjudging others, especially those who are different; hence the need for psychological aids for creating empathy and motivational insight. And while personality theory and psychographics can help — as testified by their effective use by salespeople, marketers, politicians — theory has limitations when it comes to generating real, usable empathy.

Empathy created from less-than-conscious processing is different from perspective gained through conscious, cognitive analysis. In fact, according to research highlighted in Dan & Chip Heath’s book, Made to Stick, analytical thinking can actually impair empathy. This is why imagined simulation is a more effective vehicle for achieving empathy than conscious analysis.

So the “Costanza test” is actually a good litmus test for actionable personas.

For real people, talk may be cheap. But for personas, talking is really all they’re good for. And it’s these imaginatively constructed conversations that lead to persuasive messaging and improved marketing ROI. It’s talking that matters.

So if your personas don’t talk to you, fire them!

And then call Future Now

Those attitudes are changing. This month’s Internet Retailer magazine shows how companies like Future Now are using personas to bridge the gap between business and customer*; not by targeting specific people, but by attracting them according to their needs and buying preferences. By speaking their language. By anticipating their questions ahead of time in order to answer them at the right time. By reducing friction in buying process. And it works.

Just ask Steve Franzman, founder of Detoxologie.com, a client who used personas to boost conversion by 400%, and get a 2 to 1 return on a floundering Pay-Per-Click campaign. Steve didn’t even go for the full-on, from-the-ground-up implementation (see also: Howard Kaplan’s “six-figure” quote in the article). Instead, the company did a low five-figure analysis of its current site and used just four simple personas to get enough perspective to rework the entire website.

When it comes to personas, the return you get depends on how much you’re able to implement. It’s why we encourage clients like Steve to think big by starting small. As with any marketing spend, the focus should be on spending the least amount of money to generate the best possible return on investment. Time and time again, personas have proven to be the most effective tool to plan multi-channel campaigns. But not all personas are equal.

An entrepreneur struggling with a lot of other tough decisions, Steve spent a month pouring over whether he should invest in personas. His competition was marketing themselves in ways that made Steve uncomfortable. They seemed successful, but he didn’t want to be like them. He felt he understood his customers better and had serious empathy for their needs — his website just wasn’t showing that, and he didn’t know where to start. Before personas, he says, “Our customers were everybody and we didn’t know how to deal with them.”

If you feel the same way, you’re not alone. To find out how the use of personas can boost your marketing potential, don’t be shy. Reach out and ask us anything and everything about personas. But remember, with personas, you are what you implement. It’s like having your own customers as a personal trainer. Personas can tell what to improve and what to avoid, but it’s up to you to take the first step.

[*Pay attention, B2B's. You have customers, too.]

People View the World Through All Four Perspectives

At Future Now, we always caution people to be careful not to use this information to stereotype. While individuals operate from each of these perspectives, we do have preferences. It’s similar to right vs. left-handedness. For instance, people who would generally be considered Methodical can become Spontaneous at any moment. Just as it’s far easier to sign your name with your preferred hand, you can sign it with the other — even if the result is a bit awkward. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to design your website for only lefties or righties.

All Sales Are Complex

Since individuals each go through their own personal buying process, any sale has the potential of being a complex sale. As you’ll see in this screencast, the shift between a customer’s buying modalities, and the failure of a website to address them, can cause the buying process to break down. Companies must invest in understanding and planning for how these different modailities influence the buying process. This is why many companies have chosen to use customer Personas to help plan not just their websites, but entire multi-channel strategies.

When Personas Fail

Personas fail for a few sad-yet-predictable reasons. We’re often asked by potential customers to review and refine the Personas they’ve received from other firms in order to make them actionable, the way the Personas developed by Future Now are. It’s not always possible, but we try to salvage that investment. Oftentimes, the Personas they received elsewhere are nothing more than traditional market segments, lacking the types of nuanced personal insights it takes to really make them actionable. (Please contact us at Future Now if you want to learn more on about making your customer Personas actionable.)

In this screencast, I’ll show you a real life example of how — believe it or not — even my brother Jeffrey (also Future Now’s CEO) and I can shift from our own buying preferences to different modalities without realizing it at the time, or even consciously switch modes in order to complete a certain task. Everyone does this. It’s how Personas and buying modalities work together to create persuasive momentum.

Understanding Customer Buying Modes

. .

[Editor's Note: Want to know what motivates your customers to buy? We can help.]

