Recently, I moved to Boston and began the search for the perfect gym.  I got recommendations from friends, did some research online, and even visited a few in the area to discuss membership options.  But, my instincts told me that if I could just wait one more week, some amazing deal would come along.

Last week that deal appeared in my inbox from Groupon; $24 for 24 day passes, a $480 value, saving me 95%! I couldn’t have been happier.

Sites such as Woot.com, Amazon’s Gold Box, Groupon.com, BeyondTheRack.com,  Ruelala.com and BillionDollarBabes.com have been appearing in recent years in the online retail space and I have to say, my friends and I are in love! We often share sites, tell each other about deals, and spread the good word-of-mouth (and email) to just about anyone who will listen.

Sites such as these offer promotional sales for clothing brands, restaurants, gyms, hotels,  spas, wine, vacations, and just about anything else you can imagine. The key is that they are timed so that the deal expires after a set duration.  And, after some thought and discussion, I’ve decided that the expiration factor (The X Factor) is key.  It’s a new twist on the “sense of urgency” sales and marketing tactic that’s been around for a very long time.

Example: I have this “friend” who considers herself a fairly frugal shopper, and never would purchase a pair of $100 boots in a store, or even online from a site like Zappos, but when she found a pair of $475 boots on sale for $108 on beyondtherack.com, she couldn’t help herself! She easily forked over her credit card information in fear of “losing the deal.”

“Persuasive fear” has emerged in this space and visitors are rewarded for their quick-to-convert action.  Never before have I heard of so many Early Stage visitors going straight to Late Stage in a matter of moments! I’m excited see how these sites continue to change the online retail space and morph the buying stages into a single-stage process. What I wouldn’t give to have a look at their analytics!

The question is, do these types of “buy now or lose out” sites pose a legitimate threat to mainstream retail big-brand eCommerce sites? Or, will they always be niche business that only appeals to spontaneous deal hunters? Sound off, please

If you’re going to beat your competition and get the business this holiday season,  you’ll need to be creative with your promotions and make sure that they appeal to your potential customers. It’s obvious if you try to cut corners, this turns your visitors off. Go out on a limb, take a look at the specials your competitors are offering, and then offer your visitors something even more appealing.

DSW sends me emails and direct mail with coupon codes for exclusive, limited time offers. They have sent me “holiday versions” of these marketing communication pieces continuously over the last couple of weeks. Their site offers more limited time offers for free shipping and $20 off an online purchase of $99 or more. DSW successfully persuades first time visitors to take advantage of great offers and they also do a wonderful job at reaching out to existing customers with exclusive offers we simply can’t resist!

Apply some of these tactics to your own marketing communications mix. Feature free shipping and exclusive, limited time offer coupon codes on your site. Send emails and/or direct mail pieces to your existing customer base, and offer them a great deal. Where you don’t have room to offer your customers a lower price than your competitors, be creative with how you can differentiate yourself using “specials.” Free shipping on orders that meet a minimum dollar amount work great. You could also offer a $25 gift certificate for every $100 dollars spent. If you’re really strapped and can only offer deals where it’s going to have the biggest impact, you could offer the great deals to those who have demonstrated intent to buy but are unlikely to buy unless you offer them a deal.

What other types of promotions would appeal to potential customers when doing their holiday shopping? If you come across any sites that offer different promotions than the ones I’ve listed here, please share them.

Your visitors are empowered with the ability to access information with the click of a button. You can’t pull a blind-fold over their eyes or manipulate them into anything. They’ll find out the truth with or without you being upfront about what that truth looks like. Being transparent means that you’re being vulnerable, exposing all your wrinkles, scars and bumps, but it also means you’re fully disclosing what makes you better and different.

How can you be completely transparent on your site, you ask? Compare your products and services to the visitor’s other options directly on your site. This will help you build credibility because you’re showing all characteristics and aspects of the product and service you offer, and are willing to display what might be better or worse about competing products and services. Let the visitor then make an educated decision based on this information. After all, the visitor’s main questions are; What’s in it for me? What makes you unique and different from my other options?

If you don’t make the comparison for the visitor, they’ll likely try and make a comparison on their own, and then perhaps the information they find out elsewhere will be skewed in the wrong direction.

Toyota gives us a great example, showing us how to effectively compare their product to their competitors. The screenshots show a compare tool that Toyota features on their site where you’re given the ability to compare a vehicle you’re interested in to all other brands and each model. They even show you the most common competing vehicles to the one you’ve identified. They make it easy for you to compare exactly what you’re looking to compare. They even have various in-depth comparison chart options, where you can choose to compare details on “cost,” “features,” “fuel economy,” etc.

Does anyone have any other great “comparison” examples? What other things can be done to achieve more and better transparency?  Let us know. Need help making your online presence more transparent and effective? Let us know.

If you’ve ever shared office space with colleagues you really liked and respected, you’ve already twittered.  You’ve already gotten a “feed” of interesting thoughts, updates, recommendations, etc.

Twitter simply allows you to do that with people in other offices/cities/countries.  Think about what you would and wouldn’t share with your office-mate before sending it out on twitter:

• Participating in a group conversation?  Yes, but try to make sure the conversation has value to the rest of the people on your feed and/or make the conversation private.  If I’m your office-mate, I don’t want to listen to your full volume phone conversation with someone else – unless of course the conversation is really that relevant or interesting.

• Occasionally letting people know about cool stuff you’ve created?  Yes, but don’t make it all about you all the time.  No one wants to hear a constant stream of chest thumping at the office.

• Sharing cool websites, blog posts, online articles, etc?  Sure, but don’t flood my twitter feeds with them.  Do the winnowing for me so that I know a link from you will really kick butt.  This doesn’t mean shy away from tweeting offbeat links you think are really cool (let you’re freak flag fly high, baby), just refrain from forwarding on links that you don’t consider must-reads.

• Posting cool or motivating or thought provoking quotes?  Meh.  Every now and then, isn’t too bad, if the quotes are striking, rather than just “inspiring,” but don’t get either too “successories” nor too Despair.com on us.  No one wants to share an office with either a relentlessly upbeat Pollyanna or a “life sucks and then you die” cynic.

• Sharing passing thoughts?  An interesting thought a few times a day is welcomed.  A thought an hour clogs my feed – unless of course your thought has some real substance behind it, which brings me to…

• Sharing insightful comments that (sort of) cohere into a big idea?  Hell, yeah!  If you’re not already following her, Kathy Sierra does this, and it’s her twitters that I look forward to reading most.  Imagine sharing an office with a consistently prescient or incisive thinker who generously shares her perspective.  Who wouldn’t want that?

Of course, when the whole twitter-sphere is your water cooler, you can do more than just impact the conversations that pop up within you “office” – you can seek out people who routinely tweet on the topics that most hold your imagination captive, and, with a bit of tact, introduce yourself and join their twitter conversations.  Here’s one way to do it:

Step 1: Go to a tool like http://search.twitter.com/ and search on frequent topics of conversation for you (or you can use the built in search in an application like TweetDeck)

Step 2: Scroll through the results till you find an insightful comment.  Then check out there twitter page, see if the keyword represents a common topic for them, and introduce yourself and add meaningfully to the thought or conversation.

