Something that’s “apposite” (AP-uh-zit) - from the Latin for “to set or put near” - is very appropriate and relevant.
Example (as used by Alan D. Sokal and Jean Bricmont in Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science): “Suppose, for example, that in a theoretical physics seminar we were to explain a very technical concept in quantum field theory by comparing it to the concept of aporia in Derridean literary theory. Our audience of physicists would wonder, quite reasonably, what is the goal of such a metaphor - whether or not it is apposite - apart from displaying our own erudition.”
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Reindeer - a domesticated variety of caribou - have been kept in herds for nearly 2,000 years by native peoples of the Arctic regions of Europe and Asia. They depend on the reindeer for food (sorry, Rudolph), clothing, shelter, and transportation (usually pulling, yes… sleighs).
Both caribou and reindeer thrive in extremely cold temperatures. They have a unique type of fur that traps air, providing insulation. Their diet, too, is adapted to their harsh environment. They eat mainly lichen and tough grasses, the only food available in the Arctic tundra for much of the year.
(Source: Arctic Studies Center and the National Park Service)
The colorful - usually red - parts of the poinsettia that most people think are the plant’s flowers aren’t flowers at all. They are actually groups of a type of leaf called a bract. The real flowers are in the center of each group of bracts. They are much smaller, and usually yellow.
And what about the warning that the poinsettia is highly toxic - that eating just one poinsettia leaf can kill you? Is it true? No, it’s a myth. Like many plants, poinsettias don’t taste good. So if you (or a pet) eat a couple of handfuls, you might get sick to your stomach - but not enough to require medical treatment.
(Source: Snopes and University of Illinois Extension)
Let’s say you’re trying to decide where to dine tonight - and you’re in the mood for Mexican food.
Your spouse says, “I heard about a new place the other day. Supposedly, it has handmade tortillas and chiles rellenos that are to die for. The only problem is, it’s about a 30-minute drive from here.”
You’re hungry right now. So your spouse offers another option: “There’s our old standby, Don’s Tex Mex. It’s right down the street. But, as you know, the food’s only average.”
You’re torn between your growling belly… and a desire for those handmade tortillas.
And then your spouse pipes up again, “I just remembered that restaurant we went to last month. Remember how good the salsa was? But… it’s about 45 minutes away.”
Suddenly, the 30-minute drive to the new place with the handmade tortillas doesn’t seem so bad.
It happens all the time - where the introduction of a third option suddenly makes one of your earlier options look better. It sounds irrational. And it is. But it’s such a common phenomenon, it even has a name. It’s called the “decoy effect.”
Marketers often take advantage of the decoy effect. Consider the following scenario…
You’re at the movies, and you’re thirsty. So you go to the concession counter to get a soda. The small size is $3.00. The large size is an outrageous $5.00. But then the person behind the counter points out that it is only 50 cents more than the medium size. Suddenly, the large size seems like a better deal.
That’s the decoy effect.
In his New York Times best-seller, Predictably Irrational - The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, Dan Ariely describes an interesting study he conducted with students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. The study was based on a clever bit of “decoy-effect” pricing in an ad he found for a subscription to Economist magazine:
Offer A: Internet-only subscription for $59
Offer B: Print-only subscription for $125
Offer C: Print-and-Internet subscription for $125
“I read these offers one at a time,” writes Ariely. “The first offer seemed reasonable. The second option seemed a bit expensive, but still reasonable. But then I read the third option: a print and Internet subscription for $125. I read it twice before my eye ran back to the previous options.”
At this point, Ariely asked himself the same question you may have asked yourself when presented with a similar Good-Better-Best pricing model: “Who would want to choose the ‘Better’ option [print delivery only - Offer B] when both the ‘Good’ [Internet delivery only - Offer A] and ‘Better’ options could be purchased at the same $125 price [Offer C]?”
Good question.
In my own marketing experience, I’ve found that the decoy offer - Offer B in this Good-Better-Best pricing model - influences my prospects to have a strong bias toward Offer C (the “Best” option).
When Ariely presented a group of 100 MIT students with the three subscription options from the Economist ad, the same thing happened. Though some selected Offer A, most went with Offer C. None of them selected Offer B, the decoy.
So he wondered what would happen if he removed Offer B. After all, since no one had selected it, it shouldn’t make any difference, right?
Not exactly…
When he presented another group of 100 MIT students with just two options - Offer A [Internet-only for $59] and Offer C [the Internet-print combo for $125], 68 of them chose Offer A and only 32 chose Offer C. Which makes the “decoy-removed” version of the ad far less profitable than the one the Economist actually ran.
I’ve split-tested the traditional “Good-Better-Best” model against the decoy model myself.
In the traditional model, Good = $X, Better = $Y, Best [Good + Better] = $Z.
