Maximize Affiliate Sales and Small Business Profits using Neuromarketing.

If you are a small business owner or run a blog or website, the above headline would have made you quickly apply breaks to your Internet surfing Ferrari and made you click on this article. And rightly so because just like any other business we too want to maximize our profits. So to take first step towards understanding what this article is all about, lets first understand what neuromarketing really is -

What is Neuromarketing?

Have you ever wondered …

• Why even the highest priced or lowest quality products sometimes outsell their competitors’?
• Why and how your prospects buy the products or services they do, even if their choices seem irrational or impractical?
• Why some brands have a devoted cult-like following while others have zero loyalty?

A new field called NeuroMarketing - combining neuroscience, marketing and technology, has generated a buzz across every industry and every business sector.

NeuroMarketing uses high–tech brain scanning techniques, such as MRI and EEG, to investigate brain activity. This neuro–imaging hardware enables us to examine and analyze what really drives our behavior, our opinions, our preference for Corona over Budweiser, iPods over Zunes, or McDonald’s over Wendy’s.

Keys to Neuromarketing and applying Neuromarketing for Affiliate Conversions.

Christophe Morin, co-author of Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Buttons in Your Customer’s Brain, says entrepreneurs can improve their products, services, marketing and advertising by learning six keys to neuromarketing. These tenets stem from Morin’s argument that most purchase decisions are made subconsciously, in the nether regions of the mind he calls the primal brain, areas where basic fight-or-flight instincts kick in. We buy, he says, out of fear.

• We’re self-centered: Nothing triggers self-centered action like a transaction. “People are completely egocentric and all they want is something that will create a difference in their lives, eliminate pain and possibly bring them more pleasure,” Morin says.
• We crave contrast: “The bottom line is, on any given day, we will receive about 10,000 ad messages, and only the ones that are huge contrasts will get any attention,” he says.
• We’re naturally lazy: Abstract advertising and marketing won’t get through. Keep it simple, but strong. “Most companies tend to create abstract messages and use too many words,” Morin says. “Reading is much more a function of the ‘new brain.’ We recommend that, of course, companies use a lot of concrete visuals.”
• We like stories: Advertising and marketing with strong beginnings and ends create anchor points that we latch onto, so Morin advises entrepreneurs to sum up and recap their strongest selling points at the end of any promotional material. “The brain has a natural tendency to pay attention at the beginning and end of anything,” he says.
• We’re visual: Appealing video and graphic presentations can make the difference at cash registers where price and reason can’t. “We process and make decisions visually, without being aware of them,” Morin says. “Only later do we rationalize decisions we made.”
• Emotion trumps reason: Give us the right emotion to ride on, and we’ll buy what you’re selling. “When we experience an emotion,” he says, “it creates a chemical change in our brain, hormones flood our brain and change the speeds with which neurons connect, and it’s through those connections we memorize. We don’t remember anything if there isn’t an emotion attached to that experience.”

There is a very fascinating book entitled Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, by Martin Lindstrom. We often discuss why our online visitors/clients/consumers do the things they do.  Lindstrom, an international marketing and branding expert commissioned a three year study that goes beyond the usual qualitative, quantitative and tracking methodologies to look at how our brain architecture activates when we make behavioral decisions or respond to a marketing strategy.

This is a great book and I would recommend this book to every small business as well as website / blog owner.

Buy from Amazon: Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy

Some of the amazing findings mentioned in the book are that cigarette warning labels, no matter how graphic, actually stimulate the part of the brain responsible for addictive behavior; that appeals which engage our emotions trump “rational,” cognitive appeals in the brain’s responses; and that product placement in movies and TV shows probably do not motivate buying behavior in this day and age!  The book also contains additional interesting marketing facts, such as that new product launches in Japan fail 9.7 out of 10 times, and that by age 66 we will have viewed nearly two million commercials on TV!

What? Twitter has Search?

