Monday’s Mental Minute

Forget what mom said about video games being bad for you. It turns out that scientists from the Mind Research Network have found that playing old school Tetris(R) for 30 minutes a day can sharpen your brain.

And of course, a sharper brain translates into a calmer, more productive you.

The researchers studied one group of adolescent girls who played the video game Tetris every day for three months, while another group of adolescent girls did not.

Before and after MRI scans showed the Tetris girls had increased brain efficiency in areas associated with critical thinking, reasoning, and language and processing.

The Tetris girls also developed a thicker cortex (a sign of more gray matter). However, the thicker cortex was in different areas of the brain–areas believed to be responsible for planning complex, coordinated movements and multisensory integration.

So exactly how a thicker cortex and greater brain efficiency are related remains a mystery.

The researchers used Tetris because it requires many cognitive processes, such as attention, eye-hand coordination, memory, and visual spatial problem solving–all working together in a very short span of time.

On a different note…other research from Oxford University shows that Tetris may also help reduce flashbacks from traumatic events, if played a short time after the event, by competing for the brain’s resources for sensory information.

So I wonder if playing the game after less traumatic events–such as a presentation gone bad or big social gaffe–could keep you from painfully playing the scene over and over again in your head…

Given that 25-year-old Tetris is the best-selling mobile phone game and is available on nearly every gaming platform–not to mention, for free at www.tetrisk.com–it shouldn’t be too hard to find when you have some downtime.

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Monday’s Mental Minute

Hope everyone in the U.S. had a good holiday last Monday–sometimes there’s no better stress relief than a day off!

Today’s MMM resource does double duty–it gives you a place to outsource small admin or marketing tasks inexpensively and it’s sure to make you laugh!

Fiverr is a site where people list what they’re willing to do for–you guessed it!–five dollars. The more helpful offers run the gamut from virtual assistance to making audio recordings to creating an iPhone app for your website…pretty much anything you can imagine needing done.

Although, like anything, going the bottom-of-the-barrel price route means you may get what you pay for.  But then again, if you’re unhappy, you’re only out $5!

In categories such as Fun & Bizarre or Silly Stuff, you’ll also find quite a few offers  from some of the more creative community members–such as the one below…

Hey, you never know when that might come in handy, right?!

At any rate, whether you have a small project to get off your plate or just need a stress-reducing laugh, Fiverr is a fun site to check!

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Small business owners and entrepreneurs often ask what a good response rate or conversion rate is for various types of marketing. So I’m sure many of you will be interested in seeing some of the numbers from the new 2010 Response Rate Trend Report from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

But I write this post with some hesitation.

Because these numbers are aggregated across all types of industries–including business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets. They also combine averages for marketing aimed at getting both leads and orders, at all price points.

So they’re taken from an extremely broad sample of businesses…which means you should NOT take the numbers below as gospel or as a definitive benchmark for your business.  Instead, think of them as general guidelines until you have more relevant ones to use.

And with that said, let’s get on with it…

In general, the DMA found that response rates for marketing to businesses were generally higher than for marketing to consumers.   That makes sense given that B-to-B marketing is usually more targeted–by industry or size of business, for example–than B-to-C marketing.

They also found that campaigns to generate leads or sales of high-end products and services also had higher response rates. The leads result is a no brainer since it’s easier to get people to sign up for freebies than buy.  If you’re surprised that high-end sales were at the top as well–especially in this economy–remember that those marketers are most likely going after a very targeted affluent audience.

In short, it pays to know and target your audience well.

More specifically, the Direct Marketing Association found…

• On average, emails to a house list (your own list) had a 19.5% open rate, with 6.6% of recipients clicking on a link in the email and 1.7% buying or responding to the call to action on the page they clicked through to. The average bounce-back rate was 3.7% and 0.8% of recipients unsubscribed.

• For  direct mail, the response rate for mailings in letter-sized envelopes was 3.4% for a house list and 1.4% for a prospect list.