According to ClickTale, total page length is not a strong factor in terms of how many people will scroll below the fold or reach the bottom of page.

• The average location for the fold is between 430 and 860 pixels down on the page.
• 76% of people will scroll below the fold.
• 15-22% of people will reach the bottom of the page.
• 64-68% of people will reach the halfway point of a page.
• 91% of pages are long enough to require scrolling.

This makes me wonder whether the same groups of people make it to the bottom of the page, regardless of where their web surfing takes them. This appears to relate to how different personality types interact with the web. Each type prefers to navigate in their own way, and particular groups, like Methodicals and Humanistics, are more deliberate in their information gathering and decision-making. These types make it to the bottom of the page far more often than their Spontaneous and Competitive cohorts, who demand instant relevance or they’re gone.

As the ClickTale article suggests, people are scanning and skimming a page’s content regardless of its size. Web developers should back away from trying to squeeze content toward the top of a page in order to supposedly make it easy to scan. Using proper amounts of white space, headers and sub-headers, along with bolded text and bullet points increases a page’s scannability for all personality types.

But keep in mind, shorter pages did perform slightly better. “Almost identical percentages of page views (15%-20%) reach the page bottom regardless of page height.” While the data was fairly similar regardless of the page length, shorter pages were closer to the 20% range.*

When it comes to critical elements, like calls to action, you don’t want 5% of visitors not seeing it. Pages have more power when they stick to one main idea per page. And remember, copy should be long enough to cover the essentials but short enough to be interesting. A site will generally get better search rankings by having highly relevant links from page-to-page. So, there are advantages to leaning toward shorter pages, but don’t sacrifice clear page design and layout to squeeze a few pixels off of a page’s length.

Bottom line: If you have good, well-formated web copy, they will scroll.

[*Note to Direct Marketers: Your ridiculously long, heavy-handed sales pages might be overkill.]

[His publishers said] “The End of Intuition” is a terrible name. So boring. But Ian Ayres didn’t believe it. That’s what he wanted to call his new book about how much better it is to test ideas through random trials rather than just trusting some marketing guru or focus group — or intuition. His editor thought he was nuts and insisted that “Super Crunchers” was a much zippier name.

So the two of them decided to do some random testing of his book on random testing. They took out a Google ad and half the time someone was doing a search on “data mining” or “number crunching,” a little ad on the right would appear for a new book called “The End of Intuition.” Half the time the same ad appeared for a new book called “Super Crunchers.”

Based only on this information, which title do you think won? Make your best guess, then keep reading.

To me, it’s pretty darn obvious; “Super Crunchers” had to perform much better if they keywords they targeted were “data mining” and “number crunching.”

Sure enough…

“Super Crunchers” got way more traffic — 63% — and thus became the title of his book.

I was actually a little surprised it wasn’t higher than 63%, but I don’t have access to the actual ad.

There are two types of people in customer research. There are Humanistics, who have a great ability to empathize with other people. They truly want to understand why people behave the way they do, what their deeper motivations are, and how to better relate to people. Then there are Methodicals. They’re superior number crunchers. They like statistics and spreadsheets. They base their decisions on facts (even if they’re merely justifying to themselves a decision that’s already been made based on emotion).

I’d be curious to see this test repeated with different keywords like “customer insight” or “customer research”or “understanding your customers.” These are keywords more likely to be used by Humanistics, who would be more attracted to the title “The End of Insight.”

If the subject matter of the book is truly aimed at more Methodical researchers, “Super Crunchers” is definitely the way to go. I’m not suggesting Ian change the title of the book. But never underestimate the power of words. The keywords you choose will affect your results.

Author of “Motivation from the Inside Out: Rethinking Rewards, Assessment, and Learning” and “Beyond Bribes and Threats: Realistic Alternatives to Controlling Students’ Behavior”, Alfie Kohn wrote this piece for the New York Times in 1993 about rewards in the workplace not motivating employees the right way.

Kohn suggests that these rewards act the exact same as punishments and create negative work environments.

I call BS on this simplistic presumption. The problem isn’t the reward itself. The problem is misunderstanding the person’s motivations and thereby offering the wrong reward.

Our whole lives are motivated by an internal sense of worth, measured by “rewards” — both internal and external. We’re each addicted to our own reward system. It stains every action we take.

The same applies to the buying process, and to your website.

