If you’ve ever been frustrated and beaten down by this or that issue at work, was your outlook on that issue one of dispassionate, organizational-focused analysis?
Or was your search for a solution to the problem just as emotionally driven as any consumer purchase?
The ugly truth about B2B Copy: most of it assumes that organizations buy things.
But I’ve never heard of an organization getting on its computer, checking out a Website, filling out lead forms, or meeting with sales reps. The only people who do those things are, well, people.
And like all people, B2B customers generally trying to do one of two things:
- Trying to get what they want
- Trying to get away from (or avoid) a problem/pain in the butt that they don’t want
In either situation, emotions rule the day. And so does the context of the situation. This is where even decent B2B copy goes wrong by assuming only positive motivation from the buyer. The copy acts as if only proactive customers exist in the marketplace.
Apparently, whoever wrote the copy never lifted their head above the cubicle or observed much of the outside world. Yes, some people are aggressively proactive. But the majority? They’re usually moving away from pain, typically in the face of crisis. They get serious about fitness after a health scare or humiliating event. They avidly back-up computers after a hard drive failure. And so on.
And if you don’t think the same thing happens with organizations, you’re nuts; again, it’s people that are doing the buying, and as importantly, institutions generally have MORE neurosis than individuals, not less.
Here’s a few business examples of this same behavior:
- Sales results slide a bit, but aren’t really bad enough to push management into real action. They look around at some of their sales training and sales recruiting options, but sit on that information as long as times are moderately good. Then, when a competitor starts stealing away key accounts or the market starts shrinking it suddenly becomes time to buy sales training.
- A company’s e-mail hosting requirements grows increasingly more complex. The in-house hosting becomes shaky at best and the IT manager knows it should be outsourced. He takes a look at his outsourcing options, but he’s got about 10 other higher-priority items on his to-do list. He might putter along like this for a year before suffering, say, a 2-day e-mail outage. Now the IT manager/company is really in the market for outsourced exchange hosting.
What I’m talking about are precipitating events – the kind of things that move a someday/maybe aspiration into a firm resolve to buy.
Now here’s the deal: most companies involved with B2B and complex sales know (or at least the sales people know) exactly what their top 5 or so precipitating events are. Yet most B2B websites fail to address the negative buying emotions stemming from those precipitative events.
Last week I was invited to take part in a landing page critique by Bryan Eisenberg. My first question was, “what was the precipitating event?” And based on the answers to that one question, the copy was totally transformed.
In the space of a short half-hour call, the clients themselves were able to take copy that read like something a Perl script might spit to messaging that compelling addressed the real buying motivations of the visitor. Like magic.
You can do it too. Just ask yourself, what are your clients’ precipitating events? Ask your sales team if you need help.
Now go look at your Web copy while keeping those precipitating events clearly in mind.
Does anyone really think that this year’s Superbowl managed to be the number 1 most watched event of all time because the actual athleticism on display was superior to year’s past?
Does anyone think that the main draw was really about the football itself?
Or do you suspect, as I do, that it was story behind the teams and behind the game that drew people in? That the emotional connection we all shared for the struggles faced by a post-Katrina New Orleans brought in far more viewers than the actual football itself?
Bottom Line: Emotional Connection and Story sell more tickets than sheer athleticism.
Living in the South, I can say that College Sports (and especially college football) are a much bigger deal down here than most pro sports. Alumni have a much greater emotional connection to their College teams than any pro team. And frankly, there’s also a sh*t-load more rivalries amongst college teams. Emotions run high when Alabama plays Auburn, or Florida plays Florida State or Texas plays the Aggies, and so on.
If the NFL were smart, they’d figure out how to create more of that. More rivalries, more emotional connection, better write-ups of the story behind the games.
And what they’d avoid at all costs is a strike or “lockout” that could sever emotional connections amongst the majority of their audience. They’d also want to squelch the kind of player free-agency that breaks the spell of team-loyalty. If the players don’t care who they play for, why should I care who I root for?
