December 2012
DIGITAL MARKETING INSIDER
HOW TO APPLY CIALDINI’S INFLUENCE ONLINE YOU ARE NOT YOUR CUSTOMER WHY POSITIVE THINKING IS BAD FOR BUSINESS WHAT DO PEOPLE WANT TO BUY ONLINE WHY YOU’RE NOT MAKING SALES ONLINE?
Contents
02 / A Note From The Editor 03 / How To Apply Cialdini’s Influence Online 04 / You Are Not Your Customer 05 / Why Positive Thinking Is Bad For Business 07 / What Do People Want To Buy Online? 09 / Why You’re Not Making Sales Online 10 / Entrepreneur Insights 11 / Get In Touch
About Us We create great looking online advertising campaigns that enhance your brand, we use scientifically proven online advertising methods to drive visitors to your website and adverts and then we optimise your site to make sure those visitors become paying customers that tell all their friends and come back for more.
Our team is different, we live in the UK so we understand how & what brits love to buy. We’re successful online entrepreneurs, world class copywriters, website optimisation specialists, online advertising mavericks and the geekiest SEO people!
01
A Note From The Editor
Merry Christmas! Yes the silly season is upon, time to shop for presents online, drink too much at parties, flirt with random people and generally have a good time! For most employees that pretty much sums up December. For most entrepreneurs we’re working our butts off, doing promotions, preparing for the New Year rush (or lack thereof) and it’s pretty much business as usual. So I’d like to take this opportunity to do 2 things; 1. Say a HUGE thank you for reading the DMI and being a subscriber, we love putting this together and we couldn’t do it without you. 2. Give you a virtual pat on the back or hug and say a big “well done”, lots of businesses struggled and closed this year but you’re still here. Well done. This month has been a great one for ROARlocal with some brilliant new clients and great successes for our existing clients. Exciting times ahead for 2013. OK as usual I have packed this issue with some EPIC marketing insights to help you crush your competition online. I know you’ll love it so get into it and once again Here’s to you in this Christmas season Best wishes
Neil
02
How To Apply Cialdini’s Influence Online by Neil Asher
If you have not read his enormously influential book, Influence: Science and Practice then seriously get it now! Psychology of Influence, by Dr. Robert Cialdini. It’s the marketers bible for getting people to do what you want them to do, here’s six key principles that influence people and how to apply them online.
Principle 1: Reciprocation
Principle 3: Commitment/Consistency
Principle 5: Authority
Takeaway: Consumers respond very well to receiving something without having to offer anything up front (obviously). Businesses should be offering free samples/info/features to people first and play off the fact it is the human condition to reciprocate those offerings.
Takeaway: Getting your potential customers to make a soft commitment can provide significant boosts to conversion rates. One example of this was a restaurant that changed saying “please call if you can’t make your reservation” to “will you please call if you can’t make your reservation” – this dropped no shows from 32% to 10%.
Basically, if an expert says it, people believe it must be true. That is why the most effective type of communicator is the Credible Communicator. This type of communicator needs to have two traits; knowledge and trustworthiness.
Need proof? A study found that putting a mint on the bill tray in restaurants increased tips by 3.3%, and putting two mints resulted in a 14.1% increase. Action Item: Evaluate what it is you have to offer and actively give away your mints. Do you have whitepapers, a freeto-try option or free features? Keep track of site conversions pre/post giveaway and test which one works the best! Principle 2: Liking Takeaway: Believe it or not, people are more easily influenced by people they know and like. So, one great way to boost conversions is to uncover and surface similarities that truly exist between yourself and the people you’re dealing with. Put information about yourself out there so audiences can find similarities themselves. Action Item: Tell people features of who you are professionally and personally in your website’s About Us section. Most About Us sections are pretty boring and therefore not useful to users. Put a fun item like favorite “Driveway Songs” in there to make it more compelling.
Action Item: Make users click on preliminary commitments in way that’s public and visible. For example, have them share they are going to test your product before they actually receive it. Principle 4 Scarcity Takeaway: People want more of those things they can’t have. The very idea that something may be limited spurs action. According to Dr. Cialdini, people are also more mobilized to act by losing unique benefits and features than gaining them from you. Action Item: When setting up landing pages, perform A/B tests using scarcity language. Instead of “You will get X, Y and Z,” try “If you don’t buy our product you will lose out on X, Y and Z.”
