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I’ve found it just doesn’t pay to crow too much about what I’ve accomplished.

Sure, I celebrate when things go well. But I’ve found that talking too much about my achievements leads not only to criticism, but to disappointment.

There’s always going to be someone who’s done more or worked harder. And until they carve my name into the side of the moon, I see no reason in puffing myself up. The minute you get a big head is the same minute that reality smacks you and you realize that you aren’t as cool as you think you are.

So self-adulation is something I try to stay away from. But self promotion? That’s a whole different story.

If you take a look at the most successful (or talked about) people in any field, you’ll almost always see someone incredibly talented in the art of self-promotion.

Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad books, mentioned at one point that he’s a “bestselling author” and not a “best-writing author.” Dean Karnazes, known as “The Ultramarathon Man,” is not the best athlete in his field, but he is by far the best at self-promotion.

So what’s the difference?

The reason that self-promotion works and self-adulation doesn’t is because self-promotion is the art of spreading ideas, concepts, and a greater vision. Self-adulation is just the promotion of accomplishments, deeds that have already been done.

When you promote ideas, you give people something to cheer for. You give people a cause to support. People, in many ways, are selfish. They promote the things that make them feel good. Your accomplishments aren’t likely to make them feel good, but your ideas do.

Your ideas might inspire hope, thought, or action . . . but as a general rule, good ideas inspire something.

People promote Chris Brogan because he makes them feel good. His ideas inspire thought and that warm fuzzy feeling we all get when we make a sincere connection.

On the other hand, you and I aren’t going around bragging about how many books he’s sold or how many speeches he’s given. We don’t care about that because it’s the ideas that inspire . . . not the achievements.

How to create a self-promotion platform

1. The first step is to be confident. If you aren’t inspired by your actions or ideas, no one else will be either.

Look at Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest self-promoters in history. We loved him not just because he truly was “the greatest,” but also for his integrity and the boldness of his ideas.

If you think Ali’s success was only about his athletic ability, compare your feelings about Ali to your feelings about Mike Tyson. Tyson’s accomplishments were magnificent, but he never communicated a greater vision that made us cheer.

2. The next step is to start spreading your ideas. You can’t be wishy washy . . . you have to stand for something.

Make your vision as clear and as concise as possible. Brand yourself and your ideas as unique. (Remember, although few ideas are genuinely unique, your expression can be.) Seth Godin does this exceptionally well.

3. Once you have a platform, start your campaign. Use strong, descriptive language when explaining your ideas and plan of action. Build a tight and loyal community that believes in you, then inspire and empower them to take action.

Make it cool to be a fan, like Gary Vee did with his Vaynernation wristbands or like Lance Armstrong did with his yellow bracelets. Having a symbolic identifier like this is extremely powerful.

4. Lastly, don’t be afraid to talk about your ideas and spread the message. Just remember that it’s not about your world . . . it’s about how others can fit into it.

Creating buzz is essential, so reach out to power brokers and tell them why they should promote you. If they won’t, create power brokers from within. Build others up until they have the power to build you up. This last part is something that Oprah excels at, and it’s how she’s built a billion-dollar empire.

Your ideas need you

If you implement this plan successfully, you’ll probably take some flak. People might label you over-confident or cocky.

That’s good. Define yourself in such a way that people either love you or hate you.

There are fans out there for every self-promoter. Your task is to find them. That, and to make it easy for them to bring a friend.

Your ideas need you. If you have a vision, don’t let anyone stand in your way.

I know it sounds a bit “out there,” but I firmly believe that ideas are living things. They need you to get over your self-adulation, to get out there, and to fight for them. Are you ready?

About the Author: Nathan Hangen is the co-founder of Beyond Blogging, a resource that draws on some of the web’s most successful bloggers to tell you the truth about what it takes to get to their level. He writes about social entrepreneurship at NathanHangen.com.

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The Art of Shameless Self-Promotion

If gender stereotypes make you uncomfortable, there’s a good chance you’re going to hate this post.

Because this post is overflowing with gender stereotypes. It’s all about identifying, valuing, and celebrating the feminine.

Today I’m going to talk about the use of words that are traditionally considered “feminine” to spice up your copy. Why would you want to do that?

Well for one thing, whether you know it or not, you’re probably writing for a female audience.

The economic power of women

Women’s buying power has increased tremendously in recent years. Mothers alone account for $1.3 trillion of sales per year. Women either make or influence buying decisions for all sorts of things, from cars to home furniture, from clothing (for the entire family, not just the gals) to electronics.

Even if you’re marketing to what you think of as a “male” market, it can still pay to have a feminine appeal. That dude reading your copy is very likely to have a girlfriend, wife, or mother who’s going to sign off on making that purchase. If he thinks buying your product will make him look dumb in her eyes, he’s a lot less likely to hand over his credit card.

So listen up. Slaying dragons and pumping the testosterone aren’t the only ways to put feeling and excitement into your copy.

The enduring popularity of romance

Where can you find feminine words? Nothing is as feminine as romance fiction, and numbers show women are continuing to lap it up.

As the economic recession raged, do you think women ditched their romance reading habits? Hardly. Romance fiction made $1.37 billion in sales in 2008 and, in fact, had the largest share of the book market (13.5 percent).