Obviously, this stuff extends well beyond football…
What kind of emotional connections are you creating with your customers? What kind of story are you telling?
P.S. Here’s another 5 Lessons in Success from Super Bowl XLIV Champion Saints
First, if you haven’t heard of Social Media Examiner (SME) yet, you’re missing out. Recently ranked the #1 Small Business Blog by Technorati, SME is Mike Stelzener’s (of Writing White Papers Fame) “Guide to the Social Media Jungle”
Second, I’ve been lucky enough to guest post on SME and my latest post just went live this morning. It’s an examination of Social Media in light of Cialdini’s Weapons of Influence.
If you like the posts you find here, you’ll probably dig that as well. Go check it out.
Basically, augmenting a reader’s reality means either:
a) getting her to see more of what’s there, to notice previously overlooked details, or
b) getting her to look past the surface to see intangibles, relationships, processes, or
c) both a & b
This isn’t a technique given to systemization, but there are ways to spark your thinking process. One I particularly like is something I stole from the field of Tagmemics. Below is an extremely abbreviated discussion of it.
You can understand just about any object by means of:
- Contrast: how is a donut different from funnel cakes or doughboys or cinnamon roles, etc. What makes a donut a donut and not something else?
- Variation: how cake donuts, glazed donuts, fruit filled donuts, etc. are all donuts. How little chocolate donuts in a box at the convenience store and fresh-baked donuts from Crispy Kreme are both donuts.
- Context: how donuts are typically a breakfast food, how they’re often paired with coffee, in what situation donuts are eaten, what are the cultural connotations and associations of donuts, etc.
Likewise, you can also think of it in terms of:
- A particle or thing: a donut as just that, a donut
- A wave or dynamic process: a donut in terms of eating a donut.
- A field or network of relationships: donuts as a cultural and culinary force
Augmenting a reader’s reality often means moving them from understanding something simply in terms of contrast to looking at context. Or from seeing something as a thing/particle to seeing it as a dynamic process or a network of relationships.
The most obvious example might be to take someone who sees coffee just in terms of the simple hot steaming cup o’ joe in front of them to seeing that cup of coffee as an opportunity to either actively support fair trade practices that enable the coffee farmers to earn a decent living from the sale of their crops, or to support some exploitive corporation.
For the most part, fair trade coffee looks and tastes just like regular coffee, but we gladly pay a premium price for the intangibles attached – as long as someone has taught us to see and value them. As long as we’ve been provided with that bit of augmented reality.
Of course, those kind of intangibles have to be baked into the product itself. They usually can’t be created out of thin air through copy alone. When J. Peterman concentrated on only acquiring and selling items of authentic romance (emphasis on the authentic part), his company went from a single space-ad in the New Yorker selling cowboy dusters to $70 million in annual revenue in a few years, arguably on the strength of the catalogue copy.
J. Perterman copy was legendary for transforming a shirt into something much more than a shirt. The copy “augmented” one’s perspective on J. Perterman’s clothing, usually by leaning heavily on context and relationship. Here’s an example from their current web catalogue:
“
Every season, before they become the boys of summer, baseball players have to get through April.
Like Opening Day in 1907. Giants hosting the Phillies a day after a snowstorm blanketed New York. The crew at the Polo Grounds barely finished shoveling in time for the first pitch.
A few weeks later, it was the White Sox home opener against the Browns. There was no snow, but when St. Louis starter Harry Howell took to the mound it was a chilly 38 degrees.
It would go down as one of the coldest Aprils in baseball history.
Luckily for the players, the equipment managers had a duffle bag full of these.
Vintage Baseball Sweater (No. 2646).Last seen at the turn of the 20th century in places like Coogan’s Hollow, Crosely Field and Comiskey Park, it got players through the first 10 games of every season. You know, those days when the skies are gray, the foul pole white with early morning frost, and the players’ breath as thick as the mustard on the hot dogs.
Substantial, five-gauge 100% lambswool, it’s the perfect weight for early spring or late fall. Wear the collar up or down.”
