(Make Money and) Stand Out From The Crowd

Have you heard of the term – Peacocking ? .. Well, look it up (GIYF).

Peacocking is a term used in dating … well, actually its more for PRE-dating … it refers to people who make themselves stand out by wearing unusual things… or acting in an unusual way ..

Waaaaat?

Let me explain .. the theory here, is that a gentleman who hits the town wearing a pimps hat, and a ginormous sparkly necklace will catch the eye of the person he wants to speak with.

Ok.. so you may ask – “How does looking like an idiot help this guy find love?” .. it’s a fair question – and I would reply – looking like an IDIOT probably won’t help…

(Casing point you can check out one of my earlier videos here:

http://smarterdestiny.com/sillyvideo and you can see an example of how you can catch attention .. but not really convince anyone)

BUT .. when you realise that Peacocking is ONLY about starting a conversation .. the brain starts to whirl…

At this point you may see some similarities … Like how the subject of an email only has ONE goal – to get the recipient to open … or the body of the email only has ONE goal – to get the recipient to click .. or how the sales page of a product only has ONE goal – to get the prospect to add to cart .. and so on…

So .. I’m wearing a stupid hat and purple chinos … but you catch my eye…. I wander over and start a conversation with you.. I might look like an idiot … but it’s mission accomplished, let me explain …

Your customer journey is made up of stages .. the destination that you want them to get to can me reached by many different routes (email, SEO, advertising, organic and so on) .. but each stage shares ONE key similarity – the MAIN goal of each stage of the customer journey, is to get the customer to the NEXT stage … that’s it!

Don’t be trying to sell the customer on the product from your email … your email should only get them to CLICK

Don’t be talking about upsells in your initial ad – That ad is only trying to get them to CLICK

Don’t make your subject line anything else, but a tool for standing out in the recipients email to get them to OPEN

Get my drift?
So .. how does peacocking apply to your ads?

Here, you’ve got to think about where your ad is being displayed … If we’re talking Facebook ads, are we talking about right hand side or newsfeed? Maybe it’s being shown on Instagram?

If we’re talking about google display ads, what is the colour scheme of the sites displaying your ads?

Regardless of where your ads are being displayed… the question you need to ask yourself is… How can I make my ad stand out ?

So here’s an easy starting point … What is the main colour scheme of the site your ads are being displayed on?

If the colour scheme is BLUE .. then make your ads predominantly RED..

If the colour scheme is WHITE .. make your ads predominantly BLACK ..

Ok, you feeling me so far?
Right, now lets delve into human psychology a little bit ..

This is not designed to be a war and peace novel on how to attract attention … but below are some pointers that can guide you in the realms of making your advert stand out and/or attract attention .. you’ll need to take the ball and run with it … The alternative is I give an exact step-by-step guide… and everyone does the same thing – creating identical ads, which will no longer stand out! Geddit? Ok .. lets do this –

Movement – Right, this isn’t ALWAYS possible .. but depending on the ad network … look into whether you can advertise with video or at the very least, GIF images. You’ll give yourself a much better chance in a sea of stationary with an advert that MOVES ..

Danger – Ok, use this one with caution … but if you can create an advert that taps into the fight or flight emotion, and expresses some kind of danger (note: not as dramatic as war/ death .. just something that your target market might not like

( for example, spending 1/3 of his/her life checking on their advert performance) is enough to catch their attentions.

Babies – I’m a bit reluctant to give away this secret… Those of you who are reading who have bought from me before .. going back to the Teefinity and Outsource Oracle days .. will know what I’m talking about. I used images of babies extensively in my retargeting adverts .. combined with contrasting colours to the blue and white of Facebook … they performed extremely well! But why ?

If your target audience is of parenting age .. it is likely that the eyes (which are large in proportion to the head size) and other features of the baby will catch the eye of the parent – because

that parent is subconsciously keeping watch for signs of distress in their own children … These ads worked well – Because they triggered the parenting instinct in my prospects.

I possibly crossed the line with these ads .. and risked looking a little amateur – So if you’re going to follow this tactic, test your ads out with a small audience … try intercepting this audience with parenting targets to boost the performance.

For me, they worked EXTREMELY well … I had a frequency (thats the number of times, on average, my target audience had seen my ad ) of 38 … and yet the advert was still profitable! Those results are INSANE … but its impossible to say no to

those big, wondering eyes !