Abridged with the author’s permission from The Conversion Scientist

The launch video for DollarShave Club is one of this spring’s hits in social media (30,000 likes) and on Youtube (4.5 Million views). The Dollar Shave video went mega viral because it is “funny,” right?

It’s more than that. To truly understand its success you need to break it down and analyze what emotional strings it is playing.

Michael is fed up. Who isn’t?

The major emotional theme of the video is “Fed up-ness”. At the heart of this Fed up-ness lies of course Dollarshave’s value proposition to customers who are fed up with paying for overpriced razor blades. But there’s more.

The whole body language of CEO Michael Dubin says “I’m fed up”. He just can’t sit or stand still, he needs to move, he’s on a mission. He’s fed up with political correctness as he proclaims that the blades are F***ing great. He’s fed up with over-paid tennis players. I think he’s even fed up with being fed up.

This goes right into the core of the American peoples’ feelings. Not only are they fed up with the razor blade monopoly, they’re fed up with Washington, they’re fed up with no jobs.

Michael takes matters into his own hands

By doing so he becomes an agent for the aspirations of Gillette-enslaved Americans. When they buy blades from DollarShave, they’re not customers, they’re proactive change agents who can create change and fortune by their own actions. Together with Michael they enact their shared American dream.

Michael is one of us, not one of them

Look at Michael’s office. It’s a mess. You’ll find similar offices all over the country. Except of course at Madison Avenue. It’s as far from that as you can possibly get. In any case Michael seems to spend most of his time in the warehouse.

If you know a little bit about video production you can see it’s professionally made. Still it’s created to preserve an amateurish look and feel. That’s not by coincidence.

Michael is American

Ok, the flag at the end is obvious, but when you think of it the American theme runs right through the video.

There’s an homage to the ancestors (Grandpa with Polio). The evil villain is a foreigner (a Swiss tennis player). There’s a reference to the Vanderbilts.

It might not be as obvious to you as it is to me (I’m Swedish), but it’s there for sure.

Michael talks to … Michaels

Michael is a former marketing exec. Does he need to save dollars on his shaving in order to be able to keep the kids in school? I don’t think so.

So when crafting the video for the launch campaign Michael needed to decide what people he should appeal to. And I think the answer is: “People like me!” People who think the Swiss Army knife approach of Gillette is starting to look ridiculous. People who don’t need to save on their shaving. People who just have this feeling that something should change. Not for rational money-saving reasons, but for emotional reasons.

Others will come later who really need to save on their shaving, who want more proof of the quality of the blades. We’ll see other campaigns designed for them.

Michael creates an Experience

I listened to Jared Spool at Conversion Conference SF a couple of months ago. He said that every innovation goes through three phases: (1) Technology, (2) Features, and (3) Experience.

Gillette is clearly about Features, with their vibrating handle, flashlight, 10 blades and backscratcher.

Michael, on the other hand, spends exactly 5 seconds to talk about the features of the products in the 94 seconds video. DollarShave creates an Experience around how we see ourselves as individuals and how we want to live our lives.

We react much stronger to messages about our identity than our actions. If and when you decide to buy those blades you’re participating in a collective experience designed to enforce your self-image as a strong and active American.

John Ekman is the Chief Conversionista of Conversionista! He is regarded as a Swedish authority on Conversion Rate Optimization. Follow John on Twitter @conversionista.

Reprinted with the author’s permission from What’s Next Blog.

If I hear one more client ask for “a viral” or one more agency promise one, I’ll scream.

I got three email pitches yesterday about new viral marketing campaigns. One was from an agency that said it “provides complete viral services.” Another was for a brand’s (embargoed) new viral video campaign” that will launch on Monday. (Hint: a campaign that has not launched yet is not viral.) And the third was from a friend, who saw something she thought I’d love and forwarded me a link. Guess which one I clicked on.

First let’s define viral marketing:

I define viral marketing as content passed from one person to another, including images, videos, links, applications, games, stories, emails, documents or virtually any other type of digital content that one person passes to another via email, IM, text messaging, or social network like Twitter, or content sharing sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Pinterest, Facebook, Google+, etc.

What kind of creative is likely to go viral?