• For paid search engine marketing, the average cost per click was $3.79 with a 3.81% conversion rate. On the landing page, the conversion rate was slightly higher, at 4.43 percent.

• Interestingly, pay-per-click campaigns were the odd duck–with 70% of pay-per-click campaigns directed at an offer for free information instead of a sale…essentially a two or three-step sales process.

• Outbound telemarketing to prospects had the highest response rate at 6.2%, but the average cost per order or lead was $309.25. For a house list, the response rate was even higher at 10.4%.

As always, I recommend that you test your marketing and develop your own history of response rates and conversion rates–keeping in mind that even a small improvement can significantly boost your bottom-line.

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Monday’s Mental Minute…

Small business owners and entrepreneurs tend to juggle a lot of to-dos, worries, ideas and more in their minds as they go about the day–I know I do. But all this extra junk bouncing around our brains makes it harder to focus on the task at hand and kills our productivity.

One way to brush all those extra thoughts aside when you need to concentrate is to use a mental technique from Maxwell Maltz’s book Psycho-Cybernetics called “clearing the calculator.”

• Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to help calm your mind

• Picture a big hand-held calculator–notice all the different keys and imagine feeling the calculator in your hand

• Now take your finger and hit the “C” (clear) key and notice the big “0″ in the calculator window. Some people prefer to hit the key once, some prefer to keep hitting it until they feel they’ve cleared their mind

• Then create a movie in your mind of where you’re get ready and doing the task you need to do–with each step playing out in your mind. See yourself working on the task and see yourself successfully completing it

• Take a deep breath and get going!

Alternatively, you can use the image of erasing the writing on a white board instead of the calculator. This can be particularly useful if there’s a particular disappointment or frustration you need to clear from your mind–like maybe a bad result the last time you did this task–because you can write it on the board and see it getting erased away.

Either way, you’ll start your task with a fresh slate so you can maximize your time and effort.

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Monday’s Mental Minute…

It’s time to get into a new groove.

Literally.

Routines are great for making sure everyday tasks get done. But like a well-worn dirt road, the neural pathways in our brain can fall into a rut–nudging our thinking into the same groove time and again.

Sometimes that’s a good thing. Say, for a gymnast who practices her routine over and over and over again so her body knows what to do without her even thinking about it on competition day.

For entrepreneurs though, ruts can be a roadblock to breakthrough ideas and creative problem-solving. And over time, they can also zap the passion we once had for our work.

The good news is you don’t have to spend a week at a zen retreat to get your creative juices flowing again…all you have to do is shake up your routine a little by doing one activity you do everyday… slightly differently.

It can be as simple as having tea instead of coffee with your breakfast. Driving a different way to your child’s school. Having lunch outside. Changing what you do first when tackling a new project…

Because studies show that even small changes in our habits can have a profound effect on our brain–forcing it to form new pathways–which helps spark new ideas and inspirations and giving us an mental boost as well.

So once a week, get out of the groove and and see if you start noticing the results!

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It’s definitely not easy owning your own business these days–although I still say the worst day in your own business is better than the best day in a cubicle farm.

But as we know all too well, the stress can take a big toll, sabotaging your…

• Health
• Relationships
• Thinking and focus
• Creativity
• Ability to get things done
• And more!

So starting today, I’ll be posting a short tip or resource every Monday to help you destress or re-focus.

I’ll spare you the research citations, but laughter is a proven way to do both. So today’s Mental Minute does double-duty–it’ll should make you chuckle and feel oh so glad you don’t work in the corporate world anymore…Passive Aggressive Notes.

I’ve queued up the workplace category in the link, but there are many others as well. (Anyone who has ever had roommates will find plenty to reminisce about there too.) This is one of my favorites for a quick dose of humor…hopefully, you’ll enjoy it too!

Photo sourced from Passive Aggressive Notes on Flickr under a Creative Commons license

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As a copywriter, I love exploring the nuances of language and finding the one word that will hit the point home–because despite what the thesaurus says, no two words mean exactly the same thing.