Makes you desire the product far more than you might otherwise want a button-up cardigan, huh?
But in late 1999 the company slid into bankruptcy with the same copywriters writing the catalogue copy. What changed? According to J. Peterman himself, it was a loss of focus; they started selling all sorts of stuff not hand-picked by himself or staff that had been trained by him – stuff lacking authentic romance.
And while there were undoubtedly other business pressures and dynamics at play in the demise of the company, I’d be willing to bet that the copy suffered when the objects themselves no longer had authentic romance baked into them. You just can’t augment what isn’t there and never was there to begin with.
The good news?
- If you’ve got something with a genuine appeal, you’re way ahead of the game
- Most items and services are more interesting than you might think – especially to the person in dire need of it. Often times, the authentic stories are there to be found, and as a copywriter, you just have to dig a bit to uncover them.
Last week a friend told me I was (very briefly) mentioned in Seth Godin’s latest book. So being the vain little schmuck that I am, I made sure to check it out at the airport book store before my flight home. Sure enough, on page 61 Seth speaks about, and coins the term, “Krulak’s Law” partially based upon an old GrokDotCom post of mine.
Here’s the Law:
“The closer you get to the front, the more power you have over the brand.“
It’s called Krulak’s Law because Marine Corps Commandant General Charles C. Krulak was one of the very first people to see the consequences of an ever-present and hyper-democritized media. Here’s a brief excerpt on what he had to say about it in his seminal 1999 article titled, The Strategic Corporal:
“In many cases, the individual Marine will be the most conspicuous symbol of American foreign policy and will potentially influence not only the immediate tactical situation, but the operational and strategic levels as well. His actions, therefore, will directly impact the outcome of the larger operation; and he will become, as the title of this article suggests – the Strategic Corporal.”
My blog post merely pointed out that this dynamic was hardly unique to the Military. Businesses must also come to grips with this reality in light of the damage – and good – that can be done to a brand by frontline employees. Here’s a few examples of this:
Basically, the more you are willing to push decision-making and responsibility down the organization and the more you’re willing to hire and train people to thrive in this kind of organization, the better off you’ll be in a 2010 world of interconnectivity, social media, and online reviews.
Even for online businesses, help desks and customer service reps can save sales or flush them away depending on both their skill and their level of empowerment to fix situations.
Every touchpoint with your business matters, even – no especially – the ones you may not give any thought to when thinking about your marketing. In some ways it’s the clean bathrooms syndrome – except with the added threat of having pictures of your “dirty bathroom” broadcast throughout the WWW.
Bottom Line: if your organization hasn’t yet come to grips with Krulak’s Law, now’s the time.
So like a bonehead I managed to leave behind my beloved Logitech VX Nano computer mouse on a recent trip, and I needed a new mouse fast.
Which was just the excuse I needed to try out Apple’s new Magic Mouse.
Now, few people fully believe me when I tell them the research on how 67% of e-commerce Website visitors who land on a site looking to buy end up NOT buying because they don’t get their questions answered.
And I think the reason most people don’t fully “get-it” is because their conception of a “question” is perhaps too narrowly focused. But more than that, I think it’s because the marketers and Web people just don’t put themselves in enough buying scenarios. They don’t focus in on the precipitating events that cause people to buy, and how those events affect the immediate concerns of the buyer.
And I thought my most recent purchasing adventure might shed light on this:
I want a Magic Mouse and I need it fast. No problem, I’ll just pick one up at Best Buy, right? Nope. They’re fresh out.
Maybe I can order one on Amazon through Amazon Prime? Nope. That mouse wasn’t eligible for Amazon Prime. Sigh.
I can always buy the darn thing directly through Apple’s Online Store, right? Yeah, but how soon can they get it to me? I’m using my old piece-of-crap Apple Mighty Mouse and too many days of that will drive me up a wall. I need this new mouse STAT!
