Online Ads that Work

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?

Continue reading “Online Ads that Work”

Marketing Adventures with Drayton Bird
(Persuasion Play Podcast 008)

Today on the Persuasion Play Podcast, episode 008…

I welcome a very special guest, Mr. Drayton Bird!

Who is 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… Continue reading “Marketing Adventures with Drayton Bird (Persuasion Play Podcast 008)”

10 Things You’ll Learn from “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss

I’m always in the lookout for new books of interest. I tend to buy far more than I have time to read, and it ensures I always have something cooking in my brain.

List subscriber Philippe wrote in a month ago to suggest Chris Voss’ Never Split the Difference. Philippe said it might be the best book on persuasion that he had read. I bought it… and immediately moved it to the top of my pile.

Is this the best book on persuasion I've ever read? It just might be…
Is this the best book on persuasion I’ve ever read? It just might be…

Continue reading “10 Things You’ll Learn from “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss”

How your beautiful (type) face is hurting your message

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:

font_choices

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:

font_choices_blackletter

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:

font_choices

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:

font_choices_sans_serif_small

And here it is again, in a larger size to further improve readability:

font_choices_sans_serif

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:

  1. The reader gives up sooner because it’s mentally taxing to continue, and
  2. The message is more memorable, because the brain needed to use more logical reasoning to understand what it’s reading.

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.

font_vignelli-canon-57

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