10
Nov
Paul Wolfe was kind enough to nominate me for this “contest” and, in an effort not to let him down, I’ve produced the following rin response to the 7 questions / categories of links:
Your most beautiful post
While I hesitate to call any of my posts beautiful (as none of the prose qualifies), there have been one or two posts on beautiful and heartfelt subjects, and this interview with Steven Pressfield is one of them And just in case an “interview post” is considered cheating, I’ll throw this one in as well:
Your most popular post
In looking back through Google Analytics, the front-runner for page views was this pre-release review of Dan and Chip Heath’s highly anticipated book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.
But I tend to suspect that the front-runner position of that post has a lot more to do with the popularity of the Heath Bros’ (deservedly) best-selling book, and a lot less to do with any particular blogging excellence on my part. Luckily for me, my close-second most popular post was also my most controversial…
Your most controversial post
I had no idea this post on the Website for Best Made Axe would be as controversial as it was, but I stand by my initial premise: if you’re going to declare yourself the “best made” it’s only natural to expect to find substantiation of that claim on your Website. When that evidence isn’t found on the site, it causes doubt in the mind of the consumer.
Fortunately for Best Made Co, they do so many other things right with their marketing, that the lack of substance on the Website hardly matters. And I think it is to their great credit that both the head of Best Made Co.‘s Facebook fan page and one of the founders of the company came to comment on the post.
Also, for what it’s worth, my intent with the post was always to help other small-scale producers understand an important aspect of persuasive websites, and not to slam Best Made Co. Anyway, it’s still good reading, IMHO:
Your most helpful post
This is a tough one because all of my posts are aimed at being helpful. But I think that this post managed to tie together a bunch of really worthwhile insights in an interesting and fun package centered around the blockbuster flick, Inception:
A post whose success surprised you
This particular post was fairly personal and off-topic for me, so I was surprised to find out that it resonated with as many readers as it did. Of course, after a moment’s reflection, it wasn’t surprising at all, since the core essay featured in the post has been consistently popular ever since it was first penned by Keith Bell. Check it out, you’ll probably like it too:
A post you feel didn’t get the attention it deserved
I think most web and direct response copywriters have been so ingrained with the “reason-why” advertising mantra that we sometimes don’t know quite what to do when we’re either short on demonstrable points of difference or benefits, or legally prohibited from proclaiming them in our advertising. This post represents at least one tried and true solution to that problem, but it got precious little attention. I think you’ll like it:
The post that you are most proud of
I’m proud to have written a handful of guest posts for Copyblogger, and especially proud of how well this one turned out. It was a very solid post to begin with and Sonia Simone did a brilliant job editing it while Brian Clark did his usual amazing job at creating a must-read headline:
And that’s it. Thanks for reading and a special thanks to Paul for nominating me to participate in this contest in the first place 
Don’t read any more until you’ve watched the video!
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Hey, quit peeking down here; watch the video first 
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OK, having watched the video you know now that the “ad guy” changes the old man’s sign from:
“Have compassion, I am blind”
to
“Today is a beautiful day, and I can not see it.”
So let’s talk about the ad guy’s copy transformation. In my mind he did 3 things perfectly:
1. He surprised readers with an unexpected intro
It was indeed a beautiful day, but it was also an unexpected observation to read on a panhandlers sign. One normally expects a request or offer like, “Will work for food” or “Please help a disabled vet” or some such. “Today is a beautiful” day is surprising, capturing the reader’s attention.
2) He used a reality hook to create an advantageous emotional response.
Whether they wanted to or not, passers-by took at least half a second to confirm the truth of that statement – to mentally assent that, yes, today was indeed beautiful. Think about how different that thought is from 99% of the pedestrian concerns most of us walk down the street with; how liberating – even for a half-second – to stop worrying about the next meeting or deadline and look up to see what a beautiful day it really is.
This is a crucial step, too, because, as discussed in the book Made to Stick, shifting people into an empathic or emotional state of mind is crucial to the success of charitable requests. Psychological research shows that if you prime people to think analytically, they’ll give far less than if you primed them to think emotionally. The “Today is a beautiful day” opening primed people to think emotionally.
3) He forced reader participation by requiring them to connect the dots.
Nowhere did the new sign actually say, “I’m blind.” Readers had to draw that conclusion for themselves by reading “and I can’t see it” while connecting that with the context clues offered by the old man and his pan-handling. This bit of reader engagement means that readers “see” the reality of the man’s blindness for themselves, without the typical internal push-back or cynicism generated when a marketing claim is shoved at a person. This fill-in-the-gaps interactivity is an incredibly powerful writing technique.
