Met up with some interesting intruiging and exciting peeps last night in Cardiff  #cdfblogs meetup with @getgood @hrwaldram @carlmorris @stuherbert @GlynTansley Am excited again about the concept of local online. Might even do something like a “secret swansea” facebook group.

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I do it, too. I enjoy an evening in front of the TV when I can but hate adverts and filler. So I look at the listings and meticulously plan my viewing schedule: ‘Is this programme on a channel that has adverts?’, ‘If so, can I use the Watch Again feature on my cable to see it another day?’,  ‘Can I fill up this 1/2 hour gap with anything I have left over to watch from yesterday when there was two things on at the same time?’.

I think I see it as just another area of my life to strive for efficiency and fulfilment in. And rather than see the entire of TV output as a waste of time I choose to pick out some things that I can justify as being worthwhile, or entertaining. That way I can sneer at people who veg out in front of inane reality shows or vacuous celebrity features while I’m wasting my time more valuably. After all, I’m learning lots about the secrets of our solar system while watching that jolly indie-band professor. And after a few more episodes of Burn Notice I’m sure I’d be able to walk into a job at MI5.

It’s as though me, and the Japanese Tetris-addicts, are scheduling our leisure time the same way as an executive schedules his day. It’s definitely a modern way to relax but I wonder if it really makes for a more fulfilled life. By pushing our leisure activities right to the edges of the time we’ve got to fit them into are we missing time to think? My blogging partner, Paolo, always says it’s good to get out of the office and go for a walk in the park. And while some might perceive that as procrastination (or even, as I suspect, a squirrel fetish) it might just be that he’s pushing back the edges between work and leisure and leaving some time for thought. If we don’t leave any spaces where the mind is free to think, or just wonder, how are the ideas supposed to get in?

Time to think about commutes, or evenings and weekends, as not only blocks of minutes to be managed with ruthless efficiency, but as it used to be known – ‘free time’. Free your mind.

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We’ve also spent a while dipping into bookmarking services, forums and networking tools that don’t work. You need to know what things are worth spending time on and which aren’t. The thing is that what doesn’t work might be different for different people. We find that Digg is cliquey and difficult to get any play on, but some of the smaller social bookmarkers more receptive to people who aren’t neccessarily ‘in the circle’.

The point, in terms of work, is the idea of community and how you nurture that sector that is serviced by your business. If you can tap into those communities, or even create one from scratch, you are helping yourself more easily than trying to artificially build your brand or struggling to make yourself a household name. The right tools are out there to look after these communities and waiting for you to use them. Let me know what you discover.

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“And when you’re on the street, depending on the street,
I bet you are definitely in the top three,
Good lookin’ girls on the street.
(Depending on the street).”

The joke throughout the whole thing is a play on the exagurated claims of R&B stars on the qualities of the lady they have just met. The girl that the Conchords meet is beautiful, sure, but they make sure that they keep the claims they make about her in perspective.

In business, endless qualifications are not a good trait to exhibit, but neither is hyperbole. The middle ground you should aim to occupy is just to moderate some linguistic habits that we have all picked up.

This is where verbal antidote comes in. The idea here is to get rid of words like ‘would’, ’should’, ‘could’ and ‘try’ from your vocabulary so that a question like ‘Can you have this done for me by friday?‘ isn’t answered with ‘I’ll try‘ or ‘I should be able to‘ but in a more definitive way ( ‘I can’t‘, ‘I will do‘ or ‘That won’t be possible‘).

Three real world examples:

1. A supplier asks you if they can have something by Friday, but you’re not 100% sure that you’ll have it in stock or ready by then. Rather than ‘I’ll try‘ or ‘I’ll do my best‘ have a go with ‘It’ll definitely be with you Wednesday next week, is that acceptable? Of course, if it comes in sooner I’ll make sure you get it’.

