Who Actually Clicks on Banner Ads?

Website visitors are banner blind. 

 

And if they do pay attention to the display ads cluttering their online experience, they can put a stop to irrelevant messaging by installing an ad blocker.
Hey, it's tough for any brand to compete with plug-ins that can replace banner ads with pictures of puppies and kittens.

 

But this isn't to say banner ads are all bad. In fact, there have been some pretty creative uses of the display format. But overall, people are tired of being bombarded with ads that don't apply to them or are ill-timed. They lost trust, so they stopped clicking. 

 

But who are the ones actually clicking on banner ads out there? Prestige Marketing figured this out and created the below infographic. The information should make any brand commit to native advertising if they haven't already. Check it out.

 

 

 

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/banner-ad-clicks

 

How to Use Psychological Biases to Sell Better and Faster

For all the powerful processing work the human mind can do, it's still prone to making bizarre assumptions or jumping to an illogical conclusion every now and then. Problem is, we don't even recognize these patterns as strange.

They're built into the fabric of our thought -- so to us, they just seem normal.

 

But upon examination, they're revealed to be anything but normal. Why else would we buy Beanie Babies in bulk? Or consider a rhyming tagline to be "truer" than a non-rhyming tagline? Thanks, psychological biases.

 

Like it or not, these biases are part of us. So those in the business of persuasion can benefit from learning how to spot and play to them. Below are 10 psychological biases that relate to decision-making. Not only can these help you understand why you make the choices you do, each also has a sales takeaway attached to help reps use these brain quirks to sell better.

 

1) The 'Ambiguity' Effect

 

Imagine I gave you two lunch choices. I could either take you out to a place you know and like (although it isn't your favorite), or I could take you somewhere completely random that neither of us have ever been to nor read any reviews about. It could be great, but it could also be awful. 

 

Which would you choose? If your brain works like most people's, you'd probably opt for the first option rather than risk a very unpleasant midday meal. 

 

Ambiguity effect causes people to avoid options with unknown results or those about which they lack information. Now you can tell your significant other there's a scientific reason why it's so hard to venture away from your tried-and-true bar or restaurant. 

 

Sales takeaway: Make sure buyers are informed about what results they can expect if they implement your product, and quickly answer questions or fill in knowledge gaps they might have. If you're so inclined, you could also cast a shadow of doubt over competitive products -- making prospects feel as if your choice is the only sure bet.

 

2) The 'Anchoring' Effect

 

Like your kindergarten teacher always told you, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Too bad that our brains are hard-wired to do just that. 

 

Whether for good or for bad, the first piece of information we receive about a person or situation will color our overall perception. Why? The initial detail acts as an anchor -- to which all further information is compared. 

 

Sales takeaway: First impressions matter. Carefully plan out how you will introduce yourself and your product. Make sure the first snippet of information the buyer receives about your offering sets a positive tone and high expectation for the rest of the buying process. 

 

3) Hyperbolic Discounting

 

Offer a toddler a candy bar now, or one (or two or three) later on, and you'll see hyperbolic discounting in action. Now is always better than later. You probably won't even finish your sentence before they latch on to the treat and gobble it down.

 

Turns out, this doesn't really change much as we grow up. Our brains are naturally biased toward rewards in the short-term than those in the long-term. The "discounting" part of hyperbolic discounting refers to the fact that the perceived value of a reward decreases the farther it is in the future, until the slope eventually flattens out.  

 

Sales takeaway: Emphasize the quick wins a customer can expect to see shortly after buying your product or service -- especially if the main benefit won't come for months. Build in immediate rewards as much as possible.

 

4) The 'Bandwagon' Effect

 

Beanie Babies. Pet rocks. Troll dolls. Looking back, these toy fads seem kind of silly. But did you buy or have one? Well, yeah, but ... everybody else was doing it!

 

No need to feel ashamed. There's a reason why you hopped on the trend. People naturally gravitate towards products or services they see other people using. And the larger the crowd, the more powerful the psychological pull.  

