Wizard of Ads Partners

Today's shoppers have more money than time. 

Today's shoppers are comparison shopping more and more online rather than in-store.

Today's shoppers are going directly to the business they feel is most likely to have what they want, and they are walking into the front door with every intention of buying.

Today's shoppers are in your business because they want to buy. How many are walking out of your business empty handed and disappointed?

Is your business sure to deliver all you promise in your ads and on your website?

Bad times are whenever the customer is made to wait. Understandably, they don't like it, but as reasonable beings, they'll do it - up to a point. Beyond that, though, comes trouble.

In study after study, we've seen that the single most important factor in determining a shopper's opinion of the service he or she receives is waiting time. If shoppers think the wait wasn't too bad, they'll feel as though they were treated capably, and well. If the wait went on too long, they feel as though the service was poor and inept.

Quite simply, a short wait enhances the entire shopping experience and a long one poisons it.

- Paco Underhill, from the Book Why We Buy, The Science of Shopping 

By Jeff Sexton
Wizard of Ads Partner & Persuasion Architect with Future Now Inc

From the Editor: Make sure you watch the below video as I'm sure you experience this type of sales person on a regular basis. I know I do. And it is something that really gets me irritated.

We laugh when we see parodies of bad behavior in marketing and sales, but have you really thought about how NOT to do this with your web copy?

If a sales person avoids the dreaded "show-up and throw-up" technique by engaging in honest conversation and asking intelligent questions while answering yours in a respectful manner, then how is your Web copy supposed to be a substitute for that?

It's as simple as ABC — and, no, I don't mean "Always Be Closing"…

A) Hire a great copywriter or become one yourself.

B) Blueprint/plan persona-based copy.

C) Write persuasive hyperlinks that fit into your plan/blueprint.

Personas let you see your customers real. And that allows you to write to them instead of writing at them, which is huge. But more importantly, personas let you hear the other side of the conversation by giving you insights into your customers' motivations — and that enables you to anticipate your visitors questions, which is where embedded links come in.

Every click a visitor takes represents a question they are asking you (or possibly a response to a prodding question your copy has raised). By anticipating the questions visitors are most likely to have, a smart copywriter can use embedded hyperlinks to model the interactive flow of a conversation. Your copy talks, then your visitors talk by clicking on the links most relevant to them. The more often a visitor clicks on a link and feels she's been heard, the more she has her expectations met and questions answered, the more her website visit resembles honest dialog. And that's effective selling.

Conversely, the more your website fails to answer — or even to acknowledge — visitor questions, the more your Web copy resembles the “show-up and throw-up” doofus in the video:

Does your copy speak to your visitors or are you just vomiting up a canned sales pitch? Are you anticipating visitor questions and concerns with your hyperlinks or are you expecting them to respond to ridiculous questions (“What will it take to put you in a new car today?”)?

Visit all Jeff's Future Now articles here.

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By Wizard Partner, Steve Clark (CEO New School Selling)

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In my consulting practice the hardest thing to get clients to do is to change their behavior. While they logically agree —at the intellectual level—that they need to change things they seldom make the significant changes that would propel their business forward.

Before you start thinking you are different you must realize that they are you and you are they.

A Universal Truth

The human organism is resistant to change. The body tries to maintain what physiologists call homeostasis. This is the physical state of equilibrium or status quo. The body is designed to operate in a very narrow range of physiological processes. The brain is no different.

We all refuse to change our ways for reasons that are often hard to articulate.

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*Personal Experience Factor or PEF - An advertisers reputation, through experience. The growth or decline of a company will ultimatley follow that comapny's PEF as it rises and falls above and below the industry average.