Well, let’s check it out. Here’s what I see on Amazon’s order page: 
Notice the red-circled “ships within” statement by the picture of the mouse. That’s good, but 24 hours covers a fairly long time.It was Sunday evening and if the thing didn’t ship until Monday evening, I might not get the mouse until Wednesday. Frankly, I needed it faster than that.
Now, look at the 2nd red-circle and you’ll see that, when selecting next-day shipping, I had to enter my zip code. With all that info, Apple should have been able to give me an “Estimated arrival date: Feb 2″ type notice.
But I couldn’t get that from the site, and because I was a motivated customer, I called their phone number to get the info from customer service. Customer service worked brilliantly and they gave me 2 very-much-needed pieces of info to close the sale:
- Yes, outside of bizarre happenings, I’d get the mouse Tuesday
- If I didn’t get it Tuesday, Apple policy allowed me to get my express shipping fee refunded
So I ordered the mouse and it arrived on Tuesday. Cool.
But what if I hadn’t quite been that motivated to call? What if I naturally preferred to order it directly through Apple, but could have gotten this product somewhere else?
The simple answer is that I likely wouldn’t have called and would have gone to another site to buy the thing (or a logitech mouse) – a site that would have given me the answers I needed in order to buy!
So what should Apple do?
In the last red circle on the screenshot, I think they should have the estimated arrival date(s) for items, and for customers selecting express shipping, they should display their refund policy for late arrivals. So that the screen might look a bit more like this:
Obviously, Apple would want to A/B test this (as would anyone), as this very well might cause a few more people to take advantage of Apple’s refund policy. But I’d be willing to bet the added cost would be more than made up for by increased orders and increased express shipping orders.
Apple caters to a clientele that can typically more than afford their “gotta have it” stuff, and that are typically impatient to get their grubby little hands on whatever it is they’re offering. In other words, time is more important to their customers than money.
So answering customer questions about time would likely result in more orders for Apple.
Heck, they darn near missed my order, if it hadn’t been for their clearly published phone number and excellent customer service rep (and those points are e-commerce lessons unto themselves)…
But don’t limit this phenomenon to mere questions of item arrival, this dynamic applies to almost any question about your product related to the precipitating event surrounding your customer’s decision to buy – they can all make or break a sale.
The important questions for you are: have you considered your buyers’ precipitating events? And does your Website answer your prospects’ questions?
Or are you content with losing sales that should have been yours?
P.S. Not thrilled with the magic mouse. It’s heavy, doesn’t slide that well, and the shape is rather un-ergonomic compared to my Logitech VX Nano. Still getting used to it, though, so I might change my mind. If you have one or are ordering one, you’ll probably want to download this bit of software to accompany it: magicprefs.com
Widely considered a modern classic, showcasing one of Bill Murray’s finest performances, Groundhog Day is rightly celebrated as sublime romantic comedy. But while I bet you like the movie, too, I’d also bet you probably never guessed at the amount of subtext and profundity in the film. Seriously.
Check out this short essay from Touchstone Magazine – it’s a fun read and you’ll be blown away at everything the author reveals about the film:
P.S. Good writers are good readers. Increasing your ability to understand why and how authors (and directors) are able to weave their spells will make you a better writer. So don’t blow this off just because it’s not a copywriting-specific how-to piece.
25
Jan
I normally don’t do motivational pieces – unless I’m talking about motivating the customer to buy 
I don’t do them because they’re not my forte and because my readers would normally find better motivational content over at the blogs of Steven Pressfield and Tim Miles and Shawn Phillips.
But I was recently reminded of my high school swimming days and felt compelled to re-read the title essay from Dr. Keith F. Bell’s book on swimming psychology: Winning Isn’t Normal. It was worth ordering the book again, just for that essay, although the rest of the book carries every bit as much impact. I 100% guarantee relevance for writers, entrepreneurs, small business owners, etc and have excerpted the essay from the book, with the kind permission of the author:*
“Winning isn’t normal. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with winning. It just isn’t the norm. It is highly unusual.
Every race only has one winner. No matter how many people are entered (not to mention all those who tried and failed to make the cuts), only one person (or one relay) wins each event.