I don’t know if I should be concerned about this, but Twitter is starting to make sense to me. I just spent an hour listening to Gary Vaynerchuk talking about Twitter (and a lot of other stuff in the keynote of Michael Stelzner’s Social Media Success Summit 2009). Gary stressed that social media is less than 5 years old and is still in its “caveman” phase. It will evolve, even greater opportunities will be available. Some of the highlights of his presentation are below.

Twitter search

Gary talked about how you can use Twitter to find people who are talking about what you’re interested in, starting with Twitter search. Holy crap! When did they put that there! Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s always been there, but I’m like most people: we have to be told EXACTLY how to use something. So here, exactly, is the piece about Twitter I was missing and did not have the imagination to figure out on my own (actually, I might have had the imagination, but the noise in Twitter made me want to write it off and ignore it: don’t know about you, but I rarely use my imagination on stuff I’m ignoring).

• Type a word or phrase you’d like to talk about into the search box and click on the little magnifying glass icon.
• Scroll through the results until you see something interesting.
• Make a comment: agree, offer something additional, etc.
• If a decent conversation develops, follow that person. They will probably follow you. Now you have a connection with someone with whom you have a common interest.

Twitter helps you build your brand

Twitter is a tool that you can use to put your information (and other information interesting to your market) out into the marketplace. For free. There are no gatekeepers any more. You don’t have to convince a reporter or editor of the importance of what you have to say. Facebook, Twitter, and your blog all are your platform to use to build your brand. Extend a hand and join the conversation. The caveat: if your content is not quality content, no one will care.

You want a business model?

Gary Vee’s success is primarily due to his passion for what he does. It helps him work 15 hours a day and be the best at what he does. As Gary said, “You want a business model? Give a crap!” If you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, or if you’re doing it only because you think there might be money in it, you won’t care enough and won’t bring the necessary energy to it to succeed. Making a lot of money with social media is doable, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. If you have no passion, don’t kid yourself about your chances for success.

About the Author:

Author: Ray Gulick Bio: Ray Gulick is a blogger/web developer in Santa Fe, NM, and since May 2000, principal/creative director of Evolution Web Development. He designs, hacks and otherwise implements WordPress blogs and blogsites in addition to more traditional websites. Prior to owning a web development company, Ray was a high school teacher/wrestling coach, graphic designer/art director, printing salesman, and corporate marketing communications manager. In addition, he is a whitewater boater, hiker, motorcyclist, adoring husband, and anxious father of two teenage girls. www.evowebdev.com www.evowebdev.com/blog twitter.com/evoweb

Clear writing checklist for your blog or small business website.

I have always been awed by the power and influence of a well written article. It is quite amazing how a well written article can influence your readers views and can help in increased sales and  a positive return on investment. And not to forget all the back links that you get with people talking about your article all over the Internet.

It really doesn’t matter whether it is print or online media, a well written post has always been able to pull readers and investors, and the most important thing is - people really listen to you if its well written.

Quite recently I got a chance to attend a Clear Writing seminar here in Toronto. I learnt a lot from the seminar and I would like to share a few pointers with our readers.

I know a lot of you are small business owners and Online marketers and I think this article will really help you to take your writing to the next level.

And I am very sure that you (yes, I am talking to you) already are aware of the impact of a clear and well written article and know that it can do wonders for your small business blog or website.

Why is it important to know your audience before you start writing?

Before you start writing, spend some time on knowing your audience. This way you can target your writing more effectively. Writing for low graders is entirely different then writing for a highly educated class of readers. And if you are not sure just stick to the basics and you will do just fine.

