Last week we talked about two of the psychological buying triggers mentioned in a Ladies Home Journal article on spending less that could be used to get your customers to spend more. Here are the three more tips they gave, along with how you can leverage the relevant buying trigger in your business.

Get Rid of Temptation
Well, we didn’t really need a magazine to tell us that an endless stream of emails and direct mail from your favorite companies intensifies your urge to splurge.

Or did we?

Because if anything, most business owners don’t mail or email their customers enough. The fear of becoming a pest seems to have reached epic proportions in the marketing world.

But there’s a reason why the saying “Out of sight, out of mind” has been around so long.

It’s awfully hard to “tempt” anyone into buying anything if you’re not communicating with them. Then when they do need something, they’re going to contact the first company that comes to mind–again, that’s not likely to be you if they don’t hear from you.

And with everyone’s inboxes flowing these days, they probably aren’t seeing every message you send anyway.

Still, you should mix it up by using more than one method of communication–such as email and direct mail. Not only will it keep them from getting tired of your messages, email and direct mail are proven to be more effective when used together.

Don’t Be Enticed By Free Trials

I can think of at least one book on my shelf that came from one of those “try it for 30 days and if you don’t like it, just send it back and you won’t owe a thing” offers. Or don’t send it back and they’ll just bill you for the book.

Offers like these have been popular for years because of what’s called “status quo bias”–people tend to stick with their current situation even when they don’t want it or its not in their best interest. (Thus, why most diets and other attempts to change habits fail!)

In other words, a whole lot of people never get around to sending the book back. (Like me in this case!)

But status quo bias can be a good thing for you, if you can create a monthly ongoing product or service and then give away free trials to get them started.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m against selling people things they don’t want. However, there have been times when I didn’t have time to try, say, a membership site during the free trial. But then continued emails from the site prompted me to start using it and I was quite happy I did sign up.

Note…ALWAYS make sure it’s clear they are signing up for a monthly service that will continue if they don’t cancel.

Know your Limits
Apparently, there may be a limit to the amount of self-control we can exert during a day. Once you reach your daily quota, you’re more likely to overspend.

University of Minnesota researchers found people who had to perform tasks involving self-control before shopping were more likely to make impulse buys and to spend more than those who didn’t. It’s that old “Well, I worked out this morning and ate healthy all day so I can afford the hot fudge sundae” reasoning.

And the self-control you exert does NOT have to be money related. So getting the salad instead of the burger you really wanted at lunch could cause a spending binge later.

What does this mean for you? Next time you’re scheduled to speak to a group, brainstorm some creative ways to incorporate exercises involving self-restraint into your presentation. (Or make sure yummy desserts are offered!)

Another way to leverage this is to make down-sell offers to people leaving your sales pages. Because people who are interested but didn’t buy will feel they’ve earned the right to buy a less expensive alternative that also meets their needs.

And if you missed last weeks’ tips on putting psychological buying triggers to work for you–Keep Your Hands to Yourself and Pretend You’re the Lone Customer–check them out for more sales-boosting ideas.

Tweet This Post

Monday’s Mental Minute

No matter how much you try to ignore it, working in a cluttered mess can eat away at your sanity.

But some of us were just NOT born with the organizing genes of Martha Stewart. So trying to follow the typical organizing advice is like trying to hang framed artwork with poster putty…time consuming, frustrating, and success (if it comes) is very temporary.

Which is why I love Organizing for Your Brain Type: Finding Your Own Solution to Managing Time, Paper, and Stuff by Lanna Nakone.

At the beginning of the book, you take a test to determine your predominant brain type–Prioritizing, Maintaining, Innovating or Harmonizing. And then the chapters that follow give you organizing, calendar and time management tips for each type.

Tips I Found Helpful

For example, I can’t stand to put files that I’m working on away. No matter how appealing the idea of a clear desk is to me, I just can’t do it–to me, out of site is out of mind.

But while I may seem like an organizing failure to neatnik family members, it’s not unusual for Innovators. So, Nakone gives tips for keeping project materials, neatly, out in the open–so they’re always close at hand.

Still, I do seem to be allergic to filing of any type.  So stubs from end up in piles around my office (and house). I know you should keep them for a little while, but honestly, how often do you ever look at these things again?

I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first that any advice could help me. But she totally won me over when I read her advice to skip filing them and just throw them into an attractive box near my desk.  Permission NOT to file? That’s awesome!

Each December, I’ll just put the non-tax items in the attic for a year then toss them, which will be super easy to do since they’ll be clearly marked.

I know…

Some of you may be sitting there horrified at the thought of boxing your bills or having files on your desk. Don’t worry–Nakone has plenty of insights and ideas for your brain type as well.

Overall, Organizing for Your Brain Type: Finding Your Own Solution to Managing Time, Paper, and Stuff is a quick read since you only have to go through the chapter for your type.

So, if you have trouble getting and staying organized (like I do), I highly recommend checking it out.

Tweet This Post

I was waiting in the doctor’s office to get my broken foot checked recently when a cover line on Ladies Home Journal caught my eye–”Save More Money Without Even Trying.”

(By the way, cover lines–the one-liners on the front of a magazine–are great places to get headline ideas because magazines rely on them to sell store copies–which are usually more profitable than subscriptions.)

The article itself, “Why You Spend More Than You Think,” talks about psychological triggers that encourage people to buy in an effort to help readers cut their spending. But I’ve taken some of their tips and turned them around to show you how you can use these triggers to help you increase your sales…

Keep Your Hands to Yourself
The longer you hold a product, the more you’ll want to buy it. Even if it’s just for a few fleeting seconds, having the product in your hands makes you start feeling like it’s already yours.