To find feminine words that have been proven to sell to women, I mined the titles of the late Barbara Cartland, whom Vogue magazine called “the Queen of Romance.” And for good reason. Cartland sold more than a billion copies of her books. She certainly knew a thing or two about writing purchase-inducing titles.

10 romantic words that sell

Here are 10 unabashedly feminine words that have also been proven to sell.

Love

As John Lennon sang. “All we need is love,” and this word doesn’t only dominate the titles of romance fiction. It’s commonly used in songs as well. Maybe it’s because love is what we’re all longing for. Yes, guys too. Even if you don’t always admit it.

Heart

Now becoming synonymous to “love” (e.g., “I heart Copyblogger”), this word is increasingly used to soften traditionally tough topics: “business with a heart,” “writing for the heart,” “selling from the heart.”

Secret

As the stereotype would have it, women love to keep, tell and discover secrets. Actually, so does everybody else. This word appears in all the headline swipe files of those (male) copywriting masters.

King, Queen, Princess, Prince (or some other honorable title)

Women are fascinated with royalty. Blame it on fairy tales. But it’s not just women who respond to a market position as the “King,” “Queen,” or “Duke” of your niche.

Temptation and Forbidden

That darned Eve started it all, giving into temptation and making Adam bite the forbidden apple. These are still two irresistible words to make your copy more compelling.

Cloud, Moon, Stars (and other celestial bodies)

These words evoke freedom, creativity, and unlimited possibilities. No wonder women love them.

Heaven, Paradise

We use these words to describe ultimate pleasure, goodness and perfection. “How was the spa?” “It was heaven!”

Kiss

Sweet, mysterious and seductive, a kiss is the ultimate romantic word.

Virgin

Here’s one word that’s sure to make your heart race — whether you’re male or female. And of course, Richard Branson, a masculine guy if ever there was one, built an entire mega-brand around it.

Magic, Enchanted, Bewitched (and other references to the supernatural)

Our fascination with these words is another result of childhoods molded by fairy tales. The idea of having a fairy godmother to make all our dreams come true and get rid of our evil stepmother is simply irresistible.

Take your magic wand and transform your copy

Here’s the real test. How do romantic words hold up in real-world copy? To find out, I decided to give a romantic makeover to the same copy Ali Hale put a heroic twist to.

Here’s what I came up with:

Plain: “Solve Email Problems”
Heroic: “Battle Your Email Overload”
Romantic: “Love Your Email Inbox Again”

Plain: “Stop Procrastinating”
Heroic: “Defeat Procrastination”
Romantic: “Kiss Procrastination Goodbye”

Plain: “Advice to Help You Do Better”
Heroic: “Advice to Help You Win”
Romantic: “Advice to Make You a Star”

Plain: “Ditch Your Bad Habits”
Heroic: “Conquer Your Bad Habits”
Romantic: “Make Your Bad Habits Disappear Like Magic”

Women’s pockets are growing bigger and deeper. Isn’t it time our copywriting and marketing language caught up?

If your writing is bland, sprinkle a little romance into it. You don’t always have to resort to pumped up, violent imagery to put more zing in your copy. A little romance may be just the flavor your readers are craving.

About the Author: Lexi Rodrigo is a copywriter and online marketing consultant who used the words “love,” “heart,” and “passion” on her home page long before researching for this post.

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Romance 101: How to Use Feminine Words That Sell

If you’ve got something to sell, at some point you’re going to need to present an offer.

In other words, you’ll need to tell your prospective customer what you’ve got, what it’s going to do for them, and what you’re looking for in return.

Sounds simple, and it is. There’s just one problem.

Too often, we get caught up in how much our prospect should want what we’re feeding them. And then we get surprised when they respond like a toddler faced with a bowl full of broccoli ice cream.

When my little boy was a baby, I got a very good piece of advice about feeding kids.

As a parent, it’s your job to put something on the table that’s reasonably nutritious, that tastes good, and that’s appropriate to the context. (Your so-spicy-it-could-strip-paint vindaloo may be the best on the planet, but it might not be realistic to expect your two-year-old to go for it.)

It’s the kid’s job to eat it or not to eat it. They’re in charge of getting a forkful of the stuff in their mouth, chewing, and swallowing.

When you get your job and their job confused, you create a lot of problems.

How to make an appealing offer to your customers

When you’re asking for a sale from a potential customer, you’re working with the same equation.

It’s your job to create an attractive offer. It’s the prospect’s job to say yes or no.

Ever notice the language customers use when they’re feeling pressured to buy? They’ll often mention not wanting an offer “crammed down their throat.”

Sure, you could always try to sell people something they don’t want. But a) it will work miserably or not at all, b) you’ll get the results “barfed up” in the form of complaints and returns, and c) it’s a lot easier for prospects to run away than it is for toddlers.

Make it nutritious

The best offers are nutritious — in other words, beneficial to the customer.

Yes, you can definitely (maybe even easily) sell a product that doesn’t actually do the prospect much good. But you’ll get the most recurring business (and satisfaction) out of selling good stuff, not junk food.

