Discover The Hidden Persuasion Techniques Concealed In Online Ads
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Today's guest post gives you great tips and strategies for developing powerful ads - using hidden persuasion techniques from John Greathouse.
During my tenure at Expertcity (creator of GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting),
one of my responsibilities was leading our online marketing, a role I retained until
our eventual acquisition by Citrix.
When we launched GoToMyPC in 2001, the rules of online
marketing were still being written. Along with GoToMyPC, companies like
Netflix, Classmates and ZoneLabs were learning from each other. Since then, the
craft of advertising online has matured from an art to a science, as evidenced
by the GoToMyPC ad which I dissect below.
In his book Enchantment , Guy Kawasaki
encourages entrepreneurs to immerse their audience in their “cause”, in order
to enchant them. One of the immersion
techniques Guy promotes is to offer a hands-on trial, in which the prospective
customer can touch, feel and experience your product before purchasing it.
If you care to learn more about the enchantment process, you may want to
watch my interview with Guy HERE, in which he provides a number of enchanting tips and tricks.
Characteristics Of
An Effective Direct Response Trial Offer
In Chapter 5 of Enchantment, Guy
identifies the following characteristics of an effective trial offer.
· -Easy
-Immediate
· -Inexpensive
-Concrete
-Reversible
I tested the efficacy of Guy’s criteria by reviewing a cross section of online,
direct response trial offers. In most instances, the majority of the above
characteristics were present. In one particular GoToMyPC trial offer, Guy’s
suggestions are coupled with a number of additional persuasion techniques. I
illustrate the use of these tactics of influence below.
Guy’s
Recommendations In Action
Other Persuasion
Factors
In addition to the five factors described by Kawasaki to encourage
consumers to accept trials, this particular ad contains a number of additional
persuasion techniques, including:
Call To Action – Effective direct response ads are often more explicit in their call to action than the example show here. For instance, terms like “Click to start your free trial,” or “Click here,” are not evident. This muted call to action might reflect that the ad was intended to also be used as a component of a landing page that would display a more visible call to action. It might also be that within the forums in which these ads were shown, an aggressive, in-your-face approach would have been inappropriate.
The sunburst design around the circle is no accident. Our testing
consistently found that such “bursts” (as we called them) were always more
effective than a simple circle. Similarly, the orange color show here is the
same color we used years ago, as we found it to be more efficacious than
alternatives.
A/B Testing – We learned that
orange was the ideal color and that a burst was better than a circle via rigorous
A/B testing. This methodology involves alternating ads which are identical,
with exception of one key variable. This approach facilitates isolating the
relative impact of individual elements of an ad campaign.
Although I have no first-hand knowledge, I am pretty confident that Citrix
found through rigorous testing that the zero with a line through it was more
effective than a plain zero. A/B testing requires marketers to leave their egos
and emotions at the door and allow quantifiable metrics to drive their
decisions.
Common Name – As Cialdini, et
al note in Yes! - 50 Scientifically
Proven Ways To Be Persuasive, liking (and thus persuasiveness) is
accentuated when the persuader has a name that is similar to the person being
persuaded. In one study, 56% of the subjects were twice as likely to complete a
survey sent by someone with a name similar to their own, versus 30% of the
subjects in the control group.
The model’s name might actually be Kathy Jones or possibly a real “Kathy
Jones” wrote the testimonial. However, given the generic nature of the name and
the persuasive power of similar names, my presumption is that this name was
strategically selected.
Smiles Work – Smiling invokes
liking, which heightens persuasion, as long as the smile is deemed to be
genuine. In Yes!, the authors
describe a study in which restaurant customers were consistently “more
satisfied” with the service provided by waitstaff who displayed genuine smiles,
as compared to food servers who displayed disingenuous smiles.
Attractive Peer – People buy from
people they like. People like people who are like them. As such, marketers seek
images of peers derived from the target audience they are seeking to influence.
In this case, the ad is clearly speaking to professional mothers who need the
flexibility to work from home in order to tend to childrearing and other
domestic responsibilities.
It is also a scientifically proven fact that attractive people are rated
as more credible and likeable (and thus more persuasive), as compared to people
with average and below-average appearances. In one study of Canadian federal
elections, researchers noted that attractive politicians received two and a
half times as many votes as their less attractive opponents.
In a review of the Pennsylvania judicial system, researchers determined
that attractive defendants were twice as likely to avoid jail, as compared to
their unattractive counterparts. Of those attractive defendants who were sent
to jail, they consistently received shorter sentences than those given to less-attractive
criminals. Cialdini summarizes this phenomenon by stating, “…good-looking people enjoy an enormous social advantage in our
culture. They are better liked, more persuasive, more frequently helped and
seen as possessing better personality traits and intellectual capabilities.”
As such, it is no surprise that marketers have used pretty people to sell their
products since the dawn of modern advertising. Direct response trials are no
exception.
Gender Bias
To belie any fears that folks at Citrix are sexist, I have included below a
nearly identical ad which utilizes a male model. Note that he also displays an
authentic smile and has a common name. Everything else in the ad is identical,
except the testimonial, which highlights reducing the user’s time spent at the
office after hours and on weekends. The implication of the ads’ respective
testimonials is that women are more prone to work from home in order to balance
their family obligations, whereas men are more likely to work late and on weekends.
Peer testimonials are more impactful than recommendations from people who
are dissimilar from the intended audience. Thus, a man in a tie delivers the
“work late” message, while a professional woman of child rearing age
communicates the “work balance” referral.
On a side note, when I was marketing GoToMyPC, our A/B testing
consistently found a gender bias with regard to both male and female consumers.
Ads which displayed a photo of a woman nearly always out-performed identical
ads in which we substituted a photo of a man. It would be interesting to know
if this is the case with these two direct response trial ads.
High Volume Means
Sumpin Is Workin’
Unlike traditional advertising campaigns, which are difficult to track,
direct response trial ads follow the Pour And Stir methodology. When such ads work, advertisers are
comfortable placing significant money into promoting them because they can
directly track the point at which they reach diminishing returns. As long as
the cost per customer is less than the average customer’s lifetime value, each
incremental customer increases the value of the company.
Thus, whenever you notice a high frequency of direct response ads, online
or otherwise, you can be sure that such ads are effective. Whether it is a
Snuggie, the ShamWow or GoToMyPC, the techniques implemented in such
high-rotation ads are persuading their targeted demographics to take the
desired actions.
As such, entrepreneurs can learn a tremendous amount about effective
online persuasion by studying the characteristics of high-volume, direct
response ads. Especially ads created marketing masters, such as Citrix Online.
Special thanks to our guest blogger: John Greathouse
John is a serial entrepreneur and professor turned venture capitalist. He led marketing of GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting before he sold his company to Citrix. He also sold a direct response marketing company that he Co-founded to Coull and managed The Tearaways, a gifted power pop band. You can follow his startup-oriented blog here: infoChachkie and his entrepreneurial Twitterfeed here: @johngreathouse
Marketing Blog founder and top-selling author Michael Fleischner has been featured on The TODAY Show, ABC World News, and Bloomerg Radio. 
2 comments :
Helpful information, I will apply it and see what the results will be.
Nice thought to share. About the gender bias, I think that one will be there forever. It's something that has been there and will always be there for the time being.
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