Creating personas, profiles, and buying perspective for our clients is what we do each day at Future Now. This work is based on our instrument of choice, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Myers-Briggs is commonly used among psychologists, and has the largest database of respondents. Millions take this test annually.

According to the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (define) — which is based on Myers-Briggs but inspired by the ancient Greeks — people default to four primary temperaments:

• The Artisan (”SP”; Sensing-Perceiving)
• The Rationalist (”NT”; iNtuitive-Thinking)
• The Idealist (”NF”; iNtuitive-Feeling)
• The Guardian (”SJ”; Sensing-Judging)

In our work we focus tightly on how people prefer to behave in the buying process, so we label each temperaments differently to reflect just that. In Future Now-speak:

• The Spontaneous (”SP”; Sensing-Perceiving)
• The Competitive (”NT”; iNtuitive-Thinking)
• The Humanistic (”NF”; iNtuitive-Feeling)
• The Methodical (”SJ”; Sensing-Judging)

People tend to be surprised when they test themselves and find they’re an SP, SJ or NF. At this point, they’ll often say something like “Well, this doesn’t make sense… I’m extremely competitive!” Of course, most of the successful people we work with often are. Just because you’re not an “NT Competitive” doesn’t mean you don’t compete fiercely; you just compete for different reasons and different rewards.

The Spontaneous often competes and is primarily motivated by the thrill of the winning experience, the adrenaline rush.

The Competitive often competes and is primarily motivated by big-picture status, the trophy on the shelf.

The Humanistic often competes and is primarily motivated by the success of the team, one for all.

The Methodical often competes and is primarily motivated by the satisfaction of a job well done, winning is it’s own reward.

Of course, you’ll likely see a little bit of yourself in each of these — depending on the situation — but you may find one more appealing than the others.

Does this apply to your website? Of course!

Since buying usually triggers reward centers in the brain, these four types of motivations are relevant to the buying process. If you promise the wrong rewards, you’ll create a negative buying experience. Here’s somethings you can do in your product descriptions:

For the Spontaneous, briefly describe the thrill/experience the product provides.

For the Competitive, show them how the product will advance their goals.

For the Humanistic, show them how the product will positively affect others.

For the Methodical, describe in detail how the product will help them get things right.

If you have a minute, share some examples with us of websites that push your reward button — and let us know your temperament. Not sure of your own type? Take an anonymous (and free) online test.

These “dollar words” are truly excellent… at going over your audiences’ heads while keeping them from accomplishing their goals by taking the actions you’ve set out for them. Anyone who’s taken our Persuasive Online Copywriting course would agree; Jakob is singing our tune in his discussion of a usability test he did on the U.S. Census Bureau website:

Beyond banner blindness, the major reason this homepage failed is that it used made-up terms or branded descriptions rather than plain-spoken words. Terms like “Population Clock,” “Population Finder,” and “QuickFacts” are not as descriptive as a simple line of text that says:

Current population of the United States: 302,740,627

Once Jakob goes beyond the heatmap, things really get interesting. He uses gaze plots (click thumbnail for image) to describe 4 main classes of behavior — “search-dominant,” “navigation-dominant,” “tool-dominant,” and “successful” — and gives insightful descriptions for each. If one were so inclined to look at the same observed behavior through the lens of the personality types or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, they’d see beyond the how people clicked, and into the why they clicked. It’s how they’re wired, naturally, according to their preference, or type.

A: The Competitive type — what Jakob observed as “search-dominant user” in this study; Using the MBTI lens we’d shorten their preference to operating in “NT” (iNtuitive/Thinking) mode- working at a fast pace, with a logical bias. The Competitive quickly scans and skims everything, looking for a clue as to how to solve the puzzle. Neither Active Window [define] content nor navigation seemed to be the path of least resistance. (Notice: Competitive type didn’t even look in the right-hand column; they’ve been trained to ignore it.)

The right and left vertical lines clearly illustrate the Active Window, where a Competitive is most likely to spend time. (The same goes for all types, but the Competitive does this more often.) Once this person struck out with copy in the Active Window, they aimed for navigation and, after quickly striking out there, went to search.

As a footnote, Jakob adds, this “user” (don’t get me started) mentioned the ability to search faster for the answer… at Google.

B: The Methodical type — Jakob’s “navigation-dominant user”; “SJ” (Sensing/Judging) on the MBTI — behaves with a logical bias similar to Competitives, but with a far more deliberate pace. You know the Methodicals in your audience. They’re not easily satiated by the answers you give them. They want more. No detail’s too small. They want it all. The good news from a marketing communications perspective is they’re willing to give you their time — provided you’re willing to give them relevant content.