When your customers are truly better off for buying what you offer, they’re a million times more likely to spread the word about how great you are. It’s hard to build a solid business on products that are all seductive promise but don’t really deliver anything of value.

Make it taste good

On the other hand, you try feeding my kid broccoli.

I think it’s fantastic stuff. I eat it every week. My kid considers it the culinary equivalent of waterboarding.

To me, broccoli is delicious. To my kid, it’s not. Different markets want different things.

It’s much easier to sell something people want than it is to sell something they need. We’re grudgingly pushed toward certain behaviors by our needs, but we’re pulled wildly by our wants.

Basically, you have two options. One, you can find a customer who adores broccoli. They’re certainly out there.

Two, you’ll sell something like a smoothie. It has the vitamins, minerals, and fiber of the broccoli, but it tastes more like a milkshake.

When you’re selling it, bring up the delicious taste first, and close the deal by making them feel good about all the logical health benefits.

Offer what they want, when they want it

Strawberries taste good in summer. Hot chocolate tastes good in winter.

Make sure your offer lines up with what your prospect is looking for today, not tomorrow or yesterday. You’ll make selling much, much easier.

My kid thinks popsicles are nirvana, but even he won’t eat them when he’s playing outside in the middle of January.

Make sure it’s fresh

Even the tastiest dinner doesn’t look all that good after a couple of hours go by.

That means you’ve got to set a time when dinner gets pulled off the table. If you keep your offers fresh by limiting them in time (or by setting a limit on how many you’ll sell), you make them infinitely more attractive.

“Buy the blue widget for $47” may be a tasty, nutritious, and well-timed offer. “Buy the blue widget for $47 if you order by midnight this Friday” has all the same qualities, but it also keeps the offer fresh and interesting.

New and fresh is always more appealing than stale and boring.

Keep your roles straight

Remember, it’s your job to cook up fresh, tasty, nutritious offers and get them on the table. Obviously, you’ll use all the copywriting techniques at your disposal to make them as appealing as possible.

(You can consider a resource like Copyblogger as a cookbook that lets you make your offers as delicious as possible.)

Then, you observe. Did the market bite or not? If not, the two most likely culprits are that the timing was off (popsicles in January) or that the offer just didn’t look tasty (broccoli ice cream).

Try adding a spoonful of sugar, in the form of more value or an additional bonus for the same money. Make sure you’re not talking too much about all of the “good for you” aspects, and that you’re instead emphasizing the yummy factor first and foremost.

Either way, it’s not a rejection of you as a human being or a death sentence for your business. It’s just a dinner that didn’t turn out particularly well. Do a little work to figure out where your recipe went wrong, and try again tomorrow.

With practice and observation, you’ll be cooking up consistently delicious offers in no time.

Want learn more about putting together killer offers, and presenting them in the most compelling fashion? Subscribe to Internet Marketing for Smart People, the Copyblogger email newsletter. It’s some of our best stuff, no junk, no fluff, and no charge. Hey, that’s a great offer!

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

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Does Your Customer Want What You’ve Got to Offer?

Ever heard of Innocenzo Manzetti?

No?

How about Elisha Gray?

Still no?

Okay, how about Alexander Graham Bell?

Heard of him?

Of course you have. He invented the telephone. (Yes, that’s what that funny-looking thing above is.)

Or did he?

According to a growing body of research, Innocenzo Manzetti created the first working telephone in 1864, more than a full decade before Bell. But he never did anything with it.

Elisha Gray also invented a version of the telephone, and he even filed for patent, but it didn’t do any good. He arrived at the patent office a full two hours before Bell, and eventually filed a lawsuit claiming Bell stole the idea, but it never went anywhere.

In contrast, Alexander Bell spent the next several years fighting to win his patent application, raise money from private investors, and evangelize his invention. A decade later, he had more than 150,000 customers, and it no longer mattered who invented it. Bell was reaping the rewards.

The moral of the story?

The obvious one is that the only way to truly defend your ideas is to take action, but there’s another moral too. It’s much more subtle, and in my opinion, more relevant to what we are doing online.

It has to do with being what I call an “idea pack rat.”

Are you an idea pack rat?

I know I am. In fact, I’m pretty much the king of idea pack rats.

On my computer, I have folders stacked inside of folders, all of them stuffed with notes on ideas that I plan to pursue. I have outlines for unwritten books, marketing plans for products I never got around to creating, and half-written posts that I can’t seem to finish writing.

One day, I plan to do something with them. One day, I’ll have more time. One day, I’ll have the resources to make them work.

Heh.

Of course, it’s a lie, one that all idea pack rats have conditioned ourselves to believe. Then we’re horrified when some ass has the same idea, and they actually have the nerve to do something with it.

Suddenly, the idea we were so carefully hoarding is worthless, and we feel robbed. Almost like someone snuck into our head and stole it.

I’ve been there. I’m guessing you’ve been there too. And, in 2010, I think it’s time we finally did something about it.

Just not in the way you might think.

How to change the world

Alexander Bell didn’t change the world by coming up with an original idea. Innocenco Manzetti did that.

Alexander Bell didn’t change the world by taking action and getting to the patent office first. Elisha Gray beat him by two hours.

