Presentation Matters! The Top Information Design Principles That You Need To Know

Filed Under Effective Communications, UI Design, Information Design | Leave a Comment

Communication is a vital skill that we developed and enhanced beyond the level that our counterparts in the animal world can currently rely on. However, we are still evolving and the amount of information we share rises every day. We are being trained or forced to perceive lots of complex information that we are to digest and to move on to the next batch.  So, it is almost critical to learn how to present yourself well, how to communicate your message effectively and how to make your information-based products  the ultimate delights for your customers.

The information you sell (be it a report or a dashboard of some sort) must be “pretty”, in other words, it should be quite visually appealing and well organized to make a difference for your users.  There is a fine line between the simplicity, enough information and information overload that you might want to test with your users.

“The danger of clutter - especially on a visual screen - is that it causes confusion that affects how well we perform tasks. To that end, visual clutter is a challenge for fighter pilots picking out a target, for people seeking important information in a user interface, and for web site and map designers, among others.” (MIT news).

To our luck, there is a whole discipline devoted to this question - Information Design that have to be a must read topic (and it is) for web application developers and product managers.  I find it very useful as well as a marketer and communicator.  In fact, anyone can benefit from this extra knowledge, or information to reduce the information overload we impose on our audiences.  According to Rune Pettersson, “Information Design is a multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional, and worldwide consideration. It is not possible to develop a number of firm message design rules telling the information designer exactly how to best design a message and develop information materials. However, based on research it is possible to formulate several ID-principles and then develop a number of guidelines for the design of effective and efficient messages and information materials.”- International Institute for Information Design  So what are those top 10 or 16 ID-principles that we should keep in mind while engaging in product design or testing a product or participating in a beta?  You can actually find 150 ID-guidelines for 16 designs principles in Rune’s research, “It Depends“:

  1. Define the problem (Find what the user wants to achieve)

  2. Provide structure (Develop a clear structure, minimize the number of levels, show the  hierarchy graphically)

  3. Provide clarity (Go through the details: fonts, pictures, layouts, color, symbols, maps and make the all work in unison) - that’s where the pretty piece comes in!

  4. Provide simplicity (Check the readability of all items above)

  5. Provide emphasis (Use contrast and exaggeration or interactive elements to bring attention)

  6. Provide unity (Be consistent in your terminology, typography, layout and style) - make the information fluid!

  7. Consider information access (Use standards, internationally accepted, provide support for important context)

  8. Consider information costs (This one relates more to graphic design of web sites and implies production costs)

  9. Consider information ethics (Refers to considering copyright, media guidelines and image manipulation)

  10. Secure quality (Implies establishing the review cycles and ease of use for your reviewers to follow. If we apply that to a finished product, it can consider an organized storage or archives system).

  11. Strive for harmony ( I love this one - finding balance within the visual presentation of information)

  12. Follow aesthetic proportion (Implies finding the receiver’s aesthetic proportions, finding balance between the decorative use of color and cognitive importance)

  13. Facilitate attention (Refers to the mastery of bringing attention through text, layout, and colors)

  14. Facilitate perception (Here you must use your knowledge on perceptions of color, text, shapes, layout to make your message come through the way you want it to be)

  15. Facilitate mental processing (Utilize examples in text, provide realistic time for your audience to get the information, be consistent)

  16. Facilitate memory (Consists of presenting a limited number of information elements at the same time, with close connection of text and illustrations) - This is where the context is the key!

In addition, the information must be within the context, relevant and simple to produce actions you desire. Others call it the ability to provide a clear line of sight to show a complete picture. Others advise to present information in 3 blocks on one page to make it more meaningful and easily comprehensive. No pun intended, but there is so much information already about information design that helps simplify the information -that makes one’s head spin.  For example, there is even a comprehensive book of papers in IA (Information Architecture) or ID that one can immerse into to become an expert that can solve such problems in a matter if minutes.

While getting myself more into the subject, I found a good guide to make my quest for answers even easier and not so “overloaded” - I recommend to add ‘The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” by Edward Tufte to your library.

 

 

Loyalty - Is That What We All Are Striving For? Customer Loyalty is Equivalent To Successful Marriage

Filed Under Effective Communications, CRM, Community Evangelism | Leave a Comment

What is Customer Loyalty? It is a state of marketing nirvana that all of us are trying to get into, equivalent to a successful marriage where both parties are satisfied with their relations. Our customers develop an emotional bond with our product through a series of repeat purchases that are all positive experiences. All that is due to the fact that we marketers pay attention to every detail and preferences they state each time they come back. And we - evolve and change while catering towards those preferences.