 

Sales takeaway: Social proof is more powerful than you might think. Play up the number of customers your company has, and introduce prospects to current clients. 

 

5) The 'Decoy' Effect

 

Are you having trouble deciding between two choices? Maybe adding a third will help. 

 

... Huh? My sentiments exactly. But although the decoy effect is totally irrational, it's been scientifically proven.

 

In a study conducted by Duke University, a researcher gave participants two dining choices: a five-star restaurant that was far away, and a three-star that was nearby. The diners were torn. But after introducing a third possibility -- a four-star restaurant even farther away than the five-star -- suddenly it was easy to choose the five-star option. It was the best quality and only moderately far away (when compared with the third choice). 

 

Sales takeaway: Use options to your advantage by presenting multiple versions of an offering or contract. If the prospect is really struggling to decide, introduce a decoy that will reinforce their innate predisposition.

 

6) The 'Rhyme-As-Reason' Effect

 

"If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." With this simple couplet, Johnnie Cochran cemented his defense of O.J. Simpson to the jury during the former football player's infamous 1994 murder trial.  

 

While rhymes are naturally easier to remember, Cochran could also have been exploiting the rhyme-as-reason bias. This psychological quirk causes people to perceive rhyming statements as more truthful than non-rhyming ones containing the exact same message. It pays to be a poet -- and now you know it.

 

Sales takeaway: Reformulate your value proposition or a key takeaway about your product into a catchy rhyme. It can also help to apply this tactic to an aspect of your offering that is dubious or unclear.

 

7) The 'IKEA' Effect

 

There's no avoiding the inevitable confusion when trying to decode assembly instructions from the Swedish furniture outlet, but that's not what this bias is about. Instead, the IKEA effect refers to the fact that people value things they had a hand in creating more than similar -- or even superior -- products created by others.

 

While this can have a downside for creators (as their ownership of the project could make them blind to flaws), this brain trick can be exploited for salespeople's benefit rather easily.

 

Sales takeaway: Get prospects involved in customizing or putting their unique spin on your product or service. The more they feel like the offering is "theirs," the more positively they will feel towards it. 

 

8) The 'Illusory Truth' Effect

 

How do hypnotists put people to sleep? At least in movies, they repeat over and over, "You are getting sleepy ..." At first, the patient's eyes are wide open, but eventually their eyelids begin to flutter, and ultimately close. What happened?

 

One possible explanation is the illusory truth effect, which establishes that the more times a person hears a statement, the truer it seems to become. If this sounds impossibly basic (or maybe even insulting to your intelligence), you're not alone. "It seems too simplistic that just repeating a persuasive message should increase its effect, but that’s exactly what psychological research finds (again and again)," writes Dr. Jeremy Dean. "Repetition is one of the easiest and most widespread methods of persuasion." 

 

Sales takeaway: Determine your core message, and then deliver it over, and over, and over again. 

 

9) The Peak-End Rule

 

It's not just first impressions that matter -- speakers often strive to end on a high note. Why? Because people's brains are wired to remember two moments of a presentation above all others: the apex and the end.

 

For instance, if you were to attend a mostly boring movie with a fantastic ending and a single stellar scene, this bias holds that you would remember it more favorably than another movie that was good throughout, but never extraordinary. 

 

Sales takeaway: Make sure that sales presentations hit a deliberate high, and end on a thought-provoking and memorable point. If you're pressed for time, skew your preparation efforts to the ending and a critical moment rather than spending an equal amount of time on the entire presentation. 

 

10) Loss Aversion

With the exception of serial gamblers, most people's brains are risk-averse. Losing something that is already owned has been shown to be far more painful than gaining something advantageous is pleasing. And this knowledge can be valuable when framing product benefits and other sales messaging. 

 

Sales takeaway: Emotions are powerful motivators. Depending on what you sell, play up what prospects stand to lose by sticking with the entrenched status quo (another cognitive bias!). They'll be more willing to take a risk if they feel that something they own is at stake. 

