Here’s your required reading for the week! Don’t forget to share your own “must read” find in a comment!
One of the most powerful and quickly evolving tools available to marketers is behavioral advertising. If you aren’t using it, you are probably thinking about it. KISSmetrics (@KISSmetrics) has put together a great explanatory primer on the topic, Behind the Scenes of Behavioral Advertising.
Would you buy a product from a website you didn’t trust? Of course not. Lack of trust is certainly a barrier to conversion, and many “trust signals” have been identified. One of those is the use of one or more “trust seals,” those little icons from firms like Norton and Verisign. But which maximize conversions? Marie Dean of Crazy Egg (@CrazyEgg) tells you with both consumer research data and A/B test results in Try This Little-Known Way to Improve eCommerce Conversions.
Persuasion is our favorite topic here, and we like new ways of explaining the basics. Larry Kim (@larrykim) packages some timeless ideas in an entertaining series of graphics in 6 Scientific Principles Behind Persuasion (infographic).
If you want to demonstrate your expertise to someone, it seems like one of the worst things you could do is ask them for advice… you are supposed to know it all, right? An interesting article by Melissa Dahl (@melissadahl) cites surprising research that shows Asking for Advice Makes You Seem More Competent, Not Less.
What all of us amateur neuroscientists need from time to time is a skeptical wake-up call. Matt Wall (@m_wall) gives us one of those in How neuroscience is being used to spread quackery in business and education. He avoids the neuromarketing space (whew!) but shows how a scientific data can be applied to yield bogus strategies.
Everybody wants to be a thought leader today, for good reason. According to Glenn Llopis (@GlennLlopis), corporations that embrace thought leadership as a strategy for growth will “change the rules of client engagement.” Glenn lays out a strategy roadmap in Thought Leadership Is The New Strategy For Corporate Growth.
When we design landing pages, websites, and other advertising material, we expect potential customers to look at the images, read the headlines and at least some of the copy, and perhaps to click a link or turn a page. Dr. Aaron Reid (@aaronashleyreid) explains the danger of expecting to persuade with lots of detail in Don’t Blink! Consumer Preference Forms in as little as a Third of a Second.
It’s time to stick a fork in Google Authorship, at least for any appearance in or impact on Google search results. Those of us who struggled to get the crosslinking between our Google+ profiles and our web content right initially saw the benefit of our byline and even (sometimes) our photo appearing in topical search results. Google killed the photo benefit earlier this year, and now the whole program has been phased out. Eric Enge (@stonetemple), one of the smartest people in the search space, does an autopsy on authorship in It’s Over: The Rise & Fall Of Google Authorship For Search Results.
My Stuff
There are lots of things you can do to try to boost conversion, from making the call to action bigger or reducing landing page distractions. But, there’s nothing more important than focusing on the customer. In a Neuromarketing guest post by Jeremy Smith (@jeremysaid), we learn how to use The 1-2 Landing Page Punch that Will Boost Conversions.
Live, from The University of Texas, Austin, it’s The Brainfluence Podcast! OK, it’s not live any more, but we did record it in person. Tune in for a fascinating chat with Professor of Psychology and Marketing Dr. Art Markman (@abmarkman). Art is a cognitive scientist with a knack for explaining complicated topics in a totally understandable way. We talk about habits and brain-based ways to change them in Ep 21: Smart Thinking, Smart Change with Art Markman.
If you haven’t subscribed to the Brainfluence Podcast, don’t worry. We’ve compiled a binge-worthy summary of the latest 10 episodes. Our guests include world-class experts in persuasion, presentations and speaking, sales, psychology, neuromarketing, conversion, and more, including Nancy Duarte, Dr. Nick Morgan, Jim Davies, and other brilliant folks. Find all ten in 10 New Episodes of the Brainfluence Podcast.
Miss last weeks wrapup? We look at stomach bugs that control your mind, political neuromarketing, a weird mood effect from weight loss, and more. Check out Color Psychology, Mind-Controlling Bugs, Blog Boosters, More… Roger’s Picks.
Weird and/or Wonderful
Here’s one of the strangest research findings we’ve seen in a long time. Based on extensive photo-matching experiments, scientists found that strangers could match our faces with both pet appearance and, oddly, “car faces.” (Our brains tend to process the headlights and grille of a car as a face.) Jesse Bering (@JesseBering) shares this bizarre discovery in Nice Grill: You Look Like Your Car (and Your Car Looks Like Your Dog).
