Every so often there comes along a book that completely changes the way that I think about advertising and marketing and About Face is one of them.

Dan goes into great detail about how we truly react to advertising and it’s not in the cognitive areas in the brain. In fact, the cognitive area (where language resides) may actually lie to us to protect our self-image…you know the people who say they watch public television to sound smart, but they really can’t stand it?

There is a part of our brains that has no language but controls our emotions. Dan and his team have found a way to learn what we’re really thinking about ads by examining our facial expressions. We all do it. There are micro-expressions that last a fraction of a second that show our true feelings about what we are viewing. An example that Dan uses in the book helped lead to the Dove “Real Beauty” commercials, that showed women of varying shapes celebrated by the skin care company. When the original video was shown to the target market, they scowled at the skinny models in their undies. “I don’t look like that, so this product can’t be for me” they thought and their expressions belied those sentiments.

Through his research, Dan Hill and his team can tell us which type of advertising resonates most with people, how the same types of advertising win awards, and just how easily influenced we can be by our environment. The photo below is a passage about how changing the music in a wine store influences our purchases and how brands can engage senses other than sight to influence our behavior. Have you noticed how Hilton Hotels offer freshly-baked cookies when you check in? There’s a science to that.

Without getting too long-winded, this is a must-have reference for anyone who is serious about making advertising that motivates and memorized.

Check it out and I’d love to hear your thoughts about the book and what Dan has to say. Get the Kindle version:

Why should you care? Because how people handle conflict is direct representation of their values. You cannot reach an audience unless you understand, appreciate and share their values. There’s a shameless plug for the book in the article. I got it, and it is fascinating. A quick review to follow.

My mother works for United Airlines. Another giant corporation with their own way of speaking. Every company does; every industry does. It’s just the manner of things. You’re a part of a group when you can speak their language.

I’ll tie this into marketing and usability in just a second. Promise.

So I just got a text from her saying that she has boarded a flight from Pittsburgh to Dulles International Airport. Being the airline veteran that she is, she uses military time, 1100 for 11:00AM, 1500 for 3:00PM. She used an airline term that mean that the plane is getting ready to leave the gate to head to the runway: Pushing back.

Mom's text: note the use of military or "Zulu" time and the airport call letters. She's in the zone.

Pushing back means something completely different at Capital One. There, it describes a situation where you are challenging someone’s assessment of facts or recommendation for a course of action. You are “pushing back” against that idea or recommendation.

Why is this important?

Because when you are communicating to your audience, usually a segment of your audience, they have a certain language that they speak and your brand, to establish credibility (CapOne term), you need to be able to speak their language as fluently as they do.

Do your homework. Speak to your audience like they would speak to each other. Than ensures that whatever you’re trying to say won’t be met with skepticism and confusion.

If your audience can’t understand you, there’s no way that they’ll believe that you understand them.

You’re now free to move about the cabin.

One of the main reasons that I am glad that they aren’t around anymore is that no one, including me, connected with this project ever asked the question: What do you want this site to do for you? Of course now I ask the question as a matter of routine.

What I am noticing now that time has passed, business owners are doing the same thing with social media. ” We need a social media presence” and that’s the end of the sentence, and I suspect, the end of the thought process. That’s unfortunate, because with social media, you’re playing with fire.

Brand Love

So how does a company build a community around their brand? There are a few steps, and not all of them are simple.

Define your brand as a persona: What does your brand like? Dislike? Stand for? Stand against? What is the ethos of your brand? What is your brand promise? Your brand story? And what kind of car would it drive? Some of these questions sound silly, but you’ll need to look at your brand as an individual actor amongst a group of actors in the social media ecosystem.

Once you have defined your brand as a persona, then develop a list of keywords that have a connection to your brand. This is a good time to break out that mind-mapping app and gather people who know your brand and whose judgement you trust. The more diverse the group the better.

Now that you have found your brand’s persona, who are the people that would gravitate towards the products and services that represent your brand at it’s best? What do they like? Dislike? Stand for? Once you have identified that audience, then come up with the keywords that connect to that audience.

See how those keywords mesh. When you combine those lists, you may come up with new keywords. Make that your master list.

Now, if you haven’t already, set up your social media touch points; Facebook and Twitter at a minimum. Once those are set up, make sure that all of your other touch points mention your social media presence. Current customers can be a great way to build your fan base.