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/psychological-biases-sales

Consumer Biases: The Blemishing Effect

From ads in the newspaper to banners on websites, consumers quickly process advertising information to ease their decision making process. What if you could create a positive effect by using negative information about your products or services? Entrepreneurs, marketers and optimistic people in general tend to see (and to show others) the positive angle of things. That’s a great thing to keep your sanity. However, what if I told you that by presenting some negative information you could make things look more attractive?

Being Too Optimistic

 

Most marketers are trying to promote their company’s core values and benefits. They promote outstanding reviews about their companies and so on, sometimes to the point that it sounds “too good to be true.” Don’t get me wrong – you should definitely keep doing so.

 

However, you should make your marketing messages seem more realistic and down to earth, by exposing some of the cons of using your service or product, but in a managed way. As in other aspects of life there’s no good without bad, you will experience no joy if you won’t know what sadness feels like.

 

A recent research conducted at Stanford University shows that a tiny bit of negativity actually strengthens a consumer’s positive impression of a particular product or service. As long as the negative information about a product is minor, the pitch to the customer might be more persuasive, particularly if consumers have already learned some positive things. This is called the Blemishing Effect.

 

The Blemishing Effect

 

The Blemishing Effect is one out of many natural biases that affect our decision making, and not necessarily in a rational way. As on an average day we make hundreds of decisions – all the way from choosing the right time to cross the road, through what to eat for lunch, and up to your rapid business decisions – our brain has sorts of “shortcuts” to allow us to make quick decisions.

 

In some aspects of our lives it works perfectly; For example, you don’t need to calculate the length of a road, speed of oncoming cars, your walking speed and so on, just to make a decision about crossing the road, but rather just look both ways and take action. Yet in some other aspects of our lives, especially when it comes to consumer behavior, our decisions are not that rational. The good news is, they are predictable.

 

When the negative information presented is very minor, it won’t help you to benefit from the positive effect. If it is too substantial, then it can actually hurt you (e.g. If you are selling shoes – having a very limited set of sizes in stock will hurt you). Typically smaller purchases rather than large expensive ones will benefit from listing a bit of negativity about the specific product.

 

Yet, there are limitations to the Blemishing Effect. First, the positivity must outweigh the negativity, customers cannot be too invested in their purchase and lastly, the positive must come before the negative.

 

Here are three ways to put the Blemishing Effect into full throttle:

 

1. Unflatter Your Product, Mildly

 

Most products or services have attributes that are less appealing than others, make sure to always list these attributes after you have already listed some strong positive ones.

For example, assuming that you don’t offer free delivery on a certain item, list your “low delivery rate” right at the end of the list of features, rather than emphasizing that.

 

2. Downgrade Your Offering a Bit

 

If you are in the hospitality services (e.g. Hotels, Restaurants), you might want to add a bit of negative news such as “During busy hours, service might take longer than usual”.  Or if your product or service really does magic, you could mention that it might take a few months to start and see results (though it’s tempting, as marketers, to promise quick results).

 

3. Be Honest and Direct

 

There are always some difficulties along the way, and you already know about some issues that other customers gave you feedback on. Don’t be afraid to mention them to new clients. It could actually work to your benefit.

 

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/consumer-biases-blemishing-effect

 

9 Creative Ways to Add a Customer Loyalty Program to Any Small Business

One of your best assets as a small business is your connection with your customers and the connection they feel to you in turn. In order to remind your customers how much you appreciate their continued business, and to run a more efficient business, you might want to implement a customer loyalty program. Of course, these programs will vary wildly depending on the type of business you run (B2C businesses will show customer appreciation differently than B2B businesses, for example).

  

Customer Loyalty Program / Shutterstock

 

These nine ideas will help get your creative juices flowing to help you find the right customer loyalty program to implement for your customers. The fact of the matter is, every business should have some sort of customer loyalty program, whether you’re B2B or B2C.