The Methodical approach was to look everywhere; Active Window, left navigation, right-hand column (where the answer was actually sitting, cloaked in techno-babble and jargon), above the fold, below. You name it, they saw it. They just didn’t find anything that seemed like the answer until, finally, navigation appeared “most promising”.

C: The Spontaneous type — Jakob’s “tool-dominant user”; “SP” (Sensing/Perceiving) on the MBTI; — behaves at a fast pace, with an emotional bias. They’re highly experiential by nature. (Notice how Jakob describes this type as people who “like parts of websites where they can do something”.)

The Spontaneous visitor clicked around briefly, mainly focusing on the interactive features, before most likely leaving in failure. The gaze went everywhere, without focus, until a single feature grabbed their attention — that is, until another rabbit hole appeared (on another website) that was more entertaining.

D: The Humanistic type — Jakob’s “successful user”; “NF” (iNtuitive/Feeling) on the MBTI; — behaves at a slightly less deliberate pace than the Methodical, but with an emotional bias. Testimonials were created for this type. Show them how you’ve treated other people like them, and you’ll gain their confidence.

My assumption that Plot D represents the Humanistic is based on a few observations and is a shining example of the value of optimizing your experience based on a plan, rather than some out-of-the-box analytics package or testing platform. Had we planned this experience using a customer-centric methodology like Persuasion Architecture™ [define], we would have a context in which to view this gaze; to know how far off the execution was from what we’d originally planned. That would give us an actionable approach to making website improvements.

With Plot D, I see someone who’s spent more time than the other visitors — except, of course, for the Methodical — not just scanning and skimming, but actually connecting. I also see someone whose gaze fell oddly on the right-hand column; a behavior we typically see when people are capable of scrolling with their mouse without actually looking at the gutter to find the down arrow. They intuitively know the scroll bar is there.

Each of these experiences could have been planned better to achieve the task at hand, but that’s a post for a different day. For now, simply consider that people are wired to behave according to different preferences, their behavior fueled by their own momentum.

For you to achieve your goals, your audience must first achieve theirs. That means presenting what they want, when and where they want it — even if you have to make a single product page speak to 4 different “types” of people. But that’s the beauty of the medium. Online, it’s far easier to measure and improve your plan dramatically over time.

(Author’s Note: Anyone think my headline would’ve been better if it were “What People Do on Your Site and Why”? Now do you see the power of plain-spoken language?)

[Editor's Note: Here's more on persuasive copywriting by personality type and how to make your site reader-friendly. Enjoy!]

Roy Williams qualified shoppers as operating in either one of two modes: transactional or relational, a few years ago. At that time some of us loafed around virtually, exchanging emails with friends, trying to complete a list of reasons that motivate people to buy things. (Thank you, Tom G. & Brett F.) More recently, we returned to compiling the list with the rest of my colleagues. Trying to understand these types of things is what drives us. It also benefits our clients.

The following is what we came up with, albeit likely incomplete.

Can you identify which of these motivations is relational and which are transactional? Can you see where they each fit within Maslow’s hierarchy of needs [define]? Will you help us find additional motivations?

Some of these are self-explanatory. The forces that influence whether people buy include:

Basic Needs – We buy things to fulfill what Maslow describes as the bottom of his hierarchy; things like food and shelter.

Convenience – You need something now and will take the easiest or fastest path to get it. Think about the last time you were running out of gas, or were thirsty and found the nearest beverage of choice. This could also be choosing the safe vendor (no one ever gets fired for hiring IBM), purchasing something to increase comfort or efficiency.

Replacement – Sometimes you buy because you need to replace old things you have (e.g., clothes that don’t fit or are out-of-date). This could be moving from a VCR to a DVD player.

Scarcity – This could be around collectibles or a perceived need that something may run out or have limited availability in the future. Additionally, there’s a hope to gain a return on investment, such as collectible or antiques; anything that accrues value over time.

Prestige or Aspirational purchase – Something is purchased for an esteem-related reason or for personal enrichment.

Emotional Vacuum – Sometimes you just buy to try to replace things you cannot have and never will.

Lower prices – Something you identified earlier as a want is now a lower price than before. Maybe you were browsing for a particular large screen TV and you saw a great summer special.