•  Knockout creativity that’s funny, shocking, intriguing or surprising
•  An idea customers can relate to and care about
•  A clear-cut message so people are able to pass it on with one descriptive sentence
•  An easy way to pass it on—a link, embedding code, “share this” button, email to a friend, etc.
•  A concept that builds relationships with customers by getting them to interact with others
•  Measurable outcomes, as in: what is this campaign hoping to accomplish and how will we measure it

Top two reasons you can’t force marketing to go viral:    

1. It’s not viral because you say it is. Viral is what happens when something people see delights, intrigues, informs, or teaches people something they find interesting or amusing enough to want to send it to their friends. 
2. Viral is a reward, not an intent.

What doesn’t (ever) make a campaign go viral:

•         sending out an advance press release about your “latest viral”
•         an email that says “we’re launching this viral campaign tomorrow”

B.L. Ochman is publisher of What’s Next Blog, contributor to Ad Age DigitalNext and Sr Creative Technologist for AFS Intercultural Programs, a global, non-profit foreign exchange program for high school students. She has been helping Fortune 500 companies incorporate emerging media into their business strategies since 1996. She is co-founder of Pawfun.com.

Reprinted with the author’s permission from White Paper Pundit.

The online world is changing at an ever-increasing pace. Simple websites now include animation. HTML has gone the way of WordPress to optimize content for SEO. Video is no longer a unique content addition, it is now a requirement. Social media links are found everywhere.

But what about the white paper?

Unfortunately for many B2B marketers, white papers have seen little change since its inception in the early 1920s as an all-text government document. For a growing number of social media-savvy business readers, the traditional, all-text white paper just doesn’t cut it anymore. Here are a few reasons why:

The first issue is the size of the traditional white paper. Between 10 and 20 pages, these traditional papers are more than any online reader can digest in one reading session. A white paper must take into consideration today’s increasingly short attention span. Publishing any white paper over 15 pages is simply overkill. If you have a white paper over 15 pages, break it up into a series of smaller white papers related to one another. For example, a 20 page white paper on supply chain management could easily be transformed into three 7-page papers on different aspects of the same topic.

Second, is the lack of formatting. The traditional paper is typically made up of a series of similar-looking, left-flush paragraphs. There is very little text formatting such as the use of bold, larger fonts, bullets, callouts/pull quotes, or shaded text boxes that would allow skim readers to quickly grab key bottom-line points. With the traditional mono-font format (often Courier, Times, or Arial) it is difficult for most reader to remain engaged, let alone comprehend the key messages. Most may get through about two or three pages, but beyond that significant drop-off occurs.

The third reason is the lack of graphics. The addition of a professional front and back cover design, business, concept and/or workflow graphics, and stock business images builds reader affinity, enabling readers to quickly and clearly understand complex business messages. As social media becomes a bigger part of our lives, graphic images will become more important to delivering strategic messages. Without them, B2B marketers risk alienating online readers and any hope of generating an ROI from their white paper development costs.

The best analogy for the use of graphics is the annual report. For anyone who has invested in a publicly traded company, receiving a professionally designed annual report in the mail supports a positive impression of the investment you made in that company. Can you imagine receiving an all-text annual report devoid of graphics? How would you feel about your investment and that company in general?

Yes, it is sad that as a society we don’t read as much as we should. But from a business perspective, we have to accept the reality of our target audience and what will be the most effective way to reach them. Given a social media–savvy audience, adopting new white paper principles will facilitate the delivery of essential business messages, generating a greater number of leads, new business opportunities, and ultimately customers.

To learn more about designing white papers for today’s social media audience, download the free white paper, “How to Craft White Papers that Appeal to Busy Executive Readers.”

Jonathan Kantor is the founder of The White Paper Company and the White Paper Pundit blog.