Also note that the new sign avoided a hard sell by implying the request. The ad man let the collection plate, combined with the reader’s realization of the man’s blindness, act as the call to action.
Now, applying this to the web, I’d say there are 2 more, extremely important points to make:
4) Eliminating conversion flaws and increasing usability can only take you so far.
The ad guy didn’t try to make the collection plate bigger or more prominent. Nor did he set up a card-swiping machine so people could donate via debit card. Usability wasn’t the issue; persuasion was. If your website optimization strategy only addresses usability flaws or general best-practice issues, you’re never going to achieve breakthrough performance for your website. You have to address persuasive gaps as well.
5) It’s worth the money to pay a good copywriter what he’s worth
The dramatic improvement in conversion caused by the film’s ad guy may have been fictional, but it’s a recurrent reality on the web – at least for those companies who understand the value of persuasive copy.
Unfortunately, too many companies are willing to spend thousands to tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars on a website redesign while balking at paying decent money for a top-notch copywriter. Don’t be one of those companies.
And if you’re advertising via mass media, such as radio, think about how foolish it is to pay thousands for air space only to fill it with mediocre, station-supplied copy for your ads. Do you really want to be that company?
Did it (or would it) work is always the wrong question to ask around advertising.
And that holds double for Super Bowl Ads. So while I hardly relish the annual jawboning of the chattering classes in their predictable disdain for Go Daddy’s commercials, and equally predictable love for things like VW’s commercials, there are things to learn from those discussions.
Specifically, whenever you’re in the middle of such a yammer session, it’s always worth asking:
- How do people frame the debate?
- How do they (fail to) define their terms?
- What assumptions go unexamined?
- Which bias holds strongest amongst the public?
What you’ll typically find is that most everyone jumps right into asking, “did it work?” But almost no one stops to ask whether “did it work” is the right question to focus on. Honestly, anything can be made to “work” given ever increasing resources and ever diminishing definitions of “work.”
The right question is: did (or does) this ad represent the wisest and best use of the company’s resources?
Or hell, I’d even settle for a wise use of company resources. But still, that question changes the discussion rather profoundly doesn’t it?
Let’s take the Chrysler ad as an example: did that ad work? Well, if you mean did its emotional message touch the hearts of most viewers, then yeah, it “worked.” Mostly because people wanted to believe it. But in the larger sense of “did it represent a wise use of Chrysler’s resources,” I think most people would be hard pressed to say that two minute spot was a wise investment.
Why? Because, as my colleague Tim Miles said, “I love the concept. I love the copy. I love everything about it. It made me want to check out the car. I just wish the Chrysler Eminem Detroit Love Story had been for Ford.”
And what I believe he meant by that was, “As much as I want to believe that message about Chrysler, I can’t and I don’t. But I would (and I do) believe it about Ford.” Which brings to mind a few questions:
- Why wasn’t Ford advertising in the Super Bowl?
- What makes Ford a more credible protagonist for the comeback kid story Chrysler was trying to weave?
Answers:
1) Ford’s main advertising goal has been to spotlight and reinforce the growing REALITY that its cars and trucks are superior to (or at least equal to) the best that Toyota and Honda have to offer. Better build quality, resale value, feature sets, style, etc. They aren’t spending money on a Super Bowl Ad because they’re too busy trumpeting the fact that this or that car has a higher projected resale value than a competing Toyota model. Or showing how this or that prospective customer likes the Ford model better than the Honda model. It’s pretty much the Pepsi challenge with cars: you take a prospective Toyota customer, have them drive around in a Ford, and “Oh my gosh, I actually like the Ford better!”
2) Both Ford’s better reality and more consistent advertising of that reality prior to the Super Bowl made us all more willing to believe a Ford-based comeback story. And yeah, the fact that Ford didn’t take any bailout money also helps, but I’d bet that if Cadillac had made that Chrysler ad, we’d all have had a much different reaction. Cadillac’s been pumping out world class vehicles for awhile now, and they also have a very consistent advertising message.
So did the Chrysler Super Bowl Ad represent the best and wisest use of their ad budget? Remains to be seen, and I don’t really have enough info to answer that, quite frankly. I can say that it’s not only possible but likely that tons of people will give the Chrysler 200 a look who never would have without the big splash that ad made. And it’s also possible, though far less probable, that just maybe that car is good enough to convert those “looks” into sales. With that last part the make or break factor.
But this post isn’t really about Chrysler and its ad; it’s about you and your advertising. The same questions I’ve been applying to Chrysler are even more important for your marketing. So let me ask you:
- Are you going to ask “would it work?” Or are you going to do the hard work to determine, “does this represent the highest and best uses of my resources?”