That’s why car salesman are so eager for you to take a test drive…Let’s face it, for the vast majority of people, the way the car handles isn’t going to make or break the buying decision. mind.

But when you get behind the wheel, you start seeing yourself driving it to work, running over to the kids’ school or cruising along to the beach. It starts feeling like it’s yours, which makes it a lot harder to walk away and leave the car on the lot.

If you’re selling a service, this isn’t quite as easy to do. Yet two ways you can use this to your advantage are…

• Giving prospects a sample of your service–again, it helps them see more concretely how it will help them and how they’ll benefit if they keep using it

• Including details and powerful words in your copy to help them experience how they’ll look, feel and be after using your service

Pretend You’re the Lone Customer
Customers are more likely to choose a pricey brand over a cheaper one if other shoppers are nearby because they’re concerned what the other shoppers will think if they go for the cheaper one.

Yeah, this sounds a bit vain, and I know, you’re not like that. But remember these are common triggers–that does not mean they apply to everyone. The question is do they apply to your audience?

Regardless, this is a great strategy to consider when you’re selling at a live event. People will naturally talk to others when they’re waiting to turn in their order form or with other attendees afterward–and some do want the bragging rights of saying they’re getting the best, most exclusive option you offer.

So make them happy and be sure to offer several packages at different price points, including a VIP level option they’ll be excited to tell everyone about.

Since this is getting long, I’ll save the last three strategies for Part 2 of How to Get Customers to Spend More, which will be posted next Tuesday!

Tweet This Post

Monday’s Mental Minute

Being late always adds a great deal of stress to your day–you’re stressed on the way there , show up to where you’re going completely frazzled and then have to smooth over the ruffled feathers of the person waiting for you.

Unfortunately, I’m very familiar with the problem because I do it all too often!  Yet I know it’s better to be early–and with my crackberry, I could certainly find things to do while I’m waiting.

I also know part of the reason I’m late is “one more thing” syndrome–I just need to send this one email/check this website/print this document real quick before I go. And I’ve seen all the advice about just leaving early and preparing what you’ll need for meetings ahead of time, yada yada yada…

I’ve seen it all and none of it seemed to work for me because it ignored the biggest problem–my inability to accurately predict how long things will take. After all, it doesn’t matter if you leave 10 minutes early if the trip takes 15 minutes longer than you expect.

But here’s a brilliant tip I saw on Margie’s Blog for Bottom Line Secrets that I think is the key to unraveling this bad habit…

Learn to tell time honestly. Apparently, those of us who are always late tend to underestimate the amount of time things will take by about 25%.  So we figure it’ll take us 20 minutes to get there when it’ll actually take 25 (plus walking time to and from the car).

Maybe we actually did make it in 20 minutes once, but that was an unusually lucky day when we made all the lights. Or maybe we’ve just never really paid attention to how long the trip really takes. (The latter is probably more my issue!)

So her post recommends you make a list of all the things you do on a regular basis — showering and dressing, driving to your networking meeting, going to the grocery store, answering email and so forth. Then for a week, time how long each task actually takes you.  Afterward, allot your time for these tasks based on how  long it took on the slowest occasion.

Now that’s advice I think will actually work for me. And if you’re chronically late, hopefully you’ll find it helpful too. Because being late adds a whole lot of unneeded stress and strife into your life.

Tweet This Post

An autoresponder series can be a great way to build a relationship and credibility with your prospects and to create a flurry of sales for your product or service. Of course, the copy you use is important.

But all too often, I see entrepreneurs and marketers shoot themselves in the foot with the same five non-copy mistakes…

1. Using just a first name or generic address on the “From” line. Studies show this is the first thing people look at before deciding whether to open an email now. If you’re a solopreneur, the best option is usually to use your name, first and last (it looks more personal) rather than a company name (obvious promotion).

2. Kicking off your email with a big graphic at the top. People are increasingly reading emails in the preview pane these days–and since images aren’t usually downloaded, all they see is an empty box or red x. So they end up seeing nothing in their preview pane…which isn’t exactly going to entice them to read more.

3. Trying to do too many things in one email…it’s best to stick with one main idea with one call to action and direct all the links toward that. The more extraneous things you add–especially when you add links with them–the more you slash your chances that they’ll go where you really want them to go.

4. Sending people to a home page instead of the exact sign-up, sales, or download page they need. You have to make it as easy as possible for them or they’ll wander off before they get there. So don’t make them wade through your site–link  directly to where they need to go.

It’s also good to use a mix  of hypertext links–such as www.compellingcomm.com–and text links–such as Copywriting & Marketing for Small Businesses.

5. Focusing too much on one tracking statistic. It goes without saying you should be tracking the performance of your emails. But total open rates alone aren’t going to tell you much, especially since the numbers aren’t very accurate due to the way opens are tracked.

Instead, you want to be sure to look at these three measures before deciding if an email is working or not:

• Unique open rate–to weed out those who open the message several times
• Click-through rates–since the email’s goal is usually to get the reader to click your links
• Unsubscribe rates–a high open rate may be useless if the email prompted many people to unsubscribe

So if your autoresponder series isn’t getting the results you’d hoped, check to see if you’re making any of these five mistakes. A few tweaks may be all it takes to boost your results.

Tweet This Post

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.

Tweet This Post

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!

Tweet This Post

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.

Tweet This Post

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.

Tweet This Post

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!

Tweet This Post