2:13pm
Saint Paul
Heading to my parents’ for Sunday dinner last night when just ONE WORD made me pull a u-turn and whip out my wallet.
(more…)2:13pm
Saint Paul
Heading to my parents’ for Sunday dinner last night when just ONE WORD made me pull a u-turn and whip out my wallet.
(more…)2:34pm
Saint Paul
When I was 12 the neighbor’s dog bit my brother.
We never had a dog of our own.
Goldfish, yes. A cat. A parakeet. A skink. A snake. Even a “grow a frog” that escaped its water tank… and a week later, hopped across the kitchen floor.
So I was never much of a dog person.
In fact I told myself I was afraid of them. The dog bite and all, you understand.
And any time I saw a dog, this fear consumed my brain.
But years ago I decided that was silly.
So I simply reprogrammed my brain.
(more…)1:26pm
Saint Paul
Let me ask you:
Which works better as a headline: highlighting a problem, or highlighting a solution?
I ask because I’m reading John Caples’ “Tested Advertising Methods” right now–4th edition, thank you for asking.
(Which, by the way, a few years back I could only find the 4th edition in Canada, and the seller would only ship to Canada. Knowing that the 5th Edition sucks (from my own personal experience), I found myself a Canadian mule…)
Anyway.
In it, Caples says that headlines that highlight the positive tend to out-pull the negative.
Because, he reasons… who wants to read an ad about problems?
And while he has a point…
(more…)11:54am Friday
Ever put out an ad on Google or Facebook or whatever…
And it just didn’t “work?”
Low clicks… and even fewer sales?
Here are three reasons why your ads may fail… and how to fix ’em.
1. If your ad is targeting the wrong audience, you won’t get clicks. Fix that by either targeting better… or—contrary to a lot of advice—don’t target at all!
Why not target, you ask?
(more…)Today on the Persuasion Play Podcast, episode 008…
I welcome a very special guest, Mr. Drayton Bird!
Drayton Bird is an old-school direct marketer and advertiser. He worked along side fellow greats such as Eugene Schwartz and David Ogilvy, who famously claimed that… (more…)
6:38am
Saint Paul
Good day dear reader!
Are you snowed in yet?
It’s snowing again here in the midwest. We have the snowiest February on record, and there’s another week ahead of us.
I almost had a day at home with the kids —not really a break at all— and I was hoping to edit the podcast.
Alas, it didn’t pan out that way today. I’ll be in the office today, all good.
While in the office yesterday I got an email:
I have some thoughts on that.
My grandfather was in the printing business. He taught me a few things about fonts typefaces that echo true today.
One thing I’ll always remember is that using all-capital blackletter typefaces (also known as Old English) is a cardinal sin in the printing world:
I most often see this all-caps choice as a sticker on the back window of pickup trucks. It’ll read GONZALEZ or MARTINEZ or something.
The illegible message always makes me think of Grandpa.
Anyway, I’d like to share a few additional thoughts about typefaces that might improve your written persuasion and marketing.
If you’re interested, read on.
The first thing I noticed in yesterday’s email is the difficulty of reading the text, especially at the small font size:
The email uses a serif typeface, which is almost certainly a choice of the author.
Serif typefaces have those little swirls (or hooks, or serifs) at the ends of letters.
The serifs exist to lead your eyes across the letters. They’re meant to improve legibility… on the printed page.
Yes, serif typefaces are designed for printed text, or for larger sized headlines where clarity isn’t as much an issue.
Sans-Serif fonts, however, are designed for computer screens. Like emails and blogs.
Sans-serif means the font has no serifs. In smaller sizes, those lovely serifs muddy the screen. Sans-serifs remove those hooks to improve readability.
Here’s the same message in a sans-serif font:
And here it is again, in a larger size to further improve readability:
Daniel Kahneman wrote in Thinking, Fast and Slow about the brain’s ability to understand a written message.
Kahneman created experiments that had fuzzy letters or low-contrast type, and would measure people’s pupils while they read these texts.
As participants’ mental loads increased, their pupils measurably expand.
(You can test this by looking at your eyes in a mirror and count downward from 200 by sevens, for example. Pretty cool, isn’t it?)
When the brain has to work harder to understand a message, two things happen:
In persuasion and marketing, you often don’t want the message to be seen. Being memorable isn’t necessarily the goal.
(By the way, my current website header intentionally uses difficult-to-read text against that bookcase, to be more memorable. Scroll up and check it out. I’ll still be down here.)
Anyway, you want the message’s intent to have an impact. You want a clear pane of glass to see the possibilities beyond.
In other words, your fuzzy, fancy font…
might be a distraction!
Eugene Schwartz said you want to speak to the gut, to the monkey brain.
You want your message to bypass logic and skepticism, to help the reader feel what’s possible.
Now, if someone reads your message and they’re looking at the design, and not the product on the other side of that message, you’re doing yourself and your market a disservice.
Famed designer Massimo Vignelli suggested that designers limit their typeface choices to some very basic, readable options.
Garamond, Bodini, Century, Futura, Times Roman, and Helvetica were his suggestions.
Many designers might disagree, saying that a typeface helps to brand your company.
If you’re more worried about your brand than about helping your clients, well, I don’t know what to tell you.
Ok back to it.
Jeffrey