 

1. “Gamification” – Track Points

 

A more complex version of the punch card, keeping track of “points” based on dollars your customers have spent (and then rewarding them accordingly) is a classic way to reward loyalty. The psychology behind it is simple: when a customer gets close to the next reward threshold, they’ll spend more in order to enjoy the next reward level. When you offer sales, include offers like credit card companies do, double points for the day’s purchases or some similar enhancement to the point program. You’ll create competition amongst your most loyal and regular customers if you put up a “leader board”. Give you top 10 point earners special perks, even if it’s just a handwritten Thank You card- it will matter to them!

 

2. Discounts in Exchange for Email Addresses

 

Offer free shipping or 10% off their first order in exchange for an email address. Then, remember to stay in touch! Extend the occasional discount to those customers who stay on your email list to let them know you’re glad they stuck around. You can run similar offers with feedback cards, surveys, you name it! A super effective version of this strategy is to ask the customers for a person whom they think would like your services/goods. Get that individual’s email, and send them a message explaining that their friend suggested them. This a new, but highly effective sales tactic, much like a personal or word-of-mouth referral!

 

3. Track and Reward Customers with Taggo

 

It’s the punch card reimagined. Let customers join your “Fan Club” to give them access to your best offers, and get word of mouth social marketing in return. Taggo is great because it’s connected to social networks; your business gets more “social proofs” (more fans and followers) and you gain some additional data about your customers. Win:win!

 

4. Check-in Specials

 

Use social media to offer discounts or promotions to customers who “check in” to your business on apps like Foursquare or Facebook. This shows their friends that they’re patronizing your business, and you reward them for doing so. Social proof of this variety is worth every penny! Combine this tactic with an actual sale to more effectively spread the word about your promotion/sale!

 

5. Celebrate Birthdays

 

If you have basic information about your most loyal customers, make sure to celebrate their birthdays. Go all out with a nice little surprise: a free scalp massage with their haircut this month, a discount on their paper order that week, or even a thoughtful care package to enjoy the day. This tactic will definitely put you on the fast track to turning more of customers into super-fans!

 

6. Creative Experiences

 

Arguably, the best rewards are experiential, at least according to FoBoGro. This independent grocery store offers creative rewards, like a 30-second, all-you-can-grab sweepstakes. Give your customers the opportunity to win an experience… and a story they’ll tell their friends about later. This can take the form of behind the scenes tours, all you can stuff $20 paper bags, or a chance to pick some of your merchandise for next season.

 

7. Connect with Emails

 

Sure, you can give the customers on your email list access to unique discounts or cool content. But you can also use a loyalty program like Belly to enhance your loyal customers’ in-store experience. Personalize your emails as much as possible. When sending sale info or discounts, be sure to tell them it’s for “email subscribers only”! Sending special opportunities via email will make your customers look forward to hearing from you, and encourage their friends to join your newsletter too. Use this email tactic for two-way communication when possible. Ask your email subscribers to vote on upcoming store merchandise, or new additions to the store, again making sure they know this is a perk for “email subscribers only”. Tactics like this will make your email subscribers feel like the are a special part of your business, and in a special club.

 

8. Reward Referrals

 

If a customer refers a friend, don’t just reward the referrer; reward both of them! And rather than just giving a straightforward discount to the person who referred your business, go out of your way to thank them. Give them a T-shirt or sticker so they can continue to wave your flag proudly. Consider offering a larger reward if they refer five or more friends, etc.

 

9. Turn Your Customers into Celebrities (with their Permission)

 

A particularly long-devoted customer deserves more attention. Ask if you can highlight them in a newsletter or with a Polaroid on the wall of your store. Customers love small snapshots into the lives of others, and the interviewed or featured customer will very much enjoy their few moments of “fame”.

 

When crafting your rewards program, don’t be afraid of technology. There are dozens of new apps and POS add-ons to make tracking your customers (and then rewarding them) easier than ever. Now, rather than worrying about logistics, you can use all your creativity to imagine your ideal customer, what he wants, and then give it to him!

 

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/9-creative-ways-add-customer-loyalty-program-any-small-business

 

Email Marketing: How to Use Video to Boost Conversions and Sales

Are you looking for ways to improve your email marketing strategy? Have you considered how you can use video to boost your conversions and sales?