- Are you going to attempt to entrance people with a false narrative that’s directly countermanded by what people see with their own two eyes? Or are you going to tell your own authentic story, complete with strong proof elements, easily seen and confirmed by your target audience?
- Are you going to spend an outsized portion of your budget on a stunt? Or are you going to put your faith in a consistently repeated and reinforced message that’s relevant to your prospects buying motivations?
P.S. It was also interesting to see how this old school ad medium was driving the oh-so-new-school Social Media “conversation.” Don’t tell me offline advertising is dead…
P.P.S. On the other side of the coin, is it just a coincidence that Ford has opted to invest their marketing resources in launching a massive Social Media campaign around the launch of their new Ford Explorer? Me thinks not.
P.P.P.S. Bitch about Go Daddy ads all you want, but those ads not only have proven, dramatic ROI, they’ve also made Go Daddy THE household name for domain registration — even amongst the Church groups who have petitioned against their advertising practices.
The thing about most product tours is they suck.
Product Tours are often difficult to understand, or often just plain dry, mostly because they’re feature-centric rather than user-centric.
But “user-centric” doesn’t really help you design a better product tour. What we mean by that is closer to “use-centric” which is another way of saying scenario-based (aka story-based). And scenario-based does help you design better product tours, because you can wrap the tour around a representative scenario rather than a random feature-by-feature basis.
Using this kind of narrative framework does two things:
- It translates dry product features into user benefits — increasing both clarity and relevance
- It ensures Web visitors click all the way through to the end of the scenario/tour — people want to finish the narrative arc
And as you may have guessed, scenario-izing information and data has applications beyond product tours. Check out this cool Chris Weller video for an example of statistical information delivered and made relevant through a narrative framework:
While product tours are no-brainers for software and software as a service Websites, scenario-based “tours” should be even more common on product and straight service sites as well. Translating features into benefits works for a lot more than just software, after all. Apple offers extraordinary examples of scenario-based tours of products, both on their site and in many of their ads:
Scenario-izing data is a technique Chris Weller uses quite frequently — and to great effect — in his animated videos; videos that enlighten and entertain at the same time they show-off his consumate skills:
So what about you? What bit of product or service explanation could you make scenario-based?
P.S. If you like the music from that first video, you can download it and a bunch of other cool Valentine-themed songs from Amazon for FREE!
P.P.S. I’m hardly alone in my preference for scenario-based learning, as it is the main theme of one of the foremost experts in learning theory, cognitive science, and e-Learning also advocates for story-based teaching.
![drama_queen[1]](http://www.jeffsextonwrites.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/drama_queen1.JPG "drama_queen[1]")
I’m guest posting on Copyblogger today with a post on the importance of specifics. But this post goes beyond the commonly stated “specifics are more believable than realities” advice, and looks at WHY most writers intuitively grab for the general and the abstract over the specific (hint, it has to do with fear), and HOW to overcome that inclination by focusing on dramatic staging.
If that sounds interesting to you, you should check it out over at Copyblogger.
But be, forewarned: before using specifics to stage drama, make sure you’re ready to stand out in the marketplace, uncamofluaged and in all your polarizing glory.
“Social Media,” “Brand Touchpoints,” and “Transparency” have become promiscuous and, well, downright slutty little buzzwords in today’s world. To the point where one almost reflexively judges a marketer using them to be a bit of whore himself.
But would you ever expect those same strategies to come from a big-time TV advertising firm? From back in the 90s? Straight outa the mouth of an advertising legend who created 3 of the Top 100 Advertising Campaigns of the Century, and two of the most potent and admired political ads, since, um, ever?
Well, here’s a video of Hal Riney talking about the launch campaign he created for Saturn. Skip ahead to the 56 second mark and see if you can’t hear the man describe exactly these kinds of new-school strategies.
A Quick and Dirty Transcript
And for those of you who who’d rather just read a transcript, here’s what the man said:
“But our job isn’t to do television commercials. Our job is to solve problems. And it may be that television is the answer, but it probably isn’t the only answer, and there are other ways to think about things… And…and our answer was to find ways to make people like this company. And that took the form of letters that we wrote to consumers and a thousand other things besides television commercials.
So we did everything…
… and we, and we got involved in a lot of things like… like color. What kind of color — what do we call the colors, you know, Santa Fe Sunset, or what? Well, how about Red?
All you had to do was to look at everything Detroit did and just do the opposite. And, and that’s virtually what we did. We guided the company through all of that and it was extraordinarily rewarding to find out that this kind of honesty and straight-forwardness and integrity that we tried to maintain, actually worked.”
