Imagine you’re driving down the road to fill some petrol.

As you get to the petrol station, you see the headlines on the newspaper, letting you know that petrol prices are likely to go up by 20 cents.

What do you do?

Fill just $10 worth of petrol in your tank?
Or $20?
Or do you fill the whole tank?

You know the answer, don’t you?

You sure as hell filled up the tank to the brim, didn’t you? Even if filling up your tank is not what you usually do.

But notice something?

The price of petrol hasn’t gone up. It hasn’t gone down either. Yet you deviated quite radically from your normal behaviour. In most cases, you almost never fill the tank except when you’re headed for a long drive out of town. And here you are, making sure every darned droplet drips into your fuel tank.

Is every car owner headed out of town?

Because every car in that petrol station, and across the country, is mirroring your actions, based on a headline of prices going up, up and away.

Yet you’re afraid to raise prices, aren’t you?

You’re afraid customers will leave. You’re afraid you’ll be out of business.

And even as you’re afraid of raising your prices, look around you and see how silly that fear really is.

Look at real estate prices. Or prices on Ebay. Or the share market. In every case, the prices are not just going up, but the price rise is actually being announced.

Don’t hide your price rise under a bushel

First, you need to know that you can quite easily increase prices by about 10% without customers complaining, or leaving in droves. Only price-sensitive customers will leave.

Incidentally, price-sensitive customers are also the most painful to deal with. So let’s just assume you’re actually going to increase your prices by 10%.

When you decide to increase your prices, don’t be a scaredy cat. Make a big deal about price rises. Announce that your prices are going to rise. And here are three specific reasons why you’ll end up a winner.

Reason 1: Announcement of rising prices causes an urgency factor

Even the laziest, most reluctant customer starts to act ‘rapidement’, when faced with an almost definite loss. An announcement of rising prices, is like lighting a fire under the customer’s you-know-what, and forces the customer to take a decision immediately, or face the consequences.

Our brains are embedded with a need for gain, and to avoid loss. So as customers, we shake off our laziness and procrastination, to make sure we get more bang for our buck.

Reason 2: Your Products/Services Increase In Value

You remember what your mama told you: You get what you pay for. And somehow, those words have percolated deep into our brains. So as customers, we associate higher prices with better quality. When we buy products, we assume that the more expensive product will be superior than the cheaper product.

When we buy services, we presume that the supplier of the services is superior (and has plenty of business) if they’re able to charge more.

Reason 3: Price Rises Gives You A Reason To Contact Customers

In most cases, you have little or no news to give your customer. Well, a price rise is prettttty big news. It has urgency, flavour and packs a lot of attention. Existing customers (and even prospects) are more receptive to an announcement of a price rise.

Because in effect, you’re looking after the interests of the customer, and saving them time, money and frustration.

Remember, it’s the announcement that counts … not the price rise itself!

The price rise is ho-hum. The announcement is really what counts. Even if you’re dealing with generic products, you can justify higher prices by using the yes-yes factor.

If you’re dealing with services, you’ve got to bundle your offer, and then increase the prices (Eg: Training events where the prices go up after the early bird offer)

If you don’t believe that announcements of price rises work, watch when people buy stuff on Ebay; or airplane tickets; or shares or real estate.

Or for that matter…petrol

Next Step: Want to learn more about pricing? Find the entire pricing strategy series in text, audio with cartoons!
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Imagine you own a toy-truck company.
And on your toy-truck website you sell red trucks.
And blue trucks.
And green trucks.
And yellow trucks.
And mauvish-orange trucks (ok, so I’m running out of primary colours)

Which means you’ve pretty much got a Products Page with loads of trucks.

So logically, or so you think, the customer will head to your website, and buy your products, because hey, the customer wants a truck.

If only it were this easy to sell products online…

First, it’s pretty darned impossible to sell anything off your website unless you have a list of sorts. Yes, I know that Amazon and Apple don’t have a list, but they aren’t just some website sitting out there.

The reason why customer head to these websites, is because the biggie-companies get bucketloads of PR and do tons of advertising.

But let’s just suppose you do have a list…

And let’s suppose you do (through email or your blog or some other media) drive customers to that ‘product page’, where you’re selling a fair bit of product.

So why does the customer get to the product page and not buy?

Hmmm…this requires a detailed answer. And if you stick with me, you’ll see just why your customer won’t buy, despite being on the product page.

The first issue is distraction.

Your customer gets to the page. She sees red trucks, blue trucks, and green trucks. And all the different coloured trucks she’d so like to have.

She goes up. Down. Sideways. And then runs out of time. And vrooom, she’s outta there.

You see what you’ve just done?

You’ve confused the customer. Distracted her. Instead you should have clearly followed a sequence.

So what does the sequence look like? And what are the components of the sequence?

1) The promotion in your newsletter/blog
2) The structured testimonial
3) The importance of focusing on just ‘one truck’
4) The importance of urgency and bonuses.

So let’s head off to the first step

Step 1: The promotion in your newsletter/blog

Let’s say you insert a promo in your sales letter–for just one or a maximum of two products. So the promotion is for the ‘red truck’ (and possibly another product).

The client sees the link and click to the specific product.

Now here’s where it all turns to custard.

You cannot, cannot, cannot send them to a product page. You can’t send the client to a ‘truck page.’ You have to send the client solely to the ‘red truck’ page–with complete details about just the ‘red truck.’ So your page contains information about the ‘red truck’, frequently asked questions about the ‘red truck’, testimonials, yada, yada, yada.

And this promotion can be (as I said) in your newsletter, blog or even in Google ad words.