No, Alexander Bell changed the world by hitting the road with his idea, telling anyone who would listen, all the way up to the Queen of England. He used the buzz to land investors, build a company, and get people to buy telephones across the globe.

He understood that what matters isn’t who thinks of an idea first. It’s not even who takes action first.

It’s who spreads the idea the farthest.

We writers often delude ourselves into thinking that we’re making progress by publishing a daily blog post or jotting down an outline for a course or writing a book. We are taking action, and we think that’s all that matters.

But it doesn’t.

You can write blog posts from now until doomsday, and if no one reads them, you might as well be picking your nose. You can write a book that would make Shakespeare green with envy, but you’ll never become a bestseller until someone reads it. You can envision making millions from selling a how-to course, but you’ll never make a dollar until you convince someone to be a customer.

The secret to changing the world isn’t you having good ideas. It’s getting those ideas into the heads of other people.

So, tell somebody

Instead of waiting for popular bloggers to discover you, email them a link to your best post and tell them why it’s important that they link to it.

Instead of dreaming about writing your autobiography one day, publish your story as a guest post for a popular blog and see how people respond.

Instead of begging venture capitalists for seed capital, make a few prototypes, give them away to people who need them, and then watch to see what happens.

Nine times out of ten, you’ll receive a kind but lukewarm response, and you’ll know that your idea is never going to be as big as you thought it would be. It’ll hurt, but at least you’ll know.

One day though, you’ll get to that 10th time, where the person you tell will be so impressed that they’ll tell someone else, and they’ll tell someone else, and they’ll tell someone else, and your idea spreads around the world. That’s how change happens.

And it all starts with you.

You have to stop worrying about getting the credit or finding the right venue or waiting until the right time, and just give it away, right now, to as many people as possible. It’s counterintuitive, but the more people who know your idea, the safer it is.

It’s the brilliant people who keep their ideas to themselves who lose out. Someone like Alexander Bell comes along, makes the same discovery, and spreads the idea around the world, while Mr. Brilliant keeps busily figuring out the optimum strategy.

Don’t be that guy. We already have far, far too many geniuses who closet themselves away from the world with the rationalization that no one understands or respects them.

What we need are more evangelists, people who are willing to fight tooth and nail for their ideas, to change the world not through money or power or smarts, but by drowning out the voices of anyone who dares to disbelieve.

That’s what Alexander Bell did, and I believe we can do it too. The world is waiting for us to speak up, and all we have to do is step up and take the microphone.

I’m game.

Are you?

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on twitter.

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The Alexander Graham Bell Guide to Changing the World

In the eight Christmases since life changed my name to Dad, Santa’s list has never been more important.

In our house, the tradition is that each child requests a single gift from the big guy. The problem is, this year both kids asked for something a little beyond Santa’s typical reach.

Fortunately, my wife and I have learned enough about persuasion and selling to turn our trip to the store into an opportunity to keep the magic alive a little longer.

It’s important to me that Santa deliver what they ask for. My kids are five and seven, and still believe. I’d like to preserve that bit of childhood magic as long as I am able.

What do you want? No, what do you really want?

My daughter originally wanted to ask Santa for “Biscuit,” a battery-operated dog that does tricks on command and is roughly the size of a Shetland pony. I’m not positive, but I think Biscuit may require a car battery to start barking.

My son planned to ask Santa for the Lego Star Wars Imperial Cruiser. This thing has roughly the same number of pieces as a glass garbage truck driven from a rooftop, and a sticker price equivalent to my winter electricity bill.

Our mission: steer our daughter toward a Fur-Real Panda Bear which is just a fraction of Biscuit‘s price tag, and get our son drooling for Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter, which is smaller and more within our budget.

Entering the toy department armed with our strategy, here are five basic selling principles which we used to get our children to not only alter their wish lists, but want their new gifts even more than they did the old ones:

1. Scarcity

This one was awesome because I didn’t even have to try. There it sat, all the way at the top of a shelf so high not even my 6 ‘ 3’’ frame could tickle the Fur-Real Panda Bear. The rest of the selection lay littered along the bottom shelves.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “We’re going to have to ask someone to help us get the panda bear down.”

My daughter asked why the panda was up so high away from all the others. I told her it must be because everybody wanted him and there were only a few left.

“Oh,” she whispered. My daughter rarely whispers. Other people’s desires amplified her own. My daughter’s not greedy, but she is human, and humans tend to want something all the more the second it seems out of reach.

2. Storytelling

My son and I struck out on our own, leaving my wife and daughter to think about the panda.

I slipped into a story about Darth Vader and his planet-blasting Death Star. My voice rose in pitch, my hands in the air. I quieted to a whisper. I was an actor reciting Shakespeare and my son’s mouth was an open O.

“Hey, have you ever thought about asking Santa for Darth Vader’s TIE fighter?” I asked. “I bet he would get it for you.”

I pulled the box from the shelf and placed it in my son’s hands. His eyes lit up and he turned it this way and that through the air, the sounds of laser blasts spraying from his lips.

Information is important, but people connect to stories. If you want someone to both relate to your information and remember it later, deliver it in a “once upon a time.”