• While it goes without saying, for clarity’s sake, let me emphasize that you should never, ever promote yourself or your business when doing this.  If you can’t join the conversation for the sake of the conversation and NOT simply as a front for self-promotion, then forget about Twitter altogether.

Step 3: If a good dialogue develops, you can add them to your twitter feed, subscribe to their blog etc.

Step 4: You have now expanded your grapevine network while enjoying interesting and intelligent tweets.  Just like the offline world, great conversations rarely happen by accident – it’s up to you to seek out and surround yourself with intelligent people of shared interests.

When I fall off the wagon, every so often, I’ll go ahead and pick a keyphrase and start clicking through PPC ads and their landing pages and take screenshots of the whole entire experience. You can’t imagine how often the experience from keyword to ad to landing page is broken. I want to call them and yell at them to subscribe to OnTarget. I don’t do it. Instead a few weeks or months will pass and the same advertisers drop those ads.  I can just hear their internal discussions as they analyze their metrics and rationally conclude that keyphrase X doesn’t convert for us.

(Maybe we should start the Internet Marketing Darwin Award for PPC ads.)

Keywords Don’t Fail to Convert… we fail to convert visitors for that keyword.

Do you believe the keyphrase you chose is relevant to your business? If it is, then your responsibility is to show every visitor how that keyphrase is relevant to their needs. Every visitor that comes to your site is not completely unique. They have various mostly foreseeable motivations persuading them to buy and various foreseeable objections that would keep them from buying. Ask yourself:

• What is their intent in usingthose keywords?
• What need or desire are they trying to fulfill?
• What is their goal?
• How do we align our goals to meet theirs?

PPC ads are just like tapping someone on the shoulder. PPC ads are only meant to grab attention not convert. If you want to convert your visitor you need to work on the rest of the experience (the conversation) beyond the click.

Do you make any money when a visitor just clicks your ad? No.

So instead of thinking of PPC as pay per click start thinking of it as pay per conversation.

Devote some resources to optimizing your conversations.

How to Get Started Optimizing your Keyword Marketing

1. The first thing you need to do is bucket your keyphrases. Start with the first 100 or so top phrases that drive traffic to your website. For each one of those classify the terms by phase in the buying process. Does the keyphrase apply in the early, middle or late stage of the buying process?

If the term is driving traffic to your site but not really relevant to your business put it in a disqualified bucket for now. For FutureNow one of those terms is “convertion rate.” It may be a harmless typo but time has shown that if they can’t spell conversion they aren’t likely customers.

An example: Someone is planning to buy a new television set. Early in their buying process they might use phrases like LCD tvs, best LCD tv, or LCD tv reviews. As they progress to the middle stage you might see keyphrases like compare Sharp and Sony LCDs, LCD tv 1080 dpi and then move on to specific models in the late stages like Sony KDL-52XBR6.

2. Define and realign your goals with your visitors. Would you expect every person you went out on a date with to marry you at the end of the first date? So why do we expect every keyword to convert visitors to our ultimate goal, the sale or the lead? Our job is to get them there, but based upon their buying preferences, they may not be able to be moved any faster than they are prepared to.

Start planning micro-goals along the way to your macro-goal (sale or lead). Someone earlier in their buying process might not be ready to commit on their first visit. Plan smaller milestones or micro-goals that may lead that person to convert at a later point in their process.

Why don’t many more early or middle stage landing pages have some easy way to capture a visitor’s email address with some kind of offer? 

If your web pages were sales people, how many of them would you fire or at least get trained?

Don’t pay for a keyphrase or a date if your only expectation is a  full commitment at the end.  You need to romance them and show them all your best moves. (Warning – this is conversion advice and it works but I’m no dating expert, just ask my wife.)

Some examples: Maybe you can offer them a buyer’s guide download, a coupon for their first time purchase, an offer to see a webinar about how to choose the product/service they are considering or a price alert notification if this item goes on sale.

Every keyphrase should have a goal that is in alignment with the visitor’s stage in their buying process.

3. Measure your success and build confidence. Respect and support your customer’s journey along their buying process by pulling them along instead of trying to push them to commit too fast. That is the friction that is caused by your sales process colliding with, instead of aligning with, their buying process. This is what creates cognitive dissonance. What you need to build is confidence. Your visitors need confidence that you are there to support their buying process and confidence in your ability to address all their needs and wants in order to convert visitors at all stages.

Start tracking and evaluating your keyphrases and landing pages by how well they support moving visitors through the buying process.  Analyze these micro-goals and continuously optimize the experience to move further and further along so that you keep them on target. Every step closer to the macro-goal is a success, every visit that just bounces is a failure.

Take these 3 steps now and you’ll enjoy a more confident and lucrative 2009.

P.S. This post was inspired by my presentation at Search Engine Strategies in Chicago. Read about it on the AimClearBlog.

I was also lucky enough to get a signed copy of my friend Andrew Goodman’s updated book Winning Results with Google AdWords, Second Edition.The first was was great and I am looking forward to reading this one over the weekend.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve also been watching many self-proclaimed marketing gurus speak of social media’s role in filling in the gap during the economic downturn. While social media should be a part of any forward-thinking and transparent company, I would urge caution if you believe that you can monetize it easily or quickly. It’s also not a magic pill for traffic building.

But for those who think I’m a naysayer, I must admit I am a social media addict. I will also go on the record to say that you can successfully use social media for marketing.

The biggest problem I have with the term “social media” is that it isn’t media in the traditional sense. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the others I don’t have the word count to mention aren’t media; they are platforms for interaction and networking. All the traditional media — print, broadcast, search, and so on — provide platforms for delivery of ads near and around relevant content. Social media are platforms for interaction and relationships, not content and ads.

To be truly effective using these interaction platforms, you must understand why we use them.

Real-Life Example

Before Halloween I teamed up with Chris Brogan to play a game using Twitter. We called it Trick or Tweet. Here were our rules:

1. Send a tweet to someone and ask, “Trick or tweet?”
2. If they say, “Tweet,” you must provide them with a couple of interesting people they should follow. If you don’t provide them with someone new, then you owe a trick.
3. If they say, “Trick,” send them a link where they will have to contribute to charity using the ChipIn widget. The maximum we ask anyone to donate is $20 for the day. Every cent we collect will be sent to charity.

We raised $282. Not too bad. But more important, we learned more about what moves people to take action. We learned that people loved to play but are less willing to pay.

As of this writing, Twitturly shows there were 150 tweets with an estimated reach of more that 165,000. This only measures the number of people who sent the link around, though there were many others playing. Clearly it was a successful game, but the metrics didn’t translate into the big money I had hoped for charity.

While this is an anecdotal example, it demonstrates social media’s power to reach and engage people — on their terms, not yours. People are attracted to people. People used the game mostly to connect with other people.

Social media isn’t an advertising and branding platform; it’s a hyper-interactive relationship-builder. Social media isn’t a magic pill for traffic woes; it’s used to deepen longer-term relations.