But over and over again, the winning model looked like this: Good = $X, Better = $Y, Best [Good + Better] = $Y.
How can you use the decoy effect to make your offers stronger, more appealing, and more profitable? Start testing today.
[Ed. Note: Alex Mandossian knows a thing or two about marketing. He has generated over $233 million in sales for his clients. And in the past three years, he increased his own revenues from $1.5 million to $5 million. You can get Alex's advice and practical marketing tips for info-publishers, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs for free at AlexMandossianToday.com.
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“Hello to the Early to Rise team and the amazing Michael Masterson! I’ve started to read Power and Persuasion. I’ve only read about 2/5 of it, but for the advice I’ve already received - let alone what’s coming up - I could have easily paid Michael a few thousand dollars. His writing style and content are brilliant. The concepts are easy to read and easy to ‘get.’ This book could sit on my desk as a ready reference on leadership for the rest of my working life.
“I want to learn and apply everything in the book - but the content is so rich, I just don’t know how to go about doing that. What does Michael do when he’s studying a book? More important, how does he put it into practice? I guess what I’m asking is, what are Michael’s learning strategies?
“If there is an article on this in the ETR Archives, could you please point me to it? (I know Michael’s really busy, but it’d be so cool if he could answer this personally.)”
Wes Rothman
Dear Wes,
This is a great question.
In the old days, as I read a book, I would underline dozens of paragraphs and take many notes - and then I’d put it aside and do nothing.
Now I employ the Power of One rule… and it works better.
When applied to reading books, the Power of One says that you should search the book for one good idea that you can put to work in your life immediately. Take that one good idea and turn it into a specific goal. Make that goal a yearly one, and then break it down into monthly, weekly, and daily tasks. (We explain exactly how to do that in ETR’s goal-setting programs.)
Work on that one thing until it has made a measurable difference. That will get you charged up. Then implement it in every way you can. Before long, it will become part of your skill set. It will burn itself into your limbic brain. It will become a success-building reflex.
And then you can go back to the book and pick out the next best idea.
Study the book and pick the marketing channel that you think will have the greatest immediate impact on your employer’s business or your own business. “Immediate” is the key word here. If you pick one that you can’t implement immediately to experience its benefits, you will soon forget about it.
All great skills can be practiced for years and years. The better you get at them, the more powerfully you can apply them. You will eventually want to have many in your business-building quiver, but start with just one… the one you can start using immediately!
- Michael Masterson
[Ed. Note: Taking action right away is one of the fastest, simplest ways to achieve your dreams. Discover dozens more specific techniques you can use to get everything you want out of life right here.
Have a question for one of ETR's experts? Send it to AskETR@ETRFeedback.com and we just may respond to it in ETR.]
The more traffic your website gets, the greater your chances of making sales. It’s a simple precept of Internet marketing. Today, I’m going to show you how setting up “satellite sites” can skyrocket your traffic… and boost your sales in the process.
These additional traffic-building sites aren’t as complex as your primary website. In fact, they are often very simple - targeting one specific aspect of your business.
Think of your primary website as a storefront on the Net. If you have multiple storefronts (i.e., satellite sites) - each with unique content - you’re likely to get more “eyeballs” in front of your products or services. And, as you know, the more eyeballs that read through your sales copy, the more sales you’ll make.
One reason that satellite sites help draw more traffic is that you can submit them to the search engines separately. This means that more of your pages will show up on the search results pages when Web users type in your keywords. Just think - if one of your satellite sites AND your primary website rank highly for the same keyword, you could dominate that search engine results page!
I’ve been setting up satellite sites for ETR’s website. Right now, we have eight of them. Each of these sites is averaging about 30-40 new visitors per day. As time goes on, this traffic will increase. My goal is to have 100+ new satellite sites finished by the end of next year.
Imagine if you had 100 satellite sites, each bringing in highly targeted traffic. Even if each site brought in only 20 or 30 visits per day, that would be an extra 60,000 to 80,000 visits per month!
Now before you start throwing up satellite websites, you need to know that there’s a methodology to setting up good ones. In fact, doing it the wrong way can hurt you more than help.
Satellite Site Set-Up Guideline #1:Make sure each satellite site has unique content.
Search engines are smart. And they do not like sites that have identical content. They consider websites like these “cookie cutters.” If you have cookie-cutter satellite sites, the search engines may punish you by not giving those sites any priority. Even worse, you could be blacklisted and not show up in their results at all.
To avoid this, you have to make sure that each and every satellite site has unique, distinctive content.
At ETR, for instance, we sell a program that teaches people how to make money by importing goods from China. So I created one satellite that was optimized for “China importing secrets” - and I filled the site with content relating only to that aspect of the program.