Reprinted with the author’s permission from The Search Agents 

Mobile devices are accessing the internet now more than ever, and savvy marketers are closely watching and optimizing their mobile audiences. It’s helpful to break out this data to see the conversion rate per device so problems or optimization opportunities can be identified. Here’s how to setup a custom dashboard to analyze your mobile audience:

1. Create a New Dashboard in the new version of Google Analytics
2. Add widgets according to what datapoints you want to see, for ours we did:
• Visits
• Goal Completions
• Bounce Rate
• Pie Graph of Visits grouped by Visitor Type (New vs Returning)
• Timeline of Visits compared with Pageviews
• Table with Mobile Device Model, Visits and Goal Conversion Rate
• Pie graph with Visits grouped by Medium
• Table with Screen Resolution, Visits, and Goal Conversion Rate
3. Now comes the tricky part. We are going to add a filter to all these widgets with the following to only show mobile traffic:

• Only Show: Mobile
• Exactly Matching: Yes

Now that Google has allowed filtering within the new dashboards, they can be created for virtually anything. We are currently building many targeted dashboards for our clients.

Richard Schneider is [Title TK] with The Search Agency.

Abridged with the author’s permission from the SuccessWorks blog.

In many ways, link bait needs to work like a landing page. Both content types need to:

Grab Attention.

• Hold the reader’s Interest.
• Incite emotions and Desire in the reader.
• Convince readers to take Action.

That’s a lot for one piece of content to accomplish, so every element needs to be perfect. You need a proven conversion formula like AIDA.

A = Attention: Craft a Powerful Headline

The headline has to:

• Stand independently: Does it tell the reader what the content is about?
• Grab attention: Does it catch the eyes of people who will link back to you?
• Promise value: Does it promise the reader a return on their investment (time)?
• Contain power/action words: Verbs and power words like free, cheap, and fast get attention.
• Have a clear message: Does your headline promise to provide the reader with a particular benefit?
• Stand out: Does the headline stand out visually?

I = Interest: Make the Content Interesting

When building a landing page, you need to answer the visitor’s biggest question: “So what?”

Because link bait doesn’t outright sell something, you need to use other methods of generating interest.

One solution is to focus on details that will pique his/her interest the most.

A few years back, Danielle Winfield of BlueGlass wrote a post called “When Offline Linkbait Ignores the Online Part.” In it, a popular pet magazine had featured an article on famous peoples’ pets. Sadly, their layout fell short. Danielle provided a list of changes that could have increased the amount of attention and links they could have gotten.

Her biggest suggestion? Play on the reader’s interest in celebrities.

And don’t forget about formatting: Subheadings and bolded text will help the reader identify the important information quickly. If you cut out everything except the subheads, bolded text, and bullet points, the reader should still get the basic facts from the article.

D = Desire: Make Your Reader Feel Something

Link bait should make you feel something. Most of the time, I link back to posts because it gave me an “I never thought of that” moment, or I felt so passionate about a topic that I couldn’t help but reply.

To get the reader emotionally involved, engage his/her five senses. Not sure how to do it? This technique is discussed in some detail by James Chartrand. 

A = Action: Ask for the Link

If you’ve completed the previous step successfully, much of this should already be done for you. But you can take steps to encourage interaction (and links):

• Ask a question or opinion at the end.
• Say something controversial, slightly biased, or partially incorrect. (Just be careful with this one. The last thing you want to do is come off looking uninformed. Or worse.)
• Leave parts out. If you “forget” something, someone will surely fill in the blank for you. Just be sure to fulfill the promise you made in the headline.
• Offer an incentive. It doesn’t have to be anything big, either. It simply needs to be something most of your readers won’t be able to get access to on their own.
• Tie them personally to the piece. If you write a direct response to someone and kick-start a friendly debate, or address him/her specifically in the content, s/he may return the favor.

 The AIDA technique doesn’t guarantee you success every time, but this technique will certainly help in getting your content read and link-loved.

Angie Nikoleychuk is the senior copywriter, consultant & strategist at Angie’s Copywriting Services.

Abridged with the author’s permission from the MarketingExperiments Blog. You can read the full post with full analysis at Email Testing: Subject line increases opens 12.7% … here’s why we’ll never use it again.

The purpose of a subject line is to get an open. However, the purpose of a subject line is not only to get an open. In a recent subject line contest, there were some curious submissions:

• Mom told me to wear clean underwear in case I was in an accident. I wish she had told me about this too …
• RE: The video showed a bald man. Why?
• 1 Thing You MUST Do in Denver Before You Die
• Want to find the end of a rainbow AND the pot of gold?
• Open &; Enjoy Real Bacon Smell…

I know some of these are likely meant as jokes, but if the amount of misleading subject lines that fill my own inbox every day is any indication, many of them are probably serious.

