Warning > this post does NOT include “50 shades of Grey” style soft porn (except for the image above).
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I rather want to share a lesson with you that you can use for failing successfully online.
A few weeks ago, after watching this epic little talk about how emotions are the single most important
factor in sales that almost made me come a little, I changed my rock-solid landing page (read: fucking boring)
to something more…edgy. The talk taught me to INFUSE more emotion-evoking mechanics,
you know, using STRONG words and emotional language so you have to act on my calls to actions…
(insert evil laughter here).
Since I’m all about standing out online (branding + marketing + kick-ass visuals), I used a boob-blessed
anime character, luring YOU (the innocent visitor) seductively into the main sales copy of my branding guide.
I patted myself on the back:
“Brilliantly done, Mars. You’re the A of the Z” and thought I got hot burner on my hands…well…
The result was…rather interesting to say the least.
First, here’s just some of the feedback people fired back at me (paraphrased by me):
“Mars, stop being so cheap. It’s degrading and overused by the media. Don’t fall to their level.”
“Cool idea with the woman, I love that. I should do something like this on my own site.”
“It fits you”
“Makes me think I’m visiting a Japanese porn site”
“Now that’s a landing page that I’m actually going to read”
“Women are NOT going to like that.”
I even had someone so disgusted by the landing page that he wanted a return for the Outstander guide, mmm, interesting.
As you can see, few people actually luved it to bits and pieces, claiming that they enjoyed the edgy humor, while
others (not to say most) labeled it as misogynistic and trite. I personally thought it was a nifty little idea -
using that sexistic style in a different context that’s related to my product. I made a few sales that day I went live, but
very few since then, so it probably wasn’t edgy & different as I wanted it to be, haha.
Hey – that’s how the game goes – you crash and burn, and rise from the ashes. With new-found knowledge.
But I can tell you one thing – I’m soo much smarter than I was last week – especially about the way I see my community.
Good Seth Godin got it right (that bastard is almost always right. One fine day, Seth, I’ll prove you wrong ;) :
The way to be successful online today is by doing lots of little failures – not anything BIG that can blow you out of the game, but things that are important enough so you can learn something incredible from them. The lesson you learn can be applied to your next idea and project.
How to fail-experiment first ( so you can be successful later )
Here’s a nifty little formula I now use to test drive my experiments:
“edgy” idea+ immediate feedback = faster way to remarkable success.
So the first part is probably laser-shiny clear: you have to come up with an idea that’s a bit out there.
The only way to test your limits of your (business) comfort zone is to see how far you can go. So, go create
a landing page that’s totally different from your market, offer a service that no one offers, try a complete different
color design for your site.
You obviously DON’T want to mess up your brand – whatever edgy idea you come up with, it should still
relate to your brand meaning. A preacher infusing saucy images into his landing page won’t delight his target audience.
You have to find the PERFECT balance between how far you can go and when you stop it. You’ll do it.
Amen.
The second part is just as important – you have to get immediate, and I mean IMMEDIATE feedback.
Since you’ll be testing a lot, and you’re doing it fast, you want to get the feedback now. Ask your peers, friends and
clients what they think of your “experiment” – what do they DON’t like about it, what kind of emotion do they associate with it ?
I asked a lot of peeps about my landing page, and I told them to be BRUTALLY, OBNOXIOUSLY-I-WANT-TO-PUNCH-MY-FACE-HONEST. And while my ego got cracks in the obvious places, my always inquiring brain smiled from membrane to membrane.
Take that knowledge from your peeps and tweak your experiment, and then start the next little experiment.
Again:
“edgy” idea+ immediate feedback = faster way to remarkable success.
Do that often enough, and you will both create a refreshingly different online brand, and create offers that directly appeal to your target audience. BOOOYA baby.
Now please don’t just nod your lazy-ass head and think “that makes sense.”
Of COURSE it makes fucking sense. But only if you ACTUALLY apply that in REAL LIFE.
Repeat this after me – you have to fail-experiment first SO you can be successful later.
Like, tell me right now which experiment with your online presence you’re going to try out NOW ?
I’m waiting…
And test-share this post with ze people you care about
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