When you engage in social media, you enter into an unspoken social contract. You are in a relationship; it goes both ways. There are boundaries. Respect and trust must be earned.

Tips for Using Social Media

Here are a few ways to view and use social media:

• Be transparent. Share the good and the bad.
• Be yourself. People want to connect with real people, not with plastic packaged images.
• Don’t breach the social contract by doing nothing but selling your wares.
• Take interest in others and share valuable information, even if it doesn’t benefit you directly.
• Listen. You can learn a lot.
• Be patient. Let things grow organically.
• Viral campaigns can and do work, but they are the exception to the rule. (In other words, only the masses have the power to deem something viral).

I look forward to meeting and tweeting and Facebooking with you about marketing and social media, or anything that we both find interesting.

P.S. As an update to the Trick or Tweet event, thanks to the Twitter community and an anonymous matching donor, we raised $200 each for Epic Change, Florida Borderline Personality Disorder Association, and e-Mail Our Military.

At a time when filling the gas tank can seem like a spending spree for many consumers before they even set foot in a store, the prospect of having an item delivered to their homes free of charge holds considerable sway. Free shipping offers now abound online, and experts forecast that, as the calendar moves closer to the all-important holiday selling season, websites that don’t provide free shipping (even if it comes with a minimum-spend prerequisite) will be at a competitive disadvantage…

…Studying the list of online shoppers’ favorite retailers yields some interesting findings. Four retailers specialize in large-size apparel; considering this is a niche market, that’s an impressive showing. It’s likely that many large-size shoppers – still an underserved group despite growing numbers of people buying apparel in these size ranges – feel more relaxed purchasing online, as it provides anonymity and the chance to try clothing on at home.

I was a bit surprised to find Google on the list of retailers. Why do you think they made it?

Who is your favorite retailer? How come?

If you are a retailer, will you be offering free shipping this holiday season? What is the reasoning behind your decision?

9:00 am – 9:20 am

Seth Godin on how to get your ideas to spread:

Click here to view the embedded video.

9:30 am – 10:00 am

Avinash Kaushik on how to create a data driven culture:

Click here to view the embedded video.

10:00 am – 10:10 am

Mike Grehan on the future of Search.

Click here to view the embedded video.

10:11 am – 10:15 am

CommonCraft on social media in plain english.

Click here to view the embedded video.

10:15am – 10:30 am

Please take a 15 minute networking break. Find some great people on twitter or friend some fine people on Facebook. On twitter you can follow me @TheGrok or on FaceBook @Bryan Eisenberg.

10:30 am – 11:10 am

Doug Mack, Carrie Johnson, David Daniels on Web 2.0 and what it means for retail from Shop.org.

Click here to view this presentation.

11:10 am – 12:00pm

Mitch Joel & Carrie Johnson on Social Shopping: How to Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Customer Control

Click here to view this presentation.

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Enjoy your lunch break.

1:00pm – 1:20pm

Ze Frank on …

Click here to view the embedded video.

1:30pm – 1:45pm

Gary Vaynerchuk on building personal brand within the social media landscape

Click here to view the embedded video.

1:45pm – 2:00pm

Rand Fishkin on SEO for branding and blogging for higher rankings.

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday-SEO for Branding from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

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SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday-Blogging for Higher Rankings from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

2:00pm – 2:05pm

Chris Anderson on Free! why $0.00 is the future of business.

Click here to view the embedded video.

2:05pm – 2:50pm

Bill Tancer on Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters.

Click here to view the embedded video.

2:50pm – 3:00pm

Chris Brogan on new media’s necessary evolution for progress. Rated R for language.

Click here to view the embedded video.

3:00pm – 3:30pm
Please take a break and speak to some real people

3:30pm – 3:35pm

Andy Beal on how to monitor your competitors.

Click here to view the embedded video.

3:35pm – 4:30pm

Adaptive Path staff on customer experience and how it integrates with marketing efforts.

Click here to view the embedded video.

4:35pm – 4:45pm

Chip Heath on making ideas stick.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There were several topics we wanted to include but didn’t make it in because either;  there we no presentations of it online, we weren’t thrilled with the content available, or Iweran out of time in trying to keep this virtual conference to one day.

Some of the important topics we wanted to cover:

1. the importance of good copywriting online
2. comparing search, display, ppc, cpm, cpa, etc.
3. creating efficiencies in your marketing
4. marketing in a recession
5. Integrated Brands & Interaction: connecting your online to your offline channel
6. preparing your organization for social media
7. why organization must adopt a continuous improvement process for their marketing efforts

What topics would you like to have seen?

P.S. We made the decision to leave any of our presentations/interviews out of the agenda to eliminate any bias, but if you want to watch some of our presentations, here you go:

1. How to get your organization to start testing

2. How to use personas to increase sales

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. Using Persuasion Architecture to improve your online results

Techcrunch sums it up:

Blogging is a volume game. The more you post, the more chances there are that someone else will link to one of your posts. (Technorati rank is based on the number of recent links to your blog). The majority of the Top 100 blogs tracked by Technorati post five or more times per day, and a full 43 percent post more than 10 times per day. Meanwhile, 64 percent of the 5,000 blogs ranked lower than 600 post two to four times a day, which is still a serious commitment.

The linking stats may be true, but what do readers think about it?

Do you prefer blogs that post 1 or 2 relevant posts a day, a few times a week or ones that publish more frequently? Which blogs are you most likely to remember?

“Fox News Channel wants more friends. But instead of reaching out on the News Corporation’s own social network, MySpace, the cable news channel is choosing to network on the site’s chief rival, Facebook.

Think it has anything to do with MySpace’s existing partnership with MSNBC? Fox says it has more to do with audience.”

This is a sign of the maturity of social media, but even more so of News Corporation’s new media sophistication.

Many of our readers are big fans of social networking sites so I want to find out your opinions. If you were in charge, would you have done the same? Would you have used both or perhaps even other sites? Do people want to find and consume news in a social network? Inquiring minds want to know.

Seriously, the oceans are in horrible shape, and it’s your fault. You did it, Supply, Demand, Pollution and Overfishing. And if we don’t take ownership now, our brands, our children, and our collective appetite for seafood may never forgive us.

I’m not trying to bum you out, but the next time you feel the need to impress clients or co-workers with your sushi-ordering skills, you should at least know whether you’re eating sustainable fish. (Either way, you’ll have to kiss your Chilean Sea Bass goodbye.)

Perhaps you’re wondering, “What’s all this hippy, save-the-Earth stuff got to do with online and multi-channel marketing optimization?” Great question, and I’m glad you asked.

By now, you’re familiar with the environmental catch-all term “green marketing,” but what you may not realize is that “blue marketing” is a relatively untapped way to differentiate your brand while raising awareness for an urgent problem that affects everyone. Besides, it’s not easy being green, because, when everyone’s doing something “green,” it loses meaning fast. (Seth Godin has a great post on the coming backlash over green marketing.)

