Tag: trust

  • How I use AI (and why)

    12:31pm
    East of the Mississippi

    Not sure if you spend any time on LinkedIn, but there seems to be a lot of marketers there.

    And of the marketers who post, they tend to fall into two camps:

    One camp that posts plenty of AI content, often from other creators, and talks about how game-changing AI is––and maybe you want to buy their course.

    And one camp that doesn’t want anything to do with AI.

    I have a more nuanced take, which of course isn’t polarizing enough to gain much traction.

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  • After testimonials, TRUST is your biggest asset

    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.

  • Kill the Industry Insider Talk (…except sometimes)

    8:45am
    Saint Paul

    Last week I came across this tidbit:

    Workplace jargon hurts employee morale, collaboration, study finds

    The short of it is that jargon——those “industry insider” words that most people don’t understand——doesn’t only confuse outsiders.

    (more…)
  • Two essentials to high-ticket sales

    11:51am
    Saint Paul

    Don’t you hate unproductive meetings?

    I’m at my table sipping coffee after a morning run, looking over my notes from a meeting yesterday.

    A rather unproductive one.

    The guest speaker couldn’t give concrete examples of his ideas. He kept trailing off… changing topics mid-sentence… and never completing a thought.

    In short: he couldn’t communicate well. And without examples of his work or ideas… he wasn’t earning my trust.

    It was frustrating and even the host didn’t seem to know where to take the directionless conversation.

    But not all is lost!

    (more…)
  • Persuasion Articles of the Week

    "Computer Guys" by Chris Sit, Flickr, CC-By-2.0
    An all-night cram session isn’t your best tool to learn… “Computer Guys” by Chris Sit, Flickr, CC-By-2.0

    #sleep #crime #marketing #sugar #copywriting #habit #success

     

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  • The Failure of Science

    6:12
    Saint Paul, MN

    Reader, this weekend I met with a PRL subscriber to discuss marketing emails that I am writing for his business.

    Yep, my first paid copywriting gig!

    We bounced around with other conversation topics as well, including my wife’s newfound interest in Reiki energy healing.

    <cue eye-roll>

    My friends asked what I thought of Energy Healing, a topic that’s looked down upon by science and society as being unconfirmed.

    My answer? (more…)