Optimizing Your Impact with Jeff SchomayThis title is kind of like Jeopardy, can you guess the question that the title is an answer to? If you said “Why aren’t my customers taking action?” you’re right. That’s what we’ll be talking about.
I was recently blamed for not being “compelling.” I was supposed to get 10 people to get 10 people to get 10 people to get—you see where it’s going. I told 10 people what I was up to and what I wanted them to do. That was about as far as it went, and I got blamed for not having 10 friends who would do what ever I say. Now granted, it was for a good cause, and if everyone got their 10 people we could have had a million people working towards one common goal and that would have been pretty slick, but it wasn’t enough to inspire people to action. What was missing?
It is my humble opinion that we had the motivation in place, but not the inspiration. What’s the difference? Good question. What do you think the difference is? Is there a difference? We say, “I was motivated to do such and such” just as often as we say “He really inspired me to do such and such.” Are they interchangeable? Consider this: Every New Years millions of people are motivated to eat less, exercise more, and stop watching so much junk TV. Only the “inspired few” stick with it. Need I say more?
Motivation is an external force. Inspiration is an internal force. The motivated people on New Years saw themselves as fat and lazy and hated it. The inspired people on New Years probably saw the beautiful person hiding inside their temporarily not-so-beautiful body and wanted to let them out. Humans usually don’t act when our conscious brain says to do something, we usually only act when our emotions compel us. And if our emotions compel us we usually can’t be stopped. That’s inspiration.
How does this apply to branding and marketing? If you want to get people to act (ie. buy my stuff; sign up now; get 10 people…) then you’ve got to design a message that translates into an internal force. How do you do that? It’s hard. That’s why it often doesn’t happen and people often don’t act. Here’s some thoughts on accomplishing the task:
• Always, always, always approach your proposition from your customer’s point of view. Put it in their terms. What’s in it for them? What’s the incentive? How does your offer make their life great or solve the things that keep them up at night?
• Create recognition. Humans always respond better to something they recognize. That’s why word of mouth is the most effective advertising, and why people will buy things from the store they’ve shopped at for years when the same stuff is on sale at the competition. Recognition is hard-wired and linked to emotion. After all, half of branding is creating recognition.
• Be part of something larger. Make buying your product a part of a larger story, so people participating feel like they are playing out the themes of your campaign (themes stir emotion usually). Sound complicated? Watch a perfume ad and see how they do it. Or a car ad. Or Verizon’s commercials.
• Copy Hollywood and Disney. Have you ever noticed that everything is Las Vegas is “The ______ Experience?” Experiences play to all your senses and cause emotion. The more you can turn your offer into an experience for your customer, the more it speaks to their subconscious mind.
That should get you started. Look around and notice when people take action and what causes them to take that action. Is there an emotional decision involved? Look at yourself and ask the same questions. Now start crafting your messages to speak to those emotions, and be sure you back it up with a transaction point that upholds the inspiration you’ve created, otherwise it will dead end or backfire. But if you keep the inspiring message solid from start to finish, you’ll get people to act… maybe even one million of them.
Now go try it yourself. Why? Because I said so. Just kidding.
Good luck and good marketing,
Jeff Schomay
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Written by Jeff Schomay
Inspire Your Buyer - Branding and Marketing
Optimize Your Impact. Get Better Results.
www.Inspire-Your-Buyer.com
jeff@inspire-your-buyer.com
(c) 2009
Jeff Schomay is an expert brander and marketer and a professional film writer and director.
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