Customer loyalty also implies some sort of solid comfort and knowledge (from the both parties) that at times of conflict or misunderstanding - their interests will get worked out, talked over and resolved. There is trust from both sides - the merchant will not disappear or refuse service and the customer will not run off like crazy to another provider without engaging into the conversation. Now, we are arriving at the true connection between loyalty and database marketing = two-way consistent communication.

Developing the bond between you and your customers is all what the database marketing is about. Loyal customers are more valuable for your business than average because they:
- Have higher retention rates
- Have higher spending rates
- Have higher referral rates
- Higher lifetime value
- Are less expensive to serve
- Buy higher priced options

So which rate listed is more important that others? Of course, the retention rate – once your customers are gone, they are gone and it does not matter how frequently they purchased or how much they have spent.

So what can you do as a database marketer to keep them? – Use the information and data you have and personalize your services accordingly in real time. The industry has a myriad of success stories that illustrate the best known principles of database marketing. One example would be an article by the Chief Marketer’s writer, Bryan Pearson where he views and describes a successful customer loyalty strategy as a dynamic ecosystem. Which makes sense, as the idea is to surround your customers with as many touch points for service/product consumption and positive interaction. We, humans are “hungry for more resources” social beings and respond well to such environments where all our needs are constantly catered in one place at the right time by the same provider as long as the quality and variety aspects are in line with our expectations. And if you add the consistency of touch point interactions - you lock us pretty in a dreamworld of instant gratification that is prolonged!

The top three strategies that are shared in the article include:
1. Understanding your segments, where “extensive market tests definitively prove that customizing content and messages to focus on relevant products and solutions drives dramatically higher response rates and increases the profitability of direct communications to this segment. This model of testing and analysis has demonstrated real-world success in using customer transactions to predict purchase behavior.” Thus, you are able to collect those preferences, track the changes in consumer behavior and predict future purchases for similar customers.
2. Segmenting ahead of the curve, implies taking this analysis a notch up and predicting the future behavior for your customers before they realize that they have new preferences based on marginal deviations from the norm. You can track the info back to some specific event and tailor your communications to test the probability.
3. Enhancing the customer environment, goes without saying into the equation as it manifests your response to the transactional data you receive/the feedback in other words. You make their repeat purchases even more pleasant, more relevant – thus polishing the emotional connection.

All in all, it appears that paying attention pays off in the business world and the laws of evolution are attributable to a successful marketplace. Add an agile human intellect and action in between, and you are likely to follow the lifecycle of a civilization – growing your business. Isn’t it what we - marketers are here for?

“Common Mistakes That Drive Customers Away” from the Online Market World, Day Two

Filed Under Effective Communications, Conference, e-commerce, UI Design | 1 Comment

Day Two for the e-commerce conference brought new ideas (from starting my own online business after watching all those people making a living while selling anything!) to confirming new directions that I would like to take in my career: CRM and web analytics that affect conversion rates (multivariate testing and behavioral targeting). Social media, viral marketing and online advertising became close chapters: I can still do that, I get it and know it well, but passion is moved to something new and more challenging - database marketing and behavioral targeting. At the same time, user experience design concepts still get mixed into the equation as they affect the entire consumer experience and the bottom line.

To that extent, one of the most interesting sessions today was on “Most Common Mistakes That Drive Customers Away” with Thanh Nguyen from Business OnLine, Jeff Shulman with (X+1) and Mark Wachen with Optimost sharing simple nuggets that are worth keeping in mind while optimizing your online communications or sales process. So, the most common mistakes include:

1. Mismatched Offer - when a user comes back in a week and sees the same offer for a lesser price? Ha? It does happen very often and can turn off your customers in seconds.
2. Mismatched Content - happens when “cookies” get on the way and mixed up, or randomly - an example of this can bring a scenario of a college student that stays up all night and frequents MySpace while he is presented with an offer for a Mercedes. Very mismatched content!
3. Multiple Choice - too many choices make it difficult for users to make a choice - a book was referenced in the speech by Jeff “The Paradox of Choice” - that provides a good overview on buyer’s behavior and how people make their decisions.
4. Promoting Benefits That Are Not Benefits - happens all the time. As an example, in the final action step when you ask your visitor share his/her email address and add a “no-spam” disclaimer - it can only hurt you as people start thinking about it. Studies show that if you do not mention too much info or negative info, your conversion rate is much higher - as it makes sense. Do not clutter the user’s mind when there are already ready to take an action with extra info.
5. Continuing To Sell When The Sale Is Made - can prevent your customers to take the final step - as an example, removing FAQ info that was placed together with an offer - increased the conversation rate again - too much info (TMI) - something most of use marketers suffer from.
6. Asking A Lot Of Unnecessary Questions - making your users fill out long forms - turns everyone off - minimize your forms to 3-5 questions.
7. Treating Customers Equally - Segmenting by search keywords does bring more qualified traffic that converts into dollars as opposing to throwing out the same copy to the entire audience.
8. Not Allowing Your Users To Check Out Fast And Easy - according to the studies that a user experience analyst, Thanh Nguyen, conducted, people get frustrated when a bunch of forms or barriers are presented before they can enjoy a product or complete a purchase. ” I do not want to fill out forms to buy a purse. They do not ask me to do that at the counter”, - says right away what your users want.
9. Not Giving Clear Indications For The Shopping Process - makes your customers wonder “How long is it going to take?” - and the way to avoid this pitfall is to offer a visual path to your users, as an example, see the checkout path that Amazon cart has that starts with a “sign-in”, continues to “shipping”, “gift wrap” and finishes with “place an order”.
10. Not Capitalizing On Abandoned Carts - represents a lost opportunity that is not utilized by some online merchants. How many times did I go through the process and did not complete the shopping? Sometimes, I lost the card - as the merchant provided me with no history or some indicator where it was, or sometimes I got distracted. By providing the history, save the cart option and reminding via email with a discount offer can significantly recover the abandoned customer.
11. Not Cross-Selling By Displaying Products Without Recommendations - “Imagine four products displayed and 6 out of 6 visitors did not click through?” - no case studies or testimonials are used - and your users do not trust online content but other users. Make your users recommend and cross-sell for you. Use the user’s browsing history from items searched to tasks accomplished during the session, connect him/her to other users who did the same and purchased - and recommended your product - cross-sell.

To sum it up, it seems like keeping the sales process easy, straight-forward and consistent brings the best results: higher conversion rates, user satisfaction and referred business.

Top Five Ads That Deliver the Message and Entertain Greatly

Filed Under Effective Communications, Entertaining Advertising | Leave a Comment

The key to a good ad is to reach the right audience at the right medium at the right time and deliver the right message with an emotional impact. Entertainment is omnipotent element of advertising that makes it a joy to produce it. Here are the top five favs that I am noticing these days:

1) Career Builder presents a common feeling that office folks experience these days in the corporate America, the ad speaks to the point, makes you laugh and connects to audience’s experience. I think - it is money well spent.

2) Cadbery creates a fun suspense with an always working gorrilla image! Who does not relate to those creatures? We all do. Remember the last time you visited the ZOO and its apes’ section - You always watch them closely, they watch you and the more you watch - the more you see your own reflection! I do. Loved this passionate drummer.

3) Herbal Essence skillfully involves reality and paradox in a fun enjoyable twist.

4) Jack Links Jerky’s campaign “Messing with the Sasquatch” deserves a place in the best ad humor panel. Some of the epizods are a bit crude, some are irresistably funny. My favorite is the one with the fire: loved the stone - it made a Sasquatch a here in my eyes!

5) Geico Caveman pieces are also the best. Always, hits the spot.

Top Ten Interactive Marketing Trends Observed Throughout 2007

Filed Under Creative Marketing, Social Media Fruits, Web Technology, Effective Communications, CRM, Online Marketing, Marketing Channels, Interactive Marketing | 2 Comments

I have been thinking about the top ten interactive marketing trends that I can name on the top of my head that are still pursued by the fellow marketers. I came up with a list of those that was not as surprising as I wanted it to be. At the same time, it reminded me how long marketing as a profession has been around. Reading and tracking various industry publications (Brandweek, AdAge and NYT) as well as googling the term “Interactive marketing trends 2007” for value-add opinions in the top marketing blogs, brought me to the following top ten list:

1. Advergaming
2. Online video
3. Consumer generated media
4. Social networking
5. Mobile social networking
6. Interactive TV
7. Relationship marketing
8. Evangelism marketing, or word-of-mouth marketing
9. Paid search marketing
10. Community-powered search

Regardless of the research executed on the topic, this list does represent somewhat subjective professional judgment. Simultaneously, the top ten list is not necessarily prioritized by significance of the item.

Advergaming has been on the market for two years and according to Zodiac Interactive’s EVP-Sales & Marketing Rick Howe noted, “Advergames are compelling, sponsored interactive content that enables leading brands to attract large, targeted audiences and effectively promote their brands across multiple platforms. Custom branded Advergames and contextual in-game advertising are considered to be one of the most effective and stickiest vehicles to engage consumers in deeply engaging online experiences. Similar to product placements or ad placements in movies, in-game advertising is subtly placed throughout the gaming experience in a form of banner ads or fictional placements to make a game more real. It is almost surreal to live without advertising! Internet games are filled with products like Cheetos, Mountain Dew and Laffy Taffy. Advertisers know that tomorrow’s consumers are today’s children and they utilize this knowledge in shaping brand loyalties like gardeners growing an orchard.