2. At a job interview someone asks you if you mind working weekends if the project demands. Rather than ‘I might be able to sometimes, but it’s the only time I get to spend with the kids.’ you might like to say ‘I’ve got a young family so it’s not possible to commit to something where I’d be letting them down regularly. Is that a situation that happens often in this company? Is the planning here something I can help with?‘

3. Your sister asks if you can come over for lunch on Saturday but you know you have a fridge being delivered on the same day.  Rather than the unhelpful (and rather pathetic) ‘I’ll try‘ why not go for the more explanatory ‘DHL are delivering my fridge. As they can’t be any more specific than it’ll arrive Saturday, I’ll have to say no to lunch.’

Try it out in situations you come across yourselves and let me know how they go in the comments.

Ps. There is a quite large exception to my dislike of comedy in song form that I’ve remembered. There is an indefinable quality to this. Or maybe it’s the sharp, witty writing and catchy tune. Whatever – it can be found here.

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So here, I’ve brought together some of the real world examples of psychological tricks people use in the real world attention locations that translate superduper well to landing pages, and are things that you should definitely consider on your landing page design.

Shopping channel heaven

Watching those muppets on The Apprentice (last night) try and sell on home shopping tv was a hoot. One trick that proper shopping channel pro’s use is rather than saying “call now, our operators are ready”, they use “If our operators are busy, please try again”. It’s a subtle difference, but embeds in the viewer that other people are ordering, and that they shouldn’t miss out, without explicitly stating so.

On your website landing pages, is their subtle wording you can use that implies that gazillions of other customers are buying your product or service right now?

*example used taken “Yes! 50 Secrets from the science of persuasion”, by R. Caldini & friends.

My local coffee shop

I like my local coffee shop, it’s not a Starbucks, it’s run by Adam, a guy like me trying to make living for his family. Recently, he had a promotion day, where he had his baristas out on the highstreet handing out mini-lattes, and a buy-5-coffee’s-get-1-free loyalty card, with 3 of the places stamped already, so only 2 left to get.

Who doesn’t like a free coffee on their way to work? I certainly do, and I like Adam’s photo on the flyer, I want to go to his coffee shop.

If you deconstruct Adams’ offer, he’s giving you a mini coffee, yet that not’s the full product, so you probably will still need your morning cup, but you’ve got the flava now.  He’s doing his offer at walk-to-work time, so the freebies match the customers normal requirements, their daily cup, let’s start the habit.

And the loyalty card, being pre-stamped, is f**ing genius. People see that they are more than half way to a free cup. This is so much more effective than giving them a two-stamp loyalty card.

So Adam identified the walking-to-work crowd, and built the components of his campaign around this, rather starting with the incentive first, he looked at mechanisms for creating habits.

Your landing page should start foremost with the potential customer, where have they come from?, what are the thinking?, and then once you understand the customer plan offers, and incentives around this.

Checkout impulse buys

A few years ago UK supermeerkats moved the chocolates away from the checkouts much to the joy of parents who are now not pestered “Muuuum I neeed this Mars bar, and I neeeeed the Skittles and I neeeeed the Snickers …”.

Still, the checkout is a location where supermarkets have your attention whilst you are loading your foodstuff and dog onto the carousel. So now at the checkout the sweets have been replaced by a raft of financial products, credit cards, pet insurance, car comparison insurance, mobile phone offers and more to tempt you.

So I recently paid more attention, in the stats, to the length that a person was spending on one of my client’s websites pages. I was surprised to find that the staff profiles pages had a significantly longer page viewing time than other pages. The profile pages are attention locations, just like the checkouts… Armed with this information, we created a series of product intros, different for each member of staffs profile page, so each member of staff in effect is introducing a product line. Guess what happened to sales, with these super personal product introduction?

Where ever you have someone’s attention, it is a potential selling point. Rinse it baby.

Rip off farmers markets

There are ton of things you can learn about marketing from seeing some farmer flog you overpriced locally grown organic vegetables. My friend Anthony runs a heirloom organic vegetables stall, which in itself is a good idea, as people are intrigued by white sprouting broccoli, purple carrots, and other funny vegetables.