3. Address objections

My son was fondling the box. I figured he was about a third of the way to wondering why in the Hoth he had ever wanted a starship when he could’ve been asking for Darth Vader’s TIE fighter all along.

But we weren’t quite there yet.

“The TIE fighter’s a lot smaller,” I explained, pointing to Darth Vader’s home away from home. “The starship is like five times bigger.”

He asked how many pieces are in the starship. I smiled. It was like he was doing half the work for me. “It’s five times the size because it has five times as many pieces.”

Now even though my son LOVES pieces, this was an easy objection to get past.

“Hmmm.” At this point, I was actually stroking my chin like some cartoon character. “If you ask Santa for Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter, then we’ll be able to put it together and take it apart a lot more times.” I smiled wide and dropped to my knees so my eyes met my son’s. “We’ll get to play with it more because it will be put together more often.”

My son’s smile is always bright, but this one was even brighter than usual. You can’t ignore objections, but you can identify and address what the other person really wants. And in this case, it was to spend more time with his daddy playing.

Once you know what your buyers are really looking for, you can rob objections of their power.

4. Clearly state the benefits

When we rejoined the girls, my daughter asked how I would decide between the two toys. She’s a practical girl and, like her father, loves to linger on several sides of an argument.

“Well, at first I thought it was close,” I said, nose wrinkled, “but then I started thinking about it. Now I’d have to say the panda is the clear winner.”

She wanted to know why.

“Well, his size for starters,” I said. “Biscuit is so big, you’d never want to take him up and down the stairs.”

We live in a hundred-year-old Victorian, and there are times when going upstairs feels like it should come with the help of a Sherpa.

I also explained that because of its size, the panda could keep her company and sit next to her while she’s doing her homework or is at the computer.

I let that sink in, then added, “The panda could even sleep with you, I bet. Biscuit would probably just sit in one place most of the time.”

When you’re writing to persuade, don’t forget to articulate what’s great about the experience. Give them the wind in their hair and let them clearly feel the smile on their face.

5. Know your audience

I’m lucky enough to be around my children for most of the minutes they aren’t in school. Getting them to change Santa’s list was made simple by first knowing them inside out and then communicating as effectively as possible.

Working out a communication plan with my partner ahead of time, using the same principles that make a sales letter work, made it a paint-by-numbers process.

While it’s highly unlikely you’ll get prospects that you can know as well as your children, you can get to know them. Pay attention to the details, ask the right questions, and uncover not just what they want, but why they want it. Do that, and you’ll be able to meet their needs.

There is a laser-thin line between many of the principles of friendly, honest selling and highly effective parenting.

With both, you must allow the learner or buyer to stumble onto your solution as though it was their idea all along. Sure, you use the authority you’ve built, but you also let your audience come to their own conclusions.

Trust is the key

Of course none of these tactics would have worked if our children didn’t believe in us.

And trust is an integral part of these strategies. I’ve never lied to my kids (you and I both know Santa doesn’t count) and have never let them down. I have never done anything to damage our bond and so they trust me entirely.

I would never have sold them on the panda or the TIE Fighter if I didn’t believe they would love their choices. If your actions are based on integrity and you do what is right for your audience or clients, they will do what is right for you in return.

About the Author: Sean Platt is a direct response copywriter and independent publisher. Follow him on Twitter.

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5 Lessons Learned from a List to Santa (All of Them Can Make You Money)

I’m a big fan of Leo Babauta.

His book, The Power of Less, is required reading for anyone who wants a rewarding life.

But many of Leo’s follower’s think doing less means, well, settling for less.

I’m here to tell you it can mean achieving much more.

In the last 4 years, I’ve been living the power of less.

In fact, I started with that philosophy well before I knew it was one.

Do Less to Achieve More

I annoy many of my partners and friends with my approach.

But the reality is, engaging in busy work is not the secret to success.

Success comes from ignoring the busy and sticking with developing content and pursuing projects that matter to your goals.

That means you need time to think.

Enjoy the Stillness

Don’t get me wrong, I work hard and push the envelope.

But I choose the things I pursue very carefully.

And that means ignoring the immediate until I know the right thing to do.

Again, this often annoys people who want my immediate attention.

But when it’s right, I act . . . and everyone involved is a lot happier with the eventual outcome.

Don’t Do Things That Don’t Matter

The stereotype of the successful person is one who juggles multiple cats in the pursuit of maximum return.

I’m telling you to drop most of those cats, and lovingly embrace that special one.

Making clear decisions about content and projects that work requires clear vision, and you don’t achieve that in a frenzied, half-hazard mode.

Right decisions require the right mindset, and a clear path to achieving the goal.

How clear is your mind right now?

P.S. No cats were harmed in the writing of this post.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

Original post: 
How to Do Less and Get More

You know that “inner child” we hear so much about — the one that’s supposedly deep inside of all of us?

Well, I live with it. As a matter of fact, I call him “Austin.”

In the five years I’ve been a parent, I’ve realized that the notion of the inner child is more than just a neat psychological construct. It’s very nearly a literal thing. As we grow up, we don’t change so much as drape layer after complicated layer of adult emotion on top of that inner child. The child doesn’t vanish; he just gets obscured and filtered.

You don’t get an evolved, new mature being. You get Austin with fifteen blankets over his head.