A Breakdown of (just some) New School Strategies Employed by Saturn
Well just look at all these no sh*t, new-school branding strategies:
- Personal, mailed letters = social media.
- Organizing plant tours and owner get togethers (not talked about in this interview, but vital parts of the campaign) = Social Media
- Letting people see how the cars are built = transparency
- Having a no haggle pricing policy = transparency
- Making the “thousand other things” match up with the brand promise and advertising = transparency
- Relying on customer advocates and Word of Mouth = Buzz Marketing / Tribal Branding
- Skipping out on the falsely exotic paint names, like, “Cheyenne Sunset” in favor of the more conversational, authentic color names, such as “Red” = speaking in an authentic voice = transparency
But What About Saturn’s Branding?
As you may have noticed, this interview with Hal Riney is featured as an extra from a documentary on advertising called Art & Copy (highly recommended, by the way). And in another scene from that movie, Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein (former employees of Hal Riney’s) discus their famous “Got Milk” campaign. Here’s a rough paraphrase of some of what they said:
The previous milk campaign was “Milk: It Does a Body Good,” which showed athletes doing stuff, like sprinting a 100 yard dash and then downing a glass of milk. And that didn’t work because it wasn’t the truth about milk. No one guzzles milk after working out. That’s not how or when we drink milk.
In contrast, the “Got Milk?” campaign worked because it reflected the essential truth about how and why we drink milk, and it did it by focusing in on the genuine moment of need.
This is a brilliant strategy and one that was memorably dramatized in all of the Got Milk TV campaigns, starting with the very first one:
Tell the Essential Truth About The Product
So let’s just start with that, shall we? You have to tell the truth about your brand.
As a canonical case study of this dynamic, Avis Rental Cars couldn’t say they were number 1 because, well, they just plain weren’t. And when Avis tried to advertise as if they were number 1, they got clobbered.
Yet once they ran their famous “We’re number 2; we try harder” campaign, the advertising worked. They told the truth about themselves and their service: they admitted what the buying public already knew (that they were #2 in the industry), an admission that bought them instant credibility, and then Avis used that credibility to make buyers feel differently about what they knew (that being #2 kept them hustling harder than the competition) — and it worked.
So that’s point number 1: Tell the truth about the product or service.
For Saturn, they told the truth about being a brand new car company trying to resurrect America’s pride in manufacturing. About wanting to build an honest car, to sell it for an honest price, and in an honest straightforward fashion. This is in contrast to car commercials typical claims of superior performance, luxury, prestige, engineering brilliance, or price — none of which would have rung true or worked.
Instead of making false claims about superior performance, Saturn made an honest claim to virtue, which is often a more-then-acceptable substitute.
If you doubt this was really the strategy, take a look at this ad from the initial launch campaign. There’s a clear line of virtue symbolically transmitted from the 3rd grade teacher, to the letter and picture she sends to the plant, and then onto the car itself when the plant worker literally puts that symbolic piece of virtue into the car. Watch it and see…
Tell Them What to Expect – And Then Live Up To It
Then there’s the other side of the Avis campaign, the one no one really talks about. And it’s a two-parter:
Giving specific verifiable expectations to the customer- Making darn sure the cars lived up to the promise.
Take a look at one of the original ads from that Avis campaign. Now count the number of specific, verifiable promises made in it: no dirty ashtrays, worn wipers, etc.
Well, what no one really talks about is how Doyle Dane Bernbach — the agency that created that campaign — insisted that Avis put the operational systems and managerial priorities in place to ensure that the cars lived up to the advertising. As Bill Bernbach put it: “It’s always a mistake to make good advertising for a bad product.”
And they weren’t kidding around, either. Avis did a complete customer service overhaul, upgraded their fleet of cars, and ensured that each employee received a copy of new Avis ads in his or her pay envelope before each campaign was launched.
Few people talk about these things when discussing the Avis campaign, but they are an undoubtedly major reason the ads worked.
So what about Saturn?
Many of Saturn’s major brand promises centered on the dealership experience, as dramatized with such astonishing brilliance by this Hal Riney ad:
As long as the dealership followed-through on that experience, the ads would work. And that’s why Hal Riney makes a point to mention the letter writing and the “thousands of other things” they had the dealerships do to ensure brand integrity. My favorite touch from the commercial is setting the clock for the new owner – ahhhh
So why is this so important? Three reasons:
- Specifics make your claim more credible
- Specific allow you to shape your customers’ expectations
- Specifics allow you to easily fulfill those expectations
Without this strategy, most stores devolve into promising great customer service, which isn’t believed and generally results in nothing but greater complaints from customers who come in with heaven knows what kind of expectations.
