Normally, a writer has to work to bring things around, full circle, in order to show character change, making it a bit more difficult to pick out and showcase the set-ups and payoffs.  But the “stuck in the same day” premise of Groundhog Day removes that difficulty, allowing the creation of mashup like the one below.  A mashup that perfectly demonstrates the beauty of set-ups and pay-offs  : )

Click here to view the embedded video.

P.S. If you’re a fan of the movie, you might also enjoy this blog post on Groundhog Day’s “Hidden Heroin”

Happy Belated Groundhog Day is a post from: Jeff Sexton Writes

And in an online world dominated by Direct Response, reason-why advertising, creative, “branding” ads often do seem utterly indulgent wastes.

But for all that, the basic truths of real-word marketing remain:

1) People don’t make buying decisions rationally.

2) Some messaging can only be credibly delivered BEFORE the prospect is in the market for the product or service

3) Getting people to pay attention to messaging for products they’re not buying now requires ads capable of interesting them with something other than the sales offer itself

Combined, this means that hitting potential, at-some-point-to-be prospective customers with recurrent, emotionally resonant messaging that will sink in BEFORE and be “reactivated” or “recalled” WHEN they are ready to buy works in ways that direct sales messages don’t. But that kind of advertising requires creativity.

So let’s take these one at a time, in greater depth:

People Don’t Make Buying Decisions Rationally

I was on the phone the other day with the owner of a B2B Lead Generation company. I won’t say exactly what he sold, but it definitely falls into the realm of big-ticket, considered purchase equipment. And according to his considerable historic data, most companies compiled their “short list” of possible suppliers based on gut feel.

Here’s a feel for how that works:

• There are a handful of tier 1 behemoth’s that most people put on the list, following the “nobody ever got fired for going with IBM” mentality.
• There are a score or so of smaller tier 2 suppliers that may well be better options than the 3 or so tier 1 providers. Due to the amount of these tier 2 providers and the very nature of being tier 2, it’s likely that either none of them, or only 1 or 2 of them will make the list.
• The decision of which tier 1 providers to put on the list and which tier 2 providers to add to that list gets made in conversation over a few minutes, mostly off of reputation, gut feel, and sales relationships. It almost never gets made from exhaustive analysis, reference to specifications, pricing, etc.
• Once the short list is made, THEN the research gets done, the bids go out, etc.

Anybody who understands this knows that the real battle for any Tier 2 provider ISN’T a battle for specifications or price. The real battle is the battle for the short list. And if 20 potential vendors are narrowed down to 1 or 2 in a matter of minutes, then it’s a battle determined almost entirely by Top of Mind Awareness and Gut-Level reputation.

Also, keep in mind that this is the buying process for a very dry, technical, considered purchase. If that doesn’t get bought in a rational manner, what does?

Now, most people use Blendtec as an example of “Viral Marketing” or the power of YouTube. Frankly, I think that represents what Bob Hoffman calls, “arguing from the extreme” — as in what percentage of videos go viral? And what percentage of those are commercial in nature? And what percentage of those actually manage to impact sales?  So as an example of those things, Blendtec is a veritable freak of nature.

But as an example of winning the battle of the short list through creative advertising, Blendtec is right on the money. Very few people probably saw those videos and rushed out, on the spot, to buy themselves a Blendtec blender, in some sort of direct response frenzy. Operators were NOT standing by, after all.

What DID happen, though, was that people saw those videos, filed that attention-grabbing demo away for future use, and ended up putting Blendtec on their short list when it did come time to shop for a high-end blender. A neat little trick that more than doubled sales. And a trick that wasn’t done with spec sheets and data points, but through a creative, whacky demo.

Some Messaging Can Only Be Credibly Delivered BEFORE “Go Time”

Few people want to believe they’re “susceptible” to advertising. Nor at first glance, should they, as most of us DO discount paid-for message in light of the obvious self-interest and bias. But that’s only in the short term, while we’re consciously thinking about it.

But that’s not what happens over time. The latest psychological research shows that over time the emotional messaging imparted from the advertising sticks while our intellectual discounting of the message wears away. So over time, intelligently crafted advertising DOES affect our internal, gut-feel of the brand.

Get it?  Tell me you have the ideal solution for me when I need what you sell, and I’ll discount your claim. Convey that same claim to me through your ads, before I need what you sell, and — with some luck and skill — I’LL have a gut-level feeling that you’ll be the best provider to buy from.

