In case you missed it, our first podcast in the series is with Bernardo de Albergaria, VP & GM of eCommerce, Citrix Online. We’ve also recorded two “Always Be Testing” monthly webinars so far, the archived versions are now available.

If you had your copy of Always Be Testing, you’d know all about the “stinky” image in this post.

Social technologies have changed how we gather and share information. They’ve changed who we meet, where we meet, and, sometimes, how we meet. They’ve changed how we buy, what we buy, and where we buy. They’ve changed what, how, and how much we know about the people around us. And while social technologies may not have changed what it essentially means to be human, they’ve certainly amplified, at once, our voices, our influence, and our need to be heard.

Right now, a brand — possibly yours — is experiencing a public relations mini-disaster thanks to a comment left on a message board; a university student is recommending a movie to 372 people at once via Facebook; Barack Obama’s social media-driven campaign is beating the odds (and the Clintons).

Welcome to the groundswell.

Josh Bernoff, Vice President & Principal Analyst at Forrester Research joined us recently to discuss the soon-to-be-bestseller he’s co-authored with Forrester’s Charlene Li, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. The book is a brief history of social media — fully seasoned with research and anecdotes from the most notable triumphs and failures of the so-called “Web 2.0″ era — that explains how to thrive now that customers and clients own your brand.

Of course you’ll buy the book, but here’s a 15-minute interview you can download (by right-clicking) while you wait for your copy to be delivered.
POST (not haste)

As Josh explains the paradigm of Groundswell thinking, don’t forget POST:

• People - What are your customers ready for? What do they want? What’s motivating them?

• Objectives - What are your goals?

• Strategy - How do you want relationships with your customers to change?

• Technology - Swap “tactics” for “technology” and the same is true. The people, objectives, and strategy must come before your choice of technology/tactics.

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...

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!...

I hear that often. And yes, images are important. Very important. But don't write off the word (no pun intended). Words change entire battles (see also: "withdrawal date" and "surrender date"). Which is easier to support, "affirmative action" or "racial preference"? Politicians understand the power of words. Marketers are also taking notice.

Look at word choice in products. "Oil of Olay" dropped the "oil" due to today's negative connotations of having oil in a beauty product. They now go by "Olay." And, as Advertising Age points out, after losing share for eight years, Crest revitalized sales with their "Pro-Health" line of products.

Pro-Health has reached $100 million in sales, adding about two share points for Crest, according to Information Resources Inc.

Words are powerful. That's why it's so important to understand what your words are really saying.

Are your customers hearing what you're saying?

more...

"What's a meatball sundae?" Good question. Basically, it's what happens when everyday products are out of sync with new marketing tactics. For the full story, listen to the podcast (or download it for free!) below. But first, here are a few extra scoops from Seth & Bryan's interview. Bon appetit!

I recently saw your "Caregiver" TV commercial. I also went to the website you created for the campaign - ForAllTheWaysYouCare.com. The website has a place for caregivers to post their stories and enter a contest to win cash and a trip. I applaud you. These stories really are inspirational and authentic. But I was curious what this promotional contest has to do with CVS. So I clicked on the link to your TV commercial to watch it again.

Here's the copy from the TV commercial:

"It's in your nature to care for others. To listen, to advise, to always be there. Isn't it nice that there's a pharmacy that cares as much as you do? CVS/pharmacy. For all the ways you care."

I'm so delighted to hear that. I would love to shop at a pharmacy that cares as much as I do. I would gladly give my business to a company that truly cares about caregivers.

In your TV commercial, the loving caregiver turns out to be a CVS pharmacist. So it sounds like you are saying your pharmacists are caregivers themselves. So could you please tell me:

* What percentage of your pharmacists are women?
* What percentage of your pharmacists are single mothers?
* What percentage of your pharmacists are single dads?
* What percentage of your pharmacists are caring for an aging or ailing parent?
* And how does their experience as a caregiver at home affect their behavior at work?

Continued...

Here's the "Cliffs Notes" version, in case you couldn't make it:

A/B Test — Allows you to test different versions of the same page. Let's say you want to test the homepage. To indicate which version of the homepage is performing better, a Goal Page is selected, e.g., an order confirmation "thank you" page. So, once a visitor comes to the test page — in this case, the homepage — they're presented with one version ('A') that you created to test against another version ('B') of your homepage. Google Website Optimizer will then record the visit as a success or failure by crediting either version 'A' or version 'B' — whichever one ultimately led them to the Goal Page. Once sufficient data is collected, a winning page variation will be selected.

Multivariate Test — Very similar to the A/B test in that it allows you test different variations of the same page. The main difference is that in an A/B test, you're creating and uploading different files and they're presented as different URLs ("www.homepage.com/A; www.homepage.com/B"), so Google Website Optimizer splits the traffic to different version and tracks the performance of each. Mulitvariate tests allow you to select different sections on your page and create different versions for each section or content element. So, if you want to test different headlines while testing different "add to cart" buttons, a multivariate test can save time when coding. Google Website Optimizer will create different versions of the page, using every possible combination and variation for each page and content element you're testing.

Continued....

Traffic... MyPreciousIn Roy's practice, advertising builds brands and drives traffic for his offline clients. Roy cautions his clients not to get ahead of themselves. If all the traffic (read: visitors) he drives get what they expected, then the business grows organically from repeat customers and word-of-mouth. If these visitors don't get what they want, their lackluster experience will erode the brand. In other words, they would be refilling a leaky bucket with new traffic. Unfortunately, the supply of new traffic is never unlimited.

