Subliminal Messages in Internet Marketing
Out of all the aspects in advertising/internet marketing, psychology wins me over every time – I absolutely love the idea of controlling someones buying impulse with my creative writing and advert designs. But if you want to take it to the next level, subliminal advertising may be of interest to you.
Notice – “It would be deceptive for marketers to embed ads with so-called subliminal messages that could affect consumer behavior. However, most consumer behavior experts have concluded that such methods aren’t effective.” Taken from the ftc.gov website. Be sure not to overdue or mislead. This post is merely for entertainment purposes because it’s such a fascinating topic.
If you haven’t already, watch the embedded Derren Brown video above. Derren Brown is an advertising/NLP guru – I have read alot of his books and If you can get your hands on any of his material, I highly recommend reading it.
In the video, Derren takes two ad execs (from a highly reputable UK based ad agency) for a short car ride. During that ride, Derren subliminally implants images/ideas that will be used for his campaign, then pitches the product, and lets them unknowingly reproduce it. Brilliant.
I posted that video to show how well subliminal messages can work. The human mind absorbs thousands apon millions of images a day – consciously and subconsciously. If we as advertisers have the ability to persuade a buying impulse without a hint of why or how, then you may as well call us masters of the universe.
The image I used above – titled: “Subliminal Advertising”, was taken from a 2002 campaign created by a New York based firm: Saatchi & Saatchi for Club 18-30. It isn’t as much “subliminal” as it is creative, but I had to feature it to get my point across. I sincerely apologize if it offended any of you.. wait a second.. no I don’t.. this is marketing – and shock value is a necessity in this game. Altho, if you do a simple google image search for “subliminal advertising”, you will find that 95% of these “subliminal” ad’s are racy and sexual in nature.. How does that old saying go? ohhh I almost forgot.. Sex Sells… But if you ask me, It’s a cop-out for all the lazy admen that lack the ambition to capitalize on all the other millions of human emotions. I officially went off topic. Back to subliminal advertising.
So how do we Internet Marketers make bank from subliminal advertising?
Well, it’s not that difficult – there are many ways we can influence a buying impulse.
Color Schemes on your banners/landing pages is the first thing you will want to focus on.. It’s simple, yet proven to be very effective – all you need to do is tie the product to a visual idea, for instance, if I was running a financial offer, I would use a white background with green buttons because, green = money (self explanatory). If your running an offer for basic business services, you would want to use blue as your primary “call to action” color because blue exudes business, etc, etc. There have been some very interesting case studies on color schemes and here are a few general rules of thumb to abide by:
Red is mostly associated with love, passion, excitement, danger, action, warning, adventure, desire, impulse, heat, fire, stop, anger and intensity.
Orange is most commonly associated with comfort, warmth, creativity, fun, youth, enthusiasm, celebration and in website designs, this color is also associated with affordability.
Yellow it’s an attention grabber, it suggests warmth and it’s associated with liveliness, energy, curiosity, joy, playfulness, optimism, sunlight, gold, idealism, but it can also create feelings of frustration, anger and illness. It’s a fatiguing color to the eye, that’s why you will never see a bright yellow website – but it’s a great color for important details or call to actions.
Green is most often associated with nature, health, life, harmony, tranquility, good luck, money, optimism, durability, freshness. It’s also a symbol of fertility, jealousy and it has a calming effect and it relieves stress.
Blue is the color preferred by most people, especially by men. It is associated with calmness, serenity, peacefulness, security, stability, honor, trust, professionalism, success, seriousness and power.
Purple has been traditionally associated with power, royalty, nobility, wealth, luxury, wisdom, spirituality, magic, mystery, dreams, fantasy as well as with ambiguity and uncertainty.
Pink is usually associated with tenderness, romance, love, youth, innocence, softness and it’s known to have a calming effect. The effects of this color may vary depending on the intensity of the color (strong, light, deep etc.)
Brown is a natural color, which is associated with relaxation, endurance, reliability, confidence, warmth, comfort, security and it’s considered to be conventional and sometimes sophisticated.
Grey is mostly associated with neutrality, indifference and it leaves the impression of seriousness and conservatism.
White is commonly associated with purity and innocence. It’s also associated with cleanliness, simplicity and newness.
Black is considered, especially in the design industry, a stylish and elegant color. It is also associated with sophistication, strength, mystery, depth, gloom, death, unhappiness, evil and sexuality.
Logo Design is more important than any other single influence on your website. Consumers will generally decide if they want to do business with you after a one second glance at your logo. Your logo speaks volumes about your business – If you can represent your niche, and your professionalism via a visual image branded throughout your site, you just made yourself an authority. People are very quick to judge, and in today’s over-saturated internet world, you NEED to make consumers think highly of you, or they will move on to the next site with a swift click of a button. You can incorporate subliminal ideas into your logo as well, and I plan to write a full post about subliminal messages in logo design at a later date. Update: Click Here to view my post on Subliminal Messages in Logos. I am willing to bet you see logos on a daily basis and have no idea what your really subconsciously seeing.
Layout is another major influencing factor. I have 3 words for you: Above the Fold! “Above the fold” is a term that started in the newspaper industry. People didn’t buy newspapers because of the information hidden within the pages, they bought the paper because they saw a great headline or image on the top half of the first page that made them want to read more. If your website visitors are not finding exactly what they want (without scrolling down or clicking to another page), odds are likely you have already lost them to your competitor. When I design landing pages, I always try to project a clear description of my offer and a call to action (buy now button, or form field) on the top of the page, then I go on to give a more detailed description – chalk full of features and benefits, followed by another call to action. I have read other case studies on consumers eye patterns and highly functional layouts, and I have seen that a large majority of consumers eyes will sweep from the top left corner of your website down to the bottom right corner (above the fold of coarse). So.. If you can give a clear description of your offer, a feature, a benefit, and a call to action in that top-left to bottom-right pattern, you just increased your conversion odds tremendously.