When you do a Google search for “China importing secrets,” this satellite site will usually be within the top 10 positions. It is bringing in 20 to 30 new visits per day, and each visit comes in via a targeted keyword search performed on a major search engine.
Satellite Site Set-Up Guideline #2:Make sure your site is “big” enough for the search engines to find it.
It’s easy to toss up a single-page satellite site - but don’t expect it to attract any traffic. Search engines (especially Google) love sites that have plenty of pages - and content - for them to index. How many pages will depend on your business - but sites with 100+ pages tend to do better than those with fewer pages.
If you’re thinking, “Wow, that’s a lot of pages!” don’t worry. You will begin to see additional traffic with 10 or 20 pages (sometimes even less). And then, as you add more pages with new content, you will see more traffic.
To get that content, I like to hire freelance writers to create articles for me. I ask them to base those articles on information that has been posted by respected publications. For instance, if I need content relating to the medical industry, I might ask them to visit medical journals and government sites to find studies or news releases that they can comment on or summarize.
Satellite Site Set-Up Guideline #3:Each site should have a unique IP address.
A website’s IP address is a numerical identification (like a telephone number) that allows people (and search engines) to connect to it. Most hosting companies provide shared hosting accounts that use the same IP for all satellite sites. This is bad for your traffic-attracting efforts, because the search engines will recognize those sites as being related to one another.
If the content on each site is completely different, you won’t get flagged - but it’s much better to have unique IP addresses for them. That tells the search engines that they are separate websites. Contact your hosting provider to find out how you can do this.
Satellite Site Set-Up Guideline #4:Optimize each satellite site properly.
One of the best - and easiest - ways to optimize your satellite sites is to make each one focus on only one aspect of your business. Let’s say you have a primary website about pets. You could make a separate satellite site for each category of products that you offer: pet food, pet medication, grooming, training, etc. That way, each site stands a chance of getting more targeted traffic.
If you plan on putting up multiple satellite websites, follow the rules. Make sure that each one has its own individual IP address and at least 10 pages of unique content… for starters.
You can also link to your primary site from each satellite site for extra “link juice,” but that’s an entirely different subject. For now, just get at least one satellite site up and running using the guidelines above… and watch the traffic begin to flow in.
[Ed. Note: Attracting more traffic should be one of your top goals as an Internet marketer. For more secrets to doing this, plus step-by-step instructions for everything from setting up your website to writing sales copy and more, sign up for ETR's Internet Money Club. You could find yourself the proud owner of an Internet business that generates $100,000 to $25 million a year. Space is limited, so find out now if you can still enroll in the "Class" of 2009. Learn more here.]
Writers and speakers sometimes wonder whether to use “more important” or “more importantly” at the beginning of a sentence. Or “most important” versus “most importantly.”
According to the traditional school, “more important” is correct because it’s an abbreviation of the phrase “What is more important…” But some experts disagree, and their arguments are equally valid.
Thus, in most cases, it makes no difference whether you choose the adjectival or adverbial form. “More important, she has a doctorate” is as acceptable as “More importantly, she has a doctorate.” As one dictionary notes: “Both forms are widely used by reputable writers, and there is no obvious reason for preferring one or the other.”
Some grammatical debates are trivial. This is one of them.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
Both articles were met with praise as well as skepticism, as expected. Let’s look at the History article emails first. Jane questions how I can relate the ’74 job market with today without taking into account a growing population.
Hi Rick,
I liked your article but I have a question on the numbers you provided. You say the unemployment number of 1.8 million of 2008 compares to 1974 & 1939.
You don’t mention how this compares to the number of Americans there were at this time. I think it was probably worse in 1939 and 1974 because, as a percentage, the number of unemployed were greater in those days because there were fewer Americans in both those days.
Tell me what you think.
Jane
You’re right Jane, the population is much larger today than it was in ’74. However, you miss interpreted what I was trying to say. I wasn’t talking about the total number of jobs lost for the year, I was talking about the jobs lost in one month. The economy only lost 378,000 jobs for the entire year of 1974, but the job losses continued for the first four months of 1975 and the total lost during this cycle was just over 1.5 million.
If you look at historical population numbers, there were 213 million people in this country in 1974 (According to the census bureau) and right at 300 million now. The job losses then amounted to 0.7 percent and the job losses now represent 0.63 percent, but that doesn’t include December’s figures and what may happen in the first few months of 2009. If the job losses continue for the next few months and another 200,000 jobs are lost, we will eclipse the 0.7 percent mark this time around. Most experts expect job losses to average more than 300K for the next few months.
Keep in mind that the market usually turns before the economy, and the economy usually turns before employment. This works on the way up and the way down.