Here is a list of very basic and easy to follow clear writing pointers -

1. Font

• use at least 12 point
• use serif font
• use simple fonts rather than fancy ones
• use regular proportion rather than extended or condensed

2. Justification

• left justify your text
• let the right side run ragged
• Do not centre, except for headings

3. Colour

• have a good contrast between background and foreground colour
• use dark print on a light background
• avoid textured backgrounds
• do not put text on top of pictures

4. White Space

• use white space freely
• leave space between headings and text
• try 1 inch margins and 1.5 line spacing
• use block paragraphs rather than indented ones
• wehn using columns, use two rather than three

5. Emphasis

• use bold type to emphasize words or headings
• avoid italics and underlining
• make headings consistent
• use text boxes to separate essential information from the text
• avoid using all capitals

6. Pictures

• use pictures that relate directly to the text
• put pictures to the side rather than behind the text
• use pictures to illustrate difficult words

7. Words and Sentences

• use simple words and short sentences
• replace complicated words with more simple ones
• if you must use a difficult word, define it
• keep sentence length to 15-18 words
• for lower grade level materials, try 12-15 words per sentence

You can always email me or send me your feedback if you have any questions or need help with your blog or small business website. You can email me at - info[at]coolwebdeveloper[dot]com

Featured Articles WordPress Plugin

Today is an exciting day for us. We have kicked off our Featured Articles Wordpress Plugin Marketing Campaign.

Featured Articles WordPress Plugin - Campaign Landing Page

BETA version of this Plugin will be available for testing from 15th June onwards. We are calling in all the BLOG owners to volunteer for BETA testing of this Plugin.

We are running a WordPress Plugin contest where 50 BLOG owners from a list of  Subscribers will be chosen randomly and will be provided Featured Articles WordPress Plugin for testing purposes.

And the MOST exciting news is, these 50 BLOG owners will receive a FULL version of Featured Articles Plugin for FREE!! ($20 value) once we launch it on 15th of July 2009.

I invite my fellow bloggers and wordpress users to subscribe to the list here -

 

Join our growing list of Featured Article BETA testers (and receive a FREE Featured Articles Plugin worth $20 once the contest ends)

How thought turned into an idea?

I have always noticed a website visitors lack of attention to existing articles or banners thus loosing a lot of conversion value. It’s called Article / Ad Blindness, and every civilized human in the world has it.

“Ad Blindness is a term used to denote the state of conscious or subconscious ignorance of advertisements placed in a web page by visitors…”

We did check a lot of other Featured Articles Plugins available but none fit our need. They were either hard to install and implement or need code level access to pass the post ID’s as parameters. We wanted to use something that is simple and can be managed entirely by using WordPress Settings Console. We were not able to find a single Plugin that fits our need and thus Featured Articles WordPress Plugin was born.

Here are some COOL features of Featured Articles WordPress Plugin -

• Complete Management of Plugin by using the Settings Console in WordPress.

• Select the Height and Width from within the Management Console.

• Capable of creating Multiple Instances of the rotator, thus providing you the ability to rotate separatearticles on separate pages / templates.

• Ability to rotate BANNERS / ADS from within the same Management Console.

• Proven to increase conversion rates, and reduce Bounce Rates.

• Provides you with a new medium to present anything worthwhile to your visitors.

• Flush all the pending changes with a single click thus removing the margin of error.

As said above we do need a handful of smart BLOG owners for testing our product. And as a bonus reward for helping us we will offer this Plugin for free to those BLOG owners once we launch the FULL version.

If you think you will be able to help, please sign up and we will send you the plugin once the BETA is released. We will be selecting a list of 50 bloggers for testing this amazing product.

Are you a small business owner? Simple, Effective and Affordable steps to increase and monetize your web presence.

Are you a small business owner? Do you have a web presence? Is your Website related to the product or services that you sell?

If the answer to any of the above is Yes, then chances are you are missing on a big opportunity to monetize your Website and increase your sales.

Read the full article to learn about Site Monetization and How to increase affiliate conversions and thus increase sales.

As a small business owner, we can categorize Site Monetization into two key areas-

• You can optimize your site to increase sales of your current products and services. And can use your Website to promote your brand and improve relationship with your business clients and customers.
• You can use your Website to promote the products and services that complement the kind of products and services you already sell. This way you can expand your web audience and can also earn affiliate commissions thus monetizing your Website traffic.