Jeffrey Eisenberg likes to ask, "Are you paying your marketers to make promises that your business has no intention of keeping?"

On the Web, how much traffic is enough?

If your site has a few thousand visitors a month, what would you do with a few thousand per day? Sadly, with average conversion rates barely hovering in the low single digits for most markets, for most of us, a sudden boost of traffic would do little more than squander our audience. In fact, we'd simply do it faster. When your funnel leaks like a sieve, do you really want to turn on the fire hose? Conventional wisdom on the Internet says 'yes,' but I challenge you to ask yourself if that's wise, or just more convenient.

continued...

With the help of our esteemed colleagues, Copyblogger Brian Clark & SEOmoz founder Rand Fishkin, five winners will have a single link tested on the landing page of their choice. The goal is simple. We want to show how words alone can make a big impact on conversion, and to help you make more money online. The contest is free. Anyone, in any industry, can enter.

Here's how it works…

* Just comment on this post or the ones like it at Copyblogger and SEOmoz (coming soon), linking us to the landing page you want tested and telling us why you should win.
* Judges Brian Clark, Rand Fishkin & Bryan Eisenberg will choose 5 winners.
* To be eligible, contestants must have clear metrics and analytics in place, the ability to test (Google Website Optimizer is free, so no excuses), and the willingness to implement our suggestions.
* Contestants must have enough traffic to yield valid test results.
* For each of our winners, the judges will select a single link to be tested, then agree on three variations of that call to action (a.k.a., anchor link).

Don't be shy. We usually charge for this stuff. Besides, we're not perfect. Look at all these contest titles the Grok team already burned through:

* Contest: Verbal V i @ g r a for Impotent Links
* The "My Hyperlinks Were 98 lb Weaklings" Contest
* Content: “Click Here” vs.”Click Where?”
* The "Can Your Hyperlink Do This Contest?" Contest
* Bragging Rights for Great Hyperlink Writers

So, if you have a better suggestion for a title, or would actually like to enter the contest, let's hear it in the comments…

[Winners will be announced Thursday, October 11th. Results and analysis of the winners' hyperlink tests will be posted a few weeks later. We're shooting for October 31st — Halloween.]

Here are the linked phrases Marketing Sherpa tested, followed by the results expressed as a change in click-through conversions:

* “Click to continue”: 8.53%
* “Continue to article”: 3.3%
* “Read more”: (-)1.8%

So, yes, "Click to continue" was the clear winner. But look at what it was being compared to! As calls to action go, those links stink*. I especially liked Brian "AdWords Man" Carter's analysis:

"My take on 'click to CONTINUE' working better than the 'read more' or 'continue to article' was that continue is an innocuous word, whereas a lot of people don't like reading or think it's work, and even if they are reading, don't remind them that they are or will have to after they click. Likewise, 'article' brings the person's attention back to the larger context of what they're doing, as opposed to 'continue' which allows them to keep their head down and their brain engaged on the exact same track that brought them to the link."

In other words, you're comparing a relatively clear and non-friction-inducing call to action to two losers: one using a rather flaccid verb, and the other creating friction in the mind of the reader.

Copyblogger Brian Clark's — not to be confused with Carter — statement that "…if you want someone to do something, you’ll get better results if you tell them exactly what to do" has to be understood within the context of his larger body of work. For instance, consider it in light of this quote from his most recent post:

"Persuasion is generally an exercise in creating a win-win situation. You present a case that others find beneficial to agree with."

Basically, what he's saying (and correct me if I've misinterpreted this, Brian) is that once you've provided readers with "a scent trail worth following," and a win-win situation or offer, it's best to clearly tell those readers HOW to take that next action — and make sure they know how to get that win!

Don't hate the straw man...That's a far cry from the straw man Clark's detractors so readily maul when deriding his perceived advocacy of "using ‘Click here’ all over the place."

Looking beyond the straw man (define) to a more contextual understanding of Brian's advice, what Future Now teaches is largely similar. The difference is that we explicitly state that HOW to take the action must be appropriately influenced by, and combined with, a (re)statement of WHY they should want to do it. In presenting the win-win proposal, we tell our clients to focus on the visitor's win, not their own. (The JigsawHealth.com case study is a great example.)

See, Brian does this intuitively all the time; the gestalt of his writing agrees with this approach. Unfortunately, though, Brian’s too good a writer, and blogger, for the rest of us to, um, copy.

Here’s our best crack at a formula for persuasive links: imperative verb + implied benefit.

Instead of this:

* Steve found an investment secret that changed his life. Read more…

Or this:

* Steve found an investment secret that changed his life. Click here for the investment strategy of a lifetime.

You get this:

* Steve found an investment secret that changed his life. See how you may be able to double your income in one year.

Notice that the call to action in #1 lacked the benefit to the reader, and that even though #2 stated the benefit for the reader, the imperative verb wasn't congruent with the benefit like it is in #3.

We feel, and have usually seen with our client's Websites, that the formula infused in the third example outperforms other options. And I personally believe that this formula offers a contextual understanding of Brian Clark's advice.

But, hey, this is the web, right? Why not test it out? Next Tuesday, October 2nd, Thursday, October 4th, we'll announce details on how you can volunteer your site for a little free A/B testing on this very subject. Stay tuned!

[*Although generic, “Click to continue” is sometimes good enough. Use it sparingly, though, since it only works in limited contexts. For instance, if it's used repeatedly on a page that overtly links to similar content.]