Because that kid always remains at our core (and if you’ve ever caught yourself playing kids’ games with genuine enjoyment, you know that it does), our base motivations remain as well. They just get a little harder to see.

Kids ask for love; adults have complicated passive-aggressive relationships. Kids eat what tastes good; adults want the cupcake, but worry about it going straight to their thighs.

So you want to learn about marketing? Well, despite the complicated models and terminology that some of the gurus use, it’s actually quite simple. To see what works and why, all you have to do is look to my boy.

Make the customer “want that”

When the TV is on in our house, there are sometimes twelve sequential minutes of relative quiet. Then, as the commercials come on, we get a loud play-by-play as Austin begins talking loudly to nobody:

“I want that.”

“I don’t want that.”

“I want that. That last thing. Not that; the thing before.”

It’s easy to dismiss this as incredibly annoying, but if you think about it, it’s actually really revealing.

(OK, it’s incredibly annoying too.)

Without all of those complex adult filters, kids are a conduit to something we don’t normally allow in the adult world: pure desire. There are none of the shoulds and should nots, no rationalizations and thoughts of what is proper or responsible.

That kid is still inside everyone. So the dead-simple lesson is this: Every sale starts with pure desire. Customers either “want that” or they don’t. The rest is just mental gymnastics to justify that core emotion.

Know what your customer really wants

Recently, Austin stormed through a six pack of kids’ yogurt so that we’d buy more, because each six pack had a tiny, ridiculous comic book inside. Yoplait could have filled those containers with shredded paper and they still would have gotten our dollars if Austin had his way.

Did he want the yogurt? Not so much. He wanted the comic book.

Similarly, we sometimes go to McDonald’s because of the dumb little toys they stick in Happy Meals. Or because of the giant playlands they have everywhere.

I have this experiment I keep meaning to try: I want to tell Austin that McDonald’s serves food, because I think he may be surprised to learn it. We don’t go to McDonald’s for the food. We go for the Batmobile that fires a small plastic stick at the back of my head while I’m driving.

Now . . . Wendy’s? We don’t go to Wendy’s. Their kids’ meal prizes are audiobooks on CD. Bleh. Same basic food, but none of what the boy really wants.

Interestingly, as I write this, I’m sitting at a Borders book store. There’s also a Barnes & Noble in town, but they don’t have as many big poofy chairs to sit in, and their ambient music is too loud. Apparently both stores have the same books, but I wouldn’t know that because I just come here to buy a latte and work in a comfortable chair.

Don’t lie to your customers

Cheers to McDonald’s for recognizing that small toys will get kids in the door. But jeers to our local managers for failing the “implied contract with the customer” test.

Recently, my wife and I were assaulted by a barrage of McDonald’s requests because the current pieces of plastic junk that the clerks were dropping into Happy Meals were Bakugan figures, which are Japanese balls that transform into things. (Don’t ask.)

My wife took Austin once and he returned angry, showing me a nondescript plastic Pancho Villa-like figure with a spinning sombrero. Later, I took him and despite the display for Bakugan, we again walked away with a bogus replacement — a miniature stuffed monkey.

Twice burned, Austin’s McDonald’s lust backed off significantly. And, seeing as our son had been lied to twice, my wife and I instituted a temporary boycott.

Associative conditioning works

We often buy SpongeBob SquarePants macaroni and cheese. It’s terrible. For some reason, a complicated spongelike lattice doesn’t present cheese and pasta in a pleasing ratio. And yet Austin eats it and requests it again and again because SpongeBob is on the box.

I tested the limits of this adoration yesterday over dinner. Austin hates lettuce more than anything in the world, so I asked him if he would eat lettuce that had SpongeBob printed on the leaves and came with a free coloring book. He was all over it.

Then he got mad at me when I told him that such lettuce didn’t exist.

Of course, this only works on small children. Only kids are dumb enough to fall for such a simple trick, right?

Um, not quite. Most advertising is based around associative conditioning, which is taking something that you already like and pairing it with something that they want you to like. Or with someone you already like, in the form of a celebrity (or sponge) endorsement.

You may not buy terrible macaroni because a cartoon tells you to, but you buy Nikes because LeBron James endorses them. Or you buy a phone you can’t actually talk on because it’s white with a silver Apple on it. And if you don’t do those things, then I’ll bet you were buying Pepsi because of Michael Jackson back before they lit his hair on fire.

You may be standing up and denying angrily that you do any of those things, but billions of advertiser dollars say either that you’re quite unique or that you’re mistaken. Maybe you don’t come out and say, “Ooh, Tiger Woods. I want that!” but it happens anyway — deep down, at the inner child level.

Like so many things, marketing can appear way more complicated than it is. But marketing is simple — not always easy, but simple. In fact, it’s so simple that you may be overlooking the reasons it works when it does, and why it doesn’t work when it fails.

If you have kids, look to them. See what they like, and why they like it. See what pushes their buttons, because it’ll tell you a ton. Kids aren’t dumb. They’re just adults without all of those complicated outer layers.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is giving a free teleclass called Attract Clients, Lose the Stress, and Do What You Love tomorrow (November 12, 2009) with his marketing veteran mother. She knows Johnny’s inner child better than he does, because she lived with it for eighteen years.

