I’ve been testing some new advertising concepts with Facebook Ads (actually, full-blow marketing campaigns that start with targeted research.. a topic for another post).

Here’s something I noticed that can help you keep down your CPC spend. Don’t include sexy photos if you want to limit clicks to highly targeted audiences.

Seems obvious, I know.

But let me explain my predicament.

My initial ads were for trade show exhibitors. So, I tried to think of some images associated with trade shows, and *bing* a classic idea pops into my head – booth babes.

So I searched for some uncopyrighted photos and picked a few. None of them were risqué or beyond the pale.. but there may have been some plaid skirts and temptress looking poses.

I found that the click throughs were unusually high when I included them. I’m talking 250% higher when the same ad ran with a diagram of a trade show booth. (Hey, that’s a lot of unqualified click-$, I thought.)

Something about the common Inter-web practice of clicking on hot ladies was the downfall of the campaign, I suppose. For the record: there was no larger picture of the ladies on my landing page (I probably disappointed a lot of clickers).

I’m guessing that cleaner, more qualified leads clicked on the more “dull” ads.

What’s your experience? Do you have any metrics to support the idea that sexy images coupled with value ads are useful? Not useful? Is there a fine line to walk? Best practices?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could have TIVO for your browser?

That way you could save articles later so they don’t interrupt your busy day and distract you from what needs to get done.

This is a great GTD or Getting Things Done tip (David Allen’s system, in case you haven’t come across it because you’ve been slumbering or just too dang good at tasks to bother with improvement).

There is such a way. Tivo, of course, allows you to save TV shows for later consumption. Back in the good old days (when there was Tivo and ReplayTV), the boxes would even strip out commercials.

It’s the reason I used to *love* my ReplayTV. The unit would “sense” the breaks between commercial outro and into and jump completely across the advertising content. It drove the advertisers crazy and was bullied out of the product.

Anyway, those early DVRs effectively stripped out advertising (it wasn’t perfect, but 70-75% was freakin fantastic).

Now there’s a way to do this to the articles you consume on the Web. You know the ones – those tabs that stack up because your curious intentions motivate you to read every cool thing known to your favorite online rag, mag, newspaper or Twitter (or Facebook) leader.

Here’s how it works.

First, check out this nifty little service: Read Later

Read Later (or Instapaper) allows you to click a bookmark/script and save articles for later on your Instapaper.com account.

You can then close out the tabs immediately, knowing that they’re waiting for you later.

At a time of your choosing, you can come back to Instapaper and select the “Text” link in your article list. The program formats the text as beautiful, clean, advertising-free, seriphed black text on a clean white background (perfect formatting if you’re familiar with research on eyestrain, comprehension  and retention). The article contains a subtle link back to the original article, in case you want to Tweet it, Ping.fm it, or “Share on Facebook.”

There’s another tool you can use to do the same text clean-up trick immediately. It’s called Readability. The slick app allows you to choose the font, point size and format of your text to be read. The buttons on the side allow you to easily and quickly get back to the original article (for Tweeting, sharing or Facebooking purposes, for example).

Both of these are cool. And they help me “get clear” and get back to work.

Have you tried either? What do you think? Please share your thoughts below.

P.S. The two solutions go great with RSS feed readers, too. Good way to filter articles and read later in a clean, consistent format.

Would you consider yourself a difficult person to market to?

Do you research high-end products thoroughly before you purchase? Does it take lots of pressure to get you to move from one trusted brand or consumer product to another?

Me too. Especially when it comes to consumer goods like razor blades.

For years, I’ve happily used Gillette Good News razors. They’re simple, do the job and are inexpensive.

Until . . one day. . queue the bass drums. . I bought a package of Good News that included a free sample of the multi-blade Fusion product.

Now – I’ve tried these before. In fact – way back in the 1980’s I even had a power 2-blade razor that buzzes like the Gilette Power Fusion. I liked the concept and the shave back then.

But somehow I ended back up with the basic Good News razors. It was probably during a “simplicity” or economizing phase.

Anyway, I tried the Fusion sample and liked it a lot. The beard grew out less in a day, it seemed. That was a good deal for me.

So I ordered the Power Fusion product. And I’m waiting to get it from Alice.com. Mind you: this is after years and years of using the Gillette Good News razors.

The lesson? Persistent suggestions in your marketing materials (which were the actual product in my case) are CRITICAL!!! Never give up on this idea. Gillette sure doesn’t.