Online video is very popular these days thanks to its captivating effect as a medium and a number of easy-to-use online applications that fully support its production, sharing and editing. YouTube, Jib Jab and the rest became so common that everyone knows how to use those and does it on regular basis. Online accessibility provides for wide consumer coverage and the interactive video effect allows for better envisioning for potential customers how the product can be used and what the actual benefits are. One of the best examples would be the animation effect in email marketing that a chocolate provider used. According to Amy Johannes from Chief Marketer, the marketer was able to boost its sales by 49% by utilizing animated images in the promotional emails. They also ran a Valentine’s Day promo. “Clickthroughs on an animated e-mail were 203% higher than those showing just a static picture, the study found.” Consumers are used to rich media applications and they expect messages directed at them to be animated, interactive or some sort of participatory.
Finally, it is almost a fact that every strong marketing team is able to produce or to induce the production by customers of humorous online ads and distribute them virally through social media channels, where YouTube is one of the players. According to the eMarketer article on Online Video: Seeing the Whole Picture, “it projects that the number of online video viewers in the US alone will rise from 114 million in 2006 to 183 million in 2011. “
As B2B April article states the point of view of Matt Ross, president of McCann Worldgroup San Francisco,” Entertainment engages, and entertainment sells. People will grant you a tremendous amount of time if you make it rewarding and worthwhile.”

Consumer generated media, or in other terms user-generated content was a very loud marketing term in 2006. Everyone in the marketing community was thrilled at the opportunities and effects it provided. According to Jeffe Juice, one of the marketing bloggers, “Everyone from Doritos to Mentos, MasterCard to Panasonic, Chevy to Oreos, offered user generated content programmes. And not without good reason. Consumers really responded. The UGC programme that Renegade created for Panasonic was great for engaging the action sports community. Mentos’s effort to ride the wave of consumer interest in watching Coke bottle geysers has created a corresponding explosion in sales (up 17% over the previous year). Looking ahead, however, marketers will need to raise the stakes if they hope to get consumers involved in such campaigns. One way will be to offer cash (or other incentives), not just for the winners as Doritos is doing, but for all UGC that other consumers end up watching. This “pay for play” approach is certainly gaining traction with the emergence of Current TV (which is paying for ads) and Revver.com (which is paying for content). Creative consumers will undoubtedly follow the money.” These days every third American has a blog, or knows how to produce a video and get paid for it. A lot of small businesses and specialty agents started using YouTube channels and blogs for self-promotion and business development due to the interactive intimate touch this medium provides.

Social networking showed its popularity especially with the techies (early adopters) and the young teenage audience that grasps every new online tool at the speed of light. At present one can see the movement goes mobile, when social networking sites get support through mobile applications. “I do not use email any longer; just use Twitter that is incorporated on my Facebook page.” says Jeremiah Owyang, one of the online top web strategy bloggers. eMarketer digested the research on attention measure in social network sites done by Complete and suggested that “the top six social networks all saw increased attention, and the top 20 social networks received over 15% of all attention in June. MySpace consumes an outsized share of Internet user time overall.” There is a potential for marketers to engage the audience and utilize this attention on those sites.
The UK is similar enough in Web usage that it can serve as a directional guide to Internet behavior in the US. In the study, 68% of UK social networkers said they had visited another Web site after seeing something on a friend’s social network page. Just under half used a search engine to learn more and 35% had forwarded the space, ad or link to a friend. Behavior targeted advertising is believed to be a solution for richer engagement of this audience towards products and services that their friends are using or referring to.

Mobile social networking provides a great opportunity for location-based marketing. According to eMarketer and Juniper Research’s “Mobile User-Generated Content: Social Networking, Dating and Personal Content Delivery” report, “Mobile end-user generated revenues worldwide from social networking, dating and personal content delivery services will increase to more than $5.7 billion in 2012 from $572 million in 2007.” Mobile phones become the main means of online access and communication. There is a great potential for integration of location-based marketing and mobile social networking to make it for a rich customer experience. Imagine with what ease decisions could be made by consumers when they socialize and get instant notifications from the social networks sites and simultaneously they are presented with the service/product offerings that can continue the social experience. The best example would be someone who just arrived to a new city and gets a notification from a friend to meet in an hour for a dinner in a certain area. Simultaneously, a listing of context-driven places is displayed to allow the parties agree fast on where to meet. The whole interaction can take 5 minutes, which usually might have taken 20 provided that one of the parties was familiar with the location or was thinking about it in advance.