In other words, the battle for the short list has to be won BEFORE the battle — with creative advertising! Or as Leo Burnett would say, “Before you can have a share of market, you must have a share of mind.”

3) If you can’t grab their attention with WIIFM, your ad had better be INTERESTING

Since I just quoted Burnett, let me also give you Bernbach quote to go with it:

“The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.”

In other words, without some amount of creativity — the “imaginatively, originally, freshly” part — you’re sunk.

And that makes sense, doesn’t it? If I’m talking to you about some product or service you’re currently ready to buy, I’ve already had a certain amount of relevance given to my messaging just based on circumstance. But if your NOT currently in the market for what I’m selling, then my messaging has to gain your attention through some other means. That’s where creativity comes in.

Creativity also factors into making a point felt, rather than just understood, which is sort of important if you’re trying to impart a “gut feel.”

Want an example of all this?

OK. Here’s a radio ad from my colleague Chuck McKay. It was written for a firm of divorce lawyers.  Take a listen and see for yourself just how much creativity is or is not a key factor in the effectiveness of this ad:

Chuck’s Ad for Oneil

P.S. Chuck will be doing a “Free Consulting Friday” promotion tomorrow. Want a chance to pick Chuck’s brain for free?  Drop him an e-mail telling him your marketing problem/question, and he’ll schedule a phone call with you.

Winning the Battle for the Short List is a post from: Jeff Sexton Writes

1) Practical Tactical Tuesday

2) Theory Thursday

I’m aiming for an interesting theoretical post each Thursday, followed up by perhaps a case study or a quick and dirty how-to on the following Tuesday.  In between, I might throw in some shorter link-based posts, lists, and interviews, but I’m not promising those on any kind of regular basis — just the Tuesday & Thursday content.

So look for the first ever Theory Thursday post tomorrow, and in the meantime, here’s a quick thought and a cool article worth sharing:

“According to the Bible, when Christ stood up and made his sermon on the Mount he preached to the masses. he didn’t get up on that rock and say, ‘I’d like to talk to 18–25 year old ABCs, with a predisposition to change and a disposable income of X.’ No, he got up an preached to as many people as possible.”  - Sir John Hegarty

And here’s a pretty good article talking about this exact same advertising mistake:

The King’s Comeuppance: How the Hottest Ad Agency of the Aughts Fell from Grace

P.S. Hat Tip to my colleague, Steve Rae, for forwarding the Slate article to me.

New Columns: Theory Thursday & Practical Tactical Tuesday is a post from: Jeff Sexton Writes

Now, as a marketer, the Empathy and Focus parts are second nature — at least in terms of understanding.  Putting them into practice every day is harder stuff, but any copywriter that doesn’t understand the importance of empathizing with the prospective customer and focusing in on their primary buying motivations and concerns isn’t a copywriter at all.

It’s the last element most marketers and copywriters screw up or overlook: the importance of Imputed Quality.  Not nuts and bolts, specification-driven build quality or value for the dollar quality.  But quality cues that tap into buyers’ pre-existing mental imprint of luxury and virtuous manufacture.  The telling detail that says everything.

Want to see an example of imputed quality used in copy?  Here ya go:

Notice that the actual build quality is detailed by the bullet points of the body copy, while the imputed quality — the telling detail — is given pride of place within the headline of the ad itself.*

Of course, this sort of quality cue or imputed quality factor has to be already existing or freshly baked into the product or service itself before it can be advertised, but recognizing the need for it — and doing the patient research and digging to find it — is one of the major keys to writing copy that works.

Apple of course, is a master at this, which is one reason they are renowned design icons, because inspired design imputes high quality. But it’s also why Apple never skimps on screen quality, keyboard feel, and the overall polish put on their user interfaces: those are the sort of tangible, experiential things that impute quality.

Yes, of course, we expect real quality from an Apple product in the sense of freedom from typical PC-like annoyances, annoyances brilliantly dramatized and mocked by Apple’s “I’m a Mac” campaign.  But even if you knew nothing about Apple or PCs and just LOOKED at the competing products laid side by side, you’d intuitively get that one set of products were special and nicer than the rest.  Regardless of how their internal components and specs stacked up.

So Here Are My 3 Takeaways from This:

1) Quality is important, but quality without imputed quality will go unrewarded in the marketplace.