Action Item 1: If you are an authority, tell people how great you are but find ways to do is via a 3rd party. Solicit reviews from friends, satisfied customers and prominent bloggers. Action Item 2: Develop trustworthiness by saving your strongest arguments until after mentioning a weakness. Follow the Stella Artois example – reassuringly expensive. Principle 6: Consensus Takeaway: They may say strength comes from within, but when people are unsure they look outward, not inward. Specifically, they follow two types of people; they follow the group and they follow people similar to themselves. Action Item: If you do not have reviews on your site, you need to implement them yesterday. According to a study quoted by Dr. Cialdini, 98% of online purchasers read reviews of prior customers.
03
You Are Not Your Customer by Neil Asher
Way too often when I am consulting with business owners I hear statements such as: •
I don’t click on ads, I bet no one does
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I wouldn’t do that; therefore, I’m not going to market that way
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Why would someone search for our products that way?
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Of course our site is easy to navigate, we have conversions
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What do you mean we are a bad judge of our website?
These statements tell someone that you are not looking at things from the customer point of view; but your own.
In every business building seminar, I end up going on a rant about about how most people are bad judges of their website. Once you know something so well, you do not think about how to use the product; you just do it by instinct. •
Have you ever driven to work and could not remember actually driving?
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That does not happen when you take an unfamiliar route
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When the familiar is routine, we cease to notice the small details
The same can be said for your website. You know that your phone number is in the upper right hand corner inside your navigational banner. Ask someone to find that same phone number, and there are times a searcher stares at the page and says they can’t find it. You know that to access your shopping cart, there’s a small icon at the top of a page. I’ve been on sites where I added something to the cart, and then couldn’t figure out where my cart was. •
This happens because often designers create a website for themselves.
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Or they create it for the marketing team.
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They are not always creating websites for the consumers.
While these are basic principles, we all forget them sometimes. A good designer never forgets this principle.
Try this. Give your website to 10 people who are not employees of yours or close to you, it could be your partners friends, or your parents friends etc Have them go through the site and give you some feedback. You will be AMAZED at how difficult you have made it for people to buy from you…. I am constantly in awe of good businesses that screw up the most basic of things like shopping cart forms. For us it’s great as we get to make our clients easy money quickly Seriously give it a try, you’ll be glad you did!
04
Why Positive Thinking Is Bad For Business by Neil Asher
“Think positive.” Another piece of advice given by every bad ass life coach, ever. The drive to think more positively is so ubiquitous it’s become like a religious dogma.
Surely Neil “Positivity makes people happier and healthier” but what does it do to your business? What if your hard-earned habit of faked optimism is costing you money and success? Chances are this is happening and only delving into your psychology will fix it.
Quit thinking tomorrow will be better It’s called “optimism bias” and it’s one of those deep-seated psychological forces messing with your bottom line. Most humans experience optimism bias “lite”. They simply believe they’re luckier than others.Tali Sharot, researcher at London’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging and 1 time Ted Goddess, is an authority on this topic. In a recentarticle, she revealed that 70% of individuals thought families were less successful than in their parent’s day. However, 76% of those surveyed were optimistic about the future of their own family. Go figure. This is similar to the urban legend (and anecdotal fact) that a vast majority of people believe they possess driving skills far above the national average. Not me… I think I’m top 1% In other words, optimism bias gives us rose-tinted glasses.
Optimism bias hurts entrepreneurs more than anyone else Business owners are the captains of their own fate. They can sit down at their desk on Monday and move mountains all week, or nothing but fluff. It’s entirely up to them. Combine this enormous personal responsibility for making big dreams happen (or not) with optimism bias, and what do you get?
Entrepreneurs are overly optimistic about their future That isn’t even the scary part. The really dangerous function of optimism bias in entrepreneurs is that which inspires optimism in your future potential. Entrepreneurs don’t just believe tomorrow will be better than today. They believe that, when the sun rises again, they themselves will be better than today. Entrepreneurs lay their head down at night genuinely believing that when they rise they’ll be more creative, disciplined, inspired, decisive and productive.
05
Why Positive Thinking Is Bad For Business
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Business owners are notorious for planning less for life realities like illness, retirement and taxes ( VAT gasp!) than their employee brothers.
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Are you guilty of this belief? Day after day, business owners around the world end their day dissatisfied with their performance. They know deep down that they’re squandering potential and they swear tomorrow will be different. Nighty night and sleep tight! The bias towards an inflated sense of personal performance in the future specifically runs deep. Business owners are notorious for planning less for life realities like illness, retirement and taxes ( VAT gasp!) than their employee brothers. The area where I see optimism bias crippling business the most? Online Sales. Business owners procrastinate the prospecting – the essential, revenue-generating work of today. They tell themselves they’ll do it “Tomorrow… or next week.”
The first step to recovery is awareness: Know that optimism bias is real. You’re feeling the pull of it’s gravity right now. Are you going to rocket out of orbit, into the great unknown… or keep going in circles? The easiest fix?