Great Value – When the perceived value substantially exceeds the price of a product or service. This is something you don’t particularly need, you just feel it’s too good a deal to pass up. (Like the stuff they place near the end caps or checkout counters of stores.)

Name Recognition – When purchasing a category you’re unfamiliar with, branding plays a big role. Maybe you had to buy diapers for a family member and you reach for Pampers because of you’re familiarity with the brand, even though you don’t have children yourself.

Fad or Innovation – Everybody wants the latest and greatest. (iPhone mania.) This could also be when someone mimics their favorite celebrity.

Compulsory Purchase – Some external force, like school books, uniforms, or something your boss asked you to do, makes it mandatory. This often happens in emergencies, such as when you need a plumber.

Ego Stroking – Sometimes you make a purchase to impress/attract the opposite sex; to have something bigger/better than others, friends, etc. To look like an expert/aficionado; to meet a standard of social status, often exceeding what’s realistically affordable to make it at least seem like you operate at a higher level.

Niche Identity – Something that helps bond you to a cultural, religious or community affiliation. Maybe you’re a Harvard alumni and Yankee fan who keeps kosher. (You can also find anti-niche identity by rebellion, assuming you’re pretty comfortable with irony.)

Peer Pressure – Something is purchased because your friends want you to. You may need to think back to your teen years to think of an example.

The “Girl Scout Cookie Effect” - People feel better about themselves by feeling as though they’re giving to others, almost especially when they’re promised something in return. Purchasing things they don’t need–or wouldn’t normally purchase–because it will help another person or make the world a better place incrementally is essential certain buying decision.

Reciprocity or Guilt – This happens when somebody–usually an acquaintance, or someone rarely gift-worthy–buys you a gift or does something exceptionally nice and/or unnecessary. Now it’s your turn to return the favor at the next opportunity. Examples:

• Event – When the social decorum of an event (e.g., wedding, bar mitzvah, etc.) dictates buying something or another.
• Holiday – ‘Nuff said.

Empathy – Sometimes people buy from other people because they listened and cared about them even if they had the lesser value alternative.

Addiction – This is outside the range of the normal human operating system, but it certainly exists and accounts for more sales than any of us can fathom.

Can you think back to the last time you bought something and fully explain the reason why?

These are the things we help our clients think about. We hope this list at least gets you started. And let us know if you need help understanding your customers motivations. It’s what we do. But in the meantime…

What do you feel motivates people to buy?

. . . . . . . . .

ADDENDA:

Fear – From pink Taser™ stun guns to over-sized SUV’s to backyard bomb shelters–and even stuff so basic as a tire pressure gauge–are bought out of fear. So, before you go knocking “fear” as a motivator, ask yourself: Are you Y2K compliant?

Indulgence – Who doesn’t deserve a bit of luxury now and then? So long as you can afford it, sometimes there’s no better justification for that hour-long massage, that pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream, or that $75 bottle of 18-year single malt scotch other than “you’re worth it” (best when said to self in front of mirror with a wink and/or head tilt).

Do you prefer Law & Order or The Wire? CSI (not Miami) or Columbo? “Who shot JR” or “Who shot Mr. Burns”? (Mind the generation gap where applicable.)

As I watched the Sopranos finale last week with friends, chilled by its genius–not suspense–I noticed the blank, cheated look on my buddy Kevin’s face when this happened.

Kevin: “What!? No way they just ended it… That’s ridiculous.”

Me: “Are you kidding me? That was some of the best television you’ll ever see in your life. You must be a J.”

Allow me to explain…

Here at Future Now, we’re obsessed with Myers-Briggs (define) typology, occasionally to the chagrin of our loved ones. Be careful. Once you’re good at it, qualifying people by personality type can be exclusionary. (One colleague’s girlfriend mocks us as “letter-talkers” for, say, describing an “ESTP” she’s never met.) But it’s important stuff. In addition to helping us better understand ourselves, it helps us relate to our clients and, more importantly, their customers. It helps us build personas that seem real.

Sure, Myers-Briggs has limitations. It’s not as though there are only 16 types of people out there–and be thankful for that. That’s why, when you find your Myers-Briggs type, you shouldn’t feel typecast. These are preferences and modalities, not the end-all-be-all of personality.