2) Business owners should never expect customers to recognize quality and should “bake” imputed quality into their offerings.

3) Copywriters who fail to use imputed quality cues will end up with underperforming ad copy.

P.S. — Want to see an already-existing quality cue in action? Check out these guys thudding the door closed on a Mercedes:

Click here to view the embedded video.

P.P.S. — How do I know that Ogilvy diligently searched for product facts that would help him find and recognize important quality cues?  Because he listed research twice when explaining his copywriting methodology!  Steps 3 and 5 both emphasize the importance of research and facts.

* For a more detailed analysis of this famous Ogilvy Ad, check out my old GrokDotcom post.

Two Kinds of Quality is a post from: Jeff Sexton Writes

If you’re new to the blog, here are a few of my previous posts on the topic:

• One Tough Mother’s Magical Advertising Secret
• Magical Thinking and McDonald’s
• A First Class Ticket

If you’re a little fuzzy on the concept of magical thinking, I recommend this Psychology Today article by Matthew Hutson. But my short and biased take on it goes something like this:

None of us are naturally, inherently rational beings. Our natural thinking patterns are “magical” rather than scientific. It takes a conscious attention to banish the magical and reinstate a scientific view of things.

So regardless of how thoroughly sound-minded you may think you are, there’s a part of you that still thinks magically. You still believe in magical contagion, which is why you treasure first edition, signed copies of books, or you dad’s deer rifle, or a baseball caught at a big league game, and so on. It’s why you wouldn’t want to live in a house formerly lived in by a serial murderer — or worse, a home were violent murders took place. And it’s why you would hesitate to deface a picture of a loved one.

And this matters because the part of us that actually affects our decision-making process is the part that still thinks magically — our emotional, lizard brain. Pretty obvious why every marketer should be intimately familiar with magical thinking, right?

Want to hear more?  Go listen to the interview.

P.S.  If you think Magical Thinking is only something other people engage in, go ahead and try this experiment — I dare you! Go print out a picture, preferably a headshot, of your kid and then stick a knife through it. If you can’t, or simply “won’t” do it, or even if you hesitate to do such a thing and feel funny about it, then congratulations: you just got a first-hand experience with Magical Thinking.

Magical Thinking is a post from: Jeff Sexton Writes

If you can’t make out the print, it says “Extremely Fast Interent” right next to the brand name and logo of what I can only assume to be some kind of ISP.

Clever, right? But will it drive sales?

Probably not. And there’s two reasons for this:

1) No Call to Action

2) No supporting facts

Now, the call-to-action part is obvious to anyone with any direct response copywriting experience whatsoever. How do I find out more about this “extremely fast internet”? How can I tell if it’s offered where I live? In other words, how can I buy the darn thing, you’re supposedly offering for sale?

If you want people to respond (usually by buying) it helps if you give them clear, easy directions on how to do so. Sort of a no-brainer, that one is. But at the risk of drawing the ire of the DM crowd, I have to say that…

If I’m Interested Enough, I’ll Find My Own Path to Buying

While I don’t want to diminish the importance of the CTA, I really think that the absence of substantiating facts in this ad is, if anything, more harmful to its effectiveness than the lack of any sort of Call to Action.  If you get me interested enough in what you’re selling, I’ll figure out my next action on my own.  Google is great for that; I can just search “OI3 Netvision” and see what comes up — IF, and only if, I’m interested enough.

But I’ll never be interested enough if you just show me the clever visual analogy and think you’ve made your point. My natural instinct in this situation (really, anyone’s natural instinct) is to assume parity. You say you’re fast, but you’re probably no faster than my regular internet provider. Clever ad, but it’s still an ad, meaning its messaging is assumed to be self-serving bullshit until proven otherwise.

Factual Romance

And then there’s “Factual Romance.” Factual Romance is the term J. Peterman came up with to describe his philosophy towards product selection and merchandising, as used in this semi-famous quote:

“People want things that are hard to find. Things that have a romance, but a factual romance, about them.” — J. Peterman

And what I believe the man meant by this was romance bolstered by some hard truth or fact that prevented the logical mind of the buyer from dismissing the romance as so much self-serving BS.  J. Peterman can romance the Swaine Adeney Brigg umbrella as the “King of Umbrellas” because it is, in fact, the umbrella of kings — the company actually has a Royal Warrant to provide umbrellas to the Royal Family.

