How to Convert Blog Readers to Leads

17 comments, 223 likes on Facebook, and 88 retweets.

You’re writing stuff, and people are reading it. They’re clicking your links and arriving at your blog. Your efforts are finally paying off with a steady stream of traffic.

We’re not going to focus on the importance of a business blog. You know it’s crucial to business success in the 21st century:

• 85.1% of American households have some sort of computer, to say nothing of the prevalence of smartphones.
• Marketers that prioritize blogging as part of their efforts are 13x more likely to see a positive return-on-investment.
• The number one challenge for marketing departments is generating traffic and leads. A frequently updated blog can kill two birds with one stone.
• Nearly 80% of people identify as blog readers.
• Companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those who don’t, 434% more indexed pages, and 97% more indexed links…all of which lead to better SEO and ranking.
• 70% of B2C marketers use blogging in their marketing efforts, second only to social media (89%) and email (86%). The numbers are even higher in the B2B sphere, where 79% use blogging, 92% use social media, and 93% use email.
• More is more: those that publish 16+ posts per month generate nearly 3.5x more traffic and 4.5x more leads than those that only publish between 0-4.

Blogs are a popular, effective, and affordable way to bring people to your digital domain. That’s the good news.

The “bad” news? Traffic generation is only half the battle. Pageviews, likes, tweets, and comments are nice, but none of them are the ultimate goal. You need to convert that traffic into leads. According to Forrester Research, around 97-98% of your visitors leave without taking an action or identifying themselves.

They may absolutely love your posts. They may come back again and again. They may consider you an authority and expert in your industry. But the vast majority pop in, read, and leave. You have to do something to take it to the next level. Can you afford to let 98% of your potential leads disappear without a trace?

Traffic generation combined with lead generation make your blog a worthwhile investment. Everything else – likes, retweets, comments – are nothing but vanity metrics. People like your posts and that gives you a nice little ego boost, but that and $3.50 might get you a coffee at Starbucks.

You need to actively generate both traffic and leads. Traffic without leads is meaningless. Leads without traffic will eventually dry up.

Here’s the best news: a frequently updated blog with high quality, valuable content is a lead generation machine…when done properly.

Small to mid-sized (SMB) businesses that blog experience 126% more lead growth than those that don’t bother.

So increase your traffic. There are plenty of great guides and tutorials on how to do that. Just don’t forget about the lead generation part of the equation. Remember:

Traffic generation + lead generation = digital marketing bliss

That said, you don’t want to explicitly bombard your readers with aggressive tactics. No one likes a pushy salesperson.

Nor do you want to be so subtle that no one even notices your trying to convert them from visitor to lead.

Find the middle ground with these tactics to nudge your traffic into lead territory because that’s where they want to go.

If you want them to do something, you’ve simply got to ask.

Call-to-Action

For some of you, this might be a wake-up call. Your blog posts need a call-to-action. Every one of them. If you’re ending your posts with nothing more than an invitation to leave a comment, you’re doing it wrong. You need to get your visitors to do something: sign up, download, click, read something else, subscribe, install, contact you, and so on.

Are you asking? Are you giving them those opportunities to convert, or just hoping they’ll decide to do so on their own?

A high quality blog post without a compelling CTA is a lead lost. They’re already on your site. They’re already interested and engaged with you and your brand. So give them more.

A strong CTA is action oriented, benefit-to-them driven, visual, persuasive, and ideally creates a sense of urgency.

But it also needs to be easy to find. There are several places you could locate your CTA on your site:

1. At the top of the page
2. At the end of the post
3. Within the post itself
4. In the sidebar
5. As a floating or scrolling popup
6. As a sliding popup
7. As a full-screen overlay

You don’t want to crowd the page and choose them all. You need to select one or two that maximize exposure on your blog and resonate with your readers.

And you do that by testing. In real estate, the axiom is location, location, location. In digital marketing it’s test, test, test.

“Almost any question can be answered, cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that’s the way to answer them – not by arguments around a table. Go to the court of last resort – the buyers of your product.” ~Claude Hopkins

Pick a few, set up an A/B test, and see what actually works best. Test various locations, types, colors, designs, copy, offer, and more. Zero in on the single most (or top two, or top three) powerful to turn your traffic into your leads. Use VWO, Optimizely, AB Tasty, or a similar service to make it fast and easy.

While only you can ultimately decide what works best for your blog, these are a few popular and efficient tactics to test.

