Waiting for your cat to bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing

I met Bryan Eisenberg the first time back in August 2005 when we went to Austin Texas to learn more about Persuasion Architecture. I met him again in May this year at the eMetrics summit in London and he kindly gave me a copy of his latest best selling book Waiting for your cat to bark. The book is and has been described by many others as a must have for those of you interested in how to market to customers who don’t want to be marketed too. I agree with them.

The book defines 3 underlying principles of Persuasion Architecture;

• who is it you want to persuade?
• what action do we want them to take?
• what information is needed to motivate them to take that action?

By figuring out the above you figure out who you want on your website, what you want them to do and how you intend to persuade them to do it. Ok, cool.

However what most marketers miss and what the Eisenbergs illustrate very well in their aptly titled guide to customer psychology is that when you can align your visitors goals with your business objectives you have a much greater chance of success. The book is not about trying to persuade your cat to bark. That’s what most marketeers are doing now.

No the book Waiting for your cat to bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing, is quite the opposite. It’s more of a blueprint to match your selling process to your customers buying process and most importantly measure its effectiveness.

I thoroughly recommend it.