The Advertising Still Helps & We’re Still Tribal People
So what does this mean today?
Well, non-advertising communication of the brand, through multiple customer touch points and social media and all those grand new-school advertising things ARE indeed important.
But only when aligned around an intelligent, strategically sound campaign.
Oh, and it still helps to have some old school mass media muscle driving your essential message out to the, um, masses. Yes, Virginia, digital is cool and direct marketing is cool, but mass media still kicks some major branding ass when wielded effectively. And brands are still all about shared values and tribes and personality — and relevancy (yes I’m not above using a slutty marketing buzzword or two ) — those are the make or break factors.
People want to belong, Something that Saturn and Hal Riney well knew…
P.S. For those of you who laughed at the “look at everything Detroit did and just do the opposite” line, you might enjoy this article on Counter Branding from Roy H. Williams, another advertising great, and my business partner.
Frankly, the chances are good that you’re squandering the very best branding opportunities available to you on your current Website. Read on to find out why, and what you can do about it.
The Importance of Micro-copy
It all started a few months back, when my friend and former colleague from Future Now, Robert Gorell, told me about Hipmunk.com. He wanted to talk about micro-copy and I was all ears.
Robbert believes (rightly) that the small snippets of copy that make up the predominance of customer interaction represent a huge opportunity for conveying “brand voice” — an opportunity that’s usually squandered.
For example:
- The copy you place on your order confirmation page and order thank you e-mail
- The phrasing and design of your Website’s 404 page
- Your product or service names themselves
- How you group and categorize products, along with the labels you apply to those categories
- How you title and label your forms
- Call to action verbiage
All of these are areas where companies could take an opportunity to carefully break with the trite norms of the Web or of their industry and come up with something different. Something reflective of the brand personality. And all these remain fairly vanilla on the vast majority of Websites.
Hipmunk.com is an example of how to do it right
Instead of allowing you to only sort flights by airline, number of stops, or cost, Hipmunk.com also allows you to sort by “agony,” a combination of flight duration, number of stops, and cost.
How cool is that?
This is the kind of copy that brings to mind Tim Miles’ writing adage: “Don’t tell her you’re courteous. Open her door.” A quote I always like to paraphrase as, “Don’t tell readers that you ‘understand’ them, write something that demonstrates your understanding — something that only a person who understood could write.”
Not only is the sort by agony feature a useful function, but the “agony” label shows that chipmunk “gets it”: they understand that most business travelers begrudge their time wasted at airports and are hoping to reduce it as much as possible, while still taking into account costs.
Micro-copy and Persona-Based Marketing
So while I appreciate the brilliance of the micro-copy, I also see this as an example of persona-based marketing. Because coming up with new and useful ways to sort flights or categorize products or view your options involves getting inside the heads and the lives of your prospective customers. You have to understand before you can create something that demonstrates that understanding.
And this is where Persona-based marketing becomes so very, very important. Personas provide marketers and copywriters a tool and framework for getting inside the lives and heads of their prospective customers. And the more you are unlike your target customer, the more you need help getting into their heads, the more you need personas.
Which is why any male interested in Marketing to Women ought to check out Michele Miller’s new Marketing to Women course, Unzipped.
The Unzipped approach to Persona-Based Marketing
I read (and recommend) Michele’s previous book, The Soccer Mom Myth, and found it to have incredibly deep and worthwhile insights into persona creation.
Now, as a disclaimer, Michele is a fellow Wizard of Ads Partner and The Soccer Mom Myth was co-written by my friend and Future Now colleague, Holly Buchanan. So I’m biased. Then again, I was also as jaded as I was biased, thinking that I already knew everything the book was going to cover about persona-based marketing. Wrong! I was so wrong, in fact, that I invested in taking Michele’s online Marketing to Women course that was offered as a follow-up (and yes, I had to pay the tuition just like anyone else).
At any rate, if you’re available for the course at the end of this month, you should really check it out.
And if you can’t make it, why not buy the book, which is available for Kindle for only 99 cents.
P.S. The course will be co-taught by the brilliant Tom Wanek, author of Currencies that Buy Credibility.
Most e-commerce site’s simply don’t provide nearly enough photos, of nearly enough resolution and quality that prospective customers want. The reason?
Well, first, taking your own photos can be hard, especially if you have a lot of SKUs.
But beyond that, I truly believe that most e-commerce biz owners and marketing managers don’t realize the amount of questions that photos answer. They just don’t get how many possible concerns and potential objections can be addressed and overcome through the right photo.
With that in mind, I wrote a guest post on Doctor Ralph F. Wilson’s Web Marketing Today blog on nothing but the persuasive uses of product photos and product videos.