The road to unsubscribes is paved by good intentions

Keep in mind that by having someone’s email address and the permission to send them email, you are entering into a circle of trust in that person’s life.

Sounds kind of touchy feely, doesn’t it? But think about it. The inbox is where people share some of the most important things in life with the people that matter most to them – from important results at work to moments with the family or friends at home.

If you mislead, you violate that trust, and your audience will fight back by unsubscribing, or, perhaps even worse, labeling you as a spammer. 

… and in the end, curiosity doesn’t work very well anyway

Sonia Simone, CMO of Copyblogger Media, puts these types of subject lines into the greater “Curiosity” category. “Curiosity headlines rarely do well,” she says. “Writers love them, but readers tend not to respond. That’s not something we invented or discovered; serious copywriters have been preaching it for more than 100 years now.”

In a recent case study email sent to the MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Newsletter list, I fell in love with a clever subject line written by our freelance reporter, Jeri Dube (note: MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa are both owned by MECLABS). 

I thought, “What a perfect chance to run a test that challenges the model.”

The MarketingSherpa subject line model is pretty straightforward—we write case studies and how-to articles that focus on “what really works” in marketing, and write straightforward subject lines that reflect the results from those articles when we distribute them.

Control: How Blockbuster Express grew its email list 300%

Treatment: If Alfred Hitchcock wrote emails, could he grow an audience by 300%?

That curiosity-driven subject line “worked”: it generated 12.7% more opens.

But this test has a Hitchcockian twist. Even though the subject line had a higher unique open rate, it had a lower unique clickthrough rate (measured as delivered to click).

So even though the Treatment had a head start (if more people open it, there is the possibility for more people to click), it received less unique clicks.

Why?

The Control made an honest promise: “If you open this email, you will learn more about this case study.”

The Treatment was basically just saying: “Hey, dude, wanna see something cool?”

That is why I’m sticking to the tried-and-true model for the MarketingSherpa editorial subject lines. I don’t care how many opens we get if we make a misleading proposition that discourages the marketer from reading the article.

Daniel Burstein is the Director of Editorial Content for MECLABS.

Abridged with the author’s permission from the Vertical Measures blog.

So you want to start embedding video on your company website. Here are some of the essentials to get you started if you want to do it in-house rather than outsourcing.

(I focus on Q&A videos, since those are very popular, for good reason: the Q&A format allows you to answer questions from your readers, and also provides good quality content that search engines love.)

Pre-Shoot

• The camera: Money buys features—in most cases features you don’t need. For many, a “flip” camera is good enough. For others that need better quality, a Canon VIXIA HF R20 is a great choice. The smart auto mode helps to take the guesswork out of settings and automatically analyzes faces and brightness.
•  Lights: If you want great quality video, you can’t rely on the fluorescents in your office. Check out Cowboy Studio for lighting equipment—you can pick up a complete video lighting set up for under $300.
• Microphone: Most on-camera microphones will not produce the quality you need, so an additional microphone is essential. Check out the AudioTechnica ATR6550 Selectable Shotgun Microphone. Keep in mind that a boom mic will pick up any sound, so you need a quiet room/studio.     
• Posing setup: Should your host be sitting behind a desk or standing up? For a small studio, you might decide on a posing stool and adjustable table (Savage Posing Kit). The posing stool helps the person sit up straight, while the table does two things allows for notes and doubles as a reflector.   
• Backgrounds: You want a background that does not pull focus from the person speaking. If you’re shooting in an office, a bookcase or office furniture will work. The key is to set your camera with a tight focus so the background is slightly blurred.   
• Preparation: For a Q&A video, invite questions from your readers or determine some of the most frequently asked questions about your products or services. Assign questions to your staff that they can answer easily. You don’t want them to be reading off a script, but they should have prepared in advance how they want to answer. Tell them to practice their answers out loud in front of the mirror, in the car—wherever they can actually hear themselves practicing. 