The further away the future is, the brighter it looks!
Get someone else to take care of things TODAY!
Continually believing that you’ll be a better, more disciplined entrepreneur in the shortto-medium term robs your business blind. Your optimism bias steals the bottom-line boosting results – results of the activity that could be happening today.
Don’t wait for the problem to grow so big it’s expensive and hard to fix.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m in the business of online (and thus human) potential. Some businesses do get better in the future – people get smarter and more successful as time goes by. A lucky few get better looking too. To get sucked into the idea that your future-business (six months from now) will make up for the shortcomings of lazy-ass-you (today) is a mistake. Yet the vast majority of business owners, never escape precisely this belief.
Take a moment right now and ask yourself if you’re doing everything you know you should be doing to grow your business? If the answer is no then get in touch with us and let us do the things you know you should be doing. Don’t leave it too late
06
What Do People Want To Buy Online? by Neil Asher
Here at Roarlocal when we get a new client we often find the easiest wins for our client comes from telling their marketing story better.
You think you’re selling phone services and your customers are buying “how to look like a big company” for instance or you think you’re selling accountancy services and your clients are buying “time saved from filling in their accounts so they can focus on growing their business”. Selling online or off can be tricky.
Here’s how we’ve applied it to some of our clients Question:
How do you sell 4500 tickets to an entrepreneurs conference in South Africa?
Answer:
By selling something else.
No one wants to go to a 3 day entrepreneurs conference, sitting around all day getting sold to, no one wants that.
In either environment, you’re trying to figure out what it is that people need or want and what it is that they will buy.
But
And often, people aren’t interested in buying a product or service. They’re interested in the benefit that comes from buying, not the product or service itself.
That’s why when Greg Secker and his team came to us to help them sell 4500 tickets to South Africa’s first ever conference we got busy asking questions… not to Greg but to his prospects.
This is why it’s important to ask what it is that you’re really selling. Without asking this question, you can stop short and just sell your product or service. If you sell fertilizer, you’ll tell people how great your fertilizer is and how much they need to buy it. But if you go beyond the product itself and figure out what it is that people really want, you’re more likely to hit pay dirt. Instead of selling fertilizer, you’ll sell the dream of having the best looking lawn in the neighborhood. And as long as you aren’t lying, you aren’t being deceptive. You’re just figuring out what it is that people really want and selling that to them.
Give someone the keys to a life of freedom doing what they love and now you have something that people want to buy!
Then we crafted a series of communications to take his prospects on a treasure hunt over the internet looking for money and freedom. We used remarketing on the Google networks and facebook to create a HUGE buzz around the event and then we engaged our time tested launch sequence to sell out the tickets in record time. The result, SUCCESS! If you are in South Africa just click here to secure your place.
Question:
How do you grow a business from $150,000 P/M to $500,000 P/M?
Answer:
By selling what people want to buy.
When max virilty approached us they were already successful. Suresh and his team where making $150K a month but were hungry for more. So we got to work finding out why his customers were buying and it turns out they purchased for MUCH different reasons than Suresh imagined. When we surveyed his clients we discovered a huge percentage were married and over 45, they were concerned about prostate problems and erectile dysfunction. But Suresh thought he was selling to horny men in their 20’s and 30’s. Solution, a new website and marketing campaign that targets the people who are actually buying. The result, SUCCESS! If you would like to check out the website (for marketing research purposes obviously) then just click here.
07
What Do People Want To Buy Online?
Most entrepreneurs are too close to their business to see where they’re getting it wrong.
How do you sell weight loss to men? Someone who buys a weight-loss product isn’t that interested in the product. They’re looking for the benefit it provides–the ability to lose weight. So what they really want, what they really care about, is losing weight, not buying a product. They care about the benefit they’ll personally receive. If we take this one step further, we’ll see that people are looking for even more than this. Not only are they interested in a benefit, but they’re also interested in a certain return. Most men not only want to lose weight, they also want to look and feel great. They want all of the rewards that come from a more toned athletic physique. It’s not just about losing weight, but about having desirability, more confidence, and looking better at work and around town. People are interested in the payoff that comes from using a product or service.