Likewise, it’s fine to romance the speed of Netvision’s internet connection, but you’ve got to provide a bit of fact to go with it.  How much faster is it than regular DSL or the average cable modem?  What does that mean in terms of downloading a movie or talking over a VOIP connection?

Imagine that ad with a big, bold, white font on the back of the computer screen proclaiming “2X Faster than DSK.  Download High Definition movies in 3 minutes or less.” Wouldn’t that make for a more effective ad? Even without the CTA, it would at least get me interested enough to research the company/claims, and maybe, just maybe, stick in the back of my mind, should I ever become disenchanted with my current ISP.

Want an example of how to do this right? Check out this old Union Carbide commercial for their high-tech insulation:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yes, they’ve got the drama of the baby chicken. What a great product demo. But they also provide lots of cool facts. Some stated plainly as facts, such as “it’s 25 to 100 times better than [any other insulation] we’ve had before.”  And some are stated in terms of concrete, almost dramatic examples: “One inch of super insulation wrapped around a railroad tank car can keep liquid helium at 420 degrees below zero all the way from New York to Los Angeles.”

The drama keeps you riveted to the screen in anticipation, and the facts let you know that it’s not BS. You leave convinced. And that’s what it takes for your ads, too — regardless of whether you’re using print, radio, TV, or Web-based advertising.

Or, as my business partner, Roy Williams puts it:

• “Details and specifics add credibility. Names! Dates! Problems! Solutions! Any thing less is an unsub­stantiated claim and will be summarily dismissed by the customer.”
• “Always sat isfy the left brain when you can. It holds veto power when the right brain wants to do some thing that is obviously dangerous or foolish. No, I’m not saying that logic trumps emotion. I’m saying only that lazy writers too often try to work the heart because it’s easier. They’re unwill ing to do the research and hard work required to sat isfy the mind.”

Facts Need Drama; Drama Needs Facts is a post from: Jeff Sexton Writes

For those of you who don’t have the two minutes to watch the video, here are the main takeaways:

1) Every Scene Has To Be Entertaining

You can’t get away with a scene that’s nothing but exposition, or that flat out isn’t entertaining, isn’t funny, etc., as a shocking amount of your audience simply won’t stick around past the end of that scene.  Like they say in journalism, “The easiest thing in the world for a reader to do is stop reading.”

2) Your Storyline is Broken If the Words “And Then” Fit Between Any Two Scenes or Beats

So if you say, “this happens AND THEN this happens” you’ve got a broken storyline. There’s no causality in the plotting of things. Instead, between every scene you should have either a “therefore” or a “but,” as in, “this happens and THEREFORE this happens,” or “this happens BUT (instead of the expected outcome) this happens (causing complications).”

That’s a HUGE insight baked into a very easy to understand and actionable format. And it’s also, in my opinion, THE “hidden in plain sight” key to making your Website analytics actionable.  So let’s transform this from “story” language to Conversion Rate Optimization language:

Every Page Should Have a Persuasive Purpose for your Visitors

If any page on your site is non-persuasive or irrelevant to your visitor, you run the very real risk of losing that visitor; the easiest thing in the world for your Website visitor to do is to exit your site, as an internet full of competitors is no farther than a Google search or a click away.

So if your home page or product page or about us page is filler content that you’ve just kind of put up because you’re “supposed” to have a ____ page, you’re violating the “every scene has to be entertaining” rule, which I’d transform into “every page has to perform a persuasive role for the visitor who links to it” rule.

That means that you need to know:

• WHO is coming to your site,
• WHY they’re coming (i.e., what they’re hoping to accomplish), and
• WHAT they need to know, feel, and believe in order to convert.

Then you have to figure out the kind of messaging and content you need for each page that will adequately inform, impassion/reassure, and persuade your visitors into taking the next step towards conversion. Because if you don’t know what a page is supposed to be doing for a customer, how do you expect to tell when it’s failing to do it?

So that’s Rule #1 for Online Persuasion and Actionable Analytics. Here’s rule #2:

Your Analytics Should Tell A Story — And YOU Have to Supply the “Therefores” and “Buts”

You need to look at the behavior of your visitors as indicated by the analytics and then attempt to explain the behavior. Except that you can’t let yourself get away with “and then” linkages.  People don’t land here, “and then” go to this page, “and then” go to that page, “and then” leave.  You have to use “Because” and “But” linkages.