Hello Bar

When someone arrives on your blog, they’re at the top of the page, and there’s no guarantee they’re going to scroll down any further. Putting your CTA at the very top, then, makes a lot of sense.

The Hello Bar is a very simple but highly effective tool that places your call-to-action in a thin, attention-grabbing band across the very top of your page. Instantly recognizable, static, and stays there even if they do decide to scroll down.

Using just a hello bar, DIYThemes generated just under 1200 new subscribers in only 30 days.

While the Hello Bar is perhaps the industry standard, there are alternatives available that do the same thing:

• SalesPanda
• Sumo SmartBar
• WP Notification Bar
• Sleeknote
• OptinMonster

You can also find several free WordPress plugins, but remember that you get what you paid for.

A hello bar can be used to encourage social engagement or email subscriptions, promote new products or services, and more.

In-text CTAs

According to recent analysis by Chartbeat, most people don’t read your entire blog post. In fact, a full 10% never scroll at all, while the majority stop after scrolling through about 60% of it.

You can still get your call-to-action in front of those individuals with an in-text CTA.

Some of you may be thinking that the hello bar solves this problem. It’s at the top and seen by everyone. That’s true in theory. But let me introduce you to something called banner blindness.

Because we’re so used to them, because we’re inundated with them everywhere while online, many of us either choose to ignore or subconsciously block out static banners and ads. We just don’t “see” them. This is banner blindness at work, and your colorful hello bar may fall victim to it.

But an in-text call-to-action that’s either a direct or indirect part of your blog post is different. Include 1-2 in the first 60% of it, and you’re going to have a lot of eyes on it as they read.

Hubspot generates between 47-93% of their leads via what they’ve labelled anchor text CTAs (compared to only 6% for end-of-post banners).

It’s a bigger font and different color to stand out, but still relevant to what they’re currently reading about in the blog post. Value added. Visitor to lead.

That same analysis revealed that anchor text CTAs combined with internal link CTAs represent a whopping 83-93% of their leads.

As you can see, internal link calls-to-action are part of the blog post itself. Click one, and it takes you to a landing page to subscribe or download something relevant to the topic at hand.

Location, Location, Location

Besides the top of the page and in the post itself, you can place a CTA virtually anywhere on your page. Test each one to see what works best for you.

Static Sidebar
A static banner in the sidebar is widely used in the blogosphere because it typically works quite well. Almost every blog you visit will likely have at least one inviting you to either subscribe to the email newsletter or contact the author.

It’s unobtrusive. It’s not “in the face” of your readers. It’s not annoying. It’s just there, quietly doing its job of helping to convert traffic to leads. Here’s the sidebar CTA I use on my blog:

That said, it shouldn’t be your only tactic. The sidebar CTA is easy to ignore, subject to banner blindness, and gone as soon as they scroll down. Use it in partnership with something else.

AdEspresso found a 0.4% conversion rate (CVR) for their static sidebar CTAs.

Scrolling Sidebar

A scrolling CTA looks very similar, but it follows the reader down the post. Because of this mobility, it tends to stand out a bit more and gives the reader more time to decide to click. AdEspresso scrolling ads had a CVR nearly double – 0.76% – the static rate.

Slide-in or Popup

A slide-in popup or overlay is the next logical step in the evolution of the call-to-action. It relies on a trigger – say, X% of the page scrolled, or X number of seconds on page – before it slides in from the side, top, or bottom.

In doing so, it’s only revealed to those readers that have already demonstrated real interest in the post. If they’ve scrolled down 75% of the way – past the 60% where most visitors stop – or spent at least 90 seconds reading, then you’ve got their attention. Strike while the iron is hot.

OptinMonster, Sumo, and NinjaPopups are three respected options to give these a try. Popups delivered a 2.5% CVR for AdEspresso, while others have experienced an impressive 10x higher email subscriptions after introducing the strategy to their site.

You can customize and experiment with everything from where, when, and why to find the perfect combination.

Exit Intent Overlay

An exit overlay works in much the same way, but is only triggered when someone demonstrates their intent to leave by moving the cursor towards the tab, address bar, or back button on their browser.

Remember when I said that 97-98% of your traffic leaves without completing an action? An exit popup or overlay can pull back at least some of those lost leads.

Demonstrate intent to leave on the DODOcase website, and this pops up:

This is a great example of a lightbox overlay. The box takes center stage, overlaying and darkening the rest of the website. It stands out, and gives each visitor a clear choice between this or that.