But! What is more interesting is his constant incremental marketing and that he writes notes on in. One week his wife wrote careful titles of products rather than the computer print outs – Sales increased. Next week, he put his products in wicker baskets rather than cardboard boxes – sales increased. The following week, he wrote cooking/serving suggestions alongside the vegetable – sales increased

Guess what? Doing incremental changes to your landing pages works. In its nature, spending time tinkering and getting into the mind of your customer really f***ing works. Building a landing page and hoping for the best doesn’t.

You really have to test, report, try a new thing, test, report, try a new thing, test, report, try a new thing.. And then you’ll have the highest converting landing page possible.

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Next time, I look at some of the tools you need to do this landing page milarkey effectively.

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For business owners that means getting proper invoices from all your suppliers and outsourced jobs. Detail all office expenditure and petty cash. Get yourself a good accountant. If he finds things to claim for that you haven’t thought of that’s probably a good start.

For the self-employed that means equipment, stationary, reference books, travel and subsistence. If you are working from home it also means a percentage of your mortgage interest, council tax, gas, electric, insurance and work done on the house that affects you. If you are in this position and not making an absoulte ton of money then you probably shouldn’t be paying any tax. Get yourself an accountant – their fee is tax-deductable as well!

5 things not to claim for:

1. Moat cleaning (who knew there was a business in that!)
2. Horse manure (unless you are a gardener)
3. Chandeliers
4. Non-existent mortgages
5. Duck islands (unless it is the Duck’s secondary residence)

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The main complaint that’s been levelled against us is that we’re somehow devaluing what we do by giving it away. Again, I think this is the wrong way of looking at it; we feel that we are in a position where we can provide companies, charities and organisations with the help that they need and to do it properly.

The opportunity to get away from email and twitter and knuckle down to something for no other reason than you can will be great and we are looking forward to the people we meet along the way who we wouldn’t have done under normal circumstances.

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So it’s no suprise for my friends to hear me being snooty about the iPhone and Similar Devices Too Small To Look At The Internet With. And how I sneered at the advert about Apps: The things that let you know where to go out to eat, or calculated how to divide the bill between friends just made me angry as they all seemed to be over-engineering solutions for problems that don’t really exist, or making stupid people think that they can work something out that would be easier if they just gave it a go themselves!

And then the text at the end – oh no. ‘Some steps removed’. I’m sure anyone who has ever done anything on the net will know exactly what that means; a horrific drag just to find and download the thing, then learning about the app and then actually going through the process of using it. And who knows what cretinous user interface designers are out there that have been allowed to make apps or what marketing data they all try and get off you. But then the last app that had come up on the screen made me stop mid-rant and take notice.

It was for a spirit level – presumably using the iPhone’s motion thing so you could tell if something was level or not. Now, there was a real use for the technology and for people who need it would be as handy as could be. They wouldn’t have to remember to take a spirit level with them in case they needed it, and for people in the habit of taking one anyway – they would now have that useability within their phone! Wow! Now I was excited by the possibilities!

This happened again when I saw on TV an app used that was a decibel counter. Sure, limited in it’s everyday application for most of us, but for people that need it a huge saving in money, and another great use of the technology that the phone uses anyway.

This all started a big chain of thought for me and I re-read what I’d written about technology a few weeks ago for this blog. That was looking at new technologies in a negative way like I was doing again when I started watching the iPhone ads. But the lesson is that there are people out there who instead of just seeing something as new and complex and as costing them money are thinking “I wonder what else a microphone in a phone could be used for apart from talking into?”. And if those people aren’t making their fortune, they deserve to be. They’re looking at tecnholgies as the problem solvers and themselves as the solution finders.

These are the people who will survive not only the recession but probably also take the same aproach with life and all it’s problems and breeze through that as a result. I want to be more like them and see opportunity where I used to see complication.

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