Interactive TV proves to be much more effective than ads, as the level of audience engagement brings significant results. The audience interacts with the content displayed and gets engaged into purchasing decision-making process. According to the May article in Television Week “DirecTV Hawkeyes Interactive Spots”, “viewers are responding to interactive ads about 11 percent of the time, exponentially higher than the response rate for Internet ads.”

Its effectiveness might be due to the multitasking behavior that expands in all levels of an average user. The most recent example is Nike’s interactive campaign, “Quick Is Deadly” for its Zoom training-shoe line. “It would include more than 20 minutes of interactive content accessible to Dish Network subscribers with DVRs.” This is about 30% of the network’s 13 million subscribers — will be able to click into 30- and 60-second TV spots starring San Diego Chargers running back LaDanian Tomlinson and other fleet-footed Nike athletes. Nike gives them the option to view interview footage of the football star discussing his exhaustive training regimen. The footage of Mr. Tomlinson’s signature spin move in different speeds. The Nike-branded game designed to test viewers’ remote-control reflexes and a three-dimensional demo of the Zoom shoe. Using ZIP-code information in each Dish unit, users will also be able to find stores carrying the shoe at the click of a button. The campaign does not give users the option of buying the shoe from their set, although the technology does enable that function.”

Relationship marketing has it origin from direct marketing and is evidenced to be relevant in the current environment where consumers became sophisticated enough to demand personalized service tailed to the individual needs. Customers today are demanding more in their expectations of how they are serviced and the levels of service they receive. More often than not, a level playing field between many businesses today means the only real differentiation and competitive advantage we can develop and sustain will be the relationships we forge with our customers. Obviously, the more personalized the catering, the more engagement marketers would receive from their customers. Amazon, as one of the leaders in the transparent customization process, illustrates the benefits that relationship marketing can bring in order to retain its existing customers and acquire the new ones. As an online retailer, its audience and markets is very broad and diverse. It is segmented by geo regions, however its demographics is not clearly defined due to the scope of retail industry. However, the total online shopping market comprises over 26 billion people. Clearly, Amazon utilizes behavioristic approach to segmentation, using database marketing. Its acquisition strategy starts with Level 1 (mass marketing), it is not discriminated but slightly targeted based on searching, browsing space and search words, which is an appropriate acquisition strategy for an online retailer. Amazon’s marketing programs follow the pattern of customer differentiation process matrix in its communications and benefits to the users. It comprises of 4 levels:

Level 1: Beginner (Free Super Saver)
Level 2: Purchase patterns captured (Buy 4, Get 1 Free)
Level 3: Heavy user, hooked (Amazon Prime)
Level 4: Heavy user is rewarded by savings (Amazon Visa Card)
Obviously, Amazon’s strategy is reflected through its marketing programs where it moves along the entire quadrant in the full new user transfer into customer circle, while utilizing its mass customization capability that is transparent to the end user. From the standpoint of current customers, most of its programs imply the development of 1:1 marketing, while upgrading services and offering for the loyal customers.

Evangelism marketing or word-of-mouth marketing keeps its relevance in the marketers’ tool kit. Word-of-mouth marketing often targets influencers — people who are passionate about a product category, and who are perceived as credible sources. The theory is that reaching more influencers increases the odds that they will spread the message. The interactivity piece comes into play in the ability of those individuals to build credibility and relationship easily due to expertise or their own investment into the service/product they promote. There is also some sort of role-modeling that those individuals exercise that allows for effective promotion. According to the Bridge Ratings/University of Massachusetts study published in August 2007, getting just about anybody else besides advertisers to convey the message would seem to be more effective. The study also revealed that 93% of respondents said they were moved to take some sort of action by WOM influence. eMarketer estimates that 20% of US adults will be WOM influencers in 2011, up from 17.5% in 2007. Web sites, blogs and other technology are making it easier to spread the word on a favorite topic.


Paid search marketing is continuously growing according to David Wigder from the FutureLab, Marketing Strategy and Innovation Blog, as a core tool for online marketers. There are several reasons for search’s continued dominance as an interactive online activity. Search allows marketers to:

1) Engage consumers as they actively seek information in market, thus providing them with relevant content during the selection process of the buying behavior when they need it.

2) Connect consumers with relevant content based on self-identified interests.

3) Pay only when consumers click on a sponsored link, no waste in marketing expenditures.

4) Scale spend in the channel (to a point).

5) Enhance the productivity of other channels, while integrating other communication channels.

It is almost a fact of life that prospective buyers receive information from a variety of channels and do engage into online search before they purchase. Paid search provides for easy-access, relevant information based on the messages communicated through TV, radio, print and word of mouth.