An exit popup can offer a special discount or coupon, collect feedback, introduce a useful lead magnet, suggest another product or blog post, recommend your newsletter, or whatever else you want to dangle in front of them to tempt them to stay and convert.

Welcome Mat

When a visitor first arrives at your site, take advantage of the opportunity to convert immediately with a welcome mat. This whole page overlay displays a compelling call-to-action before revealing the post or page they’ve clicked on.

Navigate to ClickMinded, and you don’t initially see their homepage, you see this:

Both Sumo and OptinMonster offer popular options. With them, you can encourage your site visitors to join your email list, check out your latest blog post, download some valuable resource, and more. Much like an exit overlay, they have to actively choose not to do whatever it is you’re asking them to do. Some will. Many won’t.

AppSumo discovered that a welcome mat was 3x more effective for them than any other page or tactic for collecting email addresses.

An optimized and compelling call-to-action strategically placed on your page is your best bet for turning traffic into leads, but it’s not the only way.

Retargeting

Despite your best efforts, there will still be a sizeable chunk of traffic that leaves without completing your CTA. Maybe they were pressed for time, or your offer wasn’t compelling enough, or they simply missed it.

That’s where retargeting comes in. It gives you another kick at the can.

To make use of it, you need to use a service like ReTargeter, Perfect Audience, PixelMe, or AdRoll.

Essentially, a tiny string of code called a pixel is placed on your website. This pixel drops a tracking cookie on the browser of every visitor to your blog. That done, it can follow them around the internet.

It’s a lot less creepy than it sounds.

Ever notice an ad for a product you were looking at on Site A in the sidebar of Site B, or on your Facebook feed? That’s retargeting doing its thing.

The pixel follows them, and displays relevant ads to them to draw them back to your blog or landing page. You get a second chance to convert them.

Wordstream, for example, experienced a 300% increase in engagement and 51% more leads after 18 months of retargeting.

If you’re willing to put some time, money, and effort into retargeting, you will absolutely see an increase in conversions.

There’s a learning curve to it, but most services provide tutorials and how-tos to get you going in no time.

The more chances you give yourself to turn your visitors into leads, the better.

Exclusive or Upgraded Content

Another useful tactic to try is offering exclusive or upgraded content in exchange for contact details.

Either in or at the end of your post, offer some relevant but additional piece of content. It might be a template, or checklist, or blueprint that allows your readers to put what they just learned into action with as little friction as possible.

How about a registration box for an upcoming webinar on a relevant skill or strategy?

Or a free online course to help readers build complementary skills. A post about lead generation through blogging combined with a sidebar ad for a course on doubling or tripling traffic? That’ll work.

The sky’s the limit on what you can offer. Make it relevant, useful, and irresistible. Ask for nothing but an email address and maybe a name. Make it easy for them to say ‘yes’.

Learn To Be More Persuasive

Ultimately, you’re trying to convince someone to trust you. Most of us are a bit reluctant and cynical when it comes to handing over our details online. You’ve got to persuade and convince them.

To do that, there are few tools as powerful as the six principles of influence as described in Dr. Robert Cialdini’s seminal book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. If you’re not familiar with it, I highly recommend it.

Cialdini outlines six basic principles – sometimes called weapons – and you can use them all in your blog posts:

1. Reciprocity: we feel obligated to “return the favor” when someone does something for us. If you’re consistently providing your readers with fantastic content and useful tips, they much more likely to give you their email address when you ask for it.
2. Commitment and Consistency: if you can get your readers to commit to something small and innocuous – like clicking on a related post – we’re wired to remain consistent in our action. If they’ve committed or agreed to something small like that, they’re very likely to agree to a larger request like their name and contact details later on.
3. Social Proof: this hinges on the idea of safety in numbers. If you can demonstrate that the majority already trusts you or uses your product with subscription numbers, social media following, clients or companies you’ve worked with, “as seen on” or “featured in” section, testimonials, and reviews, you’ve got a much easier time convincing new visitors to sign up or purchase.
4. Liking: simple. We are more willing to trust or purchase from someone we find agreeable and likable. Be friendly, positive, approachable, helpful, entertaining, relatable, and engaging in all your posts.
5. Authority: we inherently trust an authority figure like a teacher, police officer, or doctor. So make yourself an authority in your industry or niche with frequent guest posts on authority sites, speaking at conferences and other events, engaging on social media, answering questions on sites like Quora, displaying your formal credentials and relevant training or experience, and more.
6. Scarcity: we want what we can’t have or believe is exclusive. Place a limited period of time or limited number on something, and watch conversions skyrocket. Amazon displays ‘low stock” on items for a reason. But – and this is a big but – don’t overuse this strategy or it quickly loses its power and people feel lied to and manipulated.