Okay. So everything is set up to go after new fans. Four steps:

Invite: Through your social media and other channels, invite your target audience to join your fan page or follow you on Twitter. You can find these people by searching the Twitterverse or Facebook using your previously developed keywords and see who comes up. Engage them honestly in your authentic brand voice and ask them to check you out. Some will, some won’t. The trick is to keep at it.

Incentivize: Integral to the invite process is to create an incentive for them to like your brand or follow you. This incentive needs to align with the values of your brand and the values of your audience. If your brand is aligned against an environmentally-conscious group, perhaps a $1.00 contribution to reduce their carbon footprint for every like might get them to sign up.

Impress: Show your audience how authentic your brand is and gain credibility with this group and their trust. Give examples of when you’re putting your money where your mouth is, or show real world examples of how your product is helping people just like them.

Interact: Here is where many businesses drop the ball. Once you have initiated a conversation with your audience, you must continue to communicate with them and respond to them as if you are in a real conversation (because you are). You must also remember that your brand is just one of the people speaking in this many-to-many communications model. Of those that actually try your product or service, make sure that they are blown away. If you do create an impression on (hopefully delight) a customer, invite them (again) to make their thoughts known on your social media page, regardless of their experience. They will feel heard. Through this process, you will create brand advocates who will make the job of getting new sign-ups easier.

Remember those keywords? When you make a post, any post, make sure that at least one of those keywords are included in every post or tweet. Make good use of the hash-tag (#) in Twitter AND Facebook. This will make it easier for others to find you. Over time, your brand will become associated with those keywords and in the minds of your new, growing, vibrant fan base.

Mind map of social media strategy for Celebrations on Market

I’d love to hear any thoughts you may have on the subject and any details about your experience creating/maintaining your social media strategy.

Here’s what it did:

• Established me as a subject matter expert
• Demonstrated that I’m interested in their success, regardless of their budget
• Indicated that I have more tricks up my sleeve

Sometimes giving information away is a great way to build trust and perhaps a client. I left the door open to them to work together if their budget permitted. I’ll keep you posted on their response.

Remember the traveling salesman that would put his foot in the door to keep it from being slammed in his face? Your emails can be like that, albeit a little more welcome.

You or your creative professional can design an email that is compelling and cross-platform compliant, but it is the subject line that makes or breaks a campaign.
The key to success is managing the recipient’s expectations when the email arrives.

Before anyone opens an email, they ask themselves the following questions:

Who is this?
Make sure that your email subject line identifies who you are and your relationship to the user. A line like “Thanks for signing up for the M19 MEDIA mailing list” properly identifies you to the user as someone that they know.

Why are you contacting me?
People generally don’t like surprises and are leery of opening emails for fear of viruses and all sorts of other bad things. Give them a specific sense of what the email is about before they open it. “Claim your small business social media marketing report for signing up with M19 MEDIA” let’s the user know what they can expect to find when they open the email.

How did you get my email address?
Many email marketers take too long to respond to people who sign up for their email mailing list. That time lag can allow your user to forget all about that form that they filled out on your site. Make sure that, even though they opted in twice, that you send them a reminder within a day or so to remind them that they did. Here, you can use the email client’s preview pane to accomplish that goal. Many email clients will display the first sentences of your email and here is where you can lead off with the reminder that they signed up in the first place.

What do you want?
Make sure that your offer or Call to Action is displayed in the subject line. Tiger Direct does a good job of putting some of their specials in the subject line. So even if I am not interested in a 21″ monitor for $200, I know that the email is about their special sales for that week. “Thanks for signing up for M19 MEDIA’s mailing list. Your 30% coupon is ready!”

Why should I care?
Your email subject line should that be relevant to the audience that is receiving it. This means that you may have to segment your list so that everyone gets an email that means the most to them. “Solve your small business lead generation with this white paper from M19 MEDIA.” should get the attention of a small business owner that is struggling with lead generation. That person will likely open my email.

Some other considerations:

Make the Call to Action time sensitive. Emails that feel urgent or require immediate action usually get opened more quickly, especially if the email arrives soon after the user signed up for the email newsletter.

Avoid spammy words. This should be easy when you are customizing your email subject line to resonate with your audience. Here is a list of words/phrases to avoid.

Stay tuned for a post about email content!