People often ask us, "What's the average Conversion Rate in my industry?" Fair enough, but does it matter? If you're converting less than 1/10th of your traffic, you should be concerned. If you're converting more than that, you can do better. We all can. It's even possible to double your conversion rate, if you ask bigger questions.

When JigsawHealth.com contacted us, they were converting three times better than the average. But they the didn't just ask bigger questions, they put them to the test. Now, after testing some new verbiage and some design tweaks, they convert a whopping 1/5th of browsers into buyers. Inc. Magazine explains:

If you're ready to put big questions to the test, or if your business already demands big answers — and quickly — don't assume the prognosis can't improve just because you've "already tried everything" else. We can help.

If only they'd do a bit of testing…

Click me to view Netflix The first problem appears with what seems to be a search bar near their top navigation. This is actually a Coupon Code box.

I'd like to know how many people use this box to search for movies, then violently click the "Back" button once they realize it’s a coupon box. From that number, it's reasonable to assume that a portion of those searchers are going to a search engine and typing in movie rental coupons — and possibly being wooed to other sites like Blockbuster, where they might stay a customer for years. The lifetime value of this test cannot be taken for granted.

For my first would-be test, the coupon box would be replaced with a movie search box. This is a huge opportunity to let first-time visitor feel the power of searching through some 85,000 DVD's. This is their unique value proposition; they have just about every DVD imaginable. The coupon box would then be moved below the fold (read: you'd have to scroll down to see it). That way, people who didn't have a coupon would be less distracted by the possibility of not getting the best deal. Meanwhile, the visitors who do have a coupon would be compelled to find it below the fold.

Click me for Netflix viewNext, I would test the content just below the navigation; what we call the "active window" (example). The active window should invite the visitor to imagine themselves as an empowered member of the Netflix community. By not conveying this feeling, Netflix ignores its main benefit: their mind boggling selection of DVD's and the spot-on relevance of Netflix-recommended movies.

Their rating system is in a league of its own. By segmenting reviews to show what people similar to you had to say about a movie, they give you trusted recommendations and opinions about each selection.

For a third test, Netflix could benefit by changing two words on this page. The "Start Now" Call to Action would be far more persuasive if it included a benefit. The cold, uninspired command to "Start Now" sounds much better when you say something like "Try it out for free".

Finally, Netflix should test using language to attract busy people like myself; those who rarely watch-and-return the movies they rent. We save them tons of money on postage. ;)

*Please Note: The screenshots pictured here show the homepage as seen by Netflix members. Non-members see a sign-up form instead.

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.

Acceller CEO Steve McKean is happy to point out that "the Inc. 500 list looks at 4 years of data, and that you can correlate Acceller's work with Future Now to that growth." While we do appreciate the compliment, I correlate their success to Steve's vision as CEO; a relentless focus on execution, the customer experience, and commitment to ongoing improvement.

Their next step: start a new business unit.

Digital LandingWhile many CEO's would be content with 2,250% growth, Steve, aware of changes in his industry, knew they had to innovate. Rather than reinvent BuyTelco — which is focused solely on converting ready-to-buy, internet-service-only customers — they created an entirely new experience and brand: Digital Landing.

How did they do it? How does a company capitalize on what it knows about its current business while there are so many unknowns about the new brand's potential customers and their buying process?

1.Assemble an Investigative Task Force, consisting of people experienced with past/current products, new research, and conversion issues. Make sure you ask the right questions, keeping lessons learned from the former site in play.

2. Develop customer persona assumptions. Why assumptions? Digital Landing didn't have any customers yet, so we had to make assumptions as to who their customers might be. The good news is that, once a site launches, you can test these assumptions and optimize accordingly.

3. Develop and refine the buy-flow. This is the conversion-related part. Since they were adding additional services — e.g., phone, video, HD — and bundles, we knew it would be complicated. We worked closely with them to make sure it would be as smooth as possible, but much more time was focused on the details — specific wording of calls to action, shopping cart usability, color choice, etc. — pre-launch. There's still work to be done (read: optimization).

4. Plan content strategy using personas. By planning content through the eyes of our personas, we were able to match both the tone and types of content to their individual needs. While one needs, say, a video on how to install a flat panel TV, another wants to print an article on how to set up a home office.

5. Develop top-quality content. Don't skimp on production quality. Look at all these resources for digital newbies. Or this custom internet speed test. They didn't have to do that — which, of course, is exactly why they did have to do it.

6. Develop a launch plan. Work with everyone on the team — engineers, researchers, project manager, the analytics team, designers, copywriters — to coordinate the launch. If something can't make the launch date, prioritize what needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

7. Do a "soft launch" ahead of time. It makes everyone feel good and allows you to fix what's broken before creating mixed first impressions. Digital Landing officially "launches" late next month. Here it is today, flaws and all. Why? Because the first version was never meant to be perfect. Besides, a soft launch gives search engines spiders a chance to crawl and index the site.

8. Allow customer's to interact. Open it up to a small-yet-vocal audience; GrokDotCom readers, for instance. Launch a little Pay-Per-Click traffic and see how it affects the priorities on your optimization list.

9. Measure, Listen, and Optimize. TEST your original assumptions. Figure out who you're losing, where you're losing, and adjust.

10. Stay cool. This isn't childbirth, even if it does feel like it at times.

Join me in congratulating Steve and the rest of his phenomenal team at Acceller on the "soft launch" of Digital Landing. While broadband growth has driven a lot of his business, the marketplace is shifting. People want additional services, and Digital Landing is meant to help us get away from the marketing hype individual providers in order to make intelligent choices and get the best offers on high-speed internet, digital phone, video, and HDTV services.