While you don’t want to utilize all six in every post you write, strategically using one or two will make you a more persuasive and trustworthy individual.

Quick Tips

Most of the strategies we’ve covered so far are long games. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use a few quick tips to land more leads.

• Promote your products in your posts. You don’t want to overdo it, and avoid aggressive sales tactics, but mentioning a relevant product or resource in the post itself can generate interest and leads. If you’re writing about Facebook Ads, and that’s one of the services you offer, there’s no harm in mentioning that…once.
• Include plenty of internal links to other blog posts, a “related posts” or “you may also like” section, and perhaps ‘previous’ and ‘next’ buttons at the end. Anything you can do to a) further demonstrate your expertise, and b) keep readers on your site will only increase your chance of converting traffic to leads.
• Use plenty of headers, subheaders, and bulleted lists to break up your posts, make them scannable, and keep your readers from bouncing.
• A simple but effective offer at the end is a downloadable summary of the post they just read. If the article is 3500 words, but you can provide them with a convenient, 350 word PDF summary in exchange for their contact details, you’d be surprised how many people will jump at the chance.

And last but not least, consistently provide the best, most valuable, highest quality material you can. There are millions of blogs out there, but the vast majority aren’t worth the digital space they consume. Be different. Be better. People will return again and again if you’re delivering the goods. They’ll recommend you to friends. They’ll sign up, subscribe, download, and purchase.

Try the ideas here, and let me know how it works out for you.

I also describe how bloggers can get readers to buy their products and services. Give it a watch and let me know what you think!

Conclusion

When it’s done right, content marketing can be one of the most effective marketing channels you’ll have. It can reliably bring a steady stream of traffic to your blog and marketing site.

But just like your marketing site converts visitors into customers, your blog needs to convert readers into subscribers. You need to get some information from them while you give out tons of free, actionable content. Often times this means you’ll have to give more free content, but this all part of the transaction. You give a little to get a little.

Anything you’d add to our list? What tactics have you tried to convert your traffic to leads?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

from WordPress https://reviewandbonuss.wordpress.com/2018/01/26/how-to-convert-blog-readers-to-leads/

AT&T Migrates Massive Databases to Oracle Cloud in Historic Partnership

By Mike Faden

AT&T, like other large companies, is moving to the cloud to ensure it can continue to innovate and stay ahead in a fast-moving industry. The world’s largest communications company by revenue has led the telecom and pay-TV industries in virtualizing and software-controlling its global wide area network, providing a foundation for introducing new services and responding to customer needs more quickly.

The company operates a private cloud based on proprietary virtualization to support its software-defined network services. And it has moved thousands of its smaller Oracle databases to another virtualized private cloud designed for more general-purpose use.

Until recently, AT&T has lacked a cloud-based solution to run its roughly 2,000 largest mission-critical Oracle databases—those greater than 8 TB in size. Though AT&T’s general-purpose private cloud provides an agile, automated IT environment, it cannot provide the required performance for these very large, transaction-intensive databases, many of which contain customer data and must remain on premises for regulatory, privacy, and security reasons.

AT&T selected Oracle Cloud at Customer—which provides the same hardware and software platform that Oracle uses in its own cloud data centers and puts them into a “cloud machine” that lives in the customer’s data center—to run its largest mission-critical Oracle databases. Under an agreement described as “historic” by Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, AT&T and Oracle announced a strategic five-year partnership in May that includes moving AT&T’s large, high-performance databases to Oracle Cloud using Oracle Cloud at Customer. The agreement also includes global access to Oracle’s cloud portfolio, including Oracle Field Service Cloud Service, which AT&T will use to further optimize scheduling and dispatching for its more than 70,000 field technicians.

Oracle Cloud at Customer will enable AT&T to run mission-critical databases up to 100 TB in size in an Oracle-managed cloud that’s as flexible and scalable as a public cloud—but is located in AT&T facilities. These databases will be run on Oracle Database Exadata Cloud at Customer, which provides the most-scalable and most-reliable platform for running Oracle Database. “What is very intriguing about Oracle Cloud at Customer is that it offers all the benefits of a public cloud with the security and performance of a private cloud,” says Claude Garalde, AT&T lead principal technical architect. Application performance is also optimized because Oracle Cloud at Customer connects directly to AT&T’s data center network infrastructure, he adds. “For performance, you want the database to be really close to the application and middleware layers—you don’t necessarily want to be going out over a public internet link or even a VPN,” he says.