One of the more important divisions is in how we process information. Some folks are Type-J (Judging) while others are Type-P (Perceiving). Here’s a good explanation of key differences:

Judging . . . typically leads to a style oriented toward closure, organization, planning or, in some fashion, managing the things and/or people found in the external environment. The drive is to order the outside world.

Perceiving . . . typically results in an open, adaptable, flexible style of relating to the things and people found in the outside world. The drive is to experience the outside world rather than order it; in general lack of closure is easily tolerated.

See, I’d been telling people for months that it would just end, and nobody–nobody–believed me. That being said, it would’ve been perfectly fine by me had Tony gotten whacked, so long as it was really–and I mean really–well executed (so to say). As a Type-P, closure is overrated, and can sometimes seem insulting.

So, let’s hear reactions to the Sopranos ending from people who know their Myers-Briggs type. You don’t have to give us each letter, but I do look forward to the J’s debunking my theory (they love doing that).

Those who don’t wanna play are welcome to keep waiting for Chris Moltisanti’s cat to bark.

Despite the buzz, personas are poorly understood. Not all personas have the same purpose. They can be used to develop user interfaces, plan marketing, model buyers, and so forth. But all bring abstract data to life to increase empathy. It’s much harder to do than it sounds, and it’s really simple to screw up. If you do personas right but don’t use them, they fail. And if you apply the wrong type of persona to an exercise, it will fail even if it was well-crafted.

Continue reading my column on ClickZ…

P.S. My daughter Hannah turns 6 today. Happy birthday, Hannah!

Differences arise, however, when we discuss ways to “break through the clutter” to get that attention.

There’s a great article in Ad Age by DJ O’Neil called “There’s No Need to Be So Sensitive.” I agree 100% with O’Neil’s point that we’re becoming desensitized. And I somewhat agree that offending customers is getting harder.

As advertisers, our biggest fear shouldn’t have anything to do with offending these people. It should have everything to do with being ignored by them.

Well, yes, being ignored by customers isn’t fun. O’Neil gives examples where “edgy” (my word, not his) advertising that could’ve offended customers drew minimal or no complaints.

We once ran a half-page ad for a client, Slingbox, in USA Today. The headline boasted that Slingbox was “the best thing to happen to the business traveler since pay-per-view porn.”

Another time, we developed outdoor creative for a San Francisco radio station, Energy 92.7. We jokingly presented one concept with a headline that read, “Clubbing is no longer just for seals.” (Energy plays club music.)

Can I see how some people would find these ads funny? Sure. Would I have complained to the advertisers about either of those ads? No, I wouldn’t have wasted the time. I simply wouldn’t buy the product or listen to the radio station. Was I offended by the ads? Well, slightly by the seal clubbing, but I certainly wasn’t offended by the porn ad.

To each his own. What the Slingbox ad said to me was “this isn’t a product for you.” Okay, fine, that’s cool – maybe I”m not the target audience. I’m a business traveler, but whatever they’re offering, it probably isn’t for me.

As for the radio station ad, I love club music but that’s a powerful mental image. Every time I listen to that music, do I want the mental image of a bloody baby seal being bludgeoned? I don’t think so.

I’ll just listen to my iPod. Would I bother complaining? Nah. O’Neil is right; I’ve become so desensitized, what I would have complained about even a few years ago isn’t worth complaining about now.

If we hamstring ourselves with an overblown fear of offending the consumer, we’re truly screwed. The consumer, unlike my skin, is not nearly as sensitive as we think.

Great creative needs to be unexpected to connect emotionally with the consumer. And if we can’t push to the edges, we’ll be stuck in the middle. And that’s not very unexpected.

Here’s where I’d change the wording to make more sense: “Great creative needs to be unexpected to get the consumer’s attention.” Great creative needs to be relevant to connect emotionally with the consumer. (Just curious, is correlating dance music with dead seals creating an emotional connection with the consumer?)

Edgy vs. Creative

Here’s one example from my marketing to women research. There are two big discount designer apparel companies: Bluefly & TJ Maxx. Bluefly has gone with “edgy” marketing creating TV commercials and print ads featuring naked women surrounded by fully clothed people. “That’s why I Bluefly.” It gets your attention, that’s for sure. But for the women I polled, it didn’t connect with them emotionally. Reactions ranged from “I wanted to put a blanket over her shoulders” to “That’s my worst nightmare.”

TJ Maxx created TV Commercials that I’d term “creative.” The Maxx Moments feature women sharing spontaneous displays of joy brought on by finding designer fashion at discount prices. (I have to admit prejudice here. This commercial makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.)