For example, if you see people going straight from the home page to the gallery page (on say, a site for a professional Web developer), and you then see them leave, you’re job as the analyst is to use your knowledge from Rule #1 in order to construct a reasonable hypothesis of WHY people are leaving.  Something like:

“You have a bunch of people coming to the Home page of your site after searching “Professional Wordpress Design” BECAUSE Google’s organic search results direct them to your index page. BUT, your Home page doesn’t talk about Word Press above the fold.  In other words, a visitor has to scrolled down below the fold in order to get confirmation that they are in the “right place” for “Professional Wordpress Design.” THEREFORE these visitors look to get confirmation of your WordPress Blog-designing skills on your gallery page. BUT these visitors don’t yet realize that lots of Websites (rather than just blogs) are now created on WordPress and not just blogs. THEREFORE, when they only see professional looking Websites on your gallery page, this CAUSES them to conclude that you don’t really offer what they’re looking for (“Professional WordPress Design) and to then leave your Website.”

The Bridge Between Analytics and Action Is a Testable Hypothesis

This exercise will not only causes you to try to explain observed visitor behavior (as seen through your analytics), but it will also highlight your assumptions while providing your with a set of reasonable hypothesis for optimization. You can now try to test a variant of the home page with “WordPress Development” messaging placed above the fold. And/or you could split test having a separate “Blogs” gallery, or at least a “blogs” section of your gallery.

Now, if the tests are positive, you’ll have some indication that your hypothesized motivations were correct.  And if the tested changes turn out negative, you’ll have learned something about the presumed motivations or concerns of your visitors.  And the elimination of a false assumption can be every bit as valuable as a lift in conversions. Now you can go back and try to figure out what the real motivation is.

And that’s the key to making your Web analytics actionable.

The “Hidden in Plain Sight” Key to Actionable Analytics is a post from: Jeff Sexton Writes

Of course not. The claim lacks all credibility.

You can’t possibly look at photos like that without wondering:

• How could you possibly have gotten these, given how passionately Apple protects their upcoming projects?
• Even if you DID get legitimate photos, why aren’t Apple’s lawyers sending you a cease and desist letter?
• What evidence do I possibly have that these are real, and weren’t simply photoshopped?
• And so on.

In short, the context is all wrong, so we just know the photos are fakes (or “artists renditions,” at best). But what about this video?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Somehow, this video fooled a lot of people and created quite a stir before it was proven to be faked. But why? Why is this video so convincing when the typical “leaked” photos aren’t?

Context.

The video provides a context which preemptively answers all of these credibility-killing questions and more.  According to the non-verbal storytelling in the video, the guy who made the video accidentally discovered an “unreleased” page to Apple’s German Website, and took a screen recording of it.  That’s how he got the photos, that’s why Apple can’t stop him, because they’re the ones who put the content on the Web, etc.

More importantly, the very style of the Web pages created by this hoaxster convinces us.  When we look at these “accidentally discovered” Web pages, they look so faithful to Apple’s own design aesthetic, and the pictures of the phone look so faithful to the rumors about the new iPhone (curved, metal back, larger screen, thinner, etc.) that we tend to believe that maybe the video is for real.

Making This Dynamic Work for You

The truth is that we ALL rely on context every day for almost every decision we make.  Manipulate context and you manipulate people’s perceptions and, ultimately, their decisions, too:

• If you’re an ice cream parlor and you simply put canisters of sample spoons up on the counter, that context will cue people to ask for free tastes, without any other change required.
• An HVAC guy who shows up in a corporate-branded truck and uniform will look like he’s from a big company, even if the company consists entirely of him, his cellphone, and that truck.
• Tell me you have the best food in the city, and I’ll be a lot more likely to believe you if you serve that food on linen table cloths rather than plastic trays.

Good fiction writers know the importance of this instinctively, which is why they go to such lengths to establish the right pretext for their big moments — they “set you up” and then “pay it off” later. Though I am absolutely not advising anyone to hoax their customers or to adopt a conman’s mindset, I am asking you to think about the believability of the claims you make, and how the right context can create customer confidence that you might not create any other way.

So what context cues are you using now, and what cues should you be using going forward?

What the iPhone 4S Can Teach You About Persuasion is a post from: Jeff Sexton Writes