Moving the databases to Oracle Cloud will significantly increase business agility and automation. AT&T expects to halve the time required to implement big, complex databases, and it will be able to quickly increase capacity to meet demand peaks and reduce usage when demand recedes. “We want the solution to give us an elastic environment where we can scale up as the need arises and similarly scale down,” says Venkat Tekkalur, director of technology development at AT&T.

Dialing Up Databases

AT&T has more than 17,000 Oracle databases overall, storing a massive 19 PB of data. The company has been progressively migrating them to the cloud as part of a broad initiative that began more than five years ago; to date, it has moved about 5,000 of them to its general-purpose cloud. That cloud can support databases that are up to around 8 TB in size, Tekkalur says.

But until now, larger and more performance- intensive databases have still required a bare metal configuration. Although that approach delivered the required performance, AT&T faced challenges that are typical of those experienced by many large enterprises, Tekkalur says.

Factors such as the additional time required to order, deliver, and install hardware and software meant that it took roughly twice as long to implement a big database in a bare metal on-premises configuration compared to implementing databases in the cloud, he explains. The process was also more difficult to automate. As a result, it presented an obstacle to AT&T’s efforts to increase agility. “The mean time to implement was not aligned with the Agile methodology or the DevOps model,” Tekkalur says.

The approach also limited the ability to quickly scale to meet changes in business demand. “We often have to support major launches, such as new phones, with very little time to prepare,” Tekkalur adds.

In addition, the large databases and their supporting hardware were often dedicated to specific applications. That meant it was difficult to achieve savings by sharing infrastructure. “Once we brought in that hardware, there was no way to use it for anything else,” he says.

With Oracle Cloud at Customer, AT&T plans to solve those challenges, slashing implementation times for databases up to 100 TB while greatly increasing flexibility, with an elastic shared environment that facilitates scaling and allows resources to be easily reallocated based on demand. Oracle Database Exadata Cloud at Customer will provide the performance required for the large transaction-intensive databases. And because those databases will run at AT&T facilities behind the company’s firewall, they will also meet regulatory, privacy, and security needs.

Furthermore, AT&T is integrating Oracle Cloud at Customer so that to users, it looks and behaves just like part of AT&T’s overall cloud environment; from a single AT&T portal, users will be able to provision databases in Oracle Cloud at Customer, in AT&T’s general-purpose private cloud, or in public clouds. To achieve that integration, an abstraction layer below the portal will orchestrate a highly automated provisioning process across AT&T’s clouds using Oracle’s open cloud APIs to interface with Oracle Cloud.

Accelerating Migration

To plan and implement the migration, AT&T is working closely with Oracle Consulting, which is providing a toolset to facilitate the migration process, including helping to size the required cloud database configuration and automate database provisioning. AT&T is also applying lessons gleaned from its private cloud experience to accelerate and automate the process, says Andy Ferretti, lead system engineer at AT&T. The net result is that AT&T expects to cut by 50 percent or even more the time it currently takes to complete the entire procurement and deployment process for big, complex databases. The time required to implement these large databases in Oracle Cloud at Customer will be similar to the time required to implement much smaller databases in AT&T’s private cloud today.

AT&T is also exploiting techniques learned in previous migrations to minimize downtime of these mission-critical databases as they move to Oracle Cloud at Customer, Ferretti says. After building a target database instance in Oracle Cloud, AT&T will take a snapshot of the source on-premises data and begin moving it to its new home in the cloud. During the time it takes to move the multiterabyte databases, AT&T will continue to capture the changes to the live on-premises database. Once the snapshot has been copied to the cloud, a synchronization method such as Oracle Active Data Guard or Oracle GoldenGate will be used to bring the target database up to date with the latest changes, so AT&T can quickly cut over to Oracle Cloud at Customer to support the live application. A reverse synchronization method will be put in place just in case there’s a need to revert to the original database.

After testing by early adopters in late 2017, the first Oracle Cloud at Customer databases are set to go live in early 2018, Ferretti says. Following that, the databases will progressively move to Oracle Cloud in phases. Ultimately, the plan is to implement Oracle Cloud at Customer at roughly 19 AT&T locations.