How to Apply This to Your Business At this point, you may be asking yourself, “That’s great, but how do I apply this to my business?” Here’s how: Step 1: First re-consider your business and how you present it to customers. You may have been telling people for the last year that you sell “blank” product or service, but forget about that. Take a step back and consider what it is that you’re really selling. Try to get a fresh perspective on your product or service. Step 2: Ask this question: What is it that my customers want? You may have something you like about what you offer, but what is it that your customers really want? Do they want more traffic for their website? Do they want to increase online sales? What do they dream about? Whatever it is, figure it out, and you’ll be on your way to positioning your product in the best way. You can also use a service like Qualaroo to ask customers what it is they’re looking for. The language you get from these customers will shape the marketing message that will most likely be the winning formula for years to come – so listen closely! Step 3: The next step is to re-consider your site to see which copy needs to be re-written and which pages need to be optimised. The goal is to write new copy and change page layouts to see if you can increase conversion rates by positioning your product differently. Once you do, take some time to test the new concept. If it improves your rates, go with it; if not, try something else. Keep testing until you figure out what it is that you’re really selling and what it is that people really want. So now that you’ve learned about this important marketing question, what is it that you’re really selling? Do you have a new take on your product or service? Is there something you’ve been missing and need to add to your marketing collateral? Ready to take your business to the next level?
08
Why You’re Not Making Sales Online by Neil Asher
“Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster” - David Ogilvy I was reminded again yesterday of the late great David Ogilvy and what he had to say about the limitations of marketing.
One of our clients took us on to do PPC for him in the male supplements niche. This is a killer niche as men spend big to look good and remain youthful so we were excited to be involved. We set up his PPC account for him and turned on the traffic after 1 week we’d sent over 2500 qualified prospects to his site. Not 1 sale. He was kinda pissed at us because he’d spent money for no return….and I felt for him but as I explained we can send a ton of traffic to a website but if the website is not designed to sell it will be for nothing. Bear in mind we’d already had this discussion about his site not looking good (from a conversion point of view) and we’d given him a strategic plan to alter his site to make sales, he’d insisted we stick to his site though and wanted us to send traffic to it as it was. (if you’re considering taking us on to help your business we always provide feedback on the whole sales process that you can take on board or ignore as you see fit) Here’s the thing we are brilliant at getting a ton of prospects to peoples websites but if either: •
You are selling a product that no one wants, or
•
Your website was designed to look pretty instead of sell, or
•
Your positioning of your product is still what everyone else was doing 5 years ago
Then no matter how much great traffic you get to your site you’l make no sales. The sales process for a product has to be a great product, that solves a pressing problem, being sold in the right way to the right people.
It’s not rocket science. So if you’re not making sales online and you’re getting traffic to your website then it’s time to look at your website and/or product. Want us to take a look at your website and give it a no obligation once over? Then why not get in touch. We’ll give you an honest appraisal of what’s good and bad and naturally if we think we can add value and create more sales for you then we’ll give you a tailored quote to make you more money online.
09
Entrepreneur Insights
We asked Jonathan Pfahl from The Rockstar Group •
What one thing about your childhood, personality or upbringing do you think had the biggest influence on your becoming an entrepreneur?
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How did you do at school and what did you most love or hate about school?
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What would you say was the ONE THING that made the difference with your success with Rockstar?
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What ONE THING would you do differently, knowing what you know now?
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What really gets you buzzed NOW about being in business? What fulfills you most?
I am incredibly passionate about mentoring to fast track growth of businesses. When I was at Goldman Sachs, I had a mentor show me through his experience and contacts how to build a wealth management business.It was the most incredible introduction I had to mentoring. Learning from someone who had already built exactly what I wanted to build, learning from his mistakes rather than my own. When I came to London in 2005 from Sydney and wanted to start investing in property, I first invested in a mentor who had built a multi-million pound portfolio in 2 years who took me out into the field and physically showed me how to negotiate property deals. My first deal more than quadrupled what I had invested in his time in only 2 weeks. I was then able to leverage off my mentors team to start building up my own private portfolio. I call this REAL Mentoring Learning from someone who has genuinely started built up and sold on a business for a large sum, setting goals together to achieve over a specific amount of time, being made accountable for your actions and making sure whatever one invests in mentoring they are getting alot more out of it financially. So that is what Rockstar Mentoring is all about. Set up in 2007, the mission has always been to deliver the highest quality and bespoke mentoring service to both new and established businesses using the REAL mentoring approach. We are about to launch Rockstar Live platform which will enable many more startup & aspiring business owners to get access to mentoring by our team of proven successes at an affordable level, and I’m really excited about that. Find out more at RockstarGroup.co.uk
10
Get In Touch.
Contact www.roarlocal.com/contact Fill in the form to contact us at any time. We need your name, the domain name of your existing site (if you have one), your preferred method of contact (phone number or email address) and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
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01273 78 21 44
Monday through Friday 8.30 – 6.30 and get answers immediately. Admin Office The Sussex Innovation Centre University of Sussex Science Park Square, Falmer Brighton BN1 9SB CEO / Neil Asher COO / Nicola Cairncross
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