Now lets dig down deeper into the first point about optimizing your Website. (Second bullet about promoting products and services that complement your existing services - needs a full article of its own, so I will touch back on that in a separate article within next 3-4 days. So stay tuned to coolwebdeveloper.com and click to Subscribe to my Email Feed, Newsletter or RSS feed).

Optimizing your Website - The first two important steps are:

• Make sure that your site has a Blog
• Make sure your site and blog are Search Engine Friendly.

“For many businesses, a Web site is the first way that your clientele will look at you, even if it’s just to find your address and phone number,” says Rand Fishkin, founder of Seattle-based search engine optimization consulting firm SEOmoz, which aims to increase the odds that search engines will happen upon a given site. “The quality of your site is often a measure of the quality of your business.”

As a small business owner it is costly to maintain and blog and to update and optimize your Website for Search Engines. Well, luckily enough, WordPress comes to the rescue.

What?? Not familiar with WordPress??

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging tools available. But what many people don’t know is that it is a powerful Content Management System (CMS) that can be used for more than just blogging. With WordPress you can build a blog, a Website, or both.

Top Five Reasons to Use WordPress for Your Small Business Website -

• SEO - WordPress provides good search engine optimization (SEO) right out of the box. There are many SEO benefits that WordPress provides for free. In fact Google’s own Matt Cutts says WordPress is “made to do SEO well” in this video: Matt Cutts gives tips to small business owners.
• Content - It is super easy to update content on your Website without knowing HTML.  Do you hate the idea of having to learn to use a complex HTML editor tool like Dreamweaver? Do you have to “ask” your webmaster every time you want to make a small change to your Website? Well no longer - once
  WordPress is set up for you, you can easily create new pages or edit existing pages using a simple rich text editor.
• Extensions - There is a thriving ecosystem of developers creating themes and plug-ins - imagine free design themes, or the ability to extend your Website with polls, contact forms, ratings or hundreds of other cool features without having to hire a web developer.
• Support - If you do have problems, or want to add very custom features, it is easy to find support and developers who can help you. There are literally thousands of WordPress developers out there. And there are so many people writing about WordPress that help is only a Google search away!
  One-click-installation - Quick installs are provided by many hosting providers, including Bluehost, 1and1 and Thinkhost.

Thesis WordPress Theme has the following functions automatically built in, so you do not need to use these plugins if you are using this theme. Just as an FYI - This theme is already getting some great reviews around the blogosphere (you can see some testimonials here). You can download Thesis WordPress Theme here.

But if you are using other themes, the following plugins will give you a similar look/effect.

• All in One SEO Pack - This plugin makes it easy for you to optimize your article titles and other meta tags. 
• Google Analytics - This plugin makes it easy for you to insert your Google Analytics code and start tracking your blog visitors.
• WP-Note - This plugin lets you insert notes in your article to make them stand out. Kind of similar to the yellow colored notes I have twice in this article.
• WordPress Gravatars - This plugin lets you display Gravatars of your readers in the comments section and can put your Gravatar on top of your article to show who the article was written by.

Even if you are not using WordPress for your Blog or Website you can still follow these important and useful SEO tips for an enhanced web traffic -

• Start early. It can take up to six months for competitive search terms to see results through Google.
• Content really is king. Make a list of the top 20 search keywords relevant to your business and create content that’s thematically linked with those terms.
• Don’t use the same keywords over and over. Search engines have gotten smart enough to weed that out.
• Focus on Google. The magic formula is relevance and popularity. Having a well-written and well-structured Website is a big part of the battle. Mentions and links from blogger’s and other Websites can be a big boost as well.

If you choose to work with an SEO consultant, find one that specializes in the needs of startups and growing businesses. If he or she tries to guarantee you an instant #1 ranking in Google, run the other way.

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