Offer samples, suggest up-sells, show the customer new ideas. IT WORKS.

It even worked on me – one of the more skeptical, difficult to motivate and move consumers I know.

Do you have any examples of how persistent messaging, product offerings or samples have motivated you to engage a company or switch products?

Please comment below.

We had Friday pizza day yesterday at the office, and a totally remarkable situation arose.

Stephanie, who was ordering the pizza and salads, asked,”Do you eat anything? Or do you have things you can’t eat?”

The rest of us – two dudes – said no, we were cool with anything she might order. Truly remarkable!

Now, I understand that lots of people have legitimate food allergies. That’s not what I’m addressing here.

I started to wonder if all the crazy food marketing of the past few decades has been teaching us to be overly-selective, finicky, obnoxious, high maintenance eaters.

Think about it. Never before have we been subjected to some much information and marketing on food packages. Heck, even vegetables are now packaged in plastic and cardboard that are oozing with subtle and not so subtle messages. Stickers are everywhere, too.

Check out your local Target when you get a chance. They’re getting into the food biz in a big way, and they’re selling produce that’s entirely pre-packaged.

Interesting stuff, ay?

What do you think? Are we training ourselves to be annoying?

My wife recently remarked that the malls are full. “How could we be in a recession?” she said.

It got me thinking. Personal spending is obviously way down, but people still want to have a mall experience. They want to window shop, buy some small things, taste candy, play with pets, jump through fountains, see cool fashions and maybe dream a little.

The thing that *really* gets me. . in a recession. . is this. People go by the hoards to a place where the finest marketing minds in the world (from the most talented ad agencies known to man) are working their magic. Everything from the display windows and signage, to the cashier talk and uniforms, to the music and temperature, to the promos and tagging… is designed by the best of the best.

This may not be true of every store in every mall. The malls I usually witness are Fashion Island in Newport Beach CA, and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, CA. But it’s certainly relevant to most of the national chains and high-end designers.

The point is that these people are voluntarily exposing themselves to a situation designed to suck money out of their pockets.

They want to be pitched, sold, persuaded and wow’ed! They want that, deep down.

And what do we complain about in marketing? Let me count the ways: Traditional advertising is dying. There’s too much noise out there. People are shutting out our messages. People are fed up with consumer-driven behavior. The market is resisting our messaging.

Yet, the malls still bring em in.

I realize that malls are “opt-in.” Maybe that’s something to ponder, too. Is there a way you can make your business and partner businesses more like a mall?

Something to think about. Enjoy your weekend. And please comment below to add your observations.

This article originally appeared in John Forde’s excellent email newsletter The Copywriter’s Roundtable (some call him Jack Forde). The newsletter offers priceless insights for all kinds of professional creatives, including the folks mentioned in the article below. I highly encourage you to sign up and enjoy the weekly value feast that is uniquely Forde.

WARNING TO CREATIVES PART I: YOUR CAREERS ARE UNDER ATTACK

If you’re a creative professional, you may have noticed a bothersome trend. In an effort to reduce expenses, clients are getting creative with the ways they deconstruct projects, bid them out and re-assemble the final product. (This applies to lots of different creatives including, freelance copywriters, strategy folks, designers, social media marketers, SEO specialists, content developers and Web developers).  

As a result, some of your work is becoming commoditized, broken into pieces and performed by someone other than you. There are lower-cost, dubious-value options out there waiting in the wings to snap up pieces of projects.

I’m not arguing that this is a particularly intelligent, productive or encouraging trend. I’m just saying that it’s happening in a number of settings, and, in many cases, you’re complicit. Yes you.

Let me discuss a few examples to illustrate my point.

Deconstruction and the Road to Mediocrity

Software developers used to scope, design and test a piece code from start to finish. That’s not always the case nowadays. Outsourced, off-shore software testing is becoming more and more common. Specialized shops that test applications and the platforms they run on (like testing a new Web app on every conceivable phone, OS and browser combination) eliminate this task from a typical coder’s project. There’s a company in Austin, Texas that’s doing this with great success. Everything’s managed stateside, but the grunt work is done cheaply elsewhere. Think of it as global specialization – where the “assembly line” is decoupled, sent to multiple specialists, then reassembled before launch.