In fact this ‘red truck’ factor is how Google ad words works best too

If you’re looking for a red truck,and you type in ‘red+truck’ in Google, it will pop up all instances of ‘red truck’.

And if you look at the organic Google search on your left, you may expect some sort of dumbness on the part of the website owner.. The dumbness being, that the page may not end up on a ‘red truck’ page, but may end up instead on a site that has trucks, and other stuff.

But when you click on the Google ad, you’re not exactly in a charitable mood.

That link on the ad needs to vamoose you right to the ‘red truck page’, not the ‘blue truck page’, or the ‘green truck page.’ Of course, the worst thing you can do is to take the customer to the ‘all trucks’ page. Darn, now you’ve completely confounded the poor girl. She’s going to be all distracted with all those truckies, and instead of buying the ‘red truck’, she’s in la-la truck land.

Wouldn’t the ‘all truck page’ give the customer a choice, though?

Wouldn’t that cause the customer to buy what he wants? The customer has told you what she wants, by clicking on a specific link. You offered him a ‘red truck’.

He responded (to the exclusion of all other distractions) to your ‘red truck.’ Now by taking her to the ‘All Trucks’ page, you’ve distracted her. And in doing so, taken a huge risk of losing the sale–and believe me, you’re more likely to lose it, than gain it.

Which brings us to Step 2.

Step 2:The power of structured testimonials

You may think it’s all very fine to have a promotion, and nothing else, but hey, if you really want a superior response, you need to have a testimonial. And not just any ol’ testimonial, but a structured testimonial (refer to the Brain Audit on Page 65)

Now if you don’t have an awesome testimonial, at least have a testimonial.

You may not be able to insert a testimonial in a Google Adwords, but in most other instances, you will indeed be able to put in a testimonial. So do the smart thing.
Put in the testimonial.

Ok, rolling on to Step 3

Step 3: The importance of focusing on the ‘red truck

When the customer gets to the specific ‘red truck’ page, talk only about the red truck.

Put in only stuff that’s related to the red truck.
Testimonials.
Details.
Pricing.
Yes-Yes Offer
And all the ingredients that give the customer a Full Story.

Don’t get tempted to show the customer links to blue trucks. Or vermillion trucks. They’re there for the ‘red truck.’ Let them buy the ‘red truck.’

4) Urgency and bonuses increase the response

Give bonuses. And make the bonuses applicable to the ‘red truck’.

Load the bonuses up as high as you can, to make the ‘red truck’ offer really useful for the customer. Now these bonuses could be: Red Truck Club Membership; Red Truck Jacket; Red Truck whatever. These bonuses need to really add up, so that the client sees; “Yup, I’m-uh-getting-a-good-deal-here-baybeh”

Note: The bonuses don’t have to cost you a fortune. They just need to be valuable to the customer. So the Membership may not cost you a lot, but is of great value to the customer.

And urgency counts. Now urgency can’t be done every day, or it loses its meaning. So urgency needs to be done on a periodic basis. And as rarely as possible. Your customer is indeed watching.

And if they see you having these weekly sales, they’re going to realise there’s zero-urgency after all. So if you’re going to have urgency by giving the customer a special bonus (not available otherwise), then make the darned thing count. Keep the urgency rare. Make it urgent. When we have an urgency notice, we restrict it to three days.

That’s it. No exceptions.

Which brings us full circle…to a summary of sorts

1) The promotion in your newsletter/blog.
2) The structured testimonial.
3) Keep the customer on the ‘Red Truck’ Page (without distractions)
4) Urgency and bonuses increase the response factor (and consequently sales)

So do we simply get rid of the Product Page with all the ‘trucks?’

Hey, no one is saying you need to remove your product page. There’s always the window-shopper who will indeed buy. So there’s no need to trash your product page quite yet. Or ever.

Red trucks.
Blue trucks.
Green trucks.
Who knew a bunch of trucks could cause so much confusion, eh?

Next Step: Want to learn more about pricing? Find the entire pricing strategy series in text, audio with cartoons!
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Let’s imagine you and I are meeting in Donostia-San Sebastián in the north of Spain for dinner.

And we’re going to have dinner in the old town. What are we going to have for dinner? I know. We’ll have some beer, los pintxos, some icecream, and a cafe cortado. And guess what? We’ll get the entire meal on one plate. The beers, six pinxtos, ice-cream and the coffee. All served to us on one plate—at the same time.

Hmmm…that would be a mess wouldn’t it?
Now logically speaking, that’s not too much food. We could easily run through six pinxtos, two or three beers, some icecream and wash it down with a cafe cortado or two. But we couldn’t, or wouldn’t want to do it all at once would we?

This is precisely what you’re asking your customer to do.
Let’s say you’re a professional and you have several services. It’s easy to think that all the services need to have reasonably equal weight on your web page. If you’re selling a product, and the product has several features, then it’s again easy to believe that you need to somehow stuff your headline with all the possible features.

And as if that’s not enough you go ballistic on the rest of the page
You try to stuff all your services/product features in the body copy in order to tell your client that it’s all important—and that it’s all important right now. And customers aren’t so kind on websites (Or restaurants) for that matter. If someone overloads your plate, you simply get confused and dislike the experience. Then you walk away.

And that’s the danger.
The danger is the overload.

Ok, so you understand the concept of overload right? But how do you go about creating a page that gives all the information needed, without overloading. And yes, without leaving anything out?

You do it exactly the way the restaurant does.
Choose one service to begin with. Let’s say you’re a lawyer, for example. And let’s say you’re really good at ‘home conveyance for expatriates’. Well talk about the home conveyance. Tell me what problem you solve for me. Tell me how your services may well be more expensive but why I must consider you. Tell me enough without jumping me across from service to service to service all at once.