A quick anecdote to make my point: The other week, I saw two containers of soy milk — original flavor, same brand, same size — sitting next to each other in the fridge at my corner store. One of the containers had a green cap, the other didn’t. I picked up the container with the “green caps for green energy” promotion, turned it around, and saw that they were promising to donate 30 kilowatts of “green power” (solar power?) if I entered the number from under the cap into the database on their website. Pretty smart, right? Well, yeah, but when the first words I read are, “Can one little green cap change the world? Just maybe.” I have my doubts. Even if their campaign is a great idea, it’s lost amid the over-branding of “green.”

It’s sad, but as much as we care about the planet, Broca is tuning out.

Making Waves

World Ocean Day happened on June 8 and, if you’re like me, you didn’t think to commemorate it. Still, I have been paying attention. Did you know that if we don’t curb overfishing, pollution and global warming trends, there will be no more (edible) fish in the sea by 2048?

It’s true. Here’s how I found out:

The URL at the end caught my attention, so I went to Oceana.org/matingseason.

Oceana is the world’s leading ocean conservation group, and their website is full of blue ideas. You can become a WaveMaker, tell your grocer to buy sustainable fish, find out why you should say no to shark fin soup, and you can even download a pocket seafood guide so you always know if you’re ordering something sustainable and low-mercury.

Not concerned with saving the fish? How about saving the humans? As the climate of the ocean changes, so goes the rest of the world. Anyone who’s lived through the East Coast heat wave these past several days will find it easy to believe that 11 of the warmest years on record have happened in the past 13 years and ocean temperatures are rising.

How to Avoid Drift Net Marketing Tactics

Whether your eco-friendly marketing initiatives are focused on land or sea, here are a few ways to build trust, encourage word of mouth, and keep it financially sustainable (read: the other “green”):

1.) Be specific — What’s the exact dollar amount you’re trying to raise? What’s the exact percentage you’re donating, and to whom? Why are you donating to that cause and that specific non-profit?

2.) Campaigns are best — It’s so much easier to track and manage special promotions at the campaign level than it is to track it across the entire organization. By focusing on campaigns, you can see very closely how and why your customers and clients are responding to your environmental marketing efforts at each touch point across channels.

3.) Don’t guilt trip — Nothing is a bigger turn-off. People donate because they want to, not because you’ve nagged them to. Be careful not to come off as holier-than-thou about whatever cause you’re promoting. (I was at an event to raise money for drinking water in sub-Saharan Africa the other night, and the CEO of the company that was hosting the event was yelling into the microphone, acting as though attendees — who’d already donated $100 just to be there — were being cheap if they didn’t raise their hands to sponsor a $5,000 well, and literally shushing the crowd like they were in a grade school library. Whatever the online equivalent of that is, don’t do it.)

If Sharks Were Marketers…

Ideally, giving to a great cause should be the icing on the cake that encourages fence-sitters to convert to happy customers. Whatever you do, don’t go the drift net route and merely advertise your brand’s inner green- or blue-ness as though it’s self-evident. Each year, tens of millions of sharks are killed by drift nets while marketers like us roam free.

Hmm… If sharks had better marketing support, maybe we wouldn’t have an irrational fear of them.

“…over the past week, I listened to you, and in the process, I found my own voice.”

There was a lot of chatter about Hillary’s emotional moment in a coffee shop caught on video. Watching that moment, many people thought, “Wow, I think for the first time ever, I just saw the real Hillary.”

One of the common complaints about Hillary is that she comes off as cold, almost robotic. Are we going to see a change?

Does your website sound like Hillary Clinton? Or at least, um, how Hillary used to sound (e.g., last week)? Are you using techno-jargon, cliches, stiff corporate speak? Does your brand’s voice sound authentic? Do your website visitors have a sense of who you are and what really matters to you? The vast majority of websites have copy that sounds robotic and predictable. Add unsubstantiated claims to the mix, and you come across as phony (another common complaint about Hillary).

What can you do to change that? How can you do a better job of connecting with clients and customers online? How can you create a “voice” for your website? Read this: “Two Simple Steps for Finding Your Website’s Voice“

REJECTED! Ooof. How do you feel about being rejected?

I had one of those hey-what-am-I-chopped-liver experiences with eHarmony, too. They didn’t exactly send me a Dear John letter or stamp ‘Rejected’ across my torso, but they also didn’t find me any matches, which left me musing how there can be millions of people signed up with this service, and I don’t match up with a single one.

Money I paid. Months I waited. Then those harmonious match-makers told me they were going to suspend my account due to inactivity.

I shot them back a letter. “Give me a match, just one frigging match – even Outer Mongolia is looking good today – and I’ll show you activity!” They kept me on for another month, then dropped me again. I finally bagged eHarmony and wondered whether the planets were inauspiciously aligned for finding love that year. Or whether I was, indeed, chopped liver.

Talk about your failed relationships!

When you consider starting a new relationship, what do you worry about deep down? I’m worrying about…

• whether we’ll be able to understand and respect each other
• whether you are going to be able to acknowledge and accept who I am
• whether you really possess the attributes I’m looking for
• whether I’m going to put all this time into something and wind up with nothing

Most of all, I worry about putting myself on the line and then getting dealt with badly. Rejected. Abandoned. Betrayed. These are the terrible consequences we all fear in any relationship.

This doesn’t apply solely to romance-based relationships; it applies to almost all the relationships in our lives, including customer/business relationships. Businesses usually begin this relationship through their marketing messages.

eHarmony advertising focuses on the relationship you’ll have when you meet Mr or Ms Right. In The Black Table, Joel Keller writes,

But those ads… those freakin’ ads! Commercial after commercial of deliriously blissful men and women embracing, kissing, and smiling longingly at each other. Testimonials up the wazoo that show how wonderful and strong the matches are between people who have signed up. It’s all so lovey-dovey and sweet that my butt clenches involuntarily while listening to them.

But eHarmony seems to gloss over the part detailing how you and they are going to work together to make this happen, over the relationship they will develop with you. And this is the marketing piece that is crucial to their customers’ felt needs. As Joel Keller explains it,

Many people who have used eHarmony, … which matches people using a psychological survey that measures, in their words, “29 dimensions of compatibility,” haven’t been so lucky. Some have been matched up with people that took the survey but never signed up and paid for the service. Others have been deemed to be compatible with people that weren’t looking for a commitment or a person with whom they had little in common. Still others have been connected to people that they wouldn’t even be attracted to in the dark.

This is a failed relationship!

It’s all about the felt need

When it comes to matchmaking, people want to find friendship, maybe love, maybe a permanent relationship, maybe merely the opportunity for casual flings. But before they start to address that felt need, they have to deal with the felt needs of their deepest fears: rejection, abandonment and betrayal. This is hardly confined to potential matches; it applies equally to the matchmakers themselves.

Chemistry.com gets it. They address this need first: We do not believe you are chopped liver. Then, through their online entity, they go about growing their relationship with you.

[Note: Compare Chemistry’s home page with eHarmony’s home page. The primary call to action on both sites is getting the customer to supply information and get started. But which of these home pages offers clear, intuitive ways to learn about the business itself? Big tabs on Chemistry, plus some forums and articles. Tiny links buried in the No Man’s Land of screen real estate on eHarmony. This should be a big relationship red flag!]

