Category: Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Publishing

Novels have been used to persuade since at least the days of Gulliver’s Travels. Books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Huckleberry Finn had a major influence on 19th century social policy; in more modern times, authors from Ayn Rand to Joseph Heller to Phillip Campbell have used novels as a platform for their agenda.

Now comes a novel that teaches the very skills of persuasion–something I’m not sure has been done before (though the late Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus trilogy skirts the edges).

Advertising maven Ben Mack’s Poker Without Cards goes deeper into the human psyche than even the very provocative Daniel Quinn, and with the same kind of unexpected mind twists. Set up as a dialogue over several months between Mack’s alter ego Howard W. Campbell and a hospital psychiatrist who believes Campbell holds the key to understanding a particularly difficult case, the book is a page-turner even without trying to have any kind of real plot. The places the two men go in their discussions may change your mind to the whole idea of what’s possible and how the brain actually works–while providing a gripping, if not particularly easy, read.

And speaking of persuasion, he’s managed to persuade people who seldom write blurbs to endorse his book, including not only Wilson himself but also Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Brodie (author of Virus of the Mind as well as the original MS Word) and Internet marketer supreme Mark Joyner, among others.

As a marketer, I recommend this book without hesitation to marketers who want to understand persuasion on a deeper, more personal level than you can get from nonfiction. And as a planetary citizen, I recommend it to consumers who want to understand what’s being done to them by forces they may want to understand.

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By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News

On one of the many Internet marketing newsletters I read, I got this link, and this teaser:

Over 82% of the people who have viewed this
video have opted in for more information.

Must be pretty powerful, eh? So I went to check it out.

What I found was a short and extremely well-produced video from one of the masters of Internet marketing, someone who has been behind the launches of a dozen or so successful “continuity” programs–where you pay a fee each month until you tell the company you want out. Most of the continuity programs out there sell membership programs; this guy sells software tools, as well as a very popular seminar series.

And he’s someone who very much understands the power of focusing on benefits, and of delivering value–and has parlayed that understanding into many millions of dollars.

So it was a shock to watch this video. It’s an exercise in non-benefit-oriented brand-building, and the call to action at the end is extremely week in my opinion–what I call “empty calories marketing.” In other words, the sort of thing you’d expect from a large ad agency that wants to make its client feel good but doesn’t care about actually generating results, and not one of the most sophisticated direct marketers on the planet.

Well, maybe he knows something I don’t. I wasn’t moved to leave my name of the squeeze page at the end, but if that copy in the e-mail blast is to believed, better than 4 out of 5 visitors do leave their names.

I’ll be curious to learn what kind of results he gets from this. And also whether other marketers disagree with me and feel the ad is effective.

Note: the link above is the affiliate link for the people who sent me the e-mail. I am not an affiliate of this program.

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By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Web 2.0/Social Media

Mark Joyner has deservedly enjoyed a reputation as one of the online world’s most creative and successful marketers, going back many years.

He and I have become Internet friends after he bought a copy of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First over my website and I responded with a personal note.

Now Mark is trying another viral experiment with his new blogging course: giving it to anyone who posts the following text on his or her blog.

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

  • The best blogging techniques.
  • How to get traffic to your blog.
  • How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

That’s Mark’s language. i don’t write like that. I’d just say that anything Mark is giving away is certainly worth exploring. I own three of his books (one of them, The Great Formula, even has half a chapter by me. I’m going to get my copy.

But anything Mark does is also worth studying. As a marketer, this is what I see:

  • A clear attempt to go viral with the power of free
  • Canned text that will show up on hundreds or thousands of websites, and in most cases without any added commentary
  • My own need to add commentary, in part because I don’t like to pass off other people’s words as my own, and in part because I want to differentiate this page for the gazillion identical pages this will generate

    • If I were Mark, I’d have actually encouraged people to do their own text, and use his link. But that wasn’t my call to make.

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    By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News

    Watch the stunning commercial Sony made showing fireworks made of paint instead of the usual substances.

    Then watch the behind-the-scenes story of the making of this commercial.

    As a marketer, what conclusions can you draw? Here are a few of mine:

  • It is still possible to make commercials that are also art–even make them absolutely riveting
    The logistics involved in this 60-second spot are as complex as a general’s decisions on the battlefield
    f you don’t have several million dollars to play with, making TV commercials may not be the best use of your marketing resources, because you cannot compete with this level of craftsmanship
    If the purpose of the ad is to get me to buy this particular TV, the ad is an utter failure; at no time does it show me any benefit to this set over any other
    However, if the purpose is to draw a positive association with the theater, the excitement the art of it, and the viral thrill of sharing it with your friends, then the ad is a rip-roaring success–but whether that will translate to enough additional sales to justify the costs of producing and airing the ad, I don’t know
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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Publishing

    It’s bad enough that sploggers go around lifting articles and slapping them up on splogs (spam blogs) with no paragraph breaks and a bunch of Google ads.

    Now, Business Week reports on professor Philip M. Parker, “author” of 300,000 scraped books.

    I am sorry, but setting a computer robot to pull data from a topic is not authorship. While as a multi-source compilation it probably doesn’t qualify legally as theft, it certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth! Some of “his” reports sell for as much as $495, too.

    Yuck!

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    By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

    It’s not often that I see a salesletter that not only moves me to immediate action, but also makes me laugh out loud.

    Rob Toth’s letter at https://www.buynowwizard.com/report/index.php did just that.