And if you’re selling a product, the very same concept applies.
Tell me the biggest problem that you solve. Drive home that problem for a bit. Two paragraphs, three paragraphs. Let me enjoy what I’m reading. Let me chomp a bit into the subject matter. When I’ve had enough, I’ll be ready for the next feature. And the next. And the next. One by one.

Let’s take an example: We sell an Article Writing Course. Now what would you use article writing for? Ooh, let me count the ways. It could be to write articles for your newsletter; write content for your website; create outstanding presentations; develop superbly built video content for YouTube; write press releases that make you look like a pro…(You want me to stop any time soon?)

Every product or service has dozens of features
Every product solves dozens of problems and brings dozens of solutions. But if you go to the page on the Article Writing Course, we don’t deal with all the problems all at once. All we talk about is one problem. And we drive home that problem. Two, three, four paragraphs. Same problem. Then we move to the next and the next.

Just like our meal at the Pintxo bar
It’s easy for us to drink the beers (hic), then eat the pintxos and then wash it all down later with ice-cream and coffee. And if you do it in sequence, or, at least separately, then I’m interested. And I’ll stay for the “meal”. And enjoy the meal.

Isolate the services. Explain them.
Isolate the product features. Explain them one by one.
Isolate. Isolate. Isolate.

Do you want to drive your customers away? Or make them stay? The choice is yours.

———————–
Next Step: “The Brain Audit-It’s like the first comic book in marketing!“

As an infojunkie, I buy ALL the stuff about smallbiz marketing, and here’s what makes Sean’s book stand out: while others mostly just dump info on you, Sean’s passion is that you understand and absorb the material for easier implementation.

Earlier versions of The Brain Audit had easy to understand structures and graphs, but this new one, with the new secret ingredient – cartoons – helped me absorb the knowledge faster and with more fun.

I would’ve liked to cite specific results, but I’ve been using the Brain Audit for so long I can’t keep score any more. I used it in my sales copy for selling manuals, trainings, seminars,
memberships, or to help my customers sell maps, wine, even electricity.

I’d recommend the Brain Audit to any business owner or marketer who wants to understand the mind of his customer and be able to use this structure, this checklist to write copy more confidently.”

Gabor Wolf, Marketing consultant, Budapest, Hungary
Judge for yourself The Brain Audit: Why Customers Buy And Why They Don’t

———————
New Products: Introductory Price

1) “Lazy Testimonials” Attract The Wrong Clients. Learn how to use the power of the ’six critical questions’ to get incredible testimonials–and attract clients that make every day an absolute joy.

2) Do you sometimes wonder if planning books are written just for the ‘organised’ people?
Learn Why Most Planning Fails: And The Critical Importance of Chaos in Planning

3) Does your websites, brochures, presentations, etc..confuse your clients? .
Put some sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks.

3) Yes, you needs visuals on your sales page, but how do you use visuals to immediately improve your sales conversion?

———————
“5000bc had been recommended by a Caver, and I took a look at it. The cost of joining was small relative to a recent terrible purchase, but I was in no spending mood at the time…understandably.”

Within a couple days of joining, I soon realized that Sean walks the walk and talks the talk. Not only was Sean contributing to the forum, but the calibre and quality of the feedback from other members was invaluable and definitely free flowing.

What I found instantly on 5000bc were answers to my most pressing questions related to my business. That made the cost of joining 5000bc, even after only a week or so of being a member, insignificant relative to the value received.

Peter J. Draper, EquityTransitions Inc., Mississauga, Ontario.
Judge for yourself http://www.psychotactics.com/5000bc
———————

The ‘Yes and Yes Factor’ is supposed to work. Yet somehow, it seems to fail. In this issue, learn ‘Why The ‘Yes and Yes’ Factor Fails (And How To Fix It)’

Coffee.
Coffee and chocolate brownie.

Which option puts a bigger smile on your face?

No, don’t tell me…

In random tests done over 5 months, when faced with a ‘Yes and Yes’ option, 97.5% chose the second option, even when it was more than obvious, that option No.2 was clearly more expensive.
(Read this Marketing Strategy first)

It’s a no-brainer to see why a ‘Yes and Yes’ Factor works

Yet amazingly, when some readers applied the concept to their marketing, the ‘Yes and Yes Factor’ failed miserably.

What on earth could cause the ‘Yes and Yes’ Factor to crash and burn?

Three major elements play a role:
1) The Logic of the Offer
2) The Timing of the Offer
3) The Visual Elements

The Logic of the Offer

The biggest reason why the ‘Yes and Yes’ Factor fails, is because there isn’t what you’d call a logical upgrade. Coffee and brownies are a logical upgrade. A Mercedes vs. a Mercedes with a leather seats is a logical upgrade.

A Ford vs. a Mercedes offer causes the brain to sputter. To stop. To wonder. To wander. And causes the customer to want to think a while.

Often, the wandering is a mite too far and too long, causing you to lose the sale. Losing isn’t just about logic…

It’s also about timing.

Try offering the customer the coffee and chocolate brownie at the door. No matter how good your offer, the customer will recoil.

Is she a case of mistaken identity? Was that coffee meant for someone else? Is the store trying to push the coffee? Is there something wrong with the coffee?

Timing is…um…everything.

Your offer needs to be made at the point of sale. The ‘Yes and Yes’ factor only works when the customer is relaxed and ready to buy.