This prospect has a great concept to take their brand’s product to the next level and wanted to discuss with me how to go about getting into the mobile app arena. They said that they have ideas that they wanted to keep secret. No problem, I responded, I will bring along a standard NDA (non-disclosure agreement) so everyone can speak freely. After a nice preliminary discussion and a few moments of wrangling over just what the NDA was supposed to protect, I finally said, “This document is designed more for your protection than it is for mine. ” When I began to volunteer advice about how best to tackle their problem, the owner of the company set the NDA aside and said “I don’t need this. I trust you.”

The reason for this post is that, yes, in the information age, information is power. Many people then guard information so closely that they come off cagey, vague and shifty. Not the best way to build trust with your client.

Establishing your expertise is one of the best ways to build user/customer/confidence in your brand. So how better to establish your expertise than giving away some information for free. Demonstrate that you have expertise to spare by being free with your knowledge. Don’t be threatened by sharing what you know because the implication of sharing is “what can they do if they really tried?”

So if you have a client that needs some free advice on a subject you know a lot about, do them and yourself a favor and just give it to them. You’ll be helping to win over a new fan and perhaps sales and referrals down the road.

This has been an issue with every freelancer in his/her career, and it also resonates with my small business clients. How do I get what I feel I am worth?

The simple answer is that you have to ask for it, be prepared to negotiate a little, and then move on if you don’t. But of course, there are some mitigating factors at hand:

The economy is still terrible for nearly everyone. Many businesses don’t feel as though they have the money to spend on design and strategy. My counter is that this isn’t a spend per se, but an investment. An investment in new customers and adding to their bottom line. Most small business owners don’t realize that when the market is sour, this is the very time to invest in marketing. While others are pulling back, your brand can be front and center and will reap the benefits of that exposure when things get better again.

There are so many free website plans out there. That’s a tough one. How can anyone compete with free or nearly free? Quality. Unless this particular client is a designer him/herself, chances are they will build a site that looks like it was built with a wizard. They don’t understand usability. They don’t get information architecture. They probably don’t know what their marketing strategy is or how to implement a multi-channel campaign. That’s where the service professional has an edge. Offer (and deliver) on quality, backed by expertise and experience.

People don’t value what I do. That can be true, but give them an example that they can relate to. Ask them about their favorite commercial or website. Let them know that it is quite likely a team of people worked on that site to make it that great. Let them know that it takes a lot of know-how (know-how that they don’t have) to make advertising effective and worth the cost.

So here are some things that you can do to get the dollars you want:

Emphasize your talents/skills. Make sure that your skills are on display on your website or on your business card. Your site should be a showcase of your abilities. If your site is impressive, then it will be easier to get to “yes” from your prospective.

Sell your services as an investment, not an expense. Focus on the results of the design plan. Remind them that you’re there to help them make money/get new customers/build their brand. Make everything you do about THEM, not you.

Have a contract. Contracts let people know that you are a professional and not to be taken lightly. Here is a sample contract to get you started.

Have an elevator pitch. Something short, sweet and to the point. Make a declarative statement and then provide two – three reasons that make that statement true:

XYZ Design is a full-service, multi-channel design and strategy firm. We handle digital projects, mass media design and marketing strategy for business just like yours.We’ve won a couple of awards for our work, and while we’re proud of that, we focus on the results we get for our clients. Our strength is in integration. We make sure that your brand/message is consistent regardless of the medium.

It will make you sound more polished and ready to get down to business.

Be prepared to give. A little. No one wants to be stonewalled when negotiating price. Build in a little cushion in your price and then be prepared to hand that over as a carrot in the negotiation, if there is one.

Walk the walk. This not a license to be arrogant, but through your body language and the words that you choose, that you are helping them, not the other way around. You have the expertise, not them. You have the skills, not them. Remind yourself of that before you walk into the meeting.

Get more work under your belt. I gave away sites for a long time, and still will barter services if there is a new technology/technique that I’d like to try. The more you do, the better you become at it. You’ll be able to go through your mental library and bring up a project that is similar to the one that you’re proposing. Just like surgery, you want the guy who’s done this many times before.

Get testimonials. Sure, you can say all the right things, but clients like to hear from other clients about your services. Have testimonials on your site. They do go a long way.

Get referrals. My business runs on referrals. Once you have a client that is happy with your work, create incentives for them to refer you to others. Offer them a free layout of a new flyer or business card if they bring you a customer that signs a contract. You can actually charge the new person a little more because you already have the leverage of enhanced reputation and a recommendation from a person that they trust.