At the end of the day, you are in the business of creating relationships. And if you want those relationships to grow beyond the carrot of promise you dangle before the eyes of your audience, then you have to work at it. My mother always told me, “You want to learn who a person really is? Pay a lot less attention to what they say and a lot more attention to what they do.” Warm-fuzzy language may capture attention, but it’s dependable action that cements relationships.

Sadly for eHarmony, there’s a fair chunk of blog-space given over to what they do, and it isn’t positive. Let’s face it. Divorce is almost always an exercise in smearing lots of bad blood all over the shop. You so don’t want to go there with your customers!

Dig deep into the concerns your customers bring to the table when they consider doing business with you. Identify their deepest concerns when they are deciding if you are the business for them.

Will you really understand their needs in the relationship they hope to develop with you?
Are you really going to accept them for who they are and speak to that, not only in your sales process but also their buying process?

Will you deliver on your promise to value them and go the distance on their behalf?

Address these issues in your marketing messages. And remember, your marketing messages are only simpering smiles if you can’t treat your customers honestly in the follow-through!

I’m a sucker for good, experience-based marketing; the kind that draws you into an experience with a product or service. So, what’s even more impressive to me than the magazine is that they have some of the best email marketing around.

In addition to their typical, retail product-based emails, there’s one thing I love more than anything about this company: Christopher Kimball’s newsletter. Kimball is the CEO/Editor-in-Chief and, in addition to being head of the company, he runs a family farm in a small town in Vermont. For as long as I’ve been a subscriber, Kimball’s newsletter has always had a welcoming, familiar tone, describing every detail about “what’s going down on the farm.” He talks about the harvest, funny happenings around his small town, updates on things the family has cooked, links to photos, and so on. Here’s an except from a summer update:

“Two weeks ago, our family and neighbors turned out to help get Jean’s hay in [links to photos], and our strawberry crop has been terrific. Adrienne will turn out at least a couple dozen jars of strawberry jam and probably a similar number of raspberry. The 23 rows of corn were better than “knee-high by the fourth of July,” and all the potatoes are doing well and are free of potato bugs, at least so far. I hope to start digging new potatoes out of the ground by early August, steaming them, and serving them with nothing more than salt, butter, and chives. Click here to see recent photos of the farm [links to photos]”

It’s a whole email of this rich commentary, interspersed with links for recipes on the Cook’s Illustrated site and updates on the filming of their weekly show on PBS. But here’s the thing: I’m absolutely compelled to read them. What’s more is that I completely look forward to taking a 15-minute break from city life to be transported to an environment that seems so alien to me, yet I’m allowed to experience it as a resident. I pour over each link and look at every photo, but more importantly — for them, anyway — I’m driven to read the recipes. Why? I’m curious and excited to learn what made the cobbler he and his wife served at the latest community event so amazing. And that’s the point. His words draw me into the experience and persuade me to interact with the brand and its products.

Knowing when it’s more effective for your copy to have personality and create an experience, versus cutting straight to the point, is crucial. It’s about showing your audience that you know them by anticipating their interests and needs. That’s what Kimball does so well, and it works.

Want to know how Kimball does it? If you’d like to craft authentic, engaging prose that turns visitors into customers, customers into fans, and fans into advocates, join us for our upcoming Persuasive Online Copywriting seminar in Orlando. (Sorry, kids, no coyotes and freshly-picked apples, but you might find a cartoon mouse or two.) If you can’t make it to Florida, perhaps you’d like to buy the Persuasive Online Copywriting e-book or simply subscribe to Future Now’s free newsletter instead.

[Editor's Note: This is the first post from the latest addition to Future Now, our first-ever VP of Marketing, Bond... Brian Bond. It takes a brave soul to market the marketers, so if you've enjoyed the email soufflé, feel free to wave 'hello' in the comments. Welcome to the team, Brian!]

“Consumers fundamentally misunderstand the rules of the marketplace,” said Chris Hoofnagle, senior staff attorney at the Samuelson Clinic at UC-Berkley’s Boalt School of Law, addressing a perceived apathy toward the subject. He cites studies in which up to 75% of consumers think as long as a site has a privacy policy it means it won’t share data with third parties. “They equate the presence of the policy with substantive privacy rules.”

How does this apply to your business? First of all, make your privacy statement clear and concise, e.g., “We value your privacy,” “We will not share your personal information — ever.” It’s also important that the trustmarks you use actually mean something to the customer (Bryan recently showed BizRate as an example).

Still, the need for brands to inspire confidence online is as vital as ever. (You may have noticed we’ve been covering trust issues quite a bit lately.) The latest evidence: McAfee’s plan to acquire ScanAlert for $51 million in cash.

Well, your website isn’t much different. Each day, visitors come to your site, hoping to find someone they can trust. The strange thing is that people tend to think that the words they use online are somehow different than the words they use face-to-face. They’re not. But online, you need to be even more careful about how you relate to would-be customers. They’ve got less to go on. Looking you in the eye isn’t an option, and talk remains cheap — even if it’s in the form of web copy. So, it’s your job to change that around; an especially difficult thing for smaller and/or local brands.

Today, I’m going to show you how one of my clients, Roof Life of Oregon (www.rooflife-oregon.com), used Persuasion Architecture™ to replace their own, virtual roof. I’ll show you how each page uses trust-building elements to create persuasive momentum with the customer to make them feel at home.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have you used any of these techniques before? Are there any websites you like to visit that inspire confidence? Ones that need fixing?

If you have questions about how to build trust online, please share them in the comments.

I recently purchased a set of Sony Ericsson earbuds from Amazon.com. I already knew the type of earbuds, which color, and even the model number I wanted to order. (That’s what we call a “late-stage” visitor.) Amazon didn’t have to do much to convince me to buy. All I wanted was a clear product image, showing what I could expect with my purchase.

I didn’t just want a new set of earbuds; I wanted the Sony Ericsson brand earbuds, since they’re specific to my phone. The product image confirmed that I was receiving a genuine Sony Ericsson product, and I was further convinced by the product title and description. As a repeat Amazon customer, I expected to receive what I was shown (see thumbnail pic).

You’d think Amazon fulfilled my expectation, but no. Here’s what happened…

The headphones were delivered in a flimsy envelope — not quite the bubble wrap-protected box I imagined. The shabby packaging, held together by a piece of tape that looked 10 years past its prime, was an unwelcome surprise. Where was the original Sony Ericsson packaging I saw on the site? It took me about 15 minutes just to be sure this was actually what I ordered (”Is this even an authentic Sony Ericsson product?”). These types of situations are what have kept me away from online auction sites.

Granted, this was a small, $10 purchase. But imagine ordering an expensive watch or handbag online, or even a gift delivered to a loved one. How can you be certain that the product is authentic or will be appropriately packaged and well-presented? We can’t. Instead, we rely on past experiences, product images, and brand recognition to do the job..