Low on Risk, High on ROI

Like AT&T, many other large enterprises are viewing Oracle Cloud at Customer as a way to solve data-protection as well as performance concerns as they migrate to the cloud, says Andrew Mendelsohn, executive vice president for database server technologies at Oracle. “For companies that have regulatory concerns or privacy concerns about customer data, this is a very low-risk way to go. Customers get all the agility and business model of the cloud, but they run in their own data center.”

The fact that the databases are in the customer’s data center and on the same network as the company’s business applications “eliminates the performance latency that you would have between an on-premises application and a database in the public cloud,” Mendelsohn adds. “And it is a stepping stone to a public cloud. If and when companies feel comfortable using the public cloud, it will be easy for them to move these databases.”

Garalde says that over the long term, AT&T is also looking to further increase agility by replacing big, monolithic applications with multiple microservices, each potentially with its own database, linked together via open APIs. This approach would allow AT&T to create and update new services more quickly by plugging together different combinations of microservices.

For AT&T, the cloud partnership with Oracle is a crucial step in its drive to deliver a seamless and intuitive experience for customers and to maintain industry leadership. “We believe that the future of the network is to be data-powered, to be software-centric, and to be fast and responsive,” says John Donovan, CEO of AT&T Communications. “This collaboration with Oracle accelerates our network transformation and migration to the cloud to expand efficiency, [increase] performance, and reduce cost while improving overall customer service.”

Mike Faden is a principal at Content Marketing Partners and is based in Portland, Oregon.

 

https://blogs.oracle.com/att-migrates-massive-databases-to-oracle-cloud-in-historic-partnership

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Three Lessons Marketers Can Learn From Cable News

I’m a bit of a cable news junkie.

Now, I don’t watch it often, but am generally more interested how a news product can draw people in hold their attention for hours, and keep them coming back everyday.

But why is this so interesting? And why should marketers care?

Because news itself can be pretty boring.

For your average 9-5 American with two kids and a mortgage, there’s not a big reason to watch news.

And the thing is, news outlets know this. They know reporting on the latest earthquake in Oklahoma is mundane and doesn’t matter.

Unless you spice it up a little bit. Get people’s emotions involved. Make viewers scared or angry.

So here’s why all marketers can take a lesson from cable news.

Cable News is Entertainment Masquerading as News

Their expertise does not lie in reporting the news or helping you understand the world’s events. Instead, they’re experts at messaging and grabbing your attention and holding it for hours, everyday. Because the only way to get viewers is to entertain.

It’s designed for channel changers. Those people with their hand on the television remote, flipping through channels. Cable news is designed to capture that 1-2 seconds of the channel changer, and holding that attention.

In this post, I’m going to examine the different ways news programs (primarily CNN and Fox) use emotions and classic Hollywood-style entertainment techniques to grab viewer’s attention and make sure they come back night after night. Then, we’ll see how marketers can steal these for their own gain.

1. Use Numbers to Your Advantage

Numbers can tell a story. They let the viewer understand impacts and effects. Numbers can be attention grabbing.

And cable outlets know this. They love using numbers, especially when it relates to danger.

Don’t believe me? Just wait for a hurricane or any other major natural disaster.

You’ll see cable and other news programs use numbers whenever a hurricane hits the U.S. And it’s generally meant for fear mongering. It’s typically “5 million people in the storm’s path” and “13,000 homes underwater” and “20 million people under evacuation orders”. It’s forceful messaging that grabs attention.

Here, in big text, Fox tells viewers how many are without power:

CNN uses a different number, but makes it clear so the channel changers see it right away:

During Hurricane Matthew, Fox reports on evacuation numbers:

Here’s how CNN reports on Hurricane Maria:

Rescues underway in Puerto Rico as Millions Without Power captures the eye. It takes a few seconds to read, but draws you in. Who would turn the channel after reading that banner?

Another hurricane, and more attention grabbing numbers. And if that wasn’t enough, they also threw one of their correspondents into a hurricane!

This correspondent is away from the hurricane, but that doesn’t stop them from throwing the Millions Could Be WIthout Electricity For Weeks banner:

You get the idea. Numbers grab people’s attention. They may not hold the attention for a long time, but they do catch the eye.

Now, let’s look at how some marketers are using numbers to their advantage, and how you can as well.

