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Does Your Website Need a Magic Act? 
By Jerry Bader (c) 2008

In preparation for an initial meeting with a new client, we were
asked to preview their website to see if we could come-up with
some ideas for re-branding the company, and invigorating product
sales.

The client was suitably impressed with our thoughts but there
was one problem, the product line that we stressed was not the
focus of the company. The client explained that despite the fact
most of their current website was devoted to a particular
product line, it was not the product that differentiated them
from the competition, nor was it the product that made them the
most money. Once this was explained our entire focus shifted,
and we were able to develop a website concept, and webmedia
presentation that focused attention where it belonged.

The experience drove home the fact that many websites confuse
potential customers by inadvertently leading audiences down the
wrong path, hindering profitable sales rather than promoting
them.

Pick A Card, Any Card

Most companies sell a variety of products or services, but they
are not all created equal, some are more important, and more
profitable than others. At the heart of any website design
project is the underlying goal of attracting attention, and
directing that attention to the product, service, or concept
that is being marketed. In that regard, an effective website
sales presentation is a lot like a magic act.

The PsyBlog, Understand Your Mind, recently published an article
entitled, "Psychology of Magic: 3 Critical Techniques," in
which they reported that the Association for Scientific Study of
Consciousness held a conference called "The Magic of
Consciousness Symposium" where cognitive neuroscientists and
psychologists heard an enlightening series of well-known
magicians explain the psychology and techniques behind magic
acts.

What cognitive scientists have come to realize is that after
hundreds of years of experimentation before live audiences,
magicians have mastered a series of highly effective cognitive
techniques that need to be studied, a realization that should
not elude any serious marketing manager, since the essence of
any effective sales presentation is cognitive learning, defined
by MedicineNet.com as "the process of being aware, knowing,
thinking, learning and judging."

Psychological Mind-bending Techniques

In simple terms, magicians use a series of psychological
mind-bending techniques, to convince audiences to believe in
something that is simply not possible; so imagine how powerful
and persuasive a sales presentation could be by using these same
techniques to deliver a presentation where the product or
service actually performs as advertised.

We are not talking about cheating people, or misrepresenting
products, but rather teaching people the benefits of an offering
by focusing attention, sharpening awareness, and altering
perception, the three main ingredients in any convincing magic
act, and any effective sales presentation.

Focusing Attention, Sharpening Awareness, Altering Perception

The problem of attention is three-fold: people are impatient due
to lifestyle demands, socialization, and neural hardwiring.
Business pressure and modern life-styles put a premium on the
amount of time people will invest in learning what you have to
say.

Web audiences have been raised on quick-cut music videos, action
movies and video games, and as a result are socialized at an
early age to make snap-decisions on minimum input.

At the same time our brains employ a hardwired, leap-of-logic,
pattern recognition survival mechanism that induces quick
decisions on what is important and what is seemingly
irrelevant.

With an audience predisposed to hair-trigger decision-making,
the ability to attract, hold, and direct attention is vital to
effective Web presentation, a skill-set refined by magicians
over years of practice.

One of the three techniques mentioned in the article
"Psychology of Magic: 3 Critical Techniques" is
'psychological misdirection, a technique illustrated in an
illusion called the 'vanishing ball trick,' performed by Dr.
Gustav Kuhn of York University.

The 'Vanishing Ball Trick'

A ball is tossed into the air and caught with one hand while the
magician follows the flight of the ball with his eyes. The
movement is repeated several times establishing the trajectory
of the ball, then on the final toss the magician doesn't let go
of the ball but repeats the same arm motion and eye movement,
following the imagined flight of the non existent ball. What the
brain registers is the ball disappearing in mid flight.

Evidently there is a tenth of a second delay between what the
eye physically sees and what the brain registers. This could be
a fatal human flaw if what is in front of us is a hungry tiger
rather than a magician. That tenth of a second lag could mean
the difference between life and death.

As a consequence the brain has developed a sophisticated pattern
recognition process that fills in the blanks. We recognize a
series of events and leap to the conclusion that something is
going to happen. In this case that something is the flight of a
ball, a cognitive pattern established by the magicians
repetitive arm and eye movements.

Sales Presentations Are Exercises In Teaching New Behaviors

A sales presentation is nothing more than an effort to teach an
audience a new learned behavior - buying the product, service or
concept being presented. This can only be achieved if a
presentation focuses viewer attention on a single concept, and
repeats that concept so that it becomes a recognized pattern.

A sale's audience like a magician's audience must be sold on
the presentation. Each audience starts off being both cynical
and resistant, but a good magician like a good salesman will
repeat the presentation several times, each time varying it
slightly in order to overcome each potential objection, what
magicians call 'closing the doors' and what advertisers call a
marketing campaign.

The ad nauseam repetition of television commercials is nothing
more than an attempt to teach the viewing audience a new set of
behaviors, so that they will recognize the pattern and respond
in the right circumstances - we are all network television's
version of Pavlov's dogs.

Entertaining Clients is Serious Business

The best commercials are the ones that are based on a thematic
series (the Mac commercials are a great example), with each spot
over-coming a single objection, ultimately teaching the audience
a new learned purchasing behavior. Your website is your own
communication channel, capable of delivering programming content
that alters behavior, and forms new purchasing patterns.

The trick is to keep your audience interested long enough to
establish the new intended pattern of behavior. Business owners
have to get past the notion that entertaining presentations are
somehow non-functional. Entertaining clients is serious
business.

Website presentations must attract, focus, and hold viewer
attention by delivering an entertaining series of performances
that establish patterns of behavior by clever repetition that
overcome objections using verbal and visual repetition.

Conclusion

The psychological principles employed by magicians are very
similar to the ones used in effective sales presentations. The
Internet is capable of delivering the kind of compelling video
and audio webmedia that changes audience behavior and purchasing
patterns. Business must get rid of the digital flip charts and
start communicating effective, meaningful presentations that
deliver magical results.
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Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design
firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit
http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and
http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com
or telephone (905) 764-1246.
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