Amazing new ad writing tool – your body

Yesterday at Checkmate Live we spent about 5 minutes on a really interesting exercise. We walked around the room pretending we were our prospects. We paid attention to our posture, gait, intensity, speed, desire for eye contact, need for space, etc.

A couple of attendees had nearly instantaneous "aha's" about ways they could connect better with their prospects. Very powerful and deep insights that will now begin to play out in all aspects of their marketing – assuming they make it past the AdWords Split Test Reality Check.

Why did this occur after a body exercise, when the participants had been thinking and strategizing about this market for years?

Where We Keep the Data

The body is a way to do an "end run" around the defense of the Reticular Activating System, the RAS. Basically, the RAS is a filter that takes the millions of bits of information that he have predecided are not pertinent to our big goals and shunts them away from consciousness, into the murky waters of the unconscious.

Here's Richard Bartlett, from page 132 of Matrix Energetics:

"The conscious mind is like a gatekeeper whose job is to filter and delete any information that doesn't fit the paradigm of what could be called a 'need to know basis.' If the information appears irrelevant… then it is usually relegated to the 'back room' of your subconscious. It [the subsconscious] can process something along the magnitude of eleven million bits of data per second, compared with the left brain's paltry sum of just seven bits per second (plus or minus two bits). So pay attention to your flashes of intuition and your hunches, for they are likely to be based on far more information than that of your normal conscious state. [italics in original]."

The body stores and accesses all the data that isn't present to our "need to know" mind, the one that reads marketing books and analyzes AdWords reports and types questions in the Ring of Fire. So tapping into the body can open that storehouse of information that we didn't realize was key, because of our preconceptions.

No "Faith" Required

And the nice thing about operating from intuition in the AdWords space, is that our insights and hunches are testable. We don't have to take anything on faith. As we test, we learn to trust certain intuitional experiences and modalities, at least to the point where we begin to routinely pay attention to them.

Accessing the Unconscious with Clients

I find that when I talk with clients and prospects on the phone, I often "get a hit" – some thought or image or sensation comes unbidden to my attention. For a long time, I wouldn't even notice it. Then, I would notice it fleetingly but push it out of the way: "Hey, I'm trying to concentrate here!"

Then I would notice it with curiosity: "Why am I seeing a submarine here?… What's the significance of the movie "Empire Records" to this client problem?… "Why is my right shoulder suddenly aching?"

Sometimes I mention it on the phone now. Sometimes I take the time to translate it into an innocent question, so the client doesn't think I'm crazy. Almost always, the image or sensation begins to make sense, pointing to some aspect of the situation that hadn't been communicated or acknowledged. A "larger container" or context in which to operate.

Anyway, the exercise took about 8 minutes, so what do you have to lose?

Got stories of intuitions, images, or sensations guiding you to wise action and positive outcomes? Please share them in the Comments section.

Segment your traffic from a single keyword

When one of your important keywords represents different market segments, you've got to make some tough landing page choices. If you try to appeal to all the segments at once, your page will be bland, vague and uninteresting. Yet if you choose one segment, you disregard the others. What's an advertiser to do?

Ambiguous Keyword Example

nanny placement agency

Who's looking for that? Families looking for nannies, and nannies looking for jobs.

As you can see from the screenshot of the Google SERP (search engine results page), the advertisers focus on the families. There's more money to be made by placing a nanny with a family than by getting another candidate on your roster.

And a nanny looking for an agency is likely to dig into the website to find the "Apply for a Job" page. Because they might be more motivated and therefore willing to put up with more steps, it's logical that the advertiser would make them second banana to the family looking to hire Mary Poppins this minute.

So the landing page would focus primarily on parents looking for nannies, with a link somewhere for the nannies looking for families. Not a perfect solution, but the best one we have available to us.

Actually, had.

New: Ad SiteLinks

Google has just introduced a new AdWords feature called "SiteLinks" that allow you to specify up to 10 specific landing pages in addition to your main one. Here's an example:

It looks like this feature – currently in limited beta – is available only for ads in the premium positions – above the organic links on the left, rather than down the right side. And there's no word about partner or content networks at this point.

So soon you'll be able to run your nanny ad with some additional links:

For Parents    For Nannies
For Kids         For Julie Andrews

Keep a lookout for this new feature in your account – it will appear in campaign settings, under a tab named "Ad extensions".

And start watching the SERP for good and bad examples of this new feature.

To Increase AdWords Profits, Send People Away

Here’s a sweet sign, from a goth/punk clothing store in Dresden, Germany:

In Germany, people bring their dogs everywhere. Stores, restaurants, you name it – Fido (or Augustus Sterk, as a Dresden dog might be called ;) is as welcome as their owner’s wallet.

But not here, in the punk section.

Isn’t This Store Losing a Lot of Business?

Possibly. A lot of dog owners might not only be discouraged by the sign, but actually offended by the image of the handgun with a finger on the trigger.

But in this neighborhood in Dresden, it seems that some percentage of residents might prefer to shop in a store that caters solely to two-leggeds, who don’t shed (much) or hump (indiscriminately).

So the “Go Away” sign for dog owners functions as a “Come In” sign for dog haters (or at least, dog-averse shoppers). It flags their attention by singling out another group for exclusion.

Are Your Ads For Everyone?

If you’re advertising to appeal to every single searcher on your keyword, you’re probably wasting a lot of money. First, by attracting non-ideal-prospects to your site. Folks who are unlikely to buy.

Second, by not attracting the group you don’t want to exclude.

The goth shop probably does a great business selling to disaffected, anti-establishment, unemployed youth who still live at home and can’t afford a dog. A group likely to smile at the gruesome image of Fido about to get wasted, and likely to buy the studded bracelets and obscene black t-shirts and thick-soled black boots on offer inside.

If you want to attract singles to your site, then announce, Not For Married People.

If you sell software to advanced users, let your searchers know that it’s not for beginners.

And so on.

Do You Know Your Ideal Customer?

This process of disqualification not only brings you fewer non-buyers and more buyers, but it does something even more subtle, basic and powerful:

It helps you identify and target your ideal customer.

Once you know who you’re selling to (and you’ve given up the fantasy notion that you can sell to everyone), everything about your marketing gets easier.

Discover how to use the web and a few minutes of smart research to discover your ideal customer in the upcoming Traffic Surge course. Starts October 7, 2009.

If you aren’t getting enough qualified traffic to your site (i.e., not enough impressions or clicks, or the wrong impressions and clicks), then Traffic Surge will turn your fortunes around in eight weeks. Guaranteed.

Learn more about Traffic Surge and sign up here.