Hurry your offer through, and watch your customer’s face. See the confusion. Probably even disgust. How the heck are you going to get someone to buy when you’re pressing all the wrong buttons? You’ve got to get the timing right.

And yes, the customer needs to see the big picture.

Tah, dah…the big picture…

Ok, so you’ve got the logic sorted out. Your timing is impeccable. But have you got the visual elements in place?

Visual what?

As a customer I need to see the difference between the offer. No matter whether you’re selling face to face, or through a channel like the Internet, I need to see visuals that clearly show me I’m getting the ‘brownie.’
(Examples of Marketing Strategy Visuals)

Even if you’re making the offer in an email, and you don’t have the benefit of HTML, you can demonstrate the difference visually. (See below)

In a text-only email, the text could be like this:

Offer No.1:
Blah, Blah, Blah,Blah, Blah, Blah,
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah,
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah,

OR

Offer No.2:
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah,
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah,
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah,
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah,
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah,

Where offer 2 is visually more. And in reality, contains more value for the customer.

To get back to the brownies and coffee

You’d use:

1) The factor of logic, by offering the brownies and the coffees in tandem with each other.

2) You’d make sure you’d make the timing was spot on. You’d offer the deal once the customer was ready to buy.

3) Visually the customer would need to see the brownie, before taking a decision. The sight of a yummy chocolate brownie would instantly cause the most obstinate dieter, to break her resolve.

And that, mah friend, is how you put the ‘Yes and Yes’ Factor to optimal use.

P.S. I know you’re still thinking of that cake and chocolate brownie Well, don’t let me stop you!

Next Step: Want to learn more about pricing? Find the entire pricing strategy series in text, audio with cartoons!
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Three year old Kara was throwing a tantrum. She didn’t want to go to bed, of that she was certain.

“Do you want to brush with the red or blue toothpaste?” her dad asked gently.

“Blue,” she says, glad to be given the opportunity to make a decision.

Ten minutes later, Kara was well tucked up, wondering when she’d agreed to go to bed in the first place.

You laugh at the story, don’t you?

The method used to get Kara into bed seems a bit like trickery. And who am I to say that it’s not? Yet I want you to pay attention to one thing. Kara was glad to be given a choice between yes and yes.

Your clients are not much different

Clients come to you every single day asking you to give them a choice. A choice between yes and yes. Instead all you’re giving them is a choice between yes and no.

Mah friend, your bank account will see far better days if only you’d step back, and use the immense power of the choice between yes and yes.

Of course, you don’t have to believe that this choice factor works. You don’t have to believe your sales will go up. All you have to see is proof. So in the article below I’ll demonstrate the psychological factor of choice. How it can work for you and how it can turn against you and bite you in the you-know-where.

It all started on one stupid loss-making November’s day a few years ago…

We were doing fine with the sales on our website when we made one change. I’m going to demonstrate the change in the article below so it would help for you to have the page open so you can see what I’m talking about.

If you look at this page you’ll find that you get the choice to buy two packages. One is the copy of the Brain Audit and the other choice is a copy of the Brain Audit + Goodies.

Till the middle of November, we had both the offers up. Then one ego-driven morning we decided to pull the plug on one choice.

We gave customers the choice between a yes and um..NO!

Almost within 24 hours, our sales started going south for no reason at all. We ignored this sickening slack for about a week. Then we looked back at what was working. And we put back the choice between yes and yes.

The customer was back in choice-ville and the sales soared.

But here’s the curious part

Among the two packages, one has a much higher price. Yet over 97.5% of customers, when given the choice between the two packages, chose the higher priced package.

The customer is no dumbo

No siree. The customer knows exactly what she wants. And when given the choice between yes and yes, she takes a decision to buy that which creates most value for her. Of course, if there’s an enticement to buy, as was in this case, then there’s a far greater likelihood of her buying the more expensive product.

The customer is no dumbo…but I sure am

Think about it. If your revenue shot up. If customers were buying higher-priced products what would you logically do? Wouldn’t you take the same concept and use it everywhere you could?

You’d think a smart person would do that, wouldn’t you? (Which is why I qualified myself at the start of this paragraph). But no! As we speak, there are still a few products on our site that donnot have a choice of YES and YES.

Don’t stop at one point. Take the concept through its paces

If you’re in consulting, look at the choice between yes and yes. Are you giving the customer a choice between package A and package B. Or do you offer just one package? If you’re selling products, the concept of yes and yes choice stays put.

And once you’ve found that the concept works, puh-lease don’t do the dumbo bit. Audit every possible thing you sell. And put in a yes and yes factor. Not only will this bring you higher quantity of sales, but also an a much better price on every product/consulting assignment you do.

I said yes and yes…NOT yes and yes and yes and yes

You, me, we all crave for choice. But give us too much and we go a little waka-waka in our brains. Because choice is based on rejection. To choose the strawberry flavour ice-cream, you must mentally refuse all the other flavours.

(Read article on: The Curse of Choice)

If you give a client too much to choose from, they will end up rolling their eyes, doing a RAM check and shut down their brains before you have time to do anything at all.

Keep your options simple. Keep the choice between yes and yes.

So that even a three-year old has no trouble choosing!

Next Step: Want to learn more about pricing? Find the entire pricing strategy series in text, audio with cartoons!
Subscribe : Get Updates via RSS | Get Updates via Email (Fill in your details in the top-right hand form)

You may not realise it, but your articles are creating a ‘huh’ factor. A ‘huh’ factor is like a speed bump on a road. If you don’t remove that speed bump, it causes the reader to bounce over your words. If you have too many of these speed bumps, it frustrates the reader. And they leave.

