Archive for persuasion

How to Make Social Proof Work for You

Social-Proof

When writing on the web about your services or products, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of testimonials and client reviews. Social proof is such a strong persuasion trigger you shouldn’t limit these comments to just a page, but have them scattered throughout your web and blog pages.

Know what works best for your content marketing strategies, especially when creating a website or blog, introducing yourself, a new product, or special promotion.

In my previous post, Social Proof: Why It’s So Important, I reported on research that showed travel destinations with client recommendations and photos of the reviewer were selected 20 percent more than destinations with no review.

But not all recommendations (and ratings) will yield the same results. According to Dr. Susan Weinschenk, in her book Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click: Read More→

Social Proof: Why It’s So Important

Customer FeedbackWhy is social proof so important when writing on the web?

This week I got a call from a person who wanted to buy a subscription to executive coach articles to use for her new newsletter. What sealed the deal? The testimonials from other subscribers.

Recommendations, testimonials and client stories are a powerful persuasion tactic. It’s one of the key persuasion triggers that get people to take action. It’s called social proof.

Do you remember the landmark book Influence, by Robert Cialdini?  He wrote about six weapons of influence, and it turns out, social proof is one of the most powerful mechanisms for triggering buying decisions.

We are heavily influenced by social persuasion, we can’t help it. Our brains respond to our strong need to belong and fit in, and it all happens in our unconscious minds.

Read More→

How to Write an Ebook as Good as a TED Talk

Write-a-bookWhat if you could write an expert ebook using the same riveting tactics used by TED.com speakers that earn them millions of views?

I’ve been viewing some fascinating videos on TED.com, scanning them for tips on how to write a good story. And I’ve read How To Deliver a TED Talk, by Jeremy Donovan.

At some point in your professional career, you’ll likely be inspired to write and publish a book, whether for potential customers, colleagues or to spread your message to a global audience. Your ability to persuade others through  written words will contribute greatly to your book publishing success.

What can we learn from TED Talks about writing an expert ebook? Here are a few key elements from Donovan’s book: Read More→

Grab Blog Readers’ Attention with Animated Videos

animated-drawingsHow do you write good blog posts that connect emotionally with readers and turn them into loyal fans? Oh, heck, that’s easy. All you have to do is:

  1. Grab their attention
  2. Get them emotionally engaged
  3. Make a memorable impact

There you go, right? Easy-peasy. This is what you need to do whenever you write any content designed to market your products and services. Attention, emotions, memory.

Neuroscientists are now showing that the two most important elements of persuasion are emotional engagement and memory. Of course you can’t get either of these unless your marketing messages gain readers’ attention first. But how?

Just how do you grab readers’ attention? Infographics work really well, especially drawings and animated videos. Here’s an example of one done for my business site, Content for Coaches, just under two minutes (less than $357 by wizmotions.com):

Read More→

Content Marketing with Blogs: Online Persuasion

Want to know more about online persuasion and how you can write content that gets results? Here’s a quick one minute video promoting my Content Marketing with Blogs ebook.

The e-book formatting and design was done by my son-in-law, expert graphic designer and creative genius, Scott Krakoff. Tell me what you think…

If you haven’t downloaded it yet, be my guest: Content Marketing with Blogs…

Are You Truly Persuasive When You Make Presentations?

To be truly persuasive, all professionals must make presentations. Let’s face it, not all marketing is online, nor is all content marketing published information.

The most persuasive marketing tool that exists is face-to-face human interaction. Are your presentations truly persuasive, or could you improve?

Even if you’re not in sales, and even if you’re a natural born speaker, you need to hone presentation skills so that you connect as confident, knowledgeable and trustworthy. I don’t often promote other people’s webinars, but I honestly feel this is worth it.

Tanja Parsley is a presentation expert who has a successful career helping smart professionals improve their persuasiveness through presentation skills. She is founder of Partners in Performance. Next week, September 13, she and her business partner will deliver 13 Expert Tips for Truly Persuasive Presentations. You can get the details here.

Here are a few things she promises to deliver: Read More→

Pinterest: 3 Reasons To Take Note

Even if you’ve never been on Pinterest, you’ve probably heard of it—this hot social network is drawing attention everywhere, from newspapers and magazines to television and political campaigns. Since beginning just a few years ago, it has become the fastest website in history to hit 10 million visitors a month—buoyed to success by loyal fans who spend hours on the network each day.