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What My Five-Year-Old Son Taught Me About Marketing

Buying online is a consumer’s paradise, right?

One can compare competing offers ‘til the heart’s content, all with simple clicks of a mouse.

Well, it’s not that great if you happen to sell online.

And what if I told you it’s not really that great for consumers, either?

Sound crazy? Read on.

Preface: Start with a killer product or service

This should go without saying in our age of global competition and reduced barriers to entry. But so often merchants are looking for a magic bullet to widely distribute something that the market simply finds inferior.

The problem is, there are plenty of people out there with exceptional products and services who are losing out to others with lesser offerings and higher prices.

What’s going on with that?

Superior marketing and sales techniques, that’s what. Here are 3 ways to level the playing field (or even tip the scales in your favor).

1. Eliminate competition with artful positioning

Wouldn’t selling online be wonderful without competition? Well, it’s possible, if only to the extent that a certain type of person considers you the absolute only option. Yes, it’s our friend positioning again, and we’ll keep talking about it because it’s so vital to success.

The traditional approach to positioning involves offering a benefit your competition cannot or will not offer, thereby making your offer the only choice for those who value that benefit. It still works too – look at the insane level of customer service that Zappos offers, and you’ll understand why throngs of people wouldn’t dream of buying shoes elsewhere.

For small and micro-businesses, positioning (a/k/a your unique selling proposition) can be as simple as creating a unique bond with enough people to build a thriving business. Whether by creating a hybrid business at the intersection of disciplines, crafting a better metaphor that communicates what people need to hear, or creating an emotional bond and huge trust based on your own personality, modern online positioning has come down to connections that resonate authentically and generate loyalty.

Remember, it’s not about where you rank in a hierarchy against others. It’s about carving out your unique territory and owning it outright.

2. Confront your competitors proactively

Let’s face it, in some markets, positioning alone might not get it done. When you’re selling retail items such as consumer electronics or commodity goods, shoppers are more focused on overall value for the buck.

The most common merchant response to the threat of online comparison shopping is not very effective. “Hey, let’s pretend they’re not there!” is nice as wishful thinking, but let’s be realistic.

You’ll hear time and again that the initial objectives of copy in a call-to-action environment is to 1) attract attention; 2) express benefits; and 3) overcome objections. The fact that your prospect thinks you have legitimate competition is really just an objection to buying from you right now.

Instead of sticking your head in the ground, why not proactively address why your offer is better than the other guy’s? Don’t assume that your prospect “gets” that your offer is superior; “show” her it’s better by doing a head-to-head comparison with charts, checklists, or even an interactive apples-to-apples demonstration.

People examining your offer want you to be the solution to their desire or problem. It’s your job to eliminate the lingering doubt that exists in the form of objections, and like it or not, your competition is one of those objections.

3. Emotional benefits make everyone happy

We tell you over and over (and over) to focus first on benefits rather than features, because people decide to buy based on lightening-fast emotional responses, and justify that decision with logic. But what if it turned out that making purchase decisions via emotion (instead of by overly-rational research and price shopping) actually made us happier?

Recent psychological resaerch indicates just that. The study focused on using proven methods to impede logical decision-making, thereby forcing people to go with emotional, intuitive choices instead.

The results?

Those who used primarily emotion rather than primarily logic made more consistent choices. And consistency is one of the hallmarks of a “rational actor.” In other words, the “emotional” people made more “rational” choices than those who focused on rationality!

What does that mean? From the study:

For the consumers, contrary to lay perceptions, attending to one’s emotional responses may prove to be very valuable in understanding one’s preferences. It is possible consumers would be much happier with choices based more on their emotional reaction. For example, if one buys a house and relies on very cognitive attributes such as resale value, one may not be as happy actually living in it, as opposed to a person who attends to his or her emotional reaction to the house prior to purchasing it.

Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide, thinks that online price shopping might actually make us unhappy. He notes that the study speculates that the Internet leads consumers to engage in more rational deliberation, which in turn produces an outcome that contradicts our assumptions about the “online shopping paradise.”

Remember, when introduced to an emotional benefit in an offer, neurology shows that our brains react as if we were already experiencing the actual benefit. In essence, employing emotional benefits not only begins the customer satisfaction experience before the sale, this latest research indicates that initial satisfaction maintains after the sale.

Isn’t bonding with prospects and customers better for everyone?

It’s amazing how many of the initial assumptions sparked by the Internet continue to be dead wrong. E-commerce was supposed to benefit the consumer by providing limitless options, and yet the counterintuitive paradox of choice shows that too many options make us anxious and unhappy.

Instead, we now have an entire movement devoted to voluntary simple living. We don’t necessarily want more choice; we want something that does what we need it to do when we desire a solution.

In an ultra-competitive environment, a quality product or service is an indisputable market obligation (and I’d say an ethical obligation as well). But given how we actually operate as human beings in the face of overwhelming choice, isn’t a communication approach that bonds emotionally with our prospective customers also a market obligation? Perhaps even an ethical one?

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

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Three Ways to Make Your Competitors Irrelevant

How’d you like to learn how to get a massive amount of comments on one blog post?

