Below is live coverage of the Turn Brain Science into Bucks: Incorporating Persuasive Messaging into Your Content Strategy from the SES San Jose 2009 conference.
This coverage is provided by Keri Morgret of Strike Models.
We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. You can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed.
| Turn Brain Science into Bucks: Incorporating Persuasive Messaging into Your Content Strate | (08/11/2009) |
| 1:54 | Barry Schwartz: Keri is having Wifi issues in the session room, Keri will post her notes as soon as the connection goes live. Sorry for the technical difficulties. |
| 2:02 | Keri Morgret: We like to feel like we're "one of the crowd." No matter how "different" we feel we are, we want to do what other people are doing. Sometimes we want things not to make us better than everyone else, but to make us feel the same. There may be better MP3 players out there, but we still go for an iPod. How to leverage this: - Include logos/names of current/past clients. - PR/content marketing campaign to build brand. - If you have a service-oriented site, consider adding a blog (for comments) or testimonials (more on that later). - Twitter for personal branding How to work with Testimonials. It's not just getting testimonials, it's matching the testimonal to the offer, target audience, and where someone is in the purchasing decision. |
| 2:03 | Keri Morgret: How to leverage this: People want to know that you can help them with their needs. if you have different target audiences, match the testimonals to the audience. |
| 2:06 | Keri Morgret: What's the best time to ask for a testimonial? Don't ask three months later. Get it right after they think you're awesome. Three months after, the client is used to things. |
| 2:07 | Keri Morgret: The need to differentiate Choices are confusing. Head and Shoulders did a test where they reduced choices from 26 to 15, and received a 10 percent increase in sales. |
| 2:08 | Keri Morgret: She shows a screenshot from tigerdirect. It's confusing with all kinds of products and you don't know where to focus. Dell has a simple focus that makes it easy to know where to go. |
| 2:09 | Keri Morgret: How to leverage this Don't let your customers overwhelm. Reduce choices, test, and consider reducing again. |
| 2:09 | Keri Morgret: Know that there is power in simple. Too many choices confuse. |
| 2:09 | Keri Morgret: Free is not always good. |
| 2:11 | Keri Morgret: You can get sometimes better conversion rates by charging and showing it has value. How to leverage this: If you're providing an incentive gift, include the value of the gift in the text. If you're offering a "discount", consider including the retail price. If you're offering a "savings", tell them how much. |
| 2:13 | Keri Morgret: Compromise Choices. Example of Williams Sonoma. A new breadmaker came out that was bigger, and it tanked -- but the old one did better. What to know: People compromise between a low-priced product and a higher-priced product by opting for the less expensive version. If there are three choices, the "middle choice" is often chosen. |
| 2:15 | Keri Morgret: Pricing structure. Change the order in which you make the request. Boost sales by changing the order in which you make a request. Slice "choices" to three Place the most expensive option first -- everything else looks like a bargain, or highlight what you want them to do. |
| 2:15 | Keri Morgret: Decoy marketing. Offer one so-so choice. It makes the other choices seem better. |
| 2:17 | Keri Morgret: Takeaways: Better understanding of psychological processes = more effective online sales. How you strategize your writing is more than just keywords. It's also understand your prospects' underlying motivations. Graham McLaughlin is up next. |
| 2:18 | Keri Morgret: I'm still having network issues, thus the sporadic updates. |
| 2:19 | Keri Morgret: BCAA: British Columbia Automobile Association. Related to AAA. They sell travel insurance and memberships. |
| 2:23 | Keri Morgret: Make people feel safe. They tried two ads. Despite the economy, test price/savings messages against benefit statements. Clickthrough rate for "highly rated by customers" was 5x that of "$50 off home insurance". Social Proof Life State Testimonials. Make it about the customer Use images of real customers Geo-Targeted ads to match landing pages Staff name mentioned in testimonial Testimonials above the call to action. |
| 2:26 | Keri Morgret: Selling Option B. Changed default option to next-to-cheapest option, got 23% lift in sales. They had a problem with providing too much information, and went to their customers to try to decide what the needed information was. |
| 2:28 | Keri Morgret: When they got specific about how much money you'd save by signing up, they got an increase in clickthroughs and conversions. |
| 2:28 | Keri Morgret: Next Steps: Work with your product groups and customers. Find the low-hanging fruit (product defaults). Use campaign traffic to test application changes. Build a Social Marketing Concept Cheat Sheet. |
| 2:35 | Keri Morgret: Q&A happening. Network is only lasting for less than a minute before I have to restart it. |
| 2:40 | Keri Morgret: Ending this coverage, because the network dying keeps erasing my posts. |
| 2:42 |  |