Lessons For Marketers

Some marketers use numbers as social proof. Help Scout uses numbers to show how many customers they have:

Or to encourage you to signup for their email list:

LifeLock uses numbers to sow fear (more on that later) for visitors – and make their product the protection:

It’s also important to note that they’re using a recent data breach to sell their product. If marketing is all about timing, then LifeLock is getting their marketing right and profiting from it by pouncing on opportunities.

McDonalds used to post the “Billions and Billions served” under the golden arches. Here they give a more specific number while keeping the emphasis, billions served, the same.

Rainforest Trust, an organization that preserves forests, tells visitors how many acres of forest they’ve saved:

Combine that with a call to action to save more land, and it makes for a great use of numbers to draw donations.

I’ll frequently use numbers in blog posts to capture reader’s attention. In one of my videos, I give the reader a specific number:

Think about it – what headline would get more people to read my article (or in this case, watch the video):

How I Built 23,540 Unique Links to NeilPatel.com

Or this headline:

How I Built Links to NeilPatel.com

The number adds to the impact and gives the headline more of a “punch”. I didn’t just build a few links – I built over 20,000 links to the Neil Patel blog. I guarantee that I got more views on this video because I gave readers a specific number.

On the Quick Sprout blog, I’ve used this advertisement for many years with a lot of success:

I didn’t just increase pageviews. I helped a company grow to 500 million pageviews.

In this video, I give viewers a few numbers to chew on in my intro:

What’s the message here? Rich people listen to podcasts. The impact? 60% of podcast listeners make over $150,000. And they listen to roughly 5 hours of podcasts per week.

I used the cable news model – what’s the story, and how do you capture people’s attention using numbers to explain the impact?

So, how can you use numbers to persuade? Here are a few ideas:

• Try adding numbers for social proof. How many customers to do you have? If you have a lot relative to the market you’re in, put it on your homepage. Let people know how many people are using your products and services.
• Add numbers in testimonials. You didn’t just save a customer some money. How much did you save them?
• Add numbers to the results you achieved. This is particularly useful if you’re a freelance. You didn’t just help Widget’s Inc improve conversions; you helped them double their conversions in 3 months. It’s more specific, and packs a punch. An x increase in x amount of time.

Now let’s move onto another favorite tactic of cable news outlets, instilling fear. What better way to hold a viewer’s attention?

2. Fear Will Grab Attention

Watching news media outlets in the summer and fall of 2014, you’d think that walking outside would make you susceptible to Ebola. This is despite four cases of ebola and just one death.

This CNN headline takes advantage of two things people are scared of – deadly diseases and terrorist organizations.

If you’re flipping through channels, what does this headline do to you? It grabs your attention. Makes you stop and turn up the volume, lean in, pay attention, and maybe makes you a little scared. For some people, it may make them think the end of the world is near.

In this way, fear picks up where the numbers left off. The numbers will capture the eye of channel surfers, and the emotion of fear will keep them glued to you for hours.

CNN wasn’t alone with the fear-mongering. Here’s the version from Fox:

Did any of these things come true? Was Ebola used as a biological agent? Did terrorist organizations contaminate the water supply with the Ebola virus and hurt millions?

Of course not! But it’s easy to say it now. Back then, Ebola covered the news cycle. People were scared. So the headlines that cable news outlets used capitalized on that fear (which news itself built) and only grew that fear that most people already had.

Just watch as Jon Stewart brilliantly tears down the news media’s attempts to dramatize the Ebola outbreak:

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So, how can you use fear marketing?

Lessons for Marketers

Perhaps the most common use of fear is the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO). And with FOMO, you can use two classic tactics – scarcity and urgency.

This Facebook ad has a good message. Anyone that’s scrolling through Facebook, sees this ad, and likes the shirt will buy it. It’s limited edition, meaning that it won’t be around for a long time, and now there’s only a few left in stock? Where do I place my order?

This Facebook ad has a simple FOMO message. The pre-sale is available now. Get your tickets before anyone else or else you’ll miss out.

The “best worst movie” The Room recently had a nationwide one-day special screening. It spread via word of mouth and some press coverage:

The Room,' tonight. 500 theaters nationwide. Will you be there? https://t.co/7qHor3mRGT

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) January 10, 2018

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Needless to say, when people couldn’t make it, FOMO triggered and they were pretty upset:

So they are having a one time screening of The Room tonight nationwide and I’m not gonna be there pic.twitter.com/eKqibMDId9

— oh_hi_mark (@zero_mark_30) January 11, 2018

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Marketers use FOMO for a reason. Because it works really well. As long as you have a product or service that people want and value, adding some scarcity to it will make people buy it up as quickly as possible.