During the Shoot

• Be yourself. Don’t be stiff and formal; communicate as you typically would. But speak up and enunciate clearly.   
• Relax. You will be a bit nervous when you get started. Work through it.    
• Smile.  
• Give energy to your talk. 
• Maintain eye contact with the camera.   
• Keep it simple. Don’t write complicated answers. Stick to your key message and talking points.   
• Be careful with transitions. “Ummmm…” and “like…” are used by speakers as transitions between thoughts. Many times we don’t even realize how often we use these pauses and phrases for our transitions. Listen for these when you practice and try to totally eliminate them during your recorded answer.
• Wear solid colors. Stay away from narrow stripes and busy patterns. Avoid wearing black, white, bright orange, or bright reds. Otherwise, dress as you normally would.

Post-Shoot

• Production software: This is an area that can become expensive based on your needs. Programs to consider include Apple’s Final Cut Pro (from $300) and Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11 (from $95). Keep in mind that some programs require upgraded video cards and memory to run efficiently. Make sure your current computer hardware matches the minimums required.
• Intros, transitions, and other elements: Many video production software packages come with sample intro/outros you can use. You can also create your own intro/outro or buy professionally produced ones. 
• Optimization: It doesn’t matter how good your video is if no one ever sees it. We transcribe all of our video and post that content on the page with the video embed. We also include titles and category tags. We want to give the search engines some meat to find the video and rank it well. As with any content page, be sure to optimize the page title, header tags, and meta-description to support relevant keywords. If you are hosting your video on a platform like YouTube, you will want to optimize your video there as well.

Mike Huber is Director of Client Services at Vertical Measures.

Abridged with the author’s permission from Post-Advertising.

The most successful brands on Facebook Pages aren’t the ones you’d think. If I told you that Coca-Cola’s Facebook Page has an engagement rate of less than one percent, would you believe me? Well, it’s true. After calculating the ratio of Coke’s total Likes to total engagement (“Talking About This”), the Page clocks in at a meager score of 0.7%.

But this is not unusually low for Facebook Pages; in fact, it’s quite average. Most brands are very successful in generating Likes but fail to keep their fans talking.

There are many ways to get a Like on Facebook—a paid advertisement, incentivized deals, fan-only contests, etc. But whether hard won or bought by the thousand, this number doesn’t reflect true fan interest and engagement. Yes, when total Likes spike, so too does overall engagement (likes/comments/shares), but it’s usually an altogether temporary side effect to ad spend. At first, new fans will explore the Page and interact with its content with a fresh-faced burst of enthusiasm for the subject matter, perhaps also feeling excited about the prospect of a contest or promotion. But eyes start to wander as content wears thin, becomes stale or disinteresting to them. Users won’t bother to ‘Unlike’ the Page, but they will forget about it entirely. Dissatisfaction—conscious or otherwise—with the brand will linger. It is the ongoing presence (in spirit) of these disinterested fans that create such low engagement percentages.

What matters more than a headcount is how heads interact with the Page once they have liked it, a phase dubbed “the Afterlike” by Crowdly. In the Afterlike phase, content is what matters. Don’t expect fans to stick around and participate with mediocre posts and generic tabs. A brand’s personality and unique story must shine through in each content offering. Hitting the right note can be difficult, but brands with unique perspectives and something interesting to say will resonate with consumers.

Actual Engagement = People Talking About This/Total Likes

Let’s take a step back to talk about the ratio that creates this important metric.

The People Talking About This metric measures unique user interaction with a Page over a seven-day period. This includes liking a Page, posting on the Timeline, answering a question, commenting, sharing, etc. One interaction per fan over the course of a week doesn’t seem like a lot to ask—a comment takes only a few seconds, after all, and seven days is a long time in the world of social media. And yet this can be very difficult to achieve.

Lady Gaga, one of the most popular current musicians, has a 0.9% engagement rate. Facebook itself slides in with a measly 0.6%.

Here are few brands on Facebook that strike a good balance.

