Latest Brainy Marketing at Forbes

It’s been a while since I recapped my Forbes Brainy Marketing activity here, so here’s what you may have missed. And, be sure to add a comment if you visit. I can “call out” quality comments, and site admins sometimes expose these in different parts of the site.

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How to Turn a NO into a YES!

Can an initial rejection actually help you get the “yes” you really want? Surprisingly, if you create the right first and second requests, it can. Persuasion expert Robert Cialdini conducted a classic experiment that demonstrates the technique by soliciting volunteers to work with troubled kids.

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If Your Customers Have to Wait…

In years of running a direct marketing firm that included a small call center, my objective was to eliminate, or at least minimize, waiting time for phone customers. We knew (from those times when we didn’t have enough staff in place) that the longer callers waited to speak to a representative, the higher the probability [...]

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What Don Corleone Could Learn from Guy Kawasaki

When someone thanks you for doing them a favor, there are any number of stock ways to respond. “No problem.” “It was nothing.” And, of course, “You’re welcome.” For some situations, though, there’s a phrase that beats the common replies that we toss out. One of my favorite bits in Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment is a [...]

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Smiley Power: Green Marketing That Works

Could a simple smiley face on your power bill change your consumption? Utilities in various states, tired of unsuccessful attempts to encourage energy-saving strategies by their customers, are resorting to an approach based on sound neuromarketing principals: social pressure. As I noted in my post, Green Marketing Doesn’t Work, traditional appeals to “Save the Planet” [...]

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Personalization: Post-Its and Beyond

Have you ever received a printed invitation to, say, a charity fundraiser, and found that someone you know on the organizing committee had hand-written a short note encouraging you to attend? (Or sat in a room with other people actually scribbling such notes, periodically asking questions like, “Who knows Elmer and Dolly Pennington?”) It turns [...]

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Product Contagion in Action

I’ve been traveling quite a bit recently (which explains the lower rate of Neuromarketing posts), and at a recent stay at a Jameson Inn in Indiana, I encountered the above product arrangement on the shelf of their little convenience shop next to the check-in desk. While most of the studies have looked at the effect [...]

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Reflecting on the Mirror

Here’s a prediction: in the coming years, we’ll see mirrors popping up in the entryways of churches and other places of worship. And the reason won’t be to let those entering fix their hair. As we’ll see, the mirror has a rather magical effect on us. For years, motivation experts have told their audiences to [...]

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Small Favors, Big Success

Most of us need to persuade people that we don’t know personally to do things. A salesperson wants to close a deal. An office worker needs to persuade the new computer guy to fix her computer first. A fundraiser wants to get a potential donor to make a pledge. Our natural instinct in such situations [...]

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Green Marketing Doesn’t Work

Marketing eco-friendly products isn’t as easy as it might seem, particularly if the products involve some kind of sacrifice or behavioral change on the part of the consumer. Take a look at one of the supposed eco-villains, the auto industry. While one can criticize the big US auto firms (not to mention Toyota and Nissan) [...]

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