Community-powered search finds its relevance in interactive marketing when “consumers are hungry for relevant content, but prefer to trust their peers, friends or expert community. More relevant consumer experience is of value that community-powered search engines provide. Customized search engines such as Eurekster Swicki, Rollyo and Yahoo Search Builder are likely to become more popular as search results are informed by the collective experience of the community.”

In retrospective, there has to be something else, something new in the marketing tool box that is not there yet publicly known. My gut feeling and overall assessment says that all the top ten “trendy” things already reached the masses or to be precise the mature crowd. The early adopters are up to something new and hopefully I am about to run into that in the near future.

Three Useful Models for Web Copywriting

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Three Useful Models for Web Copywriting

Writing a web copy? It has been a while since you did any highly visible writing? Or do you simply wish to refresh your copywriting skills and use those for quality check review of your contracted writers? Maria Veloso, a 27-year expert in copywriting and direct marketing, shares her experience in the book “Web Copy That Sells”- a highly recommended reference that is worth taking a place in your marketing library. Here are three useful models to shape up and sharpen the web writing skills:

I. Conceptual Web Copy Blueprint
II. Five Guidelines to Make Your Copy Sell
III. Priceless Techniques to Use While Constructing Web Copy

So, you have a vision for your site and you think that you have the content necessary to deploy for the copy. Well, the truth is that your content is not your web copy. All the information that you compiled while talking to various groups within your company is just information. You still have a job to translate it into a “sellable” web copy – a copy that delivers – empathizes with your customers, persuades them and generates sales. Thus, the initial step for you as a writer would be to step into the shoes of your audience and get their perspective on the user experience that they would have while visiting your site. What would they do and what path would you lead them to? The five key questions to answer while going through this exercise is:

1. What is the Problem?
(Diagnose the problem or pain point for your audience. Sometimes, they do not even know that they have a problem – educate them.)
2. Why Hasn’t the Problem Been Solved?
(Check the history of the solutions that failed or succeeded).
3. What is Possible?
(Use “possibility thinking” and paint a picture for your audience of what is possible for them to do and enjoy while the problem is solved (by your service/product.))
4. What is Different Now?
(Explain how your product can help them and what is different about it.)
5. What Should I Do Now?
(State clearly what you want your prospects to do.)

This is your conceptual blueprint!
What do you do to make your copy live and actionable? Sprinkle your blueprint with the basic design and psychology guidelines:

1. Inject Emotion
2. Add Bullet Points, Bonuses, Guarantee and Close
3. Add Credibility-Building Elements
4. Add Psychological Devices
5. Replace Rational Words with Emotional

This is your five guidelines to follow while writing the copy!

What are the priceless techniques to keep for reference in the process of writing the copy?

• Use AIDA Principle (Capture audience’s attention, get its interest, build desire and induce action).
• State The Unique Selling Proposition (competitive advantage of your product).
• Make the Impression in the First Paragraph
• Write the Offer You Cannot Refuse
• Use Testimonials: “It Can Happen to You”
• Use Your Headline to Sell
• Introduce the Price Through (Daily-Cost Technique and Minor-Purchase Technique)
• Keep On Selling: Craft The Order Form Thoroughly
• Infuse Your Copy with a Money-Back Guarantee: Make a Deal
• Plan the Close For Potential Sale
– Provide a Free Gift
– Use a Time Limit Offer Technique
– Use a Limited Supply Technique
• Spell Out Your Call To Action
• Use an Opt-In Mechanism
• Use Attention-Grabbing Words
• Avoid Jargon and Corporate Speak
• Use Multiple Pricing/Benefits Offers

This is a good checklist to have while crafting the copy.

Another good source of short articles on effective web copy is available at excess voice site.
The third source for web copy intelligence that I would recommend to subscribe to for weekly updates - is Brian Clark’ blog – Copyblogger.

What are your best sources, tips and examples of effective copywriting?

Relevancy Marketing, Takeaways from the Marketing Profs B2B MKTG Virtual Conference

Filed Under Effective Communications, Conference, B2B Marketing | 1 Comment

It was quite a convenient experience to attend a virtual conference set up by Marketing Profs on B2B Marketing Wednesday this week. At the same time, the most valuable parts of the arrangement is the ability to download presentations right away and the ability to listen the recorded sessions afterwards! Great value! Saves time, provides flexibility and shares content freely at no charge. More about a similar positive “user experience”, check Jeremiah’s post.

The session on B2B Marketing by Google’s folks: Benjamin Chung and Mark Martel was of most interest. The term of Relevancy Marketing peaked my attention. The idea is simple of putting your ads and products in the right context -where your users are and where their behavior illustrated obvious interest in those products. Sometimes, Relevancy Marketing is called Contextual Marketing that has a power of effective influence over one billion people online today. Its key benefits are: being transparent and flexible for adjustments in real-time. Also, online sources of information become very influential today for B2B segments. Niche content grows significantly attracting the involved end-users. Hence, B2B advertisers move online as well. The top three tips to remember are:

1) To focus on the customer
2) To profit from fragmentation
3) To measure, learn and optimize.