 

People love watching videos! In fact, over 6 BILLION hours of video are watched each month on YouTube! With those sorts of figures in mind it probably won’t be surprising to learn that marketers who use video as part of their email strategy report more clicks and more shares.

 

For those figures and more about how and why you should integrate video with your email marketing strategy take a look at this infographic from GetResponse.

 

 

http://blog.red-website-design.co.uk/2014/12/30/email-marketing-how-to-use-video-to-boost-conversions-and-sales/

 

10 Ways to Increase Conversions Using Psychology

The best marketers I know are always on the lookout for clever hacks and tools to increase their conversion rates. They're the ones to jump on Snapchat, or experiment with animated GIFs in email, or hack together a parallax scrolling landing page. 

 

The best marketers I know also understand that these new tools and ingenious hacks don't always pan out.

Sometimes, jumping on the latest trends doesn't make a dent in your conversion rates, no matter how well you've implemented them.

 

So to make sure they're hitting their goals every month, top marketers will optimize their marketing based on something that's been around for a while now: human behavior. They read up on what makes people tick -- and adjust their marketing accordingly. 

 

Thanks to Help Scout, getting up to speed on the most important research in psychology is easy. In the infographic below, they've curated and summed up some smart, science-backed tips for increasing your conversions. Check it out!

 

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/increase-conversions-psychology

 

How to Improve Your Content Marketing in Just One Day

Content marketing has been around for a good while now, although it’s risen to ‘fame’ over the course of the past couple of years. This has led to many offering the idea that content marketing is the new advertising and branding. This is because in order for a brand to remain competitive and relevant, it’s necessary that they produce content and that it reflects the brand personality.

 

 

With that in mind, how do you make your content really work for you? And what content should you produce for your audience? Let’s have a look at what you can do to ensure that your content marketing efforts are as effective as they can be.

 

Content Used for Marketing

 

All kinds of content are used in content marketing, no matter what the business – this includes:

• Blogs/articles/written material
• Video
• Presentations
• Audio
• Webinars

However, it’s not enough just to publish the content, it’s also necessary to distribute it and ensure that it gets engagement. In order to do this, firstly it’s vital to know your audience. This means knowing the tone of voice that they prefer, their interests and much more and is something that should be done well in advance of content production.
 

Making Improvements

 

Is Your Content Accessible?

(Source: J H Media Group)

 

Firstly, is your website good enough so that the content can be accessed across a range of devices and screen sizes? This is essential to ensure that you get the best out of it, as there’s nothing worse for a visitor to arrive at the content to find that the site requires them to do some work in order to access it.

 

It’s unnecessary too these days. Responsive web design is accessible to businesses of all sizes, especially with CMSs such as WordPress. This has plenty of themes, both free and premium that allow you to have a responsive site with very little outlay. If you have a WordPress site, or one that can be quickly and easily adapted to make responsive, this will significantly improve your content marketing very swiftly.

 

Increasing Conversion Rates

 

A recent study found that including customer video and testimonials within “story-based content” boosted conversion rates by 53% for B2B marketers. Most businesses have some form of customer testimonial, in video form or not, so this is something that can be easily added to a content page and with those figures, is definitely worth doing.

 

Another boost to content marketing is a regular blog, so if you don’t carry this out then you should. Further to this, the content should tell a story and allow the consumer to become emotionally engaged and to trust your content. Again, trust comes through testimonials and suchlike, but it’s also generated by:

• Social media – a strong presence, which always answers customer/reader queries helps to build trust and although it can’t be achieved in a day, carrying out some work on social each day will improve trust, engagement and strengthen the brand
• Great content which is well-written/produced and solves a ‘problem’
• Educational content that links to reputable sources

 

Smart Formatting

 

 

You should choose fonts carefully when it comes to written content as these speak to the reader on an emotional level and should match your brand personality. Of course, it’s not a great idea to get too fancy, the content has to be easy to read, but fonts and typeface do have to be considered. Remember that the content has to be read on smaller devices and ensure you pick the font to suit – ensure that it’s very clear and will display well on a mobile device without the need for squinting. To help you with this, give Typecast a try, an online WYSIWYG editor that allows you to play around with different fonts and choose the ones that match your brand and can be displayed across devices well.

