Archive for the "General" Category
comments: 9 07.03.2008 Paul Shuteyev @ General

10+4 Marketing horror-words

Statistics is the greatest human invention and the most powerful marketing tool. During my researches I’ve found top 14 most horrible words for all customers. So if you’re professional businessman – you should check it for yourself and learn them! Let’s start, my friend!

1. Price

This may be one of those “unavoidable terms” and in fact is one that seems to be expected in ecommerce sites, however, it might be worth testing different terms, or leaving it out completely (instead of saying “Price: $xxx” consider just listing the price as “$xxx”). Again, this depends on the site.

2. Cost

Again, possibly another unavoidable term on an ecommerce site, but one that is worth testing.

3. Sign

Do you ask your customers to “Sign In”? If so, you could be scaring them away before they ever complete a sale. If you must speak in terms like that, consider phrases such as “Log in”, “For your convenience, enter your details below”, “For faster checkout, enter your information below”.

(”Sign in”)

4. Buy

Do you have buttons on your site that say “Buy Now”? Consider altering those to something more friendly such as “Add to Cart”, “Add to Bag”, “Put in My Cart”. I’ve even heard conversion tests show that a phrase such as “Proceed to checkout” works (but have not tested it personally).

5. Expensive

Just a bad word, everywhere, not only in marketing :D

6. Deal

Instead of saying “weekly deals” “monthly deals” etc… consider rephrasing to use the word “Sales” or “Specials” instead. The word “deals” could imply the products on the site might be considered “cheap”. On the contrary, listing some products as deals could cause other consumers to think the rest of the products must be “overpriced” ordinarily. The ultimate perception is in the eye of the consumer.

7. Sold

Do you list products as “Sold Out”? If so, consider rewording to say “Out of Stock”, “Not Available”, or removing the product from your catalog totally until it becomes available again.

8. Charge

Do you say things like “Charge Information”, “Charge Card”, “Charge Your Account”, etc…? If so, consider rewording to something more user friendly such as “Billing Information”, “Credit Card”, etc…

9. Try

When cross selling products, do you say things like “Try these other products you may like”? If so, consider rewording to something like “Other items of similar interest”, “Other products you may also like” etc…

10. Bad

Examples of usage you want to avoid are “Bad Login” and “Bad Credit Card Number”. Reword to read “Incorrect Login” or “Invalid Credit Card Number”.

11. Lose

Under the right circumstances, saying “You cannot lose” or “You have nothing to Lose” might mean you have already lost. Rephrase to state a bullet list of customer benefits from the product instead.

12. Complicated

Instead of describing a product as “not complicated” say it’s “easy to use”

13. Risk

Risk is just another bad word, like an Expensive one. Only racers and superheroes love risk :D

14. Obligation

Watch out for the double whammy “Risk Free No Obligation” statements.

comments: 8 06.03.2008 Paul Shuteyev @ General

Top 10 Marketing Fails

Check these 10 most funny and silly marketing fails in history! :) )))))))

10. Chevrolet Nova didn’t do well in Spanish speaking countries … Nova means ‘No Go’ …

9. Bacardi concocted a fruity drink with the name ‘Pavian’ to suggest French chic … but ‘Pavian’ means ‘baboon’ in German.

8. A peanut-packed chocolate bar targeted at Japanese teenagers needing energy while cramming for exams ran headlong into a belief that eating peanuts and chocolate causes nosebleeds.

7. Parker Pens translated the slogan for its ink, "Avoid Embarrassment – Use Quink" into Spanish as "Evite Embarazos – Use Quink" … which also means "Avoid Pregnancy – Use Quink."

6. When Gerber first started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the USA – the cute baby on the label. Later, when investigating lower than expected sales figures, they found out that it is common practice in Africa to put pictures of the contents on food package labels.

5. Coors slogan, "Turn it Loose," translated into Spanish as "Suffer From Diarrhea."

4. Puffs tissues had a bad name in Germany since "Puff" is a colloquial term for whorehouse.

3. Jolly Green Giant translated into Arabic means "Intimidating Green Ogre."

2. When Coca-Cola first came to China, it was given a similar sounding name … but the characters used for the name meant "Bite the Wax tadpole."

1. Chicken magnate Frank Perdue wants us to know that "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," but the Spanish translation came out as "It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate."

comments: 7 03.03.2008 Paul Shuteyev @ General

Humor: Joke up your director!

You definitely work in Marketing, if:

10. You lecture the neighborhood kids selling lemonade on ways to improve their look-to-buy ratio.

9. You get all excited when it’s Saturday so you can wear
casual clothes to work.

8. You refer to the tomatoes grown in your garden as “deliverables.”

7. You find you really need PowerPoint to explain what you do for a living.

6. You normally eat out of vending machines and at the most expensive restaurant in town within the same week.

5. You wear gray to work instead of navy blue to make a
bold fashion statement.

4. You know the people at the airport and hotel better
than your next door neighbors.

3. You ask your friends to “think out of the box” when making Friday night plans.

2. You think Einstein would have been more effective had he put his ideas into a matrix.

1. You think a “half-day” means leaving work at 5 o’clock.

laughing-guy-thumb1680751.jpg

 

comments: 5 01.03.2008 Paul Shuteyev @ General

Trick: Try different places for your link in newsletters!

The place a newsletter or email marketing campaign a link appears at can be crucial for click-through. Consequently, which link goes where can be crucial for the success (if measured in click-through rates) of any email marketing effort.

That’s why you’d try some new placements, pal!

Segment your list or, if you can’t segment, use consecutive issues to vary the placement of standard links. Monitor click-through rates closely to determine which link works best in a certain position, and in which position a link works best.

*** By my mind, the best place for link is after the whole text, so people could really get all the information in your newsletter and then fully check your link without disturbing by the upcoming text after that ( example below ). Try this!

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