The next email comes from Glenn C. Glenn asks:
Dear Rick,
You’re not the only one I’m reading who thinks the market will soar in the intermediate term. However, others say that after that the final leg of the current bear market will then kick in, and that it will take us to THE bottom, which could be as low as the 3,000 range. Others say the 5,000 range. But they point out that yields are not yet at bear market lows, nor are P/E ratios. What say you to that?
Thanks,
Glenn C.
Well Glenn, I think we have seen the bottom of this cycle already. I think we move higher next year. Where we go from there depends on the sentiment. If the majority of investors start acting like it is the 1990s again, the bullish cycle won’t be as long as we would like.
Moving on to the 162 Billion Reasons article, Harish takes me to task for oversimplifying things.
Dear Rick,
Very good mathematical model you presented but… BUT, don’t you think you made it too simple? What you say is consumers have "decided" to spend a certain amount (like $200) every month for gas and that reduced price means, according to you, that the already troubled and skeptic consumer will go all out to spend the "luckily saved" amount on things that he/she may not require at all.
Now here is my math:
If consumer A was spending USD 100 on gas per month and considering the price has halved, he / she saves USD 50. Now consider A is living in the same America where the average fella is more concerned about his/her future and savings, DO YOU REALLY THINK HE/SHE WILL BE FOOL ENOUGH TO SPEND THAT "HARD GOTTEN" SAVING?
It’s not that simple. The consumer behaviour is more a manifestation of mass psychological waves and NOT A SIMPLE MATH WHICH ANALYSTS LIKE YOU DO ON FINGERTIPS.
Considering this thing, the current market rally (till Friday) had factored in that MATH as it is obvious to many market participants. The trouble is, as I see, IF your math (and the other speculators’) proves wrong, then not only will this rally be over, but an even bigger crash / downside is imminent.
Good luck to your calculations…
Harish D.
You are correct that I am oversimplifying things. I did that so it was easier to follow along. Judging by certain things in your email, I am guessing you do not live in the states or you are new to the states. As a result, I think you are overstating the abilities of the average consumer. We have had a negative savings rate in this country for a long time. You talk about psychological waves, and it seems to me that the average consumer would rather take the $50-$100 they are not spending on gas, and spend it on the latest iPhone or GPS system rather than saving it. Such is the psychological behavior of the U.S. consumer. If people didn’t think this way, we would not have a negative savings rate and the amount of credit card debt would not be as high as it is today.
I actually made the mistake of doing some shopping this past weekend. I was in four different stores and every single one of them was packed. From Wal-Mart to Target, to Best Buy and Toy’s R US. All of them were zoos. Just from my amateur observation, retail sales might not be as bad as what people expect this holiday season and I think a lot of that can be attributed to falling gas prices.
According to the Bureau of Transportation statistics, there were 135,399,945 licensed automobiles in the United States as of 2003. If the average driver burns 50 gallons of gas per month, this means 6.8 billion gallons are being consumed each month in this country.
When gas was at $4 a gallon, Americans were spending over $27 billion on gas per month. Now, with gas back down to $2 a gallon, that amount drops in half - to $13.5 billion spent on gas each month.
Thanks to the sharp drop in gas prices, $13.5 billion per month have been freed up for Americans to spend on things other than gas. This amounts to $162 billion per year.
With expectations for the holiday shopping season so low, the dramatic drop in gas prices could be the piece of good news the market has been waiting for.
[Ed. Note: You may want to be cautious with your investments right now... but you have to be ready to take action when the moment strikes. There are going to be some incredible opportunities out there, and market analyst Rick Pendergraft has put together an educational program that lays out the simple steps you need to take advantage of them. Not only do you get three months of Rick's best recommendations, you also learn how to make good investment choices yourself. Get the details here.]
They can be happy, sad/depressed, manic, or plodding. Happy stocks go up almost every day, regardless of market conditions. Sad or depressed stocks go down almost every day, regardless of market conditions. Manic stocks? We could call these “Jim Cramer” stocks, because they are as volatile as the CNBC commentator. They bounce wildly from day to day. And we could call plodding stocks “Eeyore” stocks. They slog along without drawing any attention, just hoping someone will notice them. For the most part, these stocks grind sideways.
Knowing the personality of a stock will determine how you want to trade it. You want to own happy stocks… short depressed stocks… buy options on the manic stocks… and sell options against the plodding ones.
[Ed. Note: The market may be volatile, but it still offers plenty of ways to profit. Knowing the personalities of the stocks you control could keep you ready to tackle opportunities as soon as they present themselves. Market analyst Rick Pendergraft has put together an educational program that lays out the simple steps you need to take advantage of these chances to prosper. Not only do you get three months of Rick's best recommendations, you also learn how to make good investment choices yourself. Get the details here.]