(See the link below to access the details and narration for the session.)

According to eMarketers’ article on “The Behaviorally Targeted Ad Audience” :

In a May 2007 consumer study by JupiterResearch and AOL, revealed:

1. 74% of frequent ad viewers stated they would pay more attention to a contextual ad vs. 89% who would pay more attention to behavioral ads

2. 63% of online consumers say they pay more attention to ads that fit their specific interests vs. 49% who pay more attention to ads that are directly related to their current online activity; that data could be interpreted as more attention for contextual (specific interests) than behavioral (current online activity)

3. 67% of online shoppers — defined as those who research and/or purchase online — notice behaviorally targeted ads vs. 53% who notice contextual targeted ads

Personalize the content, do you “research” or use your research and I will spare a minute to pay attention. Relevancy marketing translates into more effective marketing communications and eventually a greater awareness about the product offerings by the target audience.

Other sessions at the virtual conference included:

- Keynote: B2B Marketers Need An Interactive Makeover by Laura Ramos
- Customer Reference Programs and the Social Media Revolution by Bill Lee and Jeremiah Owyang
- Email Marketer Seeks Customer for Long-Term Relationship by Brian Ellefritz and Scott Barnett
- Is Thing On? Social Media for B2B Marketers by Greg Verdino
- Using Sustainable Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Growing B2B Business by Greg Spangler

P.S. Here is the link to the recorded sessions - check them out - time well spent.

Interactivity and Engagement Grab Attention, Build Connection and Make Us Buy

Filed Under Cool Ideas, Branding, Effective Communications | Leave a Comment

People do not like to be sold, but we like to buy. Thus, it just makes sense that conventional commercials bombarding, be it a TV ad or a sales speech, does not work very well. Interactivity aspect became the key ingredient for making a connection to customers’ hearts and wallets. Touching customers at the moments of their experience while enjoying their passion, hobby or interest works wonders. It creates a connection that is weaved into already positive experience. That is why ad placements work best: be it traditional movies or games or mobile communications. According to the e-marketers recent article, “Advergames like the 3.2 million units sold at Burger King over the holidays have been a success, and in-game placements have music labels competing for exposure in the latest sports games. But it is online gaming that holds the best promise for targeting during specific time slots, as is possible through XBox Live and other game ad networks.”

Another way to look at it is through the lenses of experience design field, where cognitive psychology and consumer behavior are taken into the account. David Armano shares a very compact foil set, illustrating this concept on his blog. Experience design requires more “thinking” energy and planning though. With product placements, you are simply rewarded by doing your homework and using the info on where your customers “hang out, lounge and mingle”. With experience design applications, be it an event or a product, it has to do more with a new creation where prior knowledge is practiced. It could be more challenging and time-consuming as production and testing takes time. At the same time, what can be more rewarding than creating a new experience that your audience will definitely engage into and be able to enjoy the connections it builds with your product? The greatest part here is not about the product, but a user, consumer, as he/she is thought of, cared for and catered to!

Why We Marketers Should Adopt Another Segmentation Tool - Personas from User Experience Design

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The best discovery from last week was stumbling upon Steve Mudler’s session at Webvisions on personas . It almost feels like the more I learn, the more is out there still awaiting for discovery. Two weeks ago, I was rambling on the database marketing and its behavioristic approach to segmenting. I was thrilled and motivated to learn as much as I can about it. Last week, my attention radar caught the concept from the user design (scenario design) field - creating “personas” to segment potential customers and be able to communicate better with them, while resonating with their specific challenges. “Personas”, as a market segmentation tool does bring: focus, empathy, consensus, better designs and communications.

If I narrow down to the two major benefits of this technique, I would mention its flexibility and applicability to real life situations we marketers face and its fundamental psychological truth about discrepancies of people’s words and actions.

The greatest part about creating “personas” is that it allows segmenting your market while you engage into the limited market research initiatives. Let’s face it - most of the time, we (marketers) have limited budget and resources (people and time) and there is so much that we could do but we cannot afford….How do you find out what your potential customers will want and to what they would respond to if you only have 4 weeks, 4 people and no budget? You can only interview a small number of people, you can do so much as opposing to engaging in the ideal long and steady market research process that we learnt from the books or that is feasible if a specialized agency does it for us for a good sum.