Think about it – if your product is widely available, will anyone be in a hurry to buy it? Probably not. They may even rethink buying it. But adding a little scarcity to it will make people value it more and makes them more likely to buy.

I’ve used FOMO before to promote some of my webinars:

My webinar is starting in two minutes, better not miss it!

The other way marketers use fear is to buy some protection against a threat. We saw the example above with Lifelock.

Millions of people potentially have their identity stolen? And we sell identity theft protection? Cha-ching!

Ramit Sethi wants to make it clear – use his courses and you’ll learn how to make more money. If you don’t use it, you’re not making your earnings potential (thus you’re Missing Out on money that could be yours):

The quiz is a lead generation tool. Start the quiz, give them your email to get the results, and you’ll be thrown into a drip campaign in no time. And then start making more money in “as little as an hour”. Who could pass that up?

Viruses and malware spreading across computers isn’t as common as it once was, but customers are still afraid of their computer becoming “infected”. And Symantec marketers use that fear:

These marketers use the fear as a lead generation tool. Who’s clicking on this link and reviewing the cleanup plan? Time to retarget them and sell our antivirus software.

Use fear at the right times. Marketing is about timing; so don’t rely on fear all the time. Use it at the appropriate time and it will be more effective for you. Use fear like you’d use a service, only at the right time, for a limited amount of time, and for the appropriate use.

3. Use Bold Graphics

Television is the ultimate vision medium, and much of the web is as well. Boring graphics with bland colors won’t draw viewers.

Let’s face it – people don’t want to read a wall of text, and they don’t want to read long headlines. They want fancy colors and beautiful people reading them the news.

When Jeff Zucker took over CNN, he was charged with turning around a ratings decline. One of the first things they did was debut a new graphics package:

Large, bold typography combined with all capitalization on a white background

Have you watched The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer lately? You’d think their news set was taken straight from a Hollywood movie:

Just take a look at that set!

Dozens of different images on at once (in the background), big typography on the screens, and combined with the Breaking News headline (because apparently everything is breaking news) and the countdown clock makes this the perfect cable news show.

We’re “awaiting”, which means viewers can’t click away, the countdown clock (which starts with at least *29 hours*) means that even if you leave to watch something else, you’ll have to come back and see where the clock is now and continually check to see if the Shutdown Countdown is called off. This is turning the political theater that is Washington, DC into theater television.

Jeff Zucker, I admire you. Well-done sir.

Lessons For Marketers

The lesson here is to find the balance between big graphics that stand out without overwhelming. Combine great graphics and design with strong messaging (like cable news) and you’ll earn the visitors attention.

The graphics I use on Neil Patel use bold colors combined with simple messaging. Do you want more traffic to your site? Put in your URL and see what I can do for you. The graphics stand out, the message is clear, now the choice is up to the visitor.

The Apple Homepod page uses big typography and beautiful image of the product:

Go ahead and visit the HomePod page and scroll through. Just try to click away. You can’t do it. Why? Because it unfolds like a product description. The graphics keep you scrolling and the copy keeps you reading. The font is big, bold, and stands out against a white background. And the product images draw the eye in.

The Red Cross homepage has one job – get donations from visitors. Here, they don’t use beautiful graphics. Because why would you do that if you want people to donate to a project in need? They need to see sadness or human struggle. So, they go with this:

The little girl holding the little puppy after what appears to be a natural disaster. They’re saved, but sad and clearly in need. How can you help? Give them some money so they “respond to someone in crisis”.

Charity: Water uses graphics to show visitors what they’ll accomplish with a donation – helping rural and poorer countries get access to clean, drinkable water:

This is an example of marketers using an end result to deliver conversions. Clean water coming out of a jug. A happy woman that finally receives uncontaminated water.

It’s not about the organization or the charity, it’s about the mission and what it accomplishes for people. Visitors want to know why they should donate, and this graphic makes it clear.

Conclusion

So why does any of this matter to marketers?

Because it teaches us about messaging, catching and keeping someone’s attention. And in today’s world, it’s a marvel at how cable news does this. They take a boring product (news) and turn it into entertainment that some people can’t look away.

Your product may be exciting to you, but to others it may come across as boring. You should be aware of this and appeal to people’s interests. The classic things that capture people’s attention and hold it. Use numbers to people can understand your impact, use fear to sell, and graphics to keep people’s attention.

What have you, as a marketer, learned from cable news or any great television producers?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

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