Did I complain to Bluefly about their ad campaign? No. I simply stopped shopping there. I’m now a die-hard TJ Maxx fan.

So, please: DO be unexpected. DO stop using cliches and marketing hype. But don’t push the envelope just to push the envelope. Getting attention is a great thing, but make sure your message is relevant so you DO make an emotional connection with your consumer.

I recently ran across an article at CareerBuilder.com called “Examining the Alpha Male at Work.” The article talks about the four communication styles of most CEO’s. Check it out to see what category your boss falls into and how to deal with that communication style.

What I found most interesting is they claim that, with more women in the workforce, typical Alpha Male leadership styles aren’t cutting it anymore.

I just finished listening to Crucial Conversations and they are saying the same thing. They studied leaders and found the best ones have several things in common. Seems the “it’s my way or the highway” may not be as effective as it used to be. You still need confidence, but mix in a little humility and it’s amazing how quickly you can rally those around you to your cause.

What’s your boss’s communication style?

Oh, and if you can spare a moment, please let me know what you think about it.

Don’t miss the New York Times article that reports on a study where odors smelled during sleep can help people remember what they learned. Read: Study Uncovers Memory Aid: A Scent During Sleep by Benedict Carey

When Pavlov trained his lab dogs to salivate on command of a ringing bell, he inadvertently set the stage for over a century’s worth of conditioning-based consumer messaging. In the early decades of the 20th century, characters such as J. B. Watson and Edward Bernays “proved” that when businesses rang the right bell the right number of times, they could conjure desire and action in their audience through branding alone.Even fifty years ago, media outlets were inherently limited by geography and scope. Because consumers lacked broad exposure to alternative experiences, need-based behavioral marketing held sway. Indeed, response in the baby boom-era – folks really did buy the most heavily marketed goods and services – seemed to prove that customers could be conditioned to salivate on command.

Yet the close of the 20th century has been a boiling point for media fragmentation. The advent of the Internet and wireless technologies gave everyone access to information anytime and anywhere. The blossoming of media placed an unprecedented amount of information in the hands of customers, rendering geographic barriers moot. Most importantly, this sea change empowered customers to focus on what’s relevant to them and ignore the rest.

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A few months ago, before I began working with Future Now – prior to any formal interview, even – they mailed me a copy of Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank. Presumably, I was getting this book to preemptively further my copywriting expertise in case they hired me. They would have me learn a thing or twelve about their business by forcing me to read about something I’ve been doing on my own for years.

Did they mean to suggest I wasn’t persuasive? Can you imagine the nerve!? Six years of national magazine and print journalism experience, and another two years as an online copywriter and marketer! Had they not seen my resume?

When the book arrived, my curiosity stirred. Who was this Martian on the cover, and what exactly did s/he want from me? The word “persuasive” stuck in my head-as did “bank,” quite honestly. They’d hit a nerve.

I knew I was a good copywriter. (People kept hiring me, anyway.) Yet there was something different about online copywriting. Businesses trusted me to bridge the divide between them and their customers. But who were these confounded customers? What motivated them? How should I speak to them without seeming presumptuous or ’sales-y’?

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Around here, we rarely worry about whether a client’s business is B2B or B2C or any flavor in between. Because any “sale” takes place largely within the context of a customer’s buying decision process, we look instead at how customers view the complexity of the sale.This customer-centric perspective allows us to fine-tune the personas and scenarios that make up your persuasive system based on the various dimensions of your sale’s complexity.

As we proceed through uncovery, gathering information about how you sell and how your customers buy, we create little thumbnail portraits of your customers that will guide us through the process. We call these ComplexogramsTM. These visuals help you translate the nature of your business into terms that are meaningful and persuasive to your customers!

What’s a Complexogram? How do we use it? Glad you asked!
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Do men and women behave differently on the Internet?”Yes,” say several reports released this year.

In August, Forrester Research published the report, “Men Are From CNET, Women Are From iVillage – Gender Roles Persist Even As The Technology Adoption Gap Closes.”

Here are some key findings from the report:

• Finding 1: Men Value Technology More Than Women
• Finding 2: Men Are More Active Online
• Finding 3: Men Outdo Women When It Comes To Media Consumption

• Finding 4: Women Favor Media Content About The Home, Fashion, And Family

Seems obvious, right? But is there more to the story?

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