While I am addressing this mainly to creatives, small business clients that are looking for their services would be well-advised to look for these characteristics when selecting a provider.

I ask a prospective client about his/her goals, and they invariably say something along the lines of “increase sales” or “get more customers”, but many small businesses don’t have a clue about how to keep the customers that they have or improve the relationship that they have with them in order to make them more than one shot deals, or, better yet, get valuable referrals from them.

It’s a known fact that it’s cheaper to keep a customer than it is to get a new one, a fact that is lost on many small business owners.

The Customer Relationship Life Cycle

Essentially, the Customer Relationship Life Cycle works like this; every customer goes through these stages of engagement with your brand:

• Awareness
• Engagement or Exploration
• Familiarity
• Commitment
• Separation

Each of those stages is an event and requires event marketing. This is not to be confused with a Back To School sale or a newspaper ad for Mother’s Day. This is about the events on the Customer Life Cycle.

The basic idea is to keep your customers in the Engagement/Commitment phases as long as possible. It used to be a time where people became loyal to a brand because that brand was what they grew up with or was the only game in town. Not so any more. There is competition from all over the globe to provide the kinds of good and services that you do.

So you have to have a plan. Here are some key concepts to remember:

Acknowledge Engagement

Small businesses need to have a strategy to deliver a message to each customer when they reach a certain engagement milestone on the Customer Life Cycle. What do you tell a person when they make their first purchase? Their tenth? Their fiftieth? Or if they haven’t made a purchase in a very long time? Each of those events is an opportunity to deliver a customized message to that particular customer that a) acknowledges the event, b) thanks/rewards them for the behavior that led to that event and c) creates an incentive to continue said behavior. Keep doing this and that customer will advance onto the next stage of the Customer Life Cycle.

Create Customer Evangelists

So when you have rewarded a customer to the point that they are in the Commitment stage of the Customer Life Cycle, something wonderful happens. They start telling their social network (friend, family, coworkers, Facebook, Twitter) about the wonderful relationship that they have with your brand. Think I’m kidding? Stand in a group of men and tell them that you are looking for a mechanic. You know the response that you’ll get. Each of them will tell you that “their guy” split the atom.

Now you have a “sales force” working for you, bringing you even more business.

Develop a Multi-Channel CRM Strategy

Sit with your creative/marketing people (insert shameless pitch for M19 MEDIA here) and devise a plan to communicate with your customer base on a regular basis. Email is the cheapest way to do so, but don’t forget the other channels, like direct response mail. If you have a storefront, you can use postcards to bring them in. Likewise with lo-so media, like Foursquare. Create incentives for repeated check-ins or purchases. Or, if your base is small enough, call them! Whatever you do, communicate your gratitude and you’ll keep those customers for life.

Now we have been working with some pretty traditional stuff but giving it a whole new twist with Facebook’s ability to mircotarget audiences and drill down to that set of people that will really respond to the marketing message. But now that we have the audience and they are ready to follow the call to action, what do we do with them then?

As I mentioned in the last post, we’re looking for conversions. And in this scenario, the conversion occurs when the user clicks to read an excerpt from Cal’s book. The hope is that the reader will then continue down the funnel and choose to purchase a book. When I started tracking the conversion rates, the numbers were fairly low. We needed a way to get people to perform the call to action.

Enter design and usability!

One of the things that I noticed first was that when users got to the landing page, that they were going straight for the top-level navigation. Under normal circumstances, that would be a good thing, but I wanted them to click a button further down the page. The client didn’t have the budget to build a dedicated landing page, so a page within the site would have to be modified.

Here is the landing page:

One little design element can make all the difference!

You’ve seen this before in my last post. What is new from the other version is the large badge in the bottom right corner of the first read image.

Chances are, the user will be attracted to the image first. Remembering the lessons in usablity from the web, I placed the badge in the lower right corner, where people tend to look for calls to action. The badge tell them “Right here! This is what you’re looking for!”

So far, conversions are up nearly 50% from a 14.29% goal completion rate just last week to a 24.19% goal completion rate today. Just from one little badge.

Sales are up, too. The numbers are still small, yes, but there was a whopping 850% increase in sales from the week before the change to the week after. Can’t argue with those facts. I’ll keep monitoring the stats and report back.

So when you are looking for a creative provider, make sure that they understand those tenets of usability, task-oriented design and the analytic that drive strategic creative decisions.