So how do you avoid this ‘huh’ factor in your article?
You read it back not just to yourself, but also to folks around you. And watch for the ‘huh’ sound.

So let’s take two lines that are trying to say the same thing:
Line 1: Do you know this causality dilemma question about the chicken and the egg?
Line 2: Do you know about the eternal puzzle of the chicken and egg?

Now read it back aloud
Say to yourself aloud: Do you remember this causality dilemma question?
Then say it to your kids: Do you remember this causality dilemma question?
Then say it to your partner: Do you remember this causality dilemma question?

You’ll get the same response: Huh?

Now change the questions to something simpler
Do you know about the eternal puzzle of the chicken and egg?
Then say it to yourself: Do you know about the eternal puzzle of the chicken and egg?
Then say it to your kids: Do you know about the eternal puzzle of the chicken and egg?
Then to your partner: Do you know about the eternal puzzle of the chicken and egg?

And all of them will respond without the ‘huh?’
That’s the difference.

The difference is that people get confused when you use difficult words. Difficult words start a downhill slide. And then everything else that follows the difficult words becomes a blur.

If the barrage of difficult words continues, then the blur becomes unbearable. Now understand one thing: Having difficult words is a problem in itself. But when you consider that your audience also has to deal with a difficult concept, then you’re making the situation more complex than ever.

But how does the situation become complex?
You have to remember why the reader is reading your article. They’re reading it because they want to fill the gaps in their knowledge. So if your reader reads about a topic like “headlines”, for instance, it’s because the reader needs to fill that gap. And when we’re learning something, there’s always what we call a learning curve.

And learning curves are slightly difficult, because we not only have to grasp what’s being said, but also think of how we would implement the idea in the article. And so learning always has some factor of intimidation (sometimes a lot of intimidation and sometimes not so much).

If your words are complex, you’ve suddenly ramped up the intimidation.
If your concept/article is complex, you’re sending the reader spinning.

So the best way is to ramp down the intimidation.
And how do you do that?

1) Use simple words.
2) Read your words back.
3) If you get a “huh?” in your brain, rewrite the words.
4) If you’re not sure about the “huh”, then read it to a friend, child or partner.
5) Just focus on the words and you’ll dramatically improve your article and reduce intimidation.
6) To make an article un-intimidating, you need to make sure you have one thought.

You may not believe you’re causing people to go ‘huh’, but you are. So test it out. Ask others. If they say ‘huh’, you know you’ve got some re-writing to be done.
———————–
Next Step: “My first meeting with a client used to be nothing more than a presentation of my portfolio.”

The Brain Audit has given me a system that I can illustrate to the client, and I can tell I sound much more professional and competent. Also, the system makes my job easier and faster. I don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.

Yes, The Brain Audit is a system that makes communication more effective and makes me appear more professional. It also opened my mind to a new way of seeing my profession.

Not just a designer, but a valuable designer that thinks and can help clients grow.”

Cesare Ferrari,mfwebmarketing,Du Bois, Pennsylvania, USA
Judge for yourself The Brain Audit: Why Customers Buy And Why They Don’t

———————
New Products: Introductory Price
1) Do you sometimes wonder if planning books are written just for the ‘organised’ people?
Learn Why Most Planning Fails: And The Critical Importance of Chaos in Planning

2) Do you want to put some sanity into your design even though you are not a designer?
Learn how, you can immediately improve your design with some really simple tweaks.

3) Yes, you needs visuals on your sales page, but how do you use visuals to immediately improve your sales conversion?

New Product Coming Soon! Testimonial Secrets

———————
“5000bc Membership: Do you know what it’s like when you have a marketing problem at midnight and you go crazy? Well, not if you’re a 5000BC member! There is just no other place like this.

Please come and join, we existing members are happy to help you tackle your problem while you browse the rest of this huge resource site!”

Gabor Wolf, Marketing Consultant, Budapest, Hungary
Judge for yourself http://www.psychotactics.com/5000bc
———————

It was 2004.

We were promoting the Workshop in Los Angeles. As part of the marketing promotion, we put one little audio testimonial on the website. No, it doesn’t matter what the testimonial said.

What matters, is that over 1200 people clicked on that one link to listen to the testimonial.

Now why would they go clickety click? Hmmmm…wouldn’t you like to know why?

It wasn’t the testimonial itself

I already told you so. It couldn’t be the testimonial, because how on earth can you listen to a testimonial without first clicking on it? You can’t, and we all know that. So why the heck did all those people click?

It’s called curiosity

If all you’re ever going to do is post an audio testimonial, and all you’re going to do, is slap a photo above the testimonial, you’ve got a 50/50 chance that a client is going to click on that link. But if you put a curious caption right under the testimonial, you’ve suddenly increased the chances of click through, by a whole lot more.

Customers are curious

They want to know what’s behing the ‘green door.’ If you tantalise customers, and tease their brains just a little bit, you have a darned good chance of increasing your conversion rate, because hey, now they’re going to click through and listen to another customer give a testimonial.

Let me give you an example of a few good audio testimonial captions

Example No.1

You can’t listen to this testimonial. I know that. But you might still want to listen to it. There are several reasons.

1) The smile makes a difference. A testimonial with a smiling face gets more clicks over a non-smiler.

2) The caption is specific. It’s related to online growth, not just any growth. If you’re interested in growing ‘400%’ online, then and only then, would you click on this testimonial.

3) There is a level of curiosity. Can you make the caption better? Sure you can. Can you remove words like exploded? Sure you can. You need to go with your gut.

Example No.2

You can’t listen to this testimonial. I know that. But you might still want to listen to it. There are several reasons.

