I’m delighted with the response to 10 Recipes for Persuasive Content. Great discussion. Hungry for more? I’ve added three new recipes:
11. Remember Persuasion Isn’t Just for Sales
Many people isolate persuasive content to sales. However, persuasive content is also important for customer service, self-service, and technical support. Why? Because in those contexts you still have the opportunity to influence customers. For example, you might
- Remind customers of your product or service benefits and differentiators.
- Convince people to remain customers despite the problem or misunderstanding they experienced.
- Highlight a different or additional product or service that better meets the customer’s need and might prevent future problems or misunderstandings.
- Convince people to try customer self-service or features such as paperless billing (see example below).
- Show appreciation for the customer.
The trick, of course, is to be sensitive to the timing and context. Don’t try to upsell the customer before addressing the customer service need. And don’t try to upsell the customer to a completely irrelevant product or service. An example is one of my favorite projects for Cingular Wireless, the Cingular Service Summary. This print document, e-mail, and web content promoted self-service options to new and renewed customers. Given to customers AFTER the sale, the content focuses on relevant information. We had to fight to keep inappropriate upselling out of it. The fight paid off…AT&T uses a similar concept today.
- The Cingular Service Summary promoted self-service options.
12. Consider the Influence of “Unread” Content
Content such as brand, product, or company history and company accomplishments might seem to be junk food. Certainly, a Web site should not have more content about its history than about its products or services. But such content feeds the appetite for credibility, especially for potential clients or customers.
Here’s an example. I recently contributed to User Insight’s redesign (to launch in January 2009). I recommended that they include this type of content. They included very little of it in their early designs, thinking that content was not useful enough. When User Insight tested it with potential clients, guess what they asked for?
Another example I’ve discussed in a UXMatters column is the Mini-Cooper. The history of the product is part of its appeal, so devoting some well-crafted content to it is more than appropriate.
13. Quantify the Abstract
I’ve mentioned metaphors as a fantastic way to make intangible concepts, such as services, tangible. Another way is through numbers or quantifications. Communicating the value of services—or really anything other than a hold-in-your-hand product—to new or unfamiliar customers might be a challenge. Numbers give people a taste of the service’s impact and benefit. Numbers are also a great rational appeal (Recipe #6).
For example, Huge Interactive devotes much of its home page to statistics—projects completed, number of employees, and more (see example below). These statistics are not particularly attractive. But they make the results of an interactive agency’s good work undeniably real. The fact the company even has these stats suggests it is organized and reliable. Finally, most people in the interactive world are familiar with metrics. Including these stats shows that Huge can speak that language.
In helping User Insight with its soon-to-launch redesign, we used numbers throughout the content to help show User Insight’s credibility as well as to drive home one of its differentiators, research efficiency. People sometimes perceive research as slow. Numbers such as completing 150 projects in a year help prove User Insight is anything but.
- Huge makes the impact of an interactive agency tangible through numbers.
The substance of this communication is largely content.