You may have noticed the SEO copywriting trend, as well. For better or worse, companies are farming out articles to writing sweat shops and instructing them to assemble articles that are optimized for specific keywords (including headline and subhead instructions for keyword repetition). Then they send the completed article to a professional writer for editing, fact checking and re-writing.

As a professional writer, I find the practice ludicrous. It’s a process that’s flawed, spammy and basically ass-backwards. But I can’t deny it’s happening. Shameful admission: one of my clients in Eastern Europe pays me to write headlines and subheads for articles they’ve developed (they identify the keywords they need highlighted, and I try to make it work). Some of the articles are professionally written and some are atrocious. I flag the bad ones and have them re-written (via myself or another editor they use).

The trend is similar to the software development one. Publishers are attempting to decouple production and then reassemble the pieces. OnDemand Media’s Pluck is one example of this kind of low-cost, assembly line publishing.

With these types of approaches, some value is lost (maybe not so much with the software development example). You may have seen similar trends with your projects. Does the following sound familiar? A client asks you to produce a site, some graphic art or some copy that’s just like “competitor X’s site.”

The marketing director identifies someone else’s work that they like, and they encourage you to paraphrase, emulate or copy it. “Just make it like theirs, ‘borrow’ from it and you [as the creative] won’t have to do so much work,” they say. The result is unoriginal copy or design. [BTW - my advice is strap on your Pumas and run away from these clients as fast as you can.]

The point is, you can see, taste and smell the loss of value in these types of projects. Think about all those India-looking templated sites out there. They’re sterile. You know them when you see them. The treatments are flat, the colors predictable, and the layouts pure boilerplate. Some are worse than others, of course. There are, however, some nice WordPress templates that are produced by very talented designers and coders (and SquareSpace ones and Tumblr.. many others, I’m sure – this is a trend I’m watching closely).

Similar problems occur when people take short cuts with photography. How about those bland “business people at work photos?” Earnest looking professionals glare into the lens. They wear JCrew blue and khaki, and they always seem to be in these scrubbed, gleaming Formica white rooms. There are dozens of them on iStockPhoto, and they pop up all over the Web.  Anyone can get that stuff. Anyone can produce it. It’s a commodity.

Your Talent and Real-Time Creativity is Your Trump Card

The deconstruct and “farm out the pieces” train is gathering steam. Seth Godin talks about this in his book Linchpin. In a previous era, the strategy was applied to automobile manufacturing. Henry Ford developed detailed assembly processes that could be carried out by very specialized, low-skilled laborers along the line.

These days creative work can be made into an assembly line without borders… without a building.

Where does that leave you? In some sense your career is under attack. If important disciplines comes under assault as satellite teams are assembled and everyone meets up in places like BaseCamp and Google Docs, then there’s real value erosion from the client’s perspective. You may (like me) even have a hand in it. Heck, you may even use this approach to assemble teams of creatives. So, who knows where this is headed.

There are some easy answers, however. First – you must scamper back to value. Focus on originality and core competency. Your creative work, your artistry is what wins. You can beat a monkey on a typewriter. Your brilliance in the here and now beats any templated mash-up that a sweat shop can produce. That’s what brings the real dough. That’s what wins today’s contracts.

Think of it as a way to improve your gross margins. “How can you be remarkable?” as Godin might put it.

The companies and clients that don’t want the type of talent you offer are probably settling for mediocrity. They will be lost in the sea of noise. Their ads will not stand out, their white papers will not be downloaded, and people will land on their sites and get that ‘oh this was designed by low-level goons in Eastern Europe’ feeling.

So, if you’re a designer you need to be the one who pays attention to typography, usability, color choice and very specific business requirements. You have to listen. And, you have to find the clients who communicate their uniqueness, their goals and their fears directly to you.

Incorporate that into your designs, then collaborate with the Web development team, the writer, the photographer. Don’t be afraid to work with difficult people. Don’t be afraid to challenge your client. Argue with them (not argumentatively but in a Socratic way) with the fears, benefits, goals and aspirations of the company in mind.

If you’re a blogger or a ghost writer for blogs, stop regurgitating the messages of others. Stop chasing the link deals and trying to spam your way into Digg mentions, StumbleUpons, etc.

Promote your best, most unique ideas – even if it means taking a day or week off. Yes, you need to produce content consistently. . but you’ve got to rise above the noise and say something useful and unique each time you publish. Or else.. your days are numbered.

Bring ***thoughtfulness*** to your projects – as Tom Peters might say. (BTW his new book “The Little Big Things” is great.)