So what’s all the fuss about? What is this latest social craze? Why does it matter?

1.  Pinterest Is Visual Bookmarking. To put it in a nutshell, Pinterest is a super simple way to visually bookmark what you like on the Web—products you’re interested in buying, recipes you want to try, outfits, craft ideas, articles, infographics, etc.—all through pictures that link back to their original sources. As a new user, you set up boards (like folders) named for categories of your choosing; then, when you see something you want to bookmark, you pin it into its category and have it neatly organized to find again. As you pin, you build stunning, pretty-to-look at boards that hold all your favorite places online.

With an attractive and user-friendly interface, it easily solves a felt need for individuals—how to organize info online. Read More→

Online Persuasion: Seeing Through the Eyes of Customers

There’s an important shift in content marketing tactics that affects professionals who want to get found, get known and get clients online. And that shift means a different mindset.

Not too long ago I came across a great blog post. There was a picture of a pair of glasses lying on a bench with this caption: Don’t you wish you could see through your customers’ glasses?

What if you could live in their shoes for a day? Or, track their brains as they go online to your website? What makes them click? What makes them take action?

Here’s where you should start thinking a little differently when writing content for the Web:

Smart content marketers are using persuasion tactics that appeal to emotions rather than reasons. They know that emotions not only guide our decisions and actions, they determine whether or not we buy. Read More→

Content Marketing that Speaks to the Old Brain

You get better results with your content marketing when you speak to the “old brain,” the one that’s also known as the primitive brain or the survival brain. Knowing how the brain works will help you write better as well as help you with presentations to influence others.

There are a few principles to remember, and here’s a great story that makes this come alive… (photo courtesy Mantas Ruzveltas /FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

A Marketing Moment with a Homeless Man…

I want to share an excerpt of a story by Patrick Renvoisé, from his book Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Buttons in Customers’ Brain. He tells the story of how he earned the equivalent of a $960/hour consulting fee from a homeless man…

One evening as I was entering a restaurant in San Francisco, a homeless person stopped me. His sign read, “Homeless. Please HELP.”

The man showed all the signs of distress with sad empty eyes. He looked me directly in the eyes, and I was compelled to hand over a few bucks. However, something led me to go further with this particular man.

Like many of my clients who try to get responses from marketing, his message was weak, and certainly not unique. So I gave him $2 on condition he let me change the message on his sign for at least 2 hours.

The man agreed, and I wrote a different message on the back of his sign. Later, we met up again.

He insisted on giving me $10, because he had made over $60 while I was having dinner. His usual take averaged $2-$10 an hour.

As my entire interaction had lasted only 30 seconds, this eight dollar profit translated into a $960/hour consulting fee, not bad.

All I did was apply what I know about the brain and marketing messages that get people to act.

Here’s what his new cardboard sign said: Read More→

The Homer Simpson Guide to Neuromarketing

Content marketing experts and the people who write marketing messages ought to understand how consumers’ brains work if  they want to engage and create trust and loyalty. The problem lies in assuming people are in charge of their own choices…

Everybody thinks they are in control of their behaviors and decisions. We think we are rational, logical, and smart human beings. But we may not be so smart if we don’t recognize our own and others’ irrationality.

Our behavior and decision-making is affected, 95% of the time, by the unconscious processing in the mid- and lower brains. 95% of our decision making and buying and Web actions are heavily influenced by unconscious processing.

Approximately 85% of the time our brains are on autopilot. But marketers continue to write messages as if people were paying attention.

Market research: in 2005 corporations spent more than $7.3 billion in US alone. In 2007, $12 billion. That doesn’t include marketing, advertising, etc. which carries an additional annual $117 billion tag. Most of this is spent in the wrong places and fails.

Companies and brands are gathering the wrong information, because consumer surveys and focus groups can only report back what they consciously experience …and it’s falsified by biases and flaws. The only true market research comes from monitoring brains of consumers as they react to messages, through neuromarketing.

Almost 8 out of 10 new product launches fail. Could it be that we’ve misunderstood how to capture attention,  emotions and be memorable to consumers? Could it be we assume people are conscious and rational?

Health warnings on cigarette labels actually trigger smoking behaviors, they don’t deter any smoking at all, quite the contrary. Read More→