Originally, the goal was to have the site "soft" launched by Labor Day. They beat that by a few days. As I'm sure you can see, there's still plenty of tweaking to be done. But one of the biggest mistakes anyone can make when launching a new site is trying to make it perfect from the get go. Getting it perfect in your eyes means very little. Getting it perfect for your customers matters a lot.

One of the best pieces of advice my mentor gave me — and hopefully I can teach you — is "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing wrong." It's all about execution and allowing yourself to do it wrong quickly.

We'd love to have your fresh eyes check out Digital Landing. Go as far as you like, with or without placing an order, and share your feedback here.

Any suggestions to add to our list? Find any bugs?

We appreciate your help, as does Steve. He didn't get on the Inc. 500 list by not listening carefully. :)

Vince's painting has affected millions. It's one of the best known images in modern culture. It's inspired songs such as Don McLean's "Starry Starry Night" and is one of the most replicated prints. The painting has a magnetic appeal, engaging the reader by drawing them into its world.

I say "reader" rather than viewer because this image is a perfect example of how an image SPEAKS a thousand words in an instant, emotional impact.

In the past decade, the online marketing industry has been known to echo the phrase "Content is king". Great content — and equally good layout — is key to helping your visitors successfully find what they're looking for. The content that's king to search engines is the copy on a website, but the content that's king to visitors is a balanced mixture of copy and images.

The images on a site help to create a face for the organization. The emotional visitor is engaged by pictures of friendly employees and clients. Logical visitors, meanwhile, look for images of competent executives — sorry, but handshake clip art won't do — as well as product images that clearly describe every feature, using different angles and environments.

As a professional model, I get to see how my image is used to promote and communicate their products. As an online conversion and persuasion analyst, I see how clients use words and images to communicate their products and services. Too often, clients are missing some of Van Gogh's magic brew that could radically improve their conversion results.

As website visitors become more exposed and sophisticated, they become more demanding. This means you'd better have ALL your words and images working in sync to persuade your visitors that they are in the right place.

The images most websites feature aren't magnetic and powerful; they don't speak to the visitor. Ask yourself what your images are saying and if they're saying the right things. Are you conveying the "feel" of your company and products so the visitor really knows what they'll experience when they buy from you?

This seems to hold true in the online world as well. A fairly recent MIT study showed that a majority of online buyers will forego the super discount websites and spend more at Amazon or brand-name sites in order to assure a reliable shopping experience.

So instead of an examination of when to focus on price savings vs. time savings, let's look at how buyers' perception of time changes as they move through the buying process.

As might be expected, task-directed customers are substantially less open to marketing before completing their tasks than they are afterwards. Visitors to a Bank don’t want to hear about additional services and offerings until after they’ve been waited on by a teller. Once they’ve been seen by a teller, though, they become much more open to up-sells and cross-sells. Yet the longer customers stay (happily) engaged with a store, the more likely they are to buy. Both of these behaviors are well documented in the offline world.

Assuming such behaviors hold true on the internet, in the first instance, we’ll want to move the customer though a website as quickly as possible. In the latter, meanwhile, we’ll want to keep the customer engaged with the Website in order to increase her chance of converting. These apparently contradictory aims seem to argue for equally contradictory styles of site architecture and copy.

This paradox resolves itself when viewed through the lens of buying stage.

Late-stage buyers already know what they want. Consequently, they simply want to get in, get what they came for, and get out. Get out of their way and make accomplishing that goal as smooth, easy and fast as possible. The time to up or cross-sell late-stage buyers is at the product order page, shopping cart, or post-purchase e-mail. At these point, recommendations for other add-ons or accessories saves the customer more time since they won’t have to make additional shopping trips later. Plus, the suggestions are made when the customer is basking in a “mission-accomplished glow” and most likely to listen.

Think of going to Amazon.com (AZN) with a specific book title, typing it into the search engine, and finding the book. Only after you’ve found what you came for that you might possibly be interested in learning about similar books or recommendations based on what other people bought. The homepage also had lots of suggested items and recommendations, but you likely ignored those in your task-directed book search.

Early-stage buyers, on the other hand, are still gathering relevant information with the intent of eventually making a decision. They're still task-oriented, but their task is to decide what to buy — or from whom to buy it — instead of actually buying it. What they’ve come for is insight, and the more of that they find on your site, the more time they’ll spend with you.

In both buying stages, your goal is to provide the visitor with what she wants while saving her time. But in early buying stages, you save the visitor time by providing her with information and insight she would have otherwise had to work much harder and longer to obtain. She gives you her time because she senses she’s saving some in return. Conveying this information and insight with engaging and enjoyable copy further leverages this relationship by ensuring that visitors are not only saving time, but enjoying the time they do spend with you. Do that and it’s a fair bet you’ll ends up getting your visitors’ money as well as their time.

Turning back to the Amazon.com example, you may have come looking to research a book on a topic. At this point, the site’s search function is less important than great customer reviews, suggested alternative titles, and the ability to read a passage or two out of a prospective book before buying it. Who hasn’t spent a significant amount of time browsing for stuff on Amazon? The Amazon.com website effectively honors the time needs of both late and early stage buyers.

Most websites only cater to, or “optimize” for, late-stage buyers by assuming that visitors will know exactly what they want. And optimizing for late stage buyers is good as far as it goes because it is honoring the time needs of late stage buyers. But very rarely do websites consider the time needs of early-stage buyers — they don’t look at persuasion.

