Archive for Science of Persuasion

A Great Example of Persuasive Creativity from Western & Southern Financial Group

Continuing on the topic of creativity in advertising, here’s a perfect example of persuasive creativity from Western & Southern Financial Group:

*If you’re reading this in an email or RSS reader, you may need to click the title of the post to view the video on our blog.
Like my last example, the creativity here is matched [...]

Advertising Creativity Done Right

So now that we’ve showed you creativity done wrong in advertising, here’s a great example of effective, relevant creativity from Allstate Insurance:

Again, relevance is the critical factor. Insurance protects you from unexpected, calamitous events, so the personification of “Mayhem” is both catchy and relevant.
The ad could be improved with an element of credibility.
For example, [...]

Creativity Without Relevance May Entertain, But it Doesn’t Persuade

As a follow-up to our last newsletter on creativity in advertising, here’s yet another example of creativity gone horribly wrong.

*If you’re reading this in an RSS reader or email, you may need to click the title of the post to view the video.
The missing element to all the examples we’ve shared is relevance.
What does a [...]

What Personas Can Do For You

To know the right way to architect your website, you need to understand personas.
Anthony Garcia, chief persona architect for Promote-A-Book, recently created the following video that explains how understanding personas can help you sell faster, sell more, increase your website conversion rate, and increase customer retention.
He explains why demographic information alone isn’t enough to [...]

10 Psychology Studies from 2009 Worth Knowing About

David Disalvo on True Slant recently highlighted 10 psychology studies from 2009, many of which have useful implications for marketers and business owners.
WIIFM?
One study in the journal Nature Neuroscience implied that our first impressions are all about value. To put it bluntly, as Disalvo say, when meeting someone new our immediate evaluation includes looking [...]

Are You Leveraging the Power of Verbs In Your Marketing?

In 1974, psychologists Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer showed test subjects seven 5-30 second video clips of car accidents. Every subject saw the same clips.
After viewing the videos, the subjects were given questions about the accidents and were asked to write down their answers.
The twist was that they were given different questions.
The critical questions were:

[...]

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, [...]

Next Page »