Badges Work. Flattery Works. Badges + Flattery Works.

by DazzlinDonna 

If something has worked in the past for more than one person, there’s a good chance it will work again in the future for another person. Don’t hesitate to emulate success.

Site badges have been around for a long time. They worked well in the beginning and a little less well as time went on. But make no mistake. They still work. If you supply people with code to place a badge on their site, some people will take you up on your offer. They will. Seriously.

Flattery has been a marketing tactic since the stone ages. Flattery has always worked well. Flattery will always work well.

Combine flattery with badges and what do you get? You get people placing your badge on their site because you’ve flattered them into doing it.

Want an example? I know you do. You always do.

Sorry, but I have to make you scroll far down the page to see this example. Look in my right sidebar. That’s the one over there. —-> Scroll down to the where the right sidebar ends. Near the bottom of the right sidebar you’ll see a badge that says “blogged / rating 9.1 / excellent / rate this blog”. See that one? (it’s black, gray and orange).

Ok, that’s a badge. I put it on my site. It links to someone else’s site. They got me to put that on my site. See how that works? But wait, where did the flattery come into play? I’ll be happy to tell you that. You see, I received an email that enveloped me in all sorts of flattering goodness. It started out by saying:

Dear Donna,

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it a 9.1 score out of (10) in the Technology/Internet category of Blogged.com.

This is quite an achievement!

It then congratulated me on a job well done and gave me instructions on how I could proudly display my excellent rating on my very own blog. Ok, I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek here, because I immediately grasp the psychological play at work, but the fact is that I was flattered. It doesn’t matter that I know that it’s a marketing angle. I was still flattered. Even when you know you are being stroked for marketing reasons, it still feels good.

So I put the badge on my site. Why not? Eh, it’s just a bit more real estate being used, right? And who knows? Maybe you’ll click on it and rate my blog well. (See how that whole psychological marketing thing works? <evil grin> )

So what’s the takeaway here? Emulate what works. Now go out and flatter people into placing your badge on their sites.