As 3-panel and universal search become more common, early-stage buyers will have a progressively easier time finding insight that serves their needs. And if it’s your competitor providing that content, are you ever likely to get those buyers when they finally do take action? Or will the persuasive battle have already been won by your competitor?

It’s simply time vs. money. Spend time crafting persuasive, insightful copy that speaks to early stage buyers, or lose money.

Here are some things to consider:

1) Persuasive copy should always have style.

Remember how even intellectual ads should affect emotions? Well, regardless of how substantive the message, you need to use drama as an essential part of the copy.

The question isn’t whether to use stylistic elements to make your points persuasive — you always should (read Made to Stick if you don't believe me) — but whether Style will be a key selling-point.

2) Can you get away with featuring style as a (primary) selling-point?

Notice that I wrote “a selling-point,” not "the selling-point". Unless you're dealing with fashion items — e.g., clothing, shoes — style can’t be the selling point. But it had better be a selling-point, if not a primary one.

Take the Mini Cooper for example; a car that’s had smashing success based primarily on a style-heavy advertising and marketing campaign.

Yet style wasn’t a choice forced onto the product by its advertising. Style was a copy/advertising choice made possible by the nature of the product. The Mini is, and was, an icon of style and design. This is a main selling-point for a car, simply because it's wildly more stylish than anything else in the low-$20k price class.

Given a higher price bracket, a style-heavy advertising message would be disastrous, as exemplified by Nissan’s early 90’s GI Joe/Barbie ad for the 300ZX.

The ad was a hit, but sales of the car disappointed. At $33k (USD), the car would be roughly equivalent to $50k in 2007 dollars. Style and performance aren’t really competitive advantages at $50k; they’re more like prerequisites for entering the price category. And advertising a prerequisite in lieu of a value proposition is never a good idea.

Again, a couple of questions remain: Can you get away with going for style over substance in your messaging? Will the product support such a choice?

3) Use style-heavy copy and messaging to convey intangible (or sensory) qualities.

In Call to Action, Bryan and Jeffrey take on the e-commerce myth that you can’t sell items on the Web that you need to smell, touch, or taste to appreciate — the old, “if you can’t smell it, you can’t sell it” adage.

In other words, use evocative language to help your customers create vivid mental images of themselves enjoying the benefits of your product/service.

This is where style-heavy copy and creative really shine. Here's an example from the J. Peterman site:

I was browsing in a Paris antique shop one winter afternoon when a fitted leather train case caught my eye.

It contained silver-handled brushes, boot hooks, a straight razor, several silver-stoppered glass bottles…

One bottle was different. Encased in yew-wood, with a handwritten date: 1903.

Inside the bottle, there was still the faint, intriguing aroma of a gentleman’s cologne. A “prescription” cologne, custom-made for a rich traveler a century ago.

Curiosity was eating at me

I bought the case (the price was shocking) and sent the bottle to a laboratory for analysis. They broke down the residue by gas chromatography. Identified its fingerprint through spectro-photometry.

The report said: an “old woody fougère.” Clean citrus notes, bergamot, “green notes.” The middle notes: clary sage…cardamom. The dry-down: leather notes, smoky labdanum…elemi, tabac, frankincense.

The detective work was impressive.

So is the thing itself.

Women like the way it smells on a man. Like a symphony that begins loudly, then soon slides into subtle, entangling developments that grow on them.

Or so I’ve been told.

The syle of the copy creates the atmosphere for the right images and associations to flourish, and the intense sensory descriptions help the reader to almost smell the sophistication of the product. The website isn't so great, but the copy makes all the difference.

Another fine example is this Honda Civic ad that uses style-heavy creative in an entirely different fashion than the Mini print campaign.

Remember that the Civic already “owns” substance in the mind of the consumer, so they can afford a style-heavy ad or two — especially one that evokes the physical sensation of driving their new car. But since the whole put-the-audience-in-the-driver’s-seat approach has been done to death, this ad uses a stylistic and creative twist to capture the audience’s attention and imagination. Viewers are struck by the chorus’s ability to reproduce the actual sounds, causing them to focus on the very sensations the ad hopes to convey.

It’s audible farfugnugen, baby! (Way better than "Born from jets".)

That’s what I mean by using style-based messaging as a tactical method for conveying intangible, sensory qualities.

So, where on the style/substance continuum is your copy?

Are you thinking of a white bear? Stop. Don’t think of them.

Not to sound too much like the Verizon guy, but how about know? Still thinking of a white bear?

Ahhh, the power of a mental image. So what does this have to do with Perspective No. 6? (As you may recall from last week, this is a six-part series.) And why am I jumping past numbers 2 through 5? Because there are powerful reasons to evoke negative mental images in your copy, and equally powerful reasons not to — and they both involve the persistent power of white bears, er… negative images, that is.

Oh, and because Perspectives 2 and 3 provide the answers to this problem.

In his Monday Morning Memo of December 4, 2006, Roy Williams wrote that:

Happiness rarely triggers commerce. Unhappiness often does.

Purchases are triggered by dissatisfaction with the way things are. We purchase when we have a need, a desire, an itch to scratch. We want to change our condition, our surroundings, our state of mind. We buy because we are dissatisfied…

…To increase your sales volume, you must identify the dissatisfaction that lurks in the heart of your customer.

And then you must shine your flashlight of words into that darkness…

This would seem to be a powerful reason to evoke negative images in your copy: remind the buyers of the itch, then present your solution as the ideal way to scratch that itch, right? Aye, there’s the rub…

Like white bears or WMDs, negative images persist. And it’s somehow easier to create powerful negative images than it is to produce powerful positive images.