1) Again, big smile

2) Again, specific audience.

3) Again, can we improve the caption? Sure we can. For example: What happened to Jackie 30 minutes into the Masterclass? Why was she ready to leave?

You’d want to know, wouldn’t you?

So let’s summarise:

1) Photo: Smiley is better than grumpy
2) Title/Profession: It matters. I’m looking in the mirror when I see a testimonial. If the testimonial isn’t about ‘me’, I’m gone.
3) Results: It always helps to have results in your captions.
4) Rewrite: There’s no such thing as the best caption. I think both these captions need a rewrite. Note: I’m not rewriting the testimonial. I’m rewriting the caption.
5) Curiosity: Create high levels of curiosity. Ideally, put in at least one question in your caption. The brain wants to know the answer.

Hey, don’t stop at audio testimonials
Written testimonials or video testimonials too need some whack. Take the lessons you’ve learned in this article, and rewrite, re-design, rewire your testimonials. Do the audit.

Yeah, yeah!

Next Step: Want to learn more about website marketing? Find the entire website marketing series in text, audio with cartoons!
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You know the feeling of getting stuck, don’t you?

You set out to write something: Maybe an email, maybe an article.

And you sit there at the computer completely disgusted. Because no  matter how much you try, and whatever you write, the words just don’t seem to flow.

So why don’t the words flow?

To understand what causes a block, you have to understand what’s happening in your brain.

Let’s start with what the brain does best.

The brain recognises problems. And overcomes them. So if I were to put a chair in your way, your brain would know exactly what to do. It would either remove the chair, so you couldmove forward–or it would go around the chair.

And no matter how many types of chairs it sees in future, your brain will know exactly what it needs to do to overcome the problem.

But what if there were no chair?

What if there were an eight-hundred pound gorilla sitting in the way, instead?

Suddenly your brain doesn’t know what to do. So it panics. You either run. Or you freeze in your tracks. In effect, the brain retreats or shuts down.

This shut down mode, is ‘Writer’s Block.’

And the block goes beyond writers. It affects composers; artists; actors; sports stars. And of course, you and I.

To avoid this shut-down, we have fire-drills.

Yes, you read right–fire-drills…

The reason why you had a fire-drill in school or at an office, isn’t because the organisation likes making you run out of the building, and onto the street.

The biggest reason for fire-drills is to know what to do in an emergency. Because contrary to what you may believe, people don’t actually panic in an emergency. They sit there, transfixed, as if in a bad dream.

And when you have an emergency: When you have to write a report, or a presentation, or an article, your brain panics. It freezes.

Suddenly it has an 800-pound assignment in the way. And it has no memory of any fire-drill.

The brain goes into panic mode. It scans memory bank after memory bank for a memory of success.

On the contrary, it finds failure after failure

Writer’s block after Writer’s block.
And so the failure perpetuates itself–and you run into yet another writer’s block.

Then of course, you believe that you have no ability to write

That others were born to write.
And that you’re just not a writer.

You believe that others are more talented than you.

But do you understand what the so-called ‘talented’ people are doing?

They have a memory of success. And it’s not random success. It’s the success that’s a direct result of having:

1) Structure
2) A mentor
3) Memory banks filled with success.

You see, when they were learning a skill, these um, ‘talented’ people had a mentor; a teacher; someone looking over their shoulder. Someone who not only takes them through the fire-drill, but helps them if they make the wrong move.

And this gives the ‘talented’ person, a memory of success. The more the success-drill is repeated, the more it get ingrained.

And then a real fire breaks out…

You have to write a page for your website.
You have to write an article.
You have to write a 10-page report.

And if you’ve been through the drill, you not only have access to the mentor, but you also have the structure, and the success-drill deeply ingrained.

This ’success-drill’ memory becomes the dominant memory

This success-drill memory is why you learned to walk. Why you learned to talk. Why you learned to balance on a bike.

You definitely needed:

1) Structure
2) A mentor
3) Memory banks filled with success.

So yes, if you’re sick and tired of running into Writer’s Blocks. If you want to learn to write just like I have, then please stop believing in this nonsense called  ‘talent’. Trust me to show you how you too can write–and become the expert in your field. The expert that writes not just great newsletters and articles, but is able to write books or just about anything.

Judge for yourself at:
http://www.psychotactics.com/articlewriting

Sean

P.S. Look for Bonus 5: Why we get writer’s block
http://www.psychotactics.com/articlewriting

Do you sometimes feel you’ve run into a rock star?
Not just any rock star, but the one that really commands the respect of everyone around? Well, today we’re we’re going to speak to Lynda Weinman: the rock star of software training. Peachpit Press calls Lynda Weinman is the best-known and highly respected teacher of web design in the world

You may have seen her site at Lynda.com

Lynda.com is a massively popular site with well over 200,000 page views per day. And the person behind all of this amazing information is Lynda Weinman.
Alrighty then, let’s get this show on the road.

Want to read the transcript? Hmmm…let’s see. Here you go.

