Sticky Ideas, Personas, and Web Writing

A while back I was lucky enough to attend a presentation by FutureNow that one of my clients hosted. Bryan Eisenberg had just picked up this book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. His enthusiasm made me go order it online at Amazon that evening, but it got lost in the ever-growing never-shrinking pile of books that seem worth reading.

Another client of mine recently started reading it and mentioned it to me so I brought it up top and center and started reading. It's really quite good, as I should have known. I've learned a ton from the FutureNow folks as various clients have engaged them. Bryan, next time you recommend a book to me I promise to put it at the TOP of the stack. No more of this FIFO bull. ;)

What six traits of a "sticky" idea can you apply to your own message to make your idea stick?

• simplicity
  
• unexpectedness
• concrete details
• credibility
• emotions
• story-like narrative

I'm in the midst of rewriting a client's web pages a la the personas we just created. Now I'm trying to figure out how to get some stickiness worked in there as well... My clients tend to have long sales cycles. I don't expect to close the sale on the first web page reading. So how do I build in that sticky idea to make them remember the client and come back later?