Emotionally speaking, worries trump daydreams.

Worse, most copywriters create a powerful negative image and then try to counter it with a logical or syntactical argument. Which is kind of like letting a skunk loose at work and trying to keep the smell away from your desk with a cubicle partition.

As an example, a copywriter just can’t get away with something like:

“Having trouble getting to a second or third date? It could be your facial acne - now you can get rid of painful acne with Wonder-X!”

What do you think is going to be associated with Wonder-X: the cure, or the painful emotions stirred up by the copy?

Dismissing a logical argument from the mind is all too easy. It’s why rationalizations work. The good angel on your shoulder gnashes his teeth at that all too often, doesn’t he? Mine sure does.

But a powerful mental image is almost impossible to dismiss.

So, does that mean you should always go with gain over pain? With positive mental images rather than negative? Frankly, no. It means:

* that negative mental images are extremely powerful;
* that they have to be used with restraint;
* that sometimes it’s better to hint-at or suggest the negative than to address it directly.

* (and, most importantly) that negative images ALWAYS have to be countered with a more powerful positive image and never with logic or syntax alone.

In fact, psychologists have done research on white bears (really!), and the only way not to think of a white bear is to consciously think of something else. As the copywriter, you must provide something else that’s sticky enough to effortlessly displace the negative image you created.

How do you do that? Well, you have 3 choices:

1. Don’t use negatives at all; only talk about the positive. Depending on your product, this might be the smartest move of all. Of course, depending on your product (insurance?), this might not be an option at all, either.

2. Only hint at the negative (e.g., "Because so much is riding on your tires.")

3. Modulate the intensity and vividness of a negative image to ensure it doesn’t overwhelm your copy and that you can easily replace it with your more powerful, positive mental image.

And how do you modulate an image's intensity and vividness? With perspectives 2 and 3. But that’s for another post…

Catch me next week when I show how it’s done.

[*Editor's note: This is actually the second part of our Copy Perspective Monday series. Make sure to read part one and its follow-up if you missed them. Follow along as Jeff Sexton, Future Now copywriting instructor and Persuasion Architect, guides you through an in-depth perspective on the six copy perspectives. You can also learn from Jeff in person on September 17th at our Persuasive Online Copywriting seminar in New York.]

In just a few years, the company has seen a lot of change in the video market, from Google's YouTube acquisition to an influx of competition from newer startups. Through it all, the company has stayed true to its vision, letting fans upload videos of refrigerators that can launch a cold beer right into your hand.

What could be better than a beer-launching fridge? Well, unlike YouTube — which has made some gestures to share the wealth — Metacafe pays the folks who submit video as much as thousands of dollars per month.

Bryan & Arik discuss:

* Why the video market is no longer just for skateboarding dogs.
* The rise of Metacafe, and user-generated content in general.
* How to make a living by submitting video to Metacafe.
* Viral marketing, and how to create videos that people want to watch.
* The "micro-boredom" epidemic, and how to fix it.

One little-known but poorly-kept secret out there in vendorland is that many big companies — the same ones who come to us for retail advice — use eBay to dispose of returned, open-box, or otherwise retail-disabled inventory. Did you know that?

So it dawned on me: Here I am, an experienced buyer — who better to ask than me about what makes me bid, bid, bid? Want to SellItNow™ your way to increased eBay sales? Here are some guidelines so you'll be able to sell like the pros (and by pros, I mean folks like these, not just eBay PowerSellers).

10 tips for persuasive eBay listings...

Part 2 of the interview focuses on:

* The importance of process in web analytics.
* Avinash's 2 rules of Web Analysis.
* How web analysts should spend their day.
* How to find your next great web analyst.
* The comment traits of great web analysts.
* Looking at Avinash's Trinity Process to web analytics.
* Where you can meet Avinash.
* How you can possibly spend some time with Avinash and Bryan.
* Closing thought: the one report you can take advantage of right away.

Not only is Avinash the author of one of our favorite blogs, Occam's Razor, he was recently hired by Google to be their official Analytics Evangelist. (Yes, really.)

Part 1 of the interview focuses on:

* why "looking beyond the click" to optimize the experience is so necessary.
* how technology has leveled the playing field, so companies of all sizes can be data-driven.
* the importance of being data-driven, yet customer-focused.
* the new "data democracy," and how it's created an environment where Google needs an Analytics Evangelist.
* how analytics professionals can work together to help people get more out of their websites.
* exploiting "the long tail" (define).
* some of his more controversial blog topics, such as "What is enterprise-class web analytics software?"
* documenting processes in your company, so you can fix them by measuring and optimizing intelligently.

Most people will agree that you need three things to extract value from web analytics:

1. You must have clean, not accurate (that will always be a challenge), data.
2. You must have a talented person who can convert that data and into insight.
3. You must have a talented person who can absorb that insight and act on it..

And you'll need to follow this process over and over again to get continuous improvement. This is what everybody agrees to be the formula. The truth is that this ONLY works when you have all 3 ingredients.

It's not easy to find all three, right? There are only a few handfuls of companies that have managed to find all the talent. I wonder how long they can manage to retain it. As Anil points out, there are plenty of people looking to hire these people away from you.

Anyone who's been in business long enough knows it's virtually impossible to scale talent significantly. The secret in every industry category is process, people, then tools. Why do so many companies do this in reverse? They buy the tools or tactic du jour (a shiny object problem), then they try to hire someone (that person will "know") and they never get far enough to actually develop process or get value (the tool didn't work out).