    First of all, Rob got me to his page by having a brief tip in Doug Hudiberg’s Daily Marketing Ace. I was so intrigued by the title of the free report: “Buy Now! How To Get Customers Ordering So Fast Your Bank Account May End Up With a Speeding Ticket” that I had to click on over.

    Reaching the page I see the same headline and a cute cartoon that directly illustrates it.

    After the cartoon and a couple of brief lines, he jumps right in with the zany, humorous tone that pokes fun at the whole genre of sales letters while pulling me further into the content:

    Sorry if I seem a bit out of breath. I was just at the hospital and had to hurry back to be able to tell you about this. You definitely want to hear this.

    Why was I at the hospital? I went to see a friend of mine. (I feel so bad for this). He was rushed in for surgery hours ago. Doctors say he damaged his jaw’s bone structure when it dropped to the floor hard after having read a sneak-peek copy of my new report that I sent over to him.

    Like I said, I feel really bad about it. So let’s have a quick safety meeting you-and-I. Do me a favor and go grab a pillow (or one of those Costco sized bags of marshmallows should do the trick as well) … before you listen to anything more that I say (and definitely before you read my report), please place that pillow (or your baggy) under your jaw. This is for your own good.

    Of course, I read all the way down.

    And then he’s got a really short window to take action, with a visible, ticking clock counting the time–just a few minutes (warning, once you say yes, you have to get back to the confirmation email very quickly as well–something I think could easily backfire). Since it’s a free report and there’s nothing to lose, I took the bait. I haven’t read the report yet, but I signed up.

    I understand why the back button doesn’t work, because he quite correctly wants the time limit to be real. But one thing I’d do differently if I were Rob is make it easier to share the webpage. After I said yes, I wanted to share it, but it wasn’t easy’ the back button didn’t take me there. I finally had to dig through my email trash can and find the Daily Marketing Ace that had the link.

    I think this could go viral if it the you-signed-up, confirm-quickly page had some language like

    “Did you have fun here? If you want to share the page with your friends, here’s the link.”

    For more on great copywriting, BTW, my award-winning book Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World has a huge and informative section.

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    By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

    Look what a skilled marketer can do to create a news angle.

    A government agency, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), sent out a news release advising people to dispose of old prescription meds so they can’t be abused. Since flushing them down the toilet can have ill effects on water sources and the animals that use them,

    “Mixing prescription drugs with an undesirable substance, such as used coffee grounds or kitty litter, and putting them in impermeable, nondescript containers, such as empty cans or sealable bags, will further ensure the drugs are not diverted…Ferret waste, like nearly any other form of pet waste, can be effectively used to help prevent the abuse of unused prescription drugs,” SAMHSA spokesman Mark Weber said.

    And the American Ferret Association was ready to pounce! That group’s press release noted,

    “The U.S. government declares ferret poop to be an effective weapon against drug abuse.”

    Brilliant! So brilliant that Reuters (one of the largest newswire services in the world) picked it up.

    Can you find some lessons on making yourself newsworthy?

    (Thanks to Joan Stewart of PublicityHound.com for tipping me off to this story–I’ve been reading her excellent newsletter for years)

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    By Posted on Posted in Blogroll, Customer Service as Marketing, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Web 2.0/Social Media

    I love discovering fresh, articulate voices who discuss important things. And today I discovered Mike Wagner, of OwnYourOwnBrand.com. He writes elegantly on the brand as based in the customer’s own experience. I particularly enjoyed his story of the broken minor promise that cost a hotel $30,000 in lost future revenue, and also of the receptionist who made him feel special.

    What especially interests me is the way I found him. I participate fairly passively on several Web 2.0 social networking sites. This morning, I logged onto Plaxo and found that someone in one of my groups had posted a link to the Thinking Blogger Awards. And Mike was one of the five honored Thinking Bloggers. Is that cool, or what?

    If you’re not starting to harness Web 2.0 in your own business, maybe it’s time to start.

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    By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics

    A Democratic Congressional staffer wrote a piercing and widely circulated memo showing that the Republicans know how to frame things, while the Dems gather ’round the policy-wonk water cooler and talk to themselves in dull messages.

    This of course is nothing new. Back in the ’90’s, Newt Gingrich unleashed the “Contract With America” (which many progressives quickly dubbed “Contract On America”, as indeed, it turned out to be).

    The last really powerful Dem to be able to sound-bite a key message so it becomes a rallying cry was probably Lyndon Johnson, with his Great Society, War on Poverty, etc.

    Yeah, so read the article. And read books like George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant, or other books on persuasion. While social change takes more than sloganeering, it definitely helps if you can frame the discourse. Failure to do so is why both Kerry and Gore were close enough to defeat that the election could actually be stolen from them, and why their weak and ineffectual attempts and keeping their victories fell flat.

    I think it’s also interesting that what led me to this article was a blog post by copywriter Ben Settle (I read a lot of copywriting newsletters) called Democrats Suck at Copywriting? Didn’t hear about this one from any of my progressive pen-pals.

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    By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

    I use automated translations frequently to get a rough idea of what someone is talking about, and some pages of my sites offer free translation. But I know better than to rely on them for anything that really matters if I’m translating more than a single word.

    Here’s an example of why. I am quite sure that a human translator would have rendered this very differently:

    The material that we include has expressed you the aspirations of many people with longings to change radically the transforming processing that the art has in the human beings. If, by any motive, it not out of your current interest or possibilities of participation, a lot we will thank transfer this anxiety to your close persons.

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