Winning is unusual. And as such, it requires unusual action.
In order to win, you must do extraordinary things. You can’t just be one of the crowd. The crowd doesn’t win. You have to be willing to stand out and act differently.
Your actions need to reflect unusual values and priorities. You have to value success more than others do. You have to want it more. (Now take note! Wanting it more is a decision you make and act upon — not some inherent quality or burning inner drive or inspiration!) And you have to make that value a priority.
You can’t train like everyone else. You have to train more and train better.
You can’t talk like everyone else. You can’t think like everyone else. You can’t be too willing to join the crowd, to do what is expected, to act in a socially accepted manner, to do what’s “in.” You need to be willing to stand out in the crowd and consistently take exceptional action. If you want to win, you need to accept the risks and perhaps the loneliness… because winning isn’t normal!”
P.S. I think this applies to copywriting without any special effort made to “translate” it, but this Monday Morning Memo from Roy Williams certainly takes the subject of this essay in a more writing/messaging-specific direction.
* As you might imagine, this is an extremely popular essay and so has been frequently excerpted and posted on the web without permission from the author and even without proper attribution. If you’d like to use this essay or pass it on, please contact the author to arrange for permission.
Disappointed and unconvinced, I left their Website scratching my head.
Seth Godin has linked to them. Several online magazines have featured them, both in articles and within seasonal wish/gift lists. And, of course, they also have the audacity to call themselves “Best Made Axe,” all of which made me eager to head over to their Website to read up on these (self-labeled) best made axes.
And while their Website (and marketing in general) does some things incredibly well – these guys are routinely selling out of their entire inventory of $200-$500 bespoke axes, after all – there are HUGE gaping holes in the site’s content. Here’s how their site fails the visitor:
1) No discussion of the painstaking efforts to ensure top quality.
Look, I don’t want to be a jerk, but if you’re going to call yourself “Best Made,” it might be a good idea to substantiate that claim on your site. Tell me stuff like:
- What kind of steel are you using for the axe head?
- What kind of forging process?
- What kind of heat treatment?
- What kind of finishing process?
- Who is doing the forging?
- How are you attaching the axe head to the hickory handle?
- What are the ergonomics of the handle?
- What kind of extreme testing did you do to the finished product?
- How does the axe perform?
- How does your axe compare to other axes?
- In what ways is it actually better made than these other axes?
The Best Made Axe site does none of that. The most I get is the information that the axe is hand-forged of “fine grain” steel. Not nearly good enough – at least not when you want me to spend between 2X and 8X the price of a “darn good” axe in order to get your supposedly “best made” version.
2) No pictures of the manufacturing process
Don’t just tell me about the painstaking manufacturing process, SHOW ME. Literally. With pictures and video and stuff. Show me the manufacturing process and the ability of the finished product to outperform the competition.
The picture on the left is a perfect example of this. Saddleback Leather Co. manufactures premium, full-grain leather products. And they charge a premium for them. But their site goes into great detail regarding the superior quality and manufacture of their goods – content that’s fully illustrated with zoom-able photos and videos.
3) Not enough content from or about users kicking ass with their AXES.
Where are the stories of guys building their own log cabins with a Best Made Axe. Or how it has transformed a dreaded chore into an anticipated pleasure. Or about how just having the axe hung on the wall of their office has transformed their outlook on things. Or something!
The best I could come up with was to find Best Made Company’s fan page on FaceBook wich linked to a YouTube video of a guy opening a bottle with one of their axes. Not sure how impressed I was supposed to be with that, really.
Compare Best Made Axe’s Site to Those of Other Premium Products
Go ahead and compare the Best Made Axe site to other Websites for similar top-end/upscale products and see how much more thoroughly these other Websites sell you on their products’ quality:
Do you see how these other sites go into great detail about the design and manufacture of their products? How, almost on a point-by-point basis they explain WHY their products are better, and about the benefits that you, the consumer, can expect from purchasing this higher quality item.