I’ve been spoiled by some great e-commerce sites, including Amazon, over the years. They’ve made my shopping experience delightful from start to finish by delivering the product as I imagined it, almost every time. And I’m a loyal customer to those sites. But now I’ve got a strange feeling about Amazon. They’re the industry leader for a reason. They revolutionized online order fulfillment. In fact, they’re supposed to be the gold standard of e-tailers.

Am I expecting too much from e-commerce sites? I don’t think so. In fact, I’m verbalizing what all people who purchase online are thinking — no, expecting. Consumers demand an easy and delightful shopping experience, from the first click to the time the order is in our hands.

I won’t give up browsing on Amazon just yet — they still have great product details and customer-generated reviews — but they’ve lost me as a paying customer for now. And regardless, I don’t see myself buying electronics from them anymore.

Ponder that word for a minute. Better yet, think of a field-specific guru whose views you value and ask yourself this: What distinguishes your Guru from just another professional in that field?

What causes one to inspire so much more credibility than another?

The ancient Greeks had a word for that trait: thumos. Want cult-of-personality-like persuasive ethos and credibility? Create thumos through your web copy. (In my last article, The Aristotle Code, I warned you that I was on a high-brow kick, so bear with me. This is actionable stuff.)

The secret to creating thumos is quietly revealed in Jonathan Shay’s one-page essay, Aristotle’s Rhetoric as a Handbook of Leadership. Dr. Shay is a psychiatrist, a recent MacArthur Foundation Fellow (aka “genius award”) honoree, and author of the acclaimed Achilles in Vietnam. Here’s what he writes about thumos and credibility:

. . . I want to connect the old Homeric word thumos to what I now want to say about character. This word is most often translated by the single word “spirit.” In modern times this has become rarified [sic] and if you forgive the play on words, spiritualized, so that we lose the sense that is still preserved when we speak of a horse as spirited or an argument as spirited … I want you to listen to Aristotle’s explanation of thumos … He says, “Thymos is the faculty of our souls which issues in love and friendship … It is also the source … of any power of commanding and any feeling for freedom.”

The spirited self-respect that Homer called thumós becomes particularly critical to leadership in a combat situation. To trust the leader, the troops need to feel that the leader is his or her “own person,” not a slave. In combat, trust goes to the leaders who give critical obedience, rather than blind obedience, to their own bosses.[3] A leader giving blind obedience to a militarily irrational or illegal order gets the troops killed without purpose ["wasted"] or irretrievably tainted by commission of atrocities.

Now consider this in terms of thought (rather than combat) leadership, and substitute “conventional wisdom” for “bosses.” Here’s my re-interpretation:

Online visitors need to feel that the company is its “own person,” and not a slave to conventional wisdom or textbook answers. In purchasing situations, trust goes to the company whose website gives critical analysis, rather than blind obedience, to industry or conventional wisdom.

In short, a Guru sings her own songs; she doesn’t perform Karaoke to someone else’s. She teaches her own stuff, and, even if her material originated elsewhere, she’ll have made it her own through experimentation, reflection, and practical experience; she’ll have her own “take” on a given subject. This is what creates thumos for a thought leader.

So, how do you inspire thumos with web copy?

First, you needn’t establish entirely new methodologies or procedures. It’s enough to have…

• Unique explanations for otherwise common material. A sticky explanation for a well-known principle or phenomenon can turn you into the quoted expert when others seek to communicate it.
• Specific and unique tricks and techniques for implementing common procedures. Everyone and their brother might know the procedure, but offering unique and practical how-to advice provides evidence that you’ve internalized/mastered the procedure and made your own
• At least one or two “takes” or unique perspectives that clash with the conventional wisdom in your profession or industry.

The fist two points establish credibility for your expertise, but the last one leverages that expertise into guru territory. Engaging in this kind of “spirited argument” reveals your thumos by:

• Showcasing your critical (vs. blind) obedience to the conventional wisdom in your industry or profession.
• Raising you closer to the level of the big wigs (at least in the reader’s mind) by allowing you to contend with, and hold your own against, them and their orthodoxy.

Find some tidbit of common wisdom that you disagree with, then publicly set the record straight. It even works when you agree with the original wisdom but quibble with a now-common interpretation of it. Here’s how to really make that work:

1) Find a polarity that’s charged but not worked to death. Two examples I’ve used are Pain vs. Gain and Logic vs. Emotion.

2) Carefully consider the merits and advantages of each side rather than coming down on one side or the other. Note in which contexts one side works and in which situations it fails, then do the same for the other side. Find examples. Make some of your own conclusions, and do your best to distill them into actionable guidelines.

3) Explain your insights and conclusions to your potential audience. Obviously, where you can best do this will vary, but here are some options to consider: Write it up to be published in an industry journal, then refer to that published piece in your web copy; Post it on your blog; or, Work it into the web copy directly, either in some “how to” pieces created for customers earlier in their buying process or in other persuasive pages.

4) Name the sources of the positions you are challenging or amending. And do them the courtesy of notifying them – send them your piece and invite comments. As long as you have legitimate insight to add to the discussion and you are honest in your dialog, your invitation stands a solid chance of being accepted.

Voilà. You’re now engaging in dialog with some of the heavies in your industry. And even if you’re not actually exchanging with them directly, you’ll have created the appearance of dialog. Get other followers to hear you out and the gurus may be forced to respond.

[Author's Note: Short of actually being a guru, those are the best of the best ways to create thumos in your web copy. The other two are: 1) Writing copy that attracts the relational customer; and 2) Weaving an over-riding passion into your copy that speaks to the visitor's character and aspirations. But don't worry, I'll provide you with a solid how-to for these other techniques in my next post.]

So you checked out Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab slide show, and were careful to note the beginning explanation, where credibility was broken down into two components: (1) Trustworthiness, and (2) Expertise. (And boy, did those look familiar. Sort of… )

Where had you seen them before?

Being a good student of rhetoric, it hits you: Stanford got it wrong! There’s more than two components of credibility; there are three (at least according to Aristotle).

1.) Virtue
2.) Practical Wisdom
3.) Disinterested Good Will (toward the audience)

Maybe the Persuasive Technology Lab placed “virtue” and “goodwill” in the same category. At least all of their guidelines for website credibility neatly divide into the three components:

VIRTUE — Guidelines 1, 3, 5, 8, and 10 each describe various ways of proving or demonstrating your organization’s overall virtue. In rhetoric, virtue is relative: It generally means the audience believes you share, and live, their values. Obviously, values vary with audiences — but start with typical work ethics and you won’t go wrong too often. With that in mind, is it any wonder that a Virtuous website is one that…

• Looks professional (Guideline 1)
• Shows that there is a real/substantive organization behind it (Guideline 3)
• Shows the stand-up/credible people working for said organization (Guideline 5)
• Is frequently updated/maintained, and (Guideline 8 )
• Is free of errors (Guideline 10)

Heck, that’s just good old fashion takin’-care-of-business. Of course, the “varies by audience” bit applies to what qualifies as “professional looking” and what types of employees qualify as “stand-up/credible.” Obviously, a surf school and an accounting firm would want different looking websites, highlighting different staff credentials.