Arrows, Arrows, Arrows! You need to think of your website visitors as a herd of cattle, or better yet, monkeys. I have done a ba jillion full-page creatives, and one thing I find that helps increase click-through and conversions more than anything else, is having arrows lead the way. People are drawn to them, I can only imagine them thinking “hmm whats next, okay, keep leading me to something good”. It seriously works, and if you don’t believe me, Try It! That brings me to another useful technique I use as often as I can… Get them to click YES over and over… If you can get a visitor to click yes 3 times in a row to positive questioning, it becomes a feel-good habit for the visitor, and they want to continue saying yes, even if that requires pulling out a credit card.
Subliminal advertising works best on long-term, highly publicized campaigns that essentially, over time, brainwashes consumers. We as internet marketers do not have the advantages that print media does considering. We usually pay for our traffic, try to promote the offer one time, and then hope to avoid the same set of eyes for the duration of the cookie. Because we cant “brainwash” our visitors over time, we need to take full advantage of every trick in the book… Color Scheme, Logo Design, Layout, and Direction. You can attempt to create full-scale subliminal creatives for your campaigns and hope it makes the difference, or you can focus on the four key items I discussed. Either way, subliminal advertising is quite interesting and the more psychology we can embed into our campaigns, the better off we will be.
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Nancy
October 3, 2011 at 7:29 am
Thanks for the share!
Nancy.R
Jeremy Santiago
November 10, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Awesome job on this post.
micheal crosby
November 11, 2011 at 5:38 am
I will recommend this post to others! great read!
Juan Cameron
November 11, 2011 at 8:38 pm
It’s hard to find knowledgeable people on this topic, but you sound like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks
Alvin Solomon
November 12, 2011 at 3:39 am
The article has really peaked my interest in darin browns books. I am going to bookmark your site and if you keep posting about subliminal advertising, i will def subscribe.
Michael Arbach
November 30, 2011 at 10:29 pm
Hey Alvin, if your gonna dig into some Derren Brown books, I would recommend:
Tricks of the Mind
Confessions Of A Conjuror
& Mind Control…
Some of that stuff is gonna blow your socks off! I’m glad your interested and enjoy the reads!!!
Josh Harnden
November 18, 2011 at 3:00 pm
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spodnie męskie
November 20, 2011 at 4:09 am
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Gary Francis
November 22, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Nice post. I learn something more challenging on different blogs everyday. Thanks for sharing.
Taylor Cuttino
November 25, 2011 at 11:18 pm
Okay so I have two blogs, one with blogger and one with wordpress, both have the same content. However, no one is visiting my blogger site, while people are visiting the wordpress one. How can I increase traffic on the blogger site?.
Michael Arbach
November 30, 2011 at 10:02 pm
I would personally keep the one getting traffic, and kill the lame duck.. Reasons? search engines hate duplicate content.. having the exact content on 2 domains will hurt your scoring.. also, it will give you more time to focus on 1 blog, personalize it, and bring in more readers… if you are interested in having multiple blogs targeting different nitches, i say go for it.. your hard work will pay off over time..
Brandon Hammaker
November 27, 2011 at 5:19 am
I have been absent for a while, but now I remember why I subscribed to this blog. Thanks , I’ll try and check back more often. How frequently you update your web site?
Michael Arbach
November 30, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Hey Brandon, thanks for subscribing.. I generally try to shoot for 1 post per week.. sometimes more, and sometimes alot less.. I’ve been pretty busy with tons of new projects but I will do my best to keep postin!
Andrea Ejide
November 27, 2011 at 2:26 pm
you may have a nice little blog here! would you consider doing some guest posts on my weblog?
Michael Arbach
November 30, 2011 at 9:39 pm
Andrea, I just checked out your weblog and it doesn’t look complete yet… Hit me back once your design is finished and you have more content/readers, I may reconsider then.. Thanks!
jOn2sTePs
November 30, 2011 at 3:37 am
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Michael Arbach
November 30, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Hey this should help you out…
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+get+listed+on+yahoo+news+feeds
lolol sorry, I had to do it..
believe it or not, any news feeds found in search engines are there because of meta tags… depending on your CM, you will be able to find an appropriate plugin.. then you need to work real hard establishing your blog as a constant source of creditable UNIQUE content… the search engines will pick up on that and reward you accordingly, also dont forget to add yahoo to your ping list! Good luck!
kareen rozen
November 30, 2011 at 11:38 am
Thank you for your thoughtful post!
Meg Lesnick
December 8, 2011 at 11:34 pm
Please let me know if you’re looking for a guest author for your blog. You have some really good articles and I feel I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d really like to write some content for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine. Please shoot me an email if interested. Thanks!
Clay Kievit
January 6, 2012 at 7:18 am
Amazing article dude. Thankx, however I am experiencing issue with ur rss feed. Don’t know why I can’t to subscribe to it. Is there anyone getting identical rss problem? kindly respond. thankx
Michael Arbach
February 7, 2012 at 10:37 pm
Hey Clay, the rss issue should be fixed now, thanks a ton for alerting me to the issue! More so, Thanks for subscribing!
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Johnathin Mailes
February 6, 2012 at 9:15 am
Your blog doesn’t render appropriately on my blackberry – you may want to try and fix that
Michael Arbach
January 26, 2012 at 8:51 am
Hey Johnathin,
Thanks, I am planning on incorporating a mobile theme that should allow easy read access to smartphone users.
Stop back soon to let me know what you think!
Peg Perego
February 6, 2012 at 9:15 am
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