Here’s some of the content we cover:
————————————————————-
2 Type of Site + Agenda
————————————————————-

2.1 How did you decide which type of site to go with?

2.3 Agenda: What we’ll cover today:
a- Starting up
b- Running The Site
c- Consumption of content

————————————————————-
3 Starting Up
————————————————————-

3.1 What caused you to say: Let’s put Lynda.com together?

3.2 Start up challenges: Technology

3.3 Start up challenges: Conversion

3.4 Mistakes Learned About Start Up

3.5 Biggest Criteria When Starting Up

3.6 Early Conversion: What do you think is the biggest draw card to conversion?

————————————————————-
4 Running Membership Sites
————————————————————-

4.1 How much content do you need to put in? Frequency?

4.2 There’s an absence of forums etc on Lynda.com. Was that a
conscious decision?

4.3 What’s Your Content Creation Strategy?

4.4 How much time is involved in the running of the site?

4.5 What are the biggest challenges in running the site?

————————————————————-
5 Consumption
————————————————————-

5.1 How Do Manage Client’s Expectations?

5.1.1 Media Expectations

5.1.2 Type of Content

5.1.3 Technology

5.2 What’s a typical retention rate look like?

5.3 What techniques help you retain customers better?

5.4 Ideas that came from customers that help in better consumption

This article has been removed. My apologies.

Instead here a super interview between Lynda Weinman and I. In case you’re wondering, Lynda Weinman is one of the founding members of Lynda.com. Lynda.com started out as a video site when video was um, big trouble to download. Today they get hundreds of thousands of visitors every month, and are recommended on Adobe.com—and pretty much anywhere you care to check. You may want to check out their site, but first listen to the interview. I think you’ll like it.

On a secondary note, this interview is part of a series of really compelling interviews that you get in www.5000bc.com.  So go have a look because if you like this, there’s more where it came from

Here’s the interview All of it.

As a retailer, which is the most important sale of all? Is it the first sale, second sale, third sale or future sales?

Actually the answer is: “All of the above.” But you knew that already didn’t you. What you probably didn’t know, is the importance of the third conversion.

So what’s the third conversion?

The third conversion is the third time a customer buys a product or service from you. This third conversion is critical, because it’s now setting up something called ‘consumption.’ You see a customer isn’t likely to come back to buy more product, unless they have consumed the product in the first place.

So if you went to a cafe, and didn’t drink the coffee the first time around, there’s no way you’d go back a second and third time. But on the other hand if you do go to the cafe and drink the coffee once, twice and three times, it technically means you’re hooked. It means you like the place (if not the coffee), or you like the service or that you like something which is why you’ve come back time and time again.

And no one needs to tell you that a repeat customer is mostly a really awesome customer to have. They don’t make too much of a fuss. They waste less time asking questions. And the biggest reason they’re back is because they like your products and services.

There’s just one problem though…

All your marketing is designed for the first conversion. So if you look at your advertising or marketing, you’ll quickly find that it’s loaded in favour of the first sale.  After that first sale you have little or no way of getting the customer to come back. And if the customer doesn’t come back…well we don’t have to spell that out for you, do we?

The goal isn’t so much a factor of customer retention, but more a factor of understanding the concept of the third conversion. The concept of how you’re going to get the customer to come back for the third time. And this concept of the third conversion is critical because the customer isn’t just buying your products/services (which is just great) but is also forming a bond, a relationship with you.

So how do you go about creating this third conversion?

It depends on your business of course. If you’re in a training sort of business then this is the easiest of all. Let’s say you’ve got a yoga or pilates class, then nooooo problem
because you can simply sell the customer a series of classes and they come back. In fact you’re probably already doing that.

The problem arises when you’ve got a product or a service to sell. Let’s say you’re selling jewellery, or curtains, or coffee. Now you’ve got to think through a bit of a process that will get the customer back at pre-determined intervals. You can’t try to upsell them just $8000 worth of diamonds or some fresh new curtains. No you can’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get them back in the store. The coffee store can get away with simply selling a prepaid coffee card (yes, prepaid). For the rest of us, we have to create something of an event.

An event designed to get people back

People who are interested in curtains will come back for some event that involves home furnishing. People who are interested in jewellery will come to an event that involves  jewellery. If you create information or entertainment or info-tainment events, you can always draw even the most reluctant customers back.

Ah but how do you draw them back? You have no list do you?

If you do have a customer list then hey, you’re off the mark. If you don’t then you need to work on the list right away. It doesn’t have to be some fancy thing. It just needs to be done.  So get it done. And then create an event, or a sale specially for those customers. Or just give away free yummy cookies and coffee to customers in the area on a specific day.

The key is to get them back in the store.

And to get them back at a regular interval

No use in having them in your store after five years is it? You want them to come back twice or thrice in the next three-six months at the very least.

Ooh this sounds like lot of work

Yes it does sound like a lot of work. But it’s more work trying to deal with new customers all the time. New customers take up enormous time, money while existing customers are mostly easy to deal with—and they keep coming back to buy.

So when we think of the question: Which is the most important sale of all? here is the answer.

The first sale is critical because it draws the customer into the store.
The second one is also critical because hey, the customer returns.
The third one is the most important of all because now the customer has returned thrice to buy.

This third conversion could not exist without the first and second. So they’re all important. It’s now up to you. Can you design a sequence for the customer to follow?
Can you indeed get them to the third conversion?
—————–
Next Step: “There are marketing books and there are marketing books – I bet there are not many you have read many times over?
The Brain Audit really teaches you the art of persuasion because it gives an insight into how people’s brains work. I have used the principles in writing WebPages, writing articles, making presentations, networking, negotiating and even writing submissions for a judge!

But the best bit about the Brain Audit is that it actually works.The principles are easy to understand.

Would I recommend it to people serious about getting on in business? Absolutely.”

Michael Smyth, approachablelawyer, Auckland
Judge for yourself The Brain Audit: Why Customers Buy And Why They Don’t

———————
New Products: Introductory Price
1) Do you sometimes wonder if planning books are written just for the ‘organised’ people?
Learn Why Most Planning Fails: And The Critical Importance of Chaos in Planning

2) Do you want to put some sanity into your design even though you are not a designer?
Learn how, you can immediately improve your design with some really simple tweaks.