PRACTICAL WISDOM – It’s not enough to be virtuous. You also need job-related skills and experience (i.e., the actual know-how required for the situation at hand). To paraphrase a modern day rhetorician: I may count my priest as a virtuous man, but that still doesn’t mean I’d want him performing my heart surgery.

Guidelines 2 and 4 provide ways for your Website to demonstrate or display your organization’s practical wisdom by:

• Presenting information, claims, and credentials that are easy to verify (Guideline 2). Tell me your company is a leader in fabric technology and I may or may not believe you. Let me link to Lands End, Outdoor Research, and, say, Cabela’s, where I can see different products labeled with your fabric logo or trade-name (maybe you’re the new GORE-TEX?), and I’ll make that claim for you in my own mind: “Wow, these guys are like the king of outdoor fabrics.”
• Showcasing the staff’s professional expertise and accomplishments (Guideline 4). Some companies have such overwhelming credibility that it’s just assumed that their people kick butt. (Think of a programmer or designer for Apple.) But for non-iconic companies, people understand that organizations don’t have expertise – only people do. So play up the expert credentials and accomplishments of your people.

DISINTERESTED GOOD WILL – Even if you’re generally a virtuous person with outstanding expertise in a given area, I might not find your advice credible if you have an obvious bias or vested interest that’s potentially in conflict with your audience. (I don’t care how honest a man or how fabulous a lawyer your father-in-law might be; he’s probably not who you want to take legal advice from when you’re divorcing his daughter.)

Business executives and salespeople often have a hard time with this one because, well, they DO stand to benefit from their audience’s purchasing decisions. Progressive Insurance will tell you when they’re not your best deal. Why? Because that move violates their own self-interest in favor of yours — which buys them huge credibility for the times when they tell you that they are the best deal!

So, how do you translate this onto the web? Well, I’ve got plenty of techniques for doing this with your copy (more on this in the next post), but the Persuasive Technology Lab’s Guideline 6, 7, and 9 suggest that credible websites should…

• Make it easy for visitors to contact you (Guideline 6). Face it, if your willing to interrupt your day to field their calls, people are more likely to think you actually care about them.
• Make it easy to use the Website (Guideline 7). If you speak to customers about what matters, and make it easy for them to shop in a way that’s intuitive and natural, they just might feel that you care about them. Forcing people to buy the way you want to sell sends the opposite message.
• Use restraint with promotional material (Guideline 9). Giving people the hard sell never indicates respect. Stop pitching and start talking to your visitors. Polite conversation indicates respect. Hype indicates, and creates, cynicism.

Well, that covers all ten guidelines. But now that you understand how each of them is merely a facet of Aristotle’s famous triad, you’re ready for more advanced credibility-building techniques. (Hint: A lot of them come from Persuasion Architecture™ methodology).

And you might be surprised to learn that a recent MacArthur Foundation “genius” has written some of the most compelling advice I’ve ever found on the subject. First it’s Stanford, now it’s a MacArthur Fellow. Holy high-brow, Batman!

(Don’t worry, it leads to some incredibly doable, practical stuff. Tune in next week… )

Credibility is everything.

That’s why I found a recent 2002 report from the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab so fascinating. Not only does it offer 10 Guidelines for increasing your website’s credibility — and they’re all solid guidelines. Better yet, you don’t even have to read the report!

You can get the summary in this nice little slide show…

(In an upcoming post, I’ll critique the report and offer some “advanced” — more sophisticated, anyway — techniques and strategies for building credibility with your core audience.)

The Law of Compromise is built into our worldview. We’ve all learned and relearned the painful necessity of denying ourselves one thing in order to gain another. Try to “eliminate the negative” aspects of your product with glowing web copy, and that image will eventually clash with the reader’s sense of reality. It raises suspicions.

My advice: Leverage (don’t fight) the customer’s belief in compromise by addressing a product’s downsides head-on.

People are as likely to assume that a downside has a corresponding upside as vice versa. They’ll also gladly accept negative admissions, whereas they’d otherwise demand substantiation for positive claims. Combined, these two principles work magic. For example, take this lame and totally unsubstantiated claim for a made up photo printer:

“Our new IQ268 photo-quality printer produces the most stunning, nuanced black-and-white prints in the business.”

Credibility on that one? Zero. Now read this:

The ink for our new IQ268 printer costs more than the competition’s — 30% more, on average. In addition to the normal five ink tones everyone else uses, our printer uses two extra gray-scale inks, exclusively for printing monochrome photos. Why the expensive ink? Because, without it, the IQ268 wouldn’t produce the most stunning black-and-white prints in the business.

Since the reader automatically accepts the negative admission, they become more likely to accept the implied upside. Does mentioning the extra gray-scale inks help, too? Sure, but only insofar as it’s linked to better picture quality. That association is more likely to be accepted coming on the heals of an admission. In other words, the downside still highlights the upside by contrast, making the bigger claims that much more believable.

Coors used to do a brilliant job of this with the whole “cold” thing back in the 80’s by hyping its refrigerated trucks and warehouses. It worked like a charm, driving considerable growth and market impact — at least until they stopped using it.

(If player doesn’t load, click here for video.)

Think about that. By implying that the flavor of Coors required non-stop refrigeration to properly preserve itself (i.e., by “admitting” a downside), the brewery was able to garner increased credibility for it’s totally unsubstantiated claim of superior taste. In fact, this particular bit of marketing brilliance only stopped working when consumers saw a Coors ad with Coors beer being sold UNREFRIGERATED on the shelves. So Coors had its spokesman, Mark Harmon, go on national TV to claim that Coors wasn’t any more vulnerable to room temps than other beer.

And then the ride was over. Without the downside, there was no believability in the upside.

So, how do so many luxury or professional-grade items enjoy high credibility without ever admitting a downside? Is there really a downside to owning, say, a Lexus LS 460?

Sure. The downside is the $60-70K you spent to own that car. High prices often serve as their own form of credibility/downside. In the trade-off between cost of production and quality, some companies (or so it’s rumored) choose to keep quality and raise prices. So, as Cialdini has pointed out, we’ve become conditioned to see high prices as both an implied downside and a reliable index of high quality.

That’s why “fabulous quality at low prices,” with no mention of a downside, tends to draw suspicious questions in the mind of the consumer: Where’s the angle? Why are you doing this?

Again, the smart copywriter/marketer leverages those reflexes; he doesn’t fight against them. Want to bring added credibility to your web copy? Stop dancing to Crosby’s old tune, and start giving the negative side a chance to work its magic.

. .

Did you find this post valuable? If so, you can find more posts from this author at jeffsextonwrites.com.

Michael Dell said that about Apple 10 years ago.

Pretty, pretty…bad advice!

Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports:

Apple’s (AAPL) market capitalization today is more than double that of Dell (DELL):

Apple: $140.4 billion

Dell: $62.27 billion

But don’t shed a tear for Micheal Dell. According to a list of the 400 wealthiest Americans published last month, his net worth is more than triple Steve Jobs’.

