Information Highwayman

A reader grills me about color

Bnonn — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:54:46 +0000

Karen, a color expert, writes to see what I have to say about her topic of interest:

1. What is your view on colour? (general)

I like it :) My favorite is red.

2. How much do you think colour affects people when clicking into a website?

A lot more than most people realize — in two ways. Firstly, color is strongly associated with emotions that we're often not aware of. For example, using blue on a website will tend to subconsciously make people feel like the site is trustworthy. Red works poorly on buttons very often because it connotes danger — but very well in headlines for the same reason. Secondly, color directs where we look (and when) to a significant degree. Overuse of color is actually one of the most common mistakes web designers make, and it kills conversions. MarketingExperiments actually ran a web clinic on this — if you have an hour, it's an eye-opener: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/site-optimization/website-colors-and-conversion.html

3. Do you get bothered by people's background colour? Does it cause you eye strain sometimes?

Sometimes. Most websites these days (at least the ones I see) don't make the mistake of using a dark background color with light text. On the rare occasions I do see this, however, I'll either leave, or if I have to read something there for some reason, I'll use Readability.

4. What made you chose your colour combination?

A number of factors — largely it had to do with a love of classic typography and wanting to reproduce that on the web, but in a way that fit well with my own color preferences. Having dabbled in calligraphy, I love rich inks on heavy stock, particularly reds and browns. And those are colors that fit very well with my motif, yet are underused on the web in my opinion.

Got any color questions? Send them on through — I'll see if I can't give you some helpful advice.

Speaking of which, the next Shirtsleeves Marketing Communiqué goes to the printer in a few days. Grab a subscription here:

www.shirtsleevesmarketing.com

Talk again soon,
Bnonn

“OMG. You’re hot”

Bnonn — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:59:23 +0000

Got this from a Shirtsleeves Marketing Communiqué (SMC) subscriber after my email with the little riddle about the difference between gurus and Santa:

OMG. You're hot. I've just finished your latest SMC and I can see that you use no less than 3 ideas types in à single email. Ideas ii, iv and vi if I'm not wrong. You definitely do what you preach!

Now, I don't wanna sound cynical, but the latest Communiqué is called 7 Tricks I Use to Make Writing World-class Emails Fun & Easy. So it seems a bit sad to me that I should be considered "hot" for actually USING the tricks I say I use ;)

Then again, there's that old saying…those who can, do; those who can't, teach.

And thinking about it, I guess most gurus just regurgitate whatever they learned reading John Caples or whatever, without actually having any real ability to USE those ideas in more than a childish, rote way.

In fact, come to think of it, there ain't a lot of copywriters around who've figured out that writing for the web is actually DIFFERENT from writing direct-response letters.

But, well… *blush* I have. If you'd like to learn some of the techniques that work for email (but which you'd never be able to just stick into a direct mail letter), why not grab a copy of last month's dispatch?

www.shirtsleevesmarketing.com/dispatches/2012/12

Talk again soon,
Bnonn

Is this the number 1 lie entrepreneurs buy into?

Bnonn — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:59:29 +0000

There are a lot of contenteders for first place in the Big Fat Lies category of the Marketing Olympics. But I think this one has a good chance for gold.

Here it is:

"The money is in the list."

This generally leads to the (extremely mistaken) mindset that you can only succeed online if you have a huge list — like Los Gurús Defraudadors and their 100,000+ lists.

But you wanna know how many people this email is going out to? A whopping 1,355. That's right — I have a tiny list. And I ain't ashamed. I don't need to compensate for anything, if you know what I mean.

Perhaps this surprises you. Well, here's something else that may surprise you: if your typical guru had only 1,355 people to sell to, he would be broke.

Cold, hard fact. I've seen figures that prove it.

But don't just take my word for it. My excellent colleague Danny Iny, who also has quite a small list (tiny for his industry, though I think bigger than mine), explains it very well in this video:

http://audiencebiz.com/go/bnonn-tennant-video/

Talk again soon,
Bnonn

My personal fairy godmother

Bnonn — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 10:59:41 +0000

She's not magical — but she is talented and has superb customer service.

I asked her if she could help me bling out Smokey the Magnificent for Christmas. Smokey isn't much a jewelry wearer, but she did have a nice pendant once which has since disappeared, and I thought it would be nice to replace it.

So I picked this:

But Smokey is fond of blue, so I asked if I could customize the piece with a topaz. My fairy godmother happily agreed — and helped me solicitously through the surprisingly complicated process of choosing exactly the right stone. Once we had figured out what we needed, she then created this exceptional pendant for Smokey:

I expected to pay a lot more for the customization, but the additional cost was negligible. Plus, shipping was free — even to New Zealand.

I am telling you all this, really, not just because the product itself was very good, but because the customer service was so notable. I don't call her my fairy godmother for nothing — that is really what it felt like.

She only has one weakness, in my opinion, and that is that she charges far less than she could. Of course, that's a win for her customers.

