Here’s what I’m up to…

7:47am
Saint Paul

It’s a cold winter morn and the sleet is sleeting.

And within a few hours, the temperature will be falling –– so I need to run any errands before that happens.

Like getting some wine for the kids’ teachers before Christmas break.

And hitting up the post office, which is named Elway.

Why Elway?

Branding.

Earlier this week we visited the Rose Street Patisserie, a bakery on the corner of Selby and Snelling.

Across Selby there is the Heritage Rose Professional Building and the Legacy Rose Flats apartments.

I’ve lived near here most of my life. I’ve never known this area as Rose anything.

Why Rose?

Branding.

EMarketer sent out one of their charts today showing podcast hosts are more trusted than other celebs, including TV and Movie and Radio personalities.

Methinks this is due to a few factors…

Got a few minutes?

First is the amount of time people spend listening (or watching) a podcast.

The more time you spend with someone, the more you trust them.

Go on one date? Some trust.

Go on multiple dates? Increased trust.

Pick-up artists use this to compress multiple locations into a single interaction, to increase trust quickly.

Direct response marketer Perry Belcher repeated this same idea when I attended his “Primal Offers” training earlier this year:

Over the course of 3 days, attendees spent some 6+ hours in his training.

It was all valuable, don’t get me wrong.

And Perry said it flat out, something along the lines of:

“The more time we spend together, the more you’ll trust me and the paid membership I’m offering. That’s why we’re together for 6 hours. Not everyone can attend it all, but we want to make sure they can attend as much as possible to build trust.”

And to connect this with yesterday’s email:

It’s the same reason Nike and Apple advertise, to make people familiar with the brand over repeated exposures.

Branding builds trust.

But most companies don’t have deep enough pockets to do it the way they can –– aka long term, wide exposure, raving fans.

Plus, ad costs are f stupid today. Deep pockets only type stuff.

But you can increase exposure with email, and build trust over time. So long as you’re not using AI to do it.

And having your Call To Action at the end can make it pay, too.

SECOND reason podcast hosts are trusted?

They share personal details and stories.

History.

Like you can in email.

Like Rose Flats and Rose Professional Building could be doing. Should be doing, to attract tenants. I want to know, why that name?

And the person who can tell the story wins. Because a story sticks in the brain.

But they don’t tell the story of Rose. Because their branding is one dimensional. There’s no meaning behind their Rose names.

(The newer patisserie does have a history behind their name, partially in Google’s search summary, but you’ll no longer find that history on their website).

3rd reason podcast hosts are trusted?

They ask questions. They don’t pretend to know everything.

But that’s a topic for another day. Because this is long enough already!

I have a podcast full of questions for today’s best marketers who spill their own histories, thoughts, ideas and secrets.

Because as the host and a life-long learner, I certainly don’t know everything.

Anyway, check out my Persuasion Play Podcast here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0kmaAjYl9BWhWBMqyPwr9NoRnn_gnKKu

Errands need doing. Work is calling. And if I’m lucky, maybe a nap is in my future, too.

Love you,

Jeffrey

PS. I sent an email to a client list earlier this week and it got a 14.2% click rate.

That’s 1078 people interested in looking deeper at the offer, to be exact.

But the page the email pointed to?

Not long enough. Not detailed enough. Not building enough trust.

So the conversion wasn’t anywhere near what I wanted.

Rewriting the sales page is on my unofficial To-Do list.

Client didn’t ask for it.

But if we want to make sales, it needs to happen.