It’s important to understand some of these trends. The playing field is getting fluid with globalism, Web 2.0 trends, and unique developments at play. You need to pay attention.

Keep your eyes peeled for Part II of this article. There’s an interesting new technology wrinkle at play (it’s actually much more than a wrinkle – you’ve seen hints of it in Facebook’s recent announcements, and two of my uber-deep technology clients are raking in tons of cash by farming Web data – that’s all I’ll say). The point is, it directly affects you as a marketing and Web development creative. Stay tuned.

Please comment below and keep the conversation going. I’d love to hear your feedback and insights.

My attempt at concrete imagery.

When I think about design, layout and presentation, there are two books that I frequently come back to:

1) Colin Wheildon’s Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Just Making Pretty Shapes

2) Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery

Wheildon’s book is a frontal assault on the lame-o typography mistakes that continue to occur today (especially in the amateur design Web arena). His findings are backed up by in-depth research about comprehension and reader retention.

Reynolds’ book is a more elegant assault on similar miscues in the world of PowerPoint and Keynote… or just presentations in general.

My simple recommendation?

Buy these books. Dog-ear these books. Keep them near Strunk and White. Savor them, review them, revere them, spoon them.

They’re gold and will help you win projects and the hearts of your clients.

Here’s a taste from Presentation Zen that talks about the “picture superiority effect”:

“When information recall is measured just after exposure to a series of pictures or a series of words, the recall for pictures and words is about equal. However, the picture superiority effect applies when the time after exposure is more than 30 seconds, according to research cited in Universal Principles of Design (Rockport Publishers). ‘Use the picture superiority effect to improve the recognition and recall of key information. Use pictures and words together, and ensure that they reinforce the same information for optimal effect,’ say the authors… The effect is strongest when the pictures represent common, concrete things.”

And from Wheildon’s masterpiece:

“.. the average advertisement is read by only four percent of the people on their way through the publication it appears in. Most of the time this is the fault of the so-called “art director” who designs advertisements. If he is an aesthete at heart – and most of them are – he doesn’t care a damn if anybody reads the words. He regards them as mere elements in his pretty design. In many cases he blows away half the readers by choosing the wrong type. But he doesn’t care. He should be boiled in oil.” [my emphasis]

These two guys think deeply about design, and they offer lots of undeniable proof for their theses.

If you’re a copywriter, art director, Web designer, SEO monger, marketing director (or VP or CMO), or a layout/design guru, please pick these up and study them. Your job is not finished when you complete your piece of the creative puzzle. You need to understand the other disciplines to make sure you’ve created something that’s usable, appreciated, and understood by your consuming audiences.

Do you have any other book recommendations that are crucial for publishing/Web development creatives? Please comment below and share your favorites. Thanks – Phil.

I just got an email from Salesforce.com for a seminar/webinar even and was delighted by the tagline that was burried beneath the graphics on the page. It was actually an image tag that doesn’t even show on the graphical version of the email. It says, “Salesforce.com – Success. Not Software.”

I’ve been writing taglines for companies lately, so I know how difficult it is to come up with good ones (especially good ones that big, “too many cooks” corporate marketing teams can agree on).

I’ll repeat it again. Salesforce.com – Success. Not Software. So pure, yet so complex. Heck, I don’t even know it it’s new. It just jumped out at me this morning.

If you don’t know what Salesforce does, here’s a quick run-down. They offer sales pipeline and CRM/contact management software in the “cloud.” What does that mean? Basically, you don’t have to buy boxed software and install it on client machines as a stand-alone program like Microsoft Office or ACT! You log in to your Web account and have a ton of software functionality available due to the latest Web software/services technologies like AJAX, Javascript, .NET, Silverlight and so forth.

So Salesforce does still sell software, but they’ve made it much easier. You log in to the site and do everything in the cloud, so back-up, losing contacts and maintenance/management tasks are effectively outsourced. You don’t have any software on client machines to mess with, which means no IT staff, no helpdesk calls, no hassles.

The tagline captures the benefits of CRM and sales/prospect/customer management — essentially “success.” That’s the bottom line for sales people. You need software to stay out of the way so you can continue to develop relationships with people and solve their problems. “Not software” captures the cloud computing angle and this desire to have things work without hassles.

So simple. So elegant. So all-encompasing. I love it. Good job to whoever Salesforce’s ad agency is.