Her name is Kaelin Cordis. If you're looking for fine hand-made jewelry at extremely reasonable prices, and you liked to be treated like royalty, take a mozy over to her site and see what's on offer:

www.kaelindesign.com

I don't get any kind of kickback from this, btw. I just really wanted to share an exceptional business with you. So even if you don't want jewelry, you can take a valuable lesson from this email: giving your customers great products at great prices with great service is a very rare thing — and something that creates instant fans. You can't buy that kind of loyalty or word-of-mouth.

Talk again soon,
Bnonn

What’s the difference between Santa and an IM guru?

Bnonn — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:59:17 +0000

The guru doesn't even deliver once a year.

*bah-dum-pssshhh*

Santa, on the other hand (aka Smokey the Magnificent), delivered many exciting things this year — chief among them a rather nice chess set, and also a hand-made Shootie Beast, to be used as target practice in my archery.

Speaking of years, we're on the cusp of a new one, and my main resolution is to get good enough at chess to win a game against my high school friend John, who taught me to play. So I've been watching a lot of chess videos on YouTube.

One of them particularly caught my attention — the chap teaching was talking about how, when he's coaching students and points out some principle they aren't using, they tend to respond with, "I already know that."

But there are two kinds of knowledge:

1. Something you've learned somewhere and can recall when prompted.

2. Something you've practiced until it's "part of your personality".

Very often when people hit a wall in chess — and in business — it's because they "know" about something like positioning (double meanings ftw), but they don't actually KNOW it. So they fail to notice they aren't doing it.

This guy was German, but apart from that he sounded very much like Dov Gordon — an extremely sharp marketer and business coach whose mastermind group I'm a part of.

He talks about similar stuff, and a lot more, in a seminar he runs called How to Craft A Simple, Compelling Sales Message that Makes Ideal Customers Say “Yes!”

I have a recording of this seminar, which normally goes for $47. But you get it free when you sign up for the Shirtsleeves Marketing Communiqué:

www.shirtsleevesmarketing.com

Incidentally, this means that if you wanted to be a bit of an ass, you could get the recording AND January's dispatch for about half the cost of the recording alone — and then cancel your subscription.

Of course, after you read January's issue you might decide not to — so I guess it depends on whether you're willing to take the risk of being convinced to keep spending a whopping $29 a month. That could really break the bank you know.

www.shirtsleevesmarketing.com

Talk again soon,
Bnonn

The one thing an Information Highwayman fears

Bnonn — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 10:59:00 +0000

Turducken.

Spiders, snakes, heights, the number 13 — none of these overly concern me. But turduckens are unnatural abominations and they freak me all the way out.

For many business owners, their greatest fear is actually their own clients — particularly negotiating with them. And if it's not clients, it's the in-laws at Christmas dinner.

Turn over a new leaf this Christmas by putting this pesky problem to rest permanently. For $29, you can learn the most important secrets I've discoverd from negotiating experts like Jim Camp.

It's all revealed in “How To Negotiate Any Deal Like You Hold The Nut Hand — By Refusing To Use Pansy-Ass ‘Win-Win’ Philosophies Designed To Make You Lose, And Learning How To Say NO”.

Grab a copy here:

www.shirtsleevesmarketing.com/dispatches/2012/09

Merry Christmas too, btw,
Bnonn

PS. Do you know the four-letter word (starts with an N) that describes your natural state in a negotiation…and makes you look like meat to “predators”? You can overcome it by replacing it with another four-letter word that starts with W — discover it here:

www.shirtsleevesmarketing.com/dispatches/2012/09

When is the best time to make an offer?

Bnonn — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:59:22 +0000

At the end of every email, of course :)

But seriously, the best time for offers tends to be January, followed by March — at least according to the research I've seen. Perhaps because in January people are busy making new year resolutions and "need" all sorts tools and information to help them. And in March those same people are trying to shore up their failing resolutions in the same way — by buying stuff.

December is the worst time for offers, unless you're a retail store, for obvious reasons.

But that isn't going to stop me from making an offer now, because there's an even more important principle behind timing offers: people buy when they're ready. If you don't know whether they're ready, keep making offers until they are.

It's common sense, but few businesses do it. I try to actually practice what I preach — although, as one reader wryly noted, my website doesn't exactly follow my own advice for taglines.

Be that as it may, are you ready to start looking at how the graphics on your site are affecting your conversion rate?

If you are, click here:

www.attentionthievery.com/graphics

Contrary to what most designers believe, almost all images REDUCE conversion rates. There are only two kinds which tend to increase them.

Talk again soon,
Bnonn

PS. As someone living a day in the future compared to most of you, let me reassure you that December 21 has been and gone, and the world did not end. I know — I was as surprised as you.

On the upside, that means you have some bonus time ahead of you to start optimizing your website and making more money. Start here:

www.attentionthievery.com/graphics