Michael Dell: $15.5 billion

Steve Jobs: $4.9 billion

I’m not crying for either one but I just finished syncing my iPod with my MacBookPro. Apple marketing is brilliant but the company is very far from perfect. Apple’s brand is eroding and it missed a huge opportunity to make more headway into the business market because it insists on pursuing a broken distribution model.

Are you a better fortune teller than Michael Dell? Please let us know where you think Apple and Dell will be in 2017.

Arguably the most influential band of the past 15 years, Radiohead has decided to release its next album online. But here’s catch: You choose what to pay.**

According to Time Magazine:

The ramifications of Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want experiment will take time to sort out, but for established artists at least, turning what was once their highest value asset — a much buzzed-about new album — into a loss leader may be the wave of the future. Even under the most lucrative record deals, the ones reserved for repeat, multi-platinum superstars, the artists can end up with less than 30% of overall sales revenue (which often is then split among several band members). Meanwhile, as record sales decline, the concert business is booming. In July, Prince gave away his album 3121 for free in the U.K. through the downmarket Mail on Sunday newspaper. At first he was ridiculed. Then he announced 21 consecutive London concert dates — and sold out every one of them.

Now that’s confidence. In fact, that’s the point. Just like countless bestselling book authors who make most of their money from speaking engagements and new business, musicians generally make more from live performances than they do albums.

Besides, isn’t it time to stick it to the major labels? On his Lefsetz Letter blog, Bob “the most feared man in music biz criticism” Lefsetz had this [expletive deleted] to say:

It’s not like Radiohead’s living in a different world. But they’re playing by a different rule book. One that says the money flows from the music, that people have to believe in you, that you’ve got to treat them right.

[expletive deleted], you can barely get a ticket to a Radiohead show. The venues aren’t big and the demand is incredible. They’re doing it all wrong, don’t they see??

Well, obviously they don’t.

This is big news. This says the major labels are [expletive deleted]. Untrustworthy with a worthless business model. Radiohead doesn’t seem to care if the music is free. Not that they believe it will be. Because believers will give you ALL THEIR MONEY!

This is the industry’s worst nightmare. Superstar band, THE superstar band, forging ahead by its own wits. Proving that others can too. And they will.

Amen, brother.

A longtime Radiohead fan myself, I intend to pre-order In Rainbows at full iTunes (over)price, right after I convert £’s to $’s — which, the exchange rate being what it is, I reckon will be more painful than actually spending the money. Oh, and if anyone from the band is reading this, I just want you to know that I downloaded Hail to the Thief for free. It won’t happen again.

If you’re still wondering what a band like Radiohead can teach you about creating win-wins for you and your customers fans, perhaps it’s time to revisit “The ROI of Free“.

[*Author's Note: Whether you still think Prince is nuts for changing his name to that bizarre symbol icon in the 90's is another story. But, hey, he made more money on a song called "Let's Go Crazy" than most of us will make in our lives, so who are we to judge?]

[**Unless you forgo the download and buy the delux box set version -- limited edition vinyl, posters, goodies, etc. -- only available from the Radiohead website.]

The web is anonymous; you can say you’re one type of person or entity and, in fact, be another. We have to deal with all the other people who are online, polluting the space with interruptive, bogus messages and less-than-credible offers. So, what can you do to build trust online?

Many factors influence online trust. Some of them include, a “professional” design, “good” copy, “quality” images, an “engaging” online experience, “credible”-sounding reviews, an “openness” to be contacted, external reputation and, sometimes, trustmarks (e.g., Better Business Bureau, Verisign, BizRate or HackerSafe). Notice that every factor except trustmarks is based on perception, — not reality, necessarily.

Trustmarks: Either you have ‘em or you don’t. But not all trustmarks are equal, and they’re still subject to the public’s perception of that trustmark extending its halo effect to you.

In the near future, I’ll post about each one of these trust building factors separately. But today, let me illustrate why trustmarks sometimes fail.

It all has to do with the neighbors you keep. At one point, having a BizRate logo meant something. The general feeling among those in the know was that they sold out from being a trustmark to become a product search engine. (When they don’t really stand for one thing — e.g., “buy with confidence” — trustmarks cease to be effective.) When consumers see a trustmark on another website, and that website betrays their trust or provides a sub-par experience, trust erodes and the halo effect from the trustmark can no longer transfer to your website.

Why should anyone trust BizRate?

BizRate.com conducts post-purchase surveys to evaluate whether customers will shop at the same store again. Did they deliver on time? Did they have good customer support? Did the product they ordered meet expectations? BizRate gets answers to these questions, and even tells you how many shoppers shopped at their store.

Take a look at the thumbnail picture for a screenshot from electronic retailer B&H Photo. Notice how they have a 98-99% positive rating. They have this green smiley face with all these lines around it. This seems to be a trust worthy store, no doubt.

Now let’s compare a few more store profiles that have green smiley faces (see below) to indicate positive stores. Would you trust someone who says a store is “green smiley” positive when 20% of it’s customers have a negative experience? 10%? 5%? What do you think your customers think about when they see you associated with companies that provide negative experiences 1 out of every 5 times? Do you think BizRate can be trusted? Can they actually extend that halo of trust?

If they want to maintain that halo of trust in the mind of the consumer, every trustmark provider needs to step up and start being accountable for their vendors. What standards should they accept?

Trustmarks work when they stand for something.

As I continue to explore trust in the next few weeks, I will dissect eCOST.com. On the surface, they look credible — but if you dig enough, you can figure out why 20% of their customers have negative experiences (a percentage that would hardly inspire confidence on eBay).

As we look at how Cabelas.com and BassProShops.com prepare to catch the Early Bird customer, consider the following:

• Relevance — If they’re not ready yet, don’t get carried away. (Is your website proposing marriage on the first date?)
• Screen Space — Early Birds need to know that they’re welcome, right from the homepage. Give them enough space, and combine relevance with scent to lead them in the right direction. (Use the battleship grid to protect the Early Bird from winding up in irrelevant worm holes.)
• Scent Trails — Not even the brightest of basset hounds can help you with this one, but creating the right scent for the customer to follow is key; particularly when they’re early in the buying process, and may not even have the vocabulary to know what they should be asking. If they come in with the wrong questions, and don’t buy, they should at least leave with the right ones. Help them find their way.
• AIDAS — Awareness. Interest. Desire. Action. Satisfaction. If customers aren’t aware of you, there’s no place to move forward. If you haven’t grabbed their interest, forget it. If there’s no emotional desire to lure them in, they won’t bite. If it’s difficult for them to take action, they’ll run away. And if they’re not satisfied, they won’t return.
• Inside-the-Bottle Syndrome (the other “IBS”) — “When you’re inside the bottle, you can’t read the label.” This is the biggest challenge marketers face. They know too much about their own products, too much about their own companies. It’s the “Curse of Knowledge” and you must overcome it to persuade.

Once again, it’s time to go huntin’ for Early Birds…

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If you have a moment, share one of your early-stage buying experiences with us in the comments. Which sites have done a particularly good job of persuading you to buy, or turning you off, when you were only pecking around?