The Josh Gordon Group blog

Never forget to ask your customers.... “would you do it?”

Posted by Josh Gordon on Mon, Sep 30, 2013 @ 16:09 PM

Sergio Zyman was VP of marketing at Coca-Cola during 1985 during one of the biggest marketing flops in business history: the introduction of New Coke. 

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Topics: selling with surveys, marketing stories, stories that sell, marketing strategy

Surveys in B2B marketing: are more black men in jail than college?

Posted by Josh Gordon on Mon, Jun 4, 2012 @ 09:06 AM

Surveys can add persuasive power to a marketing campaign. They sell not by overtly asking for an order, but by creating the “persuasive facts” that customers use to make buying decisons.  
Call me skeptical, but having crafted hundreds of surveys that sell, when I hear a "persuasive fact" I want to know who created it, what bias it has, and what its creators are trying to sell me.
Here is one such "fact" I've heard for years:
 
"There are more black men in prison than in college."
 
Do you believe it?

This "fact" was used by several candidates during the 2008 presidential campaign (including the guy who won) and is accepted as true in many social discussions. But the "fact" should not have been used. Let's take a look at how this "fact" came to be: 

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Topics: selling with surveys, B2B SEO, surveys that sell