Better yet, what if you could use those comments to convince your readers to buy your products or services?

Because you can. In this post, I’m going to take you behind the scenes of a strategy Laura Roeder showed me to pull in 294 comments on my post and eventually attract more than 30 consulting clients.

It uses all of the copywriting techniques and psychological triggers that we promote here at Copyblogger, but it combines them in a unique way that generates a lot of buzz.

Here’s why that’s important:

Why buzz is essential for selling anything

Have you ever hesitated to buy something because you didn’t see anyone else interested in it? You were genuinely interested in the product — you just didn’t want to be first?

We all do it. It’s a well-documented phenomenon that psychologists like Robert Cialdini call social proof.

The question is: how do you deal with it, if you’re trying to sell something?

If you’ve watched any of our product launches here at Copyblogger, you’ve probably noticed that they generate a lot of buzz. People are talking about them on Twitter, course members write about them on their blogs, and many of the influential bloggers in our niche help us promote the course. Altogether, it’s a huge amount of buzz.

And it’s far from accidental. We prepare for weeks or even months before the launch date in order to make sure everyone is buzzing about the product all at one time. We want to give prospective customers as much social proof as possible, so that they can feel comfortable with buying it.

Except . . . what if you don’t have a big blog like Copyblogger? What if you’re just getting started, and you have hardly any readers at all?

Is it still possible to create buzz?

Yes.

Creating fans out of thin air

A few months ago, I noticed a lot of buzz on Twitter related to a video from Laura Roeder about creating fans out of thin air.

After speaking on a panel at South by Southwest, working with celebrities like Brea Grant from NBC’s Heroes, and creating some stellar results for small businesses of all kinds, Laura is quickly becoming a preeminent social media expert, and her video lays out one of the best strategies for generating buzz that I’ve seen.

Here’s how it works:

1. Hold a competition where the winner gets a free sample of your product or service
2. Build buzz with social media (Twitter, Facebook, your blog, etc.)
3. Use that buzz as social proof, convincing folks that didn’t win to pay you for your product or service

The only problem with her approach is that it’s a little simplistic. You can tell Laura is targeting business owners who are inexperienced with social media, and she’s trying to make it as easy as possible. Instead of using a blog to showcase the competition, she shows you how to create a simple website with Google.

But can this strategy work just as well for bloggers?

You bet. Let me show you how I modified it to take advantage of the powerful social proof from comments.

How I launched a consulting service here at Copyblogger

Imagine this.

A reader stops by your blog and sees that you are giving away 20-30 free consultations. All they have to do to have a chance to be chosen is leave a comment with their biggest frustration. So, they take a few minutes to jot one down.

Later, they see that there are 100s of other comments, and they’re not surprised when they don’t win. The demand is enormous!

But then what happens? A few days later, you announce that you were absolutely overwhelmed with the response, but you’re willing to do a limited number of additional consultations for $95 each. The first people to email you get them.

How do you think your reader is going to feel?

Sure, some of them might hold back because they figure they’ve already lost their chance. Others will have no interest in your services, so they’ll go on their merry way. But after seeing all of those comments, none of them will doubt that your services are in demand.

The social proof in the form of comments helps people see the value in the offer you’re making.

It may seem a bit sneaky, but it works. I’m spilling my secrets here, because the above scenario is exactly what I did to launch my consulting services here at Copyblogger, and I’ve been booked solid ever since. The demand was so high that I had several people offering double or even triple the normal rate if I would move them to the head of the line.

The key. of course, is to offer true value. But beyond that, there are plenty of people offering great value in obscurity.

Don’t be one of them.

It’s the power of social proof that makes the difference, and you don’t need a huge blog to harness it. Here’s how to launch a product or service from your blog, even if your audience is still fairly small:

How to launch a product or service from your blog

Step 1: Watch Laura’s video about Creating Fans Out Of Thin Air. It’s the foundation for this approach.

Step 2: Write a post announcing that you’re giving away a limited number of free samples of your product or service to readers who leave a comment describing their biggest frustration with a certain topic. If your audience is small, don’t do 20-30 free consultations like I did. Start with 5 or 10.

Step 3: Use the competition to create lots of buzz on Twitter. Get all of your friends to tweet about it. Also, ask the winners to tweet a testimonial for you, helping you create even more buzz.

Step 4: Offer a special deal on your product or service to everyone who didn’t win. I didn’t even follow this step, and I was still overwhelmed with clients.

Step 5: Write another post on your blog pointing to all of the comments on your first post and telling everyone how you’re overwhelmed with entries, so you decided to go ahead and put the product up for sale.

That’s it.

I used this process to launch a consulting service, but really, you can use it for anything. In fact, Laura has several more videos about how anyone can harness the power of social media to help get customers talking about their business.

Click here to check them out. If you’re interested in learning how all of this social media hoopla converts into money, I really think they’ll help you.

On Monday, Laura is following up with a post about how she helped Brea Grant (Daphne from NBC’s Heroes) use social media to build her career. I think you’ll get a lot out of it, but don’t forget to sign up for the other videos as well.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on twitter.

Original post: 
How I Got 294 Comments With One Blog Post