Persuasion

I just finished this book and it is fantastic! I liked that he started out by defining the difference between persuasion and manipulation. That's an issue I wrestle with periodically. As we measure every bloody aspect of what someone does on a web site, my current playing field, we can see more of what they want, what they don't like, and learn, if we pay attention, how to present what they're looking for, when they're looking for it, and make the calls to action appropriate.

This book is appropriate whether you are trying to persuade in person, in printed materials, or over the Internet. The ideas can be applied well to every medium. Shortly after finishing this book a client asked me to rewrite a set of pages aimed at getting more people who sign up for a free trial to actually USE the software, and then in follow up pages/emails, we want them to actually buy the product of course. But this book made me step back a bit before I started writing and think a bit differently than my normal approach. I'm still keeping the persona bit in mind that I learned from the good folks at FutureNow. But I'm adding to it with Lakhani's ideas of storytelling and much much more.

The pages will go live in just a couple of weeks and will be looked at and measured. Of course, they're getting a cosmetic overhaul at the same time and the process is changing somewhat. I really wish we could just throw the new copy up there first and see if it alone would have an impact. I think it would.