3) Yes, you needs visuals on your sales page, but how do you use visuals to immediately improve your sales conversion?

4) How to Create Powerful Testimonials To Sell Your Internet Marketing Product. Find out the sec’rets…
———————
How to join a community of like minded people?
“One reason I didn’t sign up for 5000bc until now is because I expected a huge price tag.”

“The quality of information is so high and the hype so low, I just assumed it would be another high-ticket purchase that I couldn’t really afford. It wasn’t until I spoke with Perry at The System that I found out how affordable it is. Just listening to ONE audio on pricing–that was worth my yearly fee right there!”

Julie Anne Eason, USA
Judge for yourself http://www.psychotactics.com/5000bc
———————

Have you ever struggled to read the text on a web page? You’re keen to read the material, but not sure why you’re struggling.  And it’s not because the language is difficult.  And it’s not because the topic is unknown. Yet there’s something that’s driving you batty.

It’s something on the page itself, but you can’t put your finger on it. And it’s causing a bit of a Reader Fatigue.

So what is Reader Fatigue?

Reader Fatigue is a scenario where something on the page is causing a bit of grief to the reader.  They desperately want to read what you’re saying but a bit of tiredness creeps in and then they give up.  And off they bouncity-bounce to the next web page—the web page that isn’t so tiring.

And what’s interesting is that you can quickly remove this factor of Reader Fatigue by considering three core issues.

But before we get started on removing Reader Fatigue…

Let’s get one thing straight. What I’m about to tell you may sound like a grammar lesson. Well, it is a grammar lesson in a way, but not quite. It’s more of a conversion lesson.

If your customer gets tired reading your articles, or your sales page, they just leave. And if they leave—heck I don’t have to tell you what happens—you’ve lost a customer. And you’ve lost a customer over a simple matter. A matter that can easily be fixed.

So let’s examine three issues that you can fix right away:

Issue 1: Constraining the thought to one idea.
Issue 2: Width of the line.
Issue 3: Avoiding chunky paragraphs.

Issue 1: Constraining the thought to one idea.

The rule is simple.  Keep your sentences down to 15-25 words at best.  This is because a sentence with fewer than 25 words usually contains one thought. And when there’s just one thought in the sentence, the reader can quickly grasp the thought and move on to the next sentence. And the next. And the next.

Long sentences tend to be long because the writer is unable to restrain their thoughts, and they just plough on relentlessly, not knowing where to stop, till finally they stagger to a halt, and you get a sentence like this one: where the reader has forgotten what you were saying in the first place.

Now of course you don’t write sentences that are sixty words long, but it’s easy to slip into sentences that are 35-40 words. After all 35-40 words are just two lines on your word processing program.

So the easy way to restrain your thoughts is to focus on your word processing program when typing. If your sentence is streaming across the width of the page, then you’ve probably written about 15 words. If your sentence is going to 25 words, that’s about a line and a half on the word processor.  It’s now time to put a full stop. And start a new sentence.

By putting full stops in your sentence it’s easy to take a lonnnnnnnnnng sentence and restrain the thought.

E.g.
Long sentences tend to be long because the writer is unable to restrain their thoughts. They just plough on relentlessly. And never seem to know when to stop. Then finally they stagger to a halt. And you get a sentence like this one: where the reader has forgotten what you were saying in the first place.

So yeah. Keep sentences short.

This takes us to the second factor of Reader Fatigue: The width of the line.

If you look at your newspaper, you’ll notice something quickly. The newspaper is divided into columns. And the width of the line doesn’t go past eight or nine words across. This width restraint is put in for a reason. It allows your eye to read, get some breathing space and then go to the next line.

The width of your web page text needn’t be as constrained, but not much wider than 15 words wide. An average web page can easily accommodate about 30 words of text on one line. And putting 30 words of text in one line is a big mistake. And it’s a mistake because the text becomes tiring. It’s hard to read.

The way around this problem is to make sure you split your web page into two or three columns (Ask your web designer if you don’t know how to do this ‘split’). The column you most want to focus on is the text column. How many words do you have in your main text column? If it’s 15 words or thereabouts, then you’re ok. If not, you need to fix it right away.

And once you’re done fixing those two issues, let’s examine the third issue: chunky paragraphs.

Magazines and newspapers work with restricted space, so they often have chunky paragraphs. But web pages don’t have restriction issue. And it’s in your best interest to take advantage of this unrestricted space by breaking up your paragraphs.

And here’s the reason
When the reader looks at your page, all they see is a waterfall of text. If you have long, dense paragraphs, the material on the page looks intimidating. An intimidating page is more likely to drive a customer away. What’s sad is that this problem can easily be fixed by making your paragraphs less dense.

And the way to make it less dense is to restrict your paragraphs to about 4-6 sentences in all. Once you’ve put in about six sentences, just put in a break and create a new paragraph. This break gives the reader some breathing space and visually it’s far less intimidating.

Ok, time for a summary:

1) Constrain the thought to one idea: keep sentences down to 25 words at best.
2) Check the width of the line on the web page. About 15 words. That’s it.
3) 4-6 lines in a paragraph is enough. Move to the next paragraph and create breathing space.

Some of these changes are easy to make going forward, and some of them may need some going back to edit your existing web content.  It’s well worth the trouble to make the time to implement these changes.

Because as I said: This ain’t about grammar. It’s about conversion. If you drive a customer batty with your web pages, you only have yourself to blame.

Next Step: Want to learn more about website marketing? Find the entire website marketing series in text, audio with cartoons!
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