 

 

 

 

With typecast, you can edit the CSS file to apply styles of your own, as well as add further content, add padding and float areas and really build the content page to a high standard.
 

When it comes to how your content is laid out you can quickly make a difference. Content should be highly readable and accessible in order to catch and keep attention. To improve content quickly, written content should:

• Use headers and sub headers, especially H1 and H2 and ensure that key phrases are used in these
• Use large type and legible fonts
• Be broken into short, easily digested sections, using short paragraphs, bullet points and imagery
• Optimise images so that they are as light as possible for speedy load times
• Use readability scores to ensure that it meets with audience expectations and keep the passive voice to a minimum

 

Evergreen Content

 

Whilst it’s always a good idea to produce content that’s current and trending, remember that this won’t last long. The answer to this is to produce evergreen content that will remain relevant for months or even years to come. This relies on the content being authoritative and will also help to promote thought leadership and keep visitors coming back for more.

 

Connect with Influencers

 

Whilst evergreen content is more of a long term investment, what you really want is for your content to be picked up and noticed by industry influencers. This can help to send content viral and is getting easier all the time as more and more tools appear on the market.

 

One of these is Buzzsumo; using this tool you can search for top content in order to garner ideas of what type of content is being shared or you can search influencers.

 

 

As you can see, you can search articles, videos and infographics, amongst other things, so this is not just relying on written content. You can easily view how well a piece of content has done via social shares, giving you an idea of what’s most likely to go viral if well produced.

 

For identifying influencers, you can search using a Twitter handle or by entering a number of key terms that are associated with your industry.

 

You can also give InkyBee a try. This is, strictly speaking, a Twitter-based blogger outreach tool, but it can and does help you to find influencers as it allows you to add a list, which you can then add a ‘discovery’ job, where you can input key terms that influencers in your industry would be talking about.

 

Once you’ve done this, it’s a case of connecting with those influencers, through social media or preferably, direct email in order to begin to build a relationship so that they notice (and hopefully share) your content. If it’s of a high quality and possesses depth, whilst exhibiting skill in original thought and choosing great topics, it won’t take long to get noticed. With InkyBee, you can order the list depending on your priorities and download them into a spreadsheet. This means that not only have you made a start on finding influencers, but you have a record that can be accessed daily in order to boost your presence and brand.

 

Competitors and Curation

 

Remember that it’s a two-way street and sharing just the content you produce will bore your followers. With this in mind, make sure that social activity includes content curation from other, reputable industry  sources. You can do this in numerous ways, using a variety of tools and resources, such as:

• Paper.li
• Scoop.it
• Curata
• Feedly

And many more …

 

When it comes to your competitors, you should be constantly researching their activity if you ever hope to better it. If they’re gaining more engagement that you, then study both their content and their activity across platforms when it comes to community and how they address the audience.

 

It’s your job to come up with ideas that better and outperform the competition, so get the team together and get creative!

 

People Prefer Custom Content

 

According to the Custom Content Council, 61% of people report that they prefer a company that produces custom content and that it encourages them to buy. However, as Forbes author Brent Gleeson points out, many companies set out with one goal in mind – to go viral.

 

Bear in mind that going viral is barely ever a happy accident when it comes to business. Often, a huge amount of time and effort has gone into making a piece of content go viral and without having done the background work (such as identifying and connecting with influencers), it’s highly unlikely that you’ll produce viral content in a day.

 

All of the tips here are designed to help you to produce better content and utilise the web and people on it in the right way to help ensure that you gain engagement. There’s nothing out there that can help you to take existing content and shoot it into the viral stratosphere, but there are plenty of techniques you can apply to take your content marketing efforts to the next step.

 

Like everything in life that returns results, it takes work, both initially and ongoing. However, it’s worth it in the long term as your content really starts to work for you, driving more traffic and ultimately conversions to your site.

 

http://positionly.com/blog/content-marketing/improve-content-marketing