Buyer Confidence and Buying Rationalizations
While not everyone will click through all of the detailed information provided on these example sites, and even fewer people will read through all that information, many people will scan through it, see that the quality information is there, that the passion is there, and gain the confidence to make the purchase.
Let’s be honest, Best Made Axe wants to charge you between $250 and $500 for an axe. You can pick up a Gransfors Bruks (what is commonly considered the Rolls Royce of Axes) at roughly $70-$120 for most models. You can pick up a very highly regarded, Maine-made Snowe & Nealey axe for even less than that.
What’s the quality difference between the Best Made and these other brands? What am I getting for 2x to 8X the price?
Even when it’s not about the money, it’s ALWAYS about giving prospective customers something to hang their hat on. The Best Made Axe certainly looks nicer than those other axes I mentioned, but most people are loath to admit that their money is going towards nothing more than status and brand name. If you want them as customers, you need to give them something they can hang their hat on, some other faux-reason they can use to rationalize their purchase, like (notionally) better quality, durability, and performance. Etc.
That’s what detailed quality and manufacturing information content on a website does: not only does it fan the desire for the product itself, but it provides visitors with the justification they need to rationalize the expense. It also gives them the firepower needed to explain their purchase to a spouse, significant other, co-worker or any other any-sayer.
So what about Your Website!
Is your site closer to Saddleback Leather Co.’s, or is your site closer to Best Made Axe’s?
Maybe Best Made Axe just doesn’t really have the goods when you come right down to it. Maybe they’re mum on the quality thing for a reason. Maybe it’s a “better to keep your mouth closed…” kind of thing.
Now, I’m not saying that’s the case, but you can see why a website’s conspicuous silence on the subject invites that kind of speculation.
So if your product really does have the quality edge, you’d be criminally negligent not to make your Website into the most eloquent spokesperson it can be concerning the superior design, quality, manufacture/delivery of your product or service.
The daily “gind” of life so fully stuffs our memories that it often takes a special effort to see bigger picture changes. You just can’t get a clear “before and after” picture of things without taking mental snapshots at specific moments in time and comparing them.
But without some kind of associational prompt, most people won’t flip through their gallery of mental snapshots to make that B&A comparison.
Anniversaries are meaningful precisely because they provide that prompt; they make seeing the changes easy.
Nobody looks back on and reviews the last 12 months of their life in June. They save that for New Year’s – unless of course there’s some other prompt that sparks the comparison, maybe a college professor seeing yet another class graduate.
Or maybe the prompt is more associational than temporal, like revisiting a certain place, say your home town, the house you grew up in, or even your college campus. Inevitably, those returns bring back memories of your previous visits, thereby highlighting the changes that have taken place in your life (and in you) during the intervening years.
So what’s the practical application here? Three things:
1) We love stories and messages that bring things back “full circle.”
This technique, in fact, seems to be a favorite over at J. Perterman. Just check out the copy for these three items. All of them bring you back full circle with the last line or two of copy.
2) Your copy should bring the reader forward in time to highlight accrued benefits.
Provide readers a mental image of themselves looking back on and being thrilled with their decision to buy because of the change/improvements/benefits they’ve reaped over the course X months.
3) You shouldn’t be leaving this time-stamping thing to chance.
If you offer a service that moves your clients from point A to point B over a period of time, you should figure out how to stamp these points into your clients memories and how to graciously remind them of the anniversary. This will allow you to highlight the progress and change without chest thumping.
Same thing with durable goods. Let’s say you make flip-flops so darn good that people fall in love with them. Would it hurt you to send them a thank-you post-card or e-mail 6 months or so past the time of purchase? Let ‘em know you appreciate their business, remind them of all the great features that they’re still enjoying but may have taken for granted by this time, show ‘em a picture of what a new pair looks like, and let ‘em know that now’s the time to buy next season’s pair at a special price. By sending that kind of e-mail, you’ll have reactivated everything the client loves about your flip-flops while also highlighting the not-newness of their current pair and the opportunity to update.
What about you? How are you taking advantage of – or creating your own – anniversaries?