Well, we have “personas”! Steve Mudler actually shares his expertise on it in his book ” The User is Always Right”, As an example, creating personas becomes a good segmentation alternative in the real life situation where you are developing a channel for a newly developed product or a “newly-is-still-in-development- product-that-is-has-to-sell-in-6-months”. There are three primary approaches, based on the type of research, scope and analysis performed:

• Qualitative personas (based on interviews, as an example)
• Qualitative personas with quantitative validation (interviews and surveys)
• Quantitative personas (surveys, data from the CRM systems, etc.)

Thus, it allows you to apply this technique to any scope of research that you are doing. Flexibility makes it a good model.

Another useful disclaimer that all of us - marketers performing research should always keep in mind is that what people say is not what they necessarily do. What they say is important as it reflects their goals and attitudes as well as perceptions and aspirations of being seen in a certain light. What people do is just as important, since actual behavior can reveal more about people than what they say. Behavior reveals patterns around which you can design your product or communication strategy. Again, the perfect combination of promise and action, if those are consistent – you got your answer and you are on the right track, if those are conflicting, you have to test your hypothesis again or change it completely.

Web 2.0 Expo, Day 2 and Day 3, Experience Takeaways

Filed Under Creative Marketing, Web Technology, Effective Communications, CRM, Conference | 2 Comments

It took me 2 days to get into my normal routine after such a whirlpool of knowledge sharing and social networking using traditional and web technology methods. Instead, I am still catching up with all the people I met. However, I thought I would quickly put my notes in this post. So what happened within those 2 days and what and who inspired my curious mind?

I. Behavioral Targeting, a session led by Basem Nayfeh, explored the world of web analytics and database marketing that allows to target your customers based on their behavior. It is not a new technique, but I was happy to see how pronounced the topic becomes. The complexity and at the same time, the solutions it brings are worth exploring by every marketer in any given organization. It allows to make a pause and ask a question where consumer attention is and follow it. Paying attention to customer steps on your page or online allows to be an effective marketer. An interesting fact that 60 % of content is posted by someone “we know”, “you know”, exemplifies well that our social behavior does not change dramatically on the web. Behavioral segmenting is intelligent segmenting and qualifying people based on their actions: (searches made, product interests, articles they read, navigation, geography, keywords, workplace attributes). Behavior is captured and targeted message is delivered, new knowledge about your product is discovered, etc.

II. Web Analytics and Internet Marketing Solutions session by Akin Arikan touched upon similar topic. He also shared a free whitepaper that illustrates well the major points on how to optimize your online marketing campaigns. The Web Analytics Recipe Cards provides an overview on how to maximize the number of qualified leads captured online, maximize online and offline revenue and increase brand awareness. Another document that is worth reading, shared by Unica, summarizes how today’s marketers can anticipate, understand, help their companies profit from the web transformation.

III. Social media discussions were quite popular and interactive. I am “delegating” this topic to Jeremiah and Mario, as lots of coverage can be found at their prominent blogs: Marketing Nirvana and Web Strategist.

IV. The best part of the entire event for me was meeting a number of brilliant people. The social aspect of the conference attendance left the most satisfaction. People who make a difference in this industry being in either big or small companies is the biggest asset of web.2.0 revolution and evolution. I had a lot of fun meeting people at the expo, at the after event parties and during live upstreaming opportunity with Podtech. The combination of knowledge and social capital gained definitely exceeds the projected ROI. Web 2.0 expo 2007 is money and time well spend.

V. (Added on April 29, 2007)
And I also wanted to express my joy and thanks to Marcelo Paiva who volunteered to help me fix my style sheet issue when I discovered it at the event. I still cannot help but smile every time I see my new blog design! People would point me out that due to some coding my blog content would show up crookedly in Firefox. This was rather embarrassing since most of the web 2.0 crowd uses Firefox and while sharing and introducing myself I had to make a disclaimer. Not any more! Social media got another outcome of connecting people that might never be due to geographies and other restrictions. If it were not for Jeremiah’s live blogging and video casting at the event, I would never have a chance to get fast help and collaboration right away. Moreover, we used Skype to do virtual collaboration and remote desktop access tool VNC to fix the problem! This was a very empowering experience, collaboration on the user level where you get the same results as if you work in big corporations with virtual teams, but here you use basic web 2.0 tools that enable individuals!
Marcelo also created my new logo, which I find rather a perfect fit. Talking about branding on one’s feet and Skype!
Finally, we discovered similarities in professional interests (user design, marketing, CRM, segmentation) that allowed both of us developing another value-add professional connection, which we completed via registering it at LinkedIn. :)

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    Content Disclaimer

      Everything posted on this blog is a product of my own thoughts, ideas, reflections based on the professional interests. It is based on the public information, works of the colleagues and fellow researchers that are cited respectfully and my opinions as an industry professional.