Who’s Paying Attention to Marketing Basics When Buying Halloween AdWords Ads?

If you do a simple search of Google for the word Halloween, you’ll notice that plenty of companies are throwing down big bucks for positioning. How much, you ask? According to the tools in AdWords, the one word “Halloween” will cost you $0.33 to $0.50/click. Your clicks will run from 1,388 to 1,743 per day, so that’s going to run $470-880 during the Halloween season run-up. For a month of ads in positions 1-3, you might spend $14,000 to $27,000 on ads.

So position #1 in my sample search goes to Universal Studios (see image above.. this is not an actual AdWords ad for this page – fake out! It was real when I originally searched, though). They’re advertising their Halloween Horror Nights event at Universal Studios in Los Angeles (or El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula – which is the original name of the city… which interestingly can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A… but I digress).

The audience is probably teenagers, college kids, wild adults and brave youngsters dragged in by their older siblings, no doubt.

The ad leads with an economic benefit and a promise of being the “most terrifying” event in the area.

That’s kinda good. I would expect it to be scary, but there are probably some better benefits/dreams/visions lurking just below the surface that could have been used in the ad. As I recall, Halloween, theme parks and thrill rides were all about cuddling up to the girls (at a certain age). I’m guessing that this demo fits that profile. If they could insert a teen dream twist in there, it would be even more provoking or compelling. Something like “Defend your sweetie from the most ghoulish thugs in Southern Calif”… or even something Freudian, like “a night that will make you want to run home to Mama.”

The savings pitch could come after that. Here’s the landing page that the Universal Halloween horror nights link ends up at. Let me know what you think of the effort there by posting comments below. I like the testimonial at the end, but I’m not sure the main body text is so motivating.

Position #2 goes to BuyCostumes.com. I like the fast shipping benefit. We all know how last minute costume shopping goes. Selection benefit is good, too. Simple but strong.

OrientalTrading.com is in position #3. Selection and discount are the benefits they’re touting. I’m betting that their ad changed to “fast shipping” as the 31^st approaches. A better approach might describe the end-result benefit and combine that with the economical/discount factor. Something like, “Delight the little ones with discount Halloween treats. Rapid, one-click check-out.” They could also put in a low price guarantee. That’s always reassuring. The last sentence I suggested is something I like to see, because we all know how tedious and slow shopping cart processes are.  It would be a good differentiator when competing for Web business with the likes of Target.com and SamsClub.com.

Target’s in spot #4. It’s weak, but a lot of their branding comes pre-loaded, anyway. What I mean by that is that their benefits are well known by most. You can drive there and find supplies and costumes in stock. They have great prices. You know what you’re getting… etc. You’d think they might have some fun with their ad, though.

The next two – for fairplex.com and SamsClub.com – don’t really bring anything new to the party.

What do you think? Are these companies using AdWords to their fullest potential? Should their ad agencies be fired for “phoning in” the copywriting? Your comments are welcome below.

Yes, times are tight. However, as marketing managers, creative directors and sales people, you still have to sell. I’ve detailed this in other posts and showed you how the smart companies actually gain market share during recessions or depressions. So I won’t belabor that point any further.

Here are the important issues:

How do you connect with customers when they’re so resistant to new spending initiatives? How do you generate better leads when customer budgets are shrinking?

Here a quick, high-level run-down of the pertinent answers:

• Show them how your solution saves them money.
• Show them how your solution helps them make money.
• Show them new ways to make money.
• Show them how your solution helps simplify their business.
• Show them how your solution helps them reduce head count (painful as that subject may be).
• Show them how to eliminate wasteful activity.
• Show them real life customers you’ve helped do all of the above (as case studies)

The next question you should be asking is: How do I find people that are interested in these topics (with respect to my solutions/products/services)?

I have about 10 different approaches to this last question. Some are social media related, some involve emailing people, some use good old-fashioned direct mail, some utilize Google Adwords and Facebook ads.

If you’d like to explore these topics in more detail and create a marketing campaign that gets immediate results, please give me a call at 949-244-9440 or email me at dunn@qualitywriter.com.

P.S. I can help you start figuring out what your prospects are looking for in just a few simple steps. And, conveniently, I’m a marketing writer that can help you develop content that drives sales.

P.P.S. I have a really efficient system for carrying out these types of direct marketing plans. Please give me a call or email and I’ll tell you how I automate direct response campaigns with my assistant. You, too, can do big things with very few people.