And sometimes, changing just one word can make a HUGE difference.

Case in point…I recently heard a new radio ad for Volkswagen Certified Pre-Loved Cars. While the ad itself is cheesier than Velveeta, the use of “Pre-Loved” is brilliant for 5 key reasons…

• Every car brand has certified pre-owned cars now–so with a single word, VW has set theirs apart from the pack

• Used car buyers are always worried the previous owner drove like a Tasmanian devil and had amnesia about maintenance– but (theoretically!) someone who “loved” their car would never do those things

• We know all decisions are ultimately based on emotion…and obviously, “pre-loved” is going to strike much more of a chord than “pre-owned”

• “Pre-loved” also makes the purchase more personal–tapping into the fact that we prefer to buy from other people instead of big, faceless companies

• Social proof–a powerful persuasion principle that says if we’re uncertain, we’ll look to others to see what to do–means that since someone else loved the car before, you probably will too

Of course, using the word “love” IS a bit risky. I’d normally think twice about it if men are a large part of the audience. But with 78% of people saying they love their car in a Progressive Insurance survey–and we all know of men’s long-time love affair with the wheels they drive–I’d say VW made a pretty smart call.

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Here are my top 10 takeaways from WordCamp Raleigh. Unfortunately, I was only able to attend Saturday and with three session tracks, I obviously couldn’t go to all the presentations…

So my highlights are from presentations by Gregory Ng of FreezerBurns.com, Grant Swaim of DigitalLiteracyProject.com, Jeff Cohen SocialMediaB2B.com and WordPress for Dummies author Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

• When using a videocamera, lean against a wall and hold it close to your chest to help keep it steady

• Sign up for Qwitter for other Twitter handles to see what tweets made people stop following your competition

• Test for yourself, but presenter Greg Ng found that video traffic spikes after work and lunchtime on Friday

• Don’t use autofeeds to import your blog posts into Facebook Notes–because people who click the link to read more won’t be directed back to your blog.  Use the Networked Blogs Facebook app instead

• The Static FBML application will allow you to add javascript or HTML boxes to a Facebook Like (formerly Fan) page to further customize page and include ezine sign-up

• 3 suggested ways to add membership functionality to a WordPress site include Wishlist Member plug-in (easiest and least expensive), Digital Access Pass plug-in (allows coupons and has affiliate tracking system) and integration with aMember script (most robust system)

• To host audio and video streams in a members-only (or buyers-only) area, Amazon S3 with S3Flowshield is a better solution than VideoPress,which only offers 3 video sizes and heavily brands the videos

• BuddyPress is an easy way to integrate social networking functionality (ala Ning or Facebook) into your WordPress site

• A couple of popular BuddyPress features are allowing members to filter the type of activity updates they get and to decide what they want to share publicly (the latter with a free plug-in).  And of course, unlike Facebook, you own the content on BuddyPress.

• Make sure to put your Twitter handle on your cover slide to make it easier for  attendees to tweet about your presentation!

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WordCamp Raleigh celebrating all things WordPress was a lot of geeky fun this past weekend–I’ll post some highlights in upcoming posts. But for all who missed it, I’ve posted my presentation slides on easy and relatively fast ways to create quality blog content that helps turn visitors into prospects and customers  below.

Enjoy!

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In this series about hourly rates and pricing for your freelance or small business services, we’ve looked at:

9 Reasons to Stop Charging Hourly Rates

4 Reasons Why Hourly Rates are Bad for Clients Too

Charge What You Deserve–Project Fees & Flat Fees

Packaging Your Services

Should You Be Paid for Performance?

But now you may be wondering…Are hourly rates ever a good idea?

The answer is yes—hourly rates can be a good approach when there are too many unknowns about a project.  For example, if the prospect is being very vague or you haven’t done anything similar before.

In cases like that, where the time required and/or extra expenses you’ll incur are far too difficult to predict, charging an hourly rate may be the safest approach for you.

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