YourMother, a fan Page dedicated to How I Met Your Mother and its syndication on WGN America, has a remarkable engagement rate of 21% with over 1,000,000 fans. (Full disclosure: WGN America is a Story Worldwide client.) By posting twice, or even three times per day, YourMother ensures that fans keep interested, and that the Page content stays at the top of newsfeeds and at top of mind.

The New York Knicks are another strong example. At the height of Linsanity, the Page had an engagement percentage of 21%. It now hovers around 5.7%, which is still far above average. With a talented young team, the brand is inherently interesting, and their frequent postings (around 3 per day, often in real time) go a long way in encouraging fan engagement. Posts consistently earn thousands of Likes because they favor colorful photos, game stats, and links to articles.

Brands on Facebook have long been focused on total Likes as the be-all and end-all of metrics, but I think this overall engagement ratio is something closer to reality—a more accurate reflection of true fan interaction. A high percentage here is well worth reaching for.

Katie Edmondson is an Assistant Editor at Story Worldwide.

Reprinted with the author’s permission from Convince & Convert.

Among other disruptive characteristics that have altered the nature of business forever (real-time interaction, every customer is a reporter, customer service is a spectator sport, etc.) a major way that social media changes the game is the Democratization of Voices.

Your Company Needs to Be Human Because You’re Competing with Humans

Social media is the first time in history that companies communicate alongside real people, and with no inherent advantage. Go to your Facebook Wall and scroll down for a while. Mine looks something like this:

Friend

Friend

Friend

Brand

Mom

Wife

Brand

Acquaintance

Acquaintance

I’ll bet yours is approximately the same. Now look at Twitter (public feed of the people you follow, not lists). Basically the same, right? A mixture of people you know, people you love, people you want to know, and companies. All of them using precisely the same tools and formats to jostle for your attention. This is simply unprecedented.

Your Mom does not buy full-page magazine ads adjacent to car companies. Your friends do not make 60-second radio spots. Your high school ex-girlfriend doesn’t put up freeway billboards (unless she’s even more deranged than most). Those are brand tactics, not people tactics. Yet in social media, brands and people are using the same toolbox.

Because social media strips away the corporate communication advantages (money, personnel, expertise) they have enjoyed forever, brands often try to fight through the clutter of social media and curry your favor by giving you the BEST OFFER EVER. The paradox is that’s exactly what we don’t want.

We Don’t Want Promotions in Social Media

We the people don’t want promotions in social media. It’s not as if we signed up for social media sites so that we could hang out with software companies and hotel chains and T-shirt purveyors and ham merchants. We signed up to connect with each other, not with commerce.

New research from my friends ExactTarget (I am proud to have them as a client) puts a mathematical fine point on our collective abhorrence for social promotions. In their 2012 Channel Preferences Study (download it here for free) 1,500 Americans ages 15 and older were asked about their usage of email, social media, and text messaging. The results are astounding.

Preferred Channel for Promotional Messages From Companies Whom I Have Granted Permission to Send Me Ongoing Information

Even for companies that we have given permission to send us offers (not Spam), only 4% of us prefer those messages to be delivered via Facebook, and just 1% via Twitter. 77% of us prefer offers to be delivered via email.

Only 4% of us would look at Facebook first to find a deal from a company. Another 10% would look at Facebook second.

Where do we prefer to receive and look for promotional messages? Email. That old, neglected war horse of digital marketing still delivers the dollars, as 77% of survey participants want promotional email from companies, and 44% would look to email first to find a deal.

Be Social Don’t Do Social

I’ve been critical about Facebook’s Timeline and how the company is forcing companies to act like people on the platform.  But they’re right. If we so clearly don’t want special offers and promotions clogging our social streams, companies must focus on being social, and worry less about doing social media in ways that approximate direct marketing.

I’m not saying never run a contest or a promotion or a special offer or a threshold deal in social media. But if your company doesn’t have a social media editorial program that emphasizes spontaneous, personal, human, light-hearted, interesting, funny, timely, and photo-driven content, you are swimming against a powerful tide of customer desire.

Smart companies use social to turn customers into fans, and fans into volunteer marketers. They worry less about squeezing every nickel and click out of each tweet and status update.

Jay Baer is a social media strategy consultant and coach for corporations and public relations firms. He is the author of the book The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social.