Archive for Science of Persuasion

Must-Reads on Persuasion Architecture for Serious Marketers

Persuasion architecture is central to any online marketing campaign or strategy. Every serious marketer needs to understand persuasion architecture in depth and be able to apply it.
Why? For these simple, yet often-overlooked reasons:
1. Website conversion is more important than website traffic.
You can have a million hits to your website, but if those visitors don’t [...]

Data Capture Is NOT Inherently Manipulative & Scarcity-Minded

Chris Guillebeau, the popular author of The Art of Nonconformity, recently wrote a blog articled entitled “Why People Hate Marketers.” I encourage you to read it in full to know the context of my response.
On a couple of his larger assumptions, he missed the boat.  I’m not talking the boat just left the dock and [...]

The Difference Between Selling & Persuading

Hub Mentality™ can be misapplied and taken too far. Specifically, its criticisms of sales mentality can be interpreted to mean that you shouldn’t sell at all and just be a “nice,” unobtrusive resource for people.
This can lead to a drop in sales in an effort to not appear too “salesy.” But when applied properly, Hub [...]

Should Your Writing Be Concise, Clear, or Artful?

Jesse Hines, freelance writer and author of Robust Writing, once wrote a post entitled “The Key to Writing Concisely.” His post consists of two sentences:
“Only write what is absolutely necessary to make your point. Not a word more.”
Jesse has an excellent point. Numerous words can be chopped from most writing while still preserving the point, [...]

A Pleading Letter to You from Your Website

Dear Business Owner,
Please forgive me if I sound ungrateful. I love my new look, I really do. I love to strut in front of your clients, my colors shimmering, my navigation sharp as an army regiment, my product store organized flawlessly. It’s just that…
To be candid, I want to know when I can be a [...]

How to Grip Website Visitors in the Vise of Persuasion

Every time I write a website I use the following checklist to ensure optimal effectiveness.
First, understand the ends of these means: 1) surprise and delight readers; catch them off guard to enhance the experience and insert your business into their memory, 2) vividly illustrate why potential customers should buy from you, and 3) answer their [...]

Improve Your Writing With These Essential Books

This is a follow-up post to my last post.
Want to improve your writing and knock the socks off your readers? Then rush to Amazon as fast as your fingers can carry you and seize these books:

Any one of these will endow you with unprecedented power from the writing gods. And reading all of them will [...]

Never Underestimate the Power of Words

Identify significant shifts in history and you’ll find word-warriors, slicing through status quo debris with sharp words, lighting the souls of men with fiery words, subduing anger with gentle words.
Martin Luther’s 95 Theses incited the Protestant Reformation. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense united angry colonists. Harriet Beecher Stowe pierced through the vile darkness of slavery with [...]

What People REALLY Want — And How to Give it To Them

People rarely buy what they buy. Come again?
It’s true — what people buy goes far deeper than tangible products and services. What people really buy are the intangibles beyond what you can see and touch, such as image, security, freedom, peace, and joy.
Are you giving your customers what they really want? Do you know how [...]