Think of web analytics as accounting for the Web. Most companies would go out of business (or be unhappily popular with the IRS) if they looked for talent and disregarded standard accounting processes. When everyone is trained in the right process, you can always try and find people who are more talented in accounting. If you can't find your own accounting genius, then at least you can substitute with someone familiar with the process to get the job done–even if it's not very creative. Ideally, all your processes should be designed to be utilized by those with less talent, so they can scale.

The reason we at Future Now developed Persuasion Architecture™ (pdf)–a Six Sigma-like process that provides blueprints to plan, measure, and improve your online sales and marketing–is because after years of working with clients optimizing their sites with web analytics and A/B & multivariate testing tools, we realized clients would hit a plateau where they could not break through the optimization brick wall. It didn't matter if they were retail, B2B, B2C, media or service organizations. They all suffered the same fate.

The main reason for this fate is not because they didn't have the tools or the talent, but because they didn't have processes in place to make sure that every bit of marketing they wanted to measure was planned and implemented with measurement in mind. They needed to sort out "fine" signal from noise. When the signal was loud and clear, the low hanging fruit of optimization, it was easier to detect. But without a process to define what signal actually means up-front, it becomes increasingly difficult to listen for it.

Eric Peterson was the first to write about Persuasion Architecture in a book called Web Analytics Demystified. And I'm continuously grateful to Jim Sterne for asking us to keep trying to explain it to his audiences at the Emetrics Summits. Although we haven't always done the best job explaining it, Persuasion Architecture solves this critical "process, people, tools" dilemma.

I've written volumes on Persuasion Architecture; but because it's made up of so many disciplines, people have a hard time grasping it without actually seeing it. I'm going to summarize the process again:

* People do things for their own reasons. So, first clarify what makes different kinds of people click. This is segmentation based on psychographics and linguistic preferences, since that is how people actually navigate and make decisions on the web. (Uncover your Personas)
* Model a blueprint of those clicks to plan the experience that helps your Personas buy the way they want to. This is a click-based experience model, unlike the wireframes people use, but more similar to the way developers plan interaction states in software.
* Build your website from that model which defines the responsibilities of every word, pixel and click. This is where it's valuable to have talented marketing and creative staff or resources. Could you go to your site's homepage now, click on any link and then tell me why any phrase, link or image exists? Which market segment should it appeal to? What action do you hope people in that segment will take after reading those words, seeing that image or clicking that hyperlink?
* Once every business decision and click is documented in the model, development times can decrease by over 30%. You'll recover more than the time spent by reducing the number of iterations copywriters, designers and developers go through in more traditional website design.
* Learn from every click you've modeled to see if your Personas click as you expected (the virtually neglected but real value of web analytics).
* If the clicks aren't what you expected, continuously improve what to click and what the clicks say. You do this by first testing your execution (try variations of the same headlines, copy or images to accomplish the same objectives you specified in the model in different styles or formats); if you try several variations and you don't move the needle, you should re-examine the assumptions that went into defining that particular piece of the overall objective.

Like accounting, it's deliberate, and less exciting creatively, but anyone can do it. And anyone can then use web analytics to continuously improve their web marketing. Isn't that what companies are looking for?

Way too often, we come across websites with an extensive and very difficult checkout. As a customer, how many times have you had to jump through extra hoops just to give your credit card info and receive confirmation that your order has been processed? Too many to count, right?

The more barriers that your visitor faces throughout his checkout process, the more likely you're going to lose the opportunity to make a sale or generate a lead.

I ran into checkout stumbling blocks this morning while I was signing up for a cooking class online at SurLaTable.com. Sure, it's a nice-looking site, but I had to jump through hoops–seven steps in all–and it felt like work, just figuring out how to finalize the sale. If I weren't so web savvy, I'm sure I'd have given up.

Here are some tips for an easy checkout, regardless of what you've got cooking online:

1) Just a Dash of Information: Only ask for information you absolutely require in order to process and order to gain a lead. The more you ask a visitor to fill out, the more frustrating the experience. Remember, you can always ask for more information after they have become a sale and/or lead… but do yourselves a favor and get that credit card info first!

2) A Nice Required Field Reduction: Compile as many fields into a single page as possible above the fold without overwhelming the visitor. When I was signing up for the cooking class, I ran into several different pages that only presented one single field for me to fill out, requiring me to click on a button each time to move forward throughout checkout. Every time you make the visitor click to move forward, you're presenting an opportunity to lose them.

3) Share Your Recipe with Others: Give your visitors a status indicator to tell him where he located within his checkout process so that he has some idea of how long this process is going to take and how many steps are involved.

4) Chill Before Serving: Don't make me sign-up with a username and password before I convert; this simply presents another opportunity to drop off. Once you have my credit card info, or whenever I've officially become a customer or lead, you can give me a confirmation page or an email with a form that lets me enter a username or password–but not sooner. The "get the cash" first rule still applies, even if it's my own.

People come to your site hoping to find whatever it is they're looking for. So, be sure to use fresh ingredients and remember: everything tastes better in moderation.

In Part II of Bryan's interview with Tisch, the two discuss:

* How to deal with difficult customers and turn them around
* How to empower front line workers to delight customers
* Stepping out of his role as CEO to train with other "co-workers" in the field
* The value of embracing diversity
* How the travel pricing engines changed the hotel industry and what what they did to adjust
* What to do when you sell a commodity
* Measuring and making customer experience accountable
* Balancing hard financial metrics and softer experience metrics
* The importance of listening to trends
* What graduates just getting into the workforce should focus on

Sounds like every business you know? Sure it does. And that's why this book couldn't have come at a better time.

In Part I of this two-part edition of Grokcast, Bryan Eisenberg explores Tisch's thoughts on:

* How to break through the clutter to make superb impressions on customers (or in has case, "guests").
* How the customer experience has/hasn't changed in recent decades.
* Distinguishing your brand, even in highly competitive markets.
* How to engage employees (he calls them "co-workers") to rally an organization to the same cause.
* How myriad options have spoiled the customer, and what your business must do to adjust.
* Using customer feedback to improve your business in real time.
* Why transparency is vital in today's economy.
* How to defuse a negative situation, and turn it around–quickly.
* Why unsavory customer feedback is so viral.
* How to ensure that people have nice things to say about your brand.

Jeffrey likes to say "marketers are too often forced to make promises that the business has no intentions to deliver on." That's also known as a lie. Verizon may well have the most "reliable" telecom network. All those folks they show in their commercials as being part of "the most reliable network" aren't. The ads lie!

I'm sure the marketers don't intend to lie but it was the hand they were dealt by Verizon management. Let me explain.

Jeffrey and I just came back from a very productive 10-day road trip. After some airport delays and several hotels iffy Wi-Fi, we wanted to buy wireless broadband cards for our Macs. The money Verizon spends on advertising influenced us. We want reliability. Our Crackberries aren't enough connectivity for us.

We went online with every intention to buy. The website team and the live chat operators dropped the ball. We didn't buy. We're not sure we will. It's rare that a company's customer service is better than their sales acquisition department.

Let me show you some major disconnects in the experience (and what they need do to fix it):

Part 2 Of Google Website Optimizer FAQ

* What other resources do I need to be able to implement tests using Google Optimizer?
* How long do I have to wait to see results testing with Google Optimizer?
* Does hit and run testing work?
* What future features are in the pipeline for Google optimizer?
* How do you see more B2B or lead generation sites using Google Optimizer?
* How would you encourage the average webmaster to get started with Google Optimizer?

* What is the Google Optimizer?
* Is Google analytics required to use Google optimizer?
* Will it work with other analytics software?
* Does A/B or multivariate testing affect your Google search ranking?
* Why is Google offering the optimizer?
* How does Google Optimizer compare to the other testing platforms available now?
* How does Google Optimizer work with sites that are more dynamic in nature?
* Can Google Optimizer be used to test Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Pay Per Action (PPA) ad copy?

AIDA is a basic sales framework that stands for: Attention (Awareness), Interest, Desire and Action. In our offices, we add an S to the acronym. For Satisfaction. If you fail to satisfy, all the other letters don't net you much more than alphabet soup.

To make this easy to 'grok,' let me share a little story with you.
The Relevance of Satisfaction

Once upon a time there was a bloodhound. He lived on a yellow (not brick) road in a cozy little dog house with a blue roof. He got his one square meal a day and spent a lot of time playing with his favorite red rubber ball. But dry kibble is a pale diet, and he was always on the lookout for something with greater culinary appeal...

Of course, it is very important to get great search engine rankings and high organic traffic. Most of the companies who enjoy high organic search engine rankings, unfortunately have very low conversion rates; usually less than 2%.

#1 Search Engine RankingThe real problem lies in the fact that most companies will consider optimization of their website a failure if their traffic decreases or their search engine rankings drop. (You can tell a lot about a company by the metrics they prize.) However, if ranking is more important than sales, we are dealing with an Ego issue. I mean, would you rather have a #1 ranking, with 100,000 visitors and zero sales or would you rather have one visitor and one sale?...

Ice.com is known for for selling quality jewelry–the type of stuff that could save your relationship in the clutch. What's more, though, is that Ice.com is known for its innovation as an online B2C retailer that isn't afraid to mix it up; on their blog, with Valentines Day street interviews on YouTube, with merchandise give-aways on Facebook and MySpace, or even by creating a dedicated blog just to help you sparkle like the stars.

"Mr. Cupid" himself, Pinny Gniwisch (aka Ice.com Co-founder & EVP of Marketing) recently spoke with Bryan Eisenberg (aka Future Now Co-founder & Chief Persuasion Officer) about how to have fun with social media, seasonal business, and working with one's brothers.

We've spent the month of January working on Quick Start Guides that can help you understand which elements have the biggest effect on your conversion rates and how to test them using a simple A/B (or split) test: we now have a guide for retailers and one for lead generation. And we've also been working closely with Google to create a 10 Minute guide for their Website Optimizer.

When we created our example test for Google's nifty (and free) online testing tool, we chose a headline. When it comes to the persuasive copy you create for your website, headlines should rank as one of your highest priorities.

Every website visit is a conversation. Think about it. The web is an interactive medium. Every time you click you ask a question. You interact with the company or brand. What kind of answers are you getting? Do you get a sense of whom you are talking to? Do you have any sense of who the company/brand is?

I'm hearing a resounding answer of, "Not so much."

Your design, images, and copy all combine to convey your company or brand's personality. Of all of these, I would argue that copy is perhaps the most important element for conveying your website's personality or voice. As a copywriter, there are two things you must do:

1 - Have a clear understanding of your personality, brand or voice
2 - Convey that personality, brand or voice to your audience

Here are suggestions for how to accomplish this.

These are important questions.

Ask a Bigger Question

What makes people buy? When you focus on this question, all the subsequent details fall much more easily into place. This is not a word game; it’s a change in perspective. Without a proper strategy, you can win every battle and still lose the war...