Drop the Facts and Figures: Touch Them!
(Image courtesy Yoann Boyer on Unsplash) Powerful marketing relies upon emotional appeals. Although, as an intelligent, cognitively complex person, I would like the world to rely on logic, it does not – and I can’t proffer logical arguments to increase sales for my content clients. These emotional industry tricks are the route to profitability: Read Robert Cialdini’s book to master these practices.
Tech is Dooming Small Business: Saving Mom and Pop
Image courtesy of Luca Bravo on Unsplash Have problems with your website? Is coding a challenge? Confused about how to post effectively to social media? Yeah, me too. As a premature participant in the Big Quit, in 2019, I embraced the risk and launched my photography business. What was a hobby became enticing: people were hiring me for sessions and I felt energized. I believed I could live the life of a creative denied to me in my youth by the “artists starve” mantra. Yeah. Notice the date I launched. I booked my first high-paying photography session for March 2020. Do I need to relive the moment that lucrative contract died from Covid? Portraiture, head shots, food and restaurant clients disappeared. You were there. You remember. I kept a few product and art clients who would mail me the pieces – which I would wipe down before and after. But my entrepreneurial hopes were KN95 masked and dashed. To survive, I revived my copyrighting business. Although I’d like nothing more than to become George R. R. Martin (minus the girth and hat), I had long-supported my writing hobby with copyrighting side gigs. A business plan here. An employee manual or ghost-written article there. I passed the word around my network and picked up a few nibbles. But the world is not the one of the early 90s. I submitted an article to a new client, and he asked: “Did you incorporate our keywords?” Keywords? You bet your backlink I learned about keywords. I had to learn SEO. I came to incorporate relationship branding and marketing. Every social media platform was a new battle. What the hell is an API Key? And then, when I wrote webpage content for an enthusiastic and satisfied client, she asked me to create her website. (That’s what I get for doing a good job.) Sure, I had fumbled around and Wixed my way through my site. After years of avoidance, I had to familiarize myself with various website platforms and venture into coding. I had dodged the tech quagmire for so long. When I needed one damn credit to earn my degree, I took a summer-term HTML class at Emerson. The professor, a talented code expert, leaned over my work and commented: “You’re really good at this! Have you considered designing websites?” I groaned. “I start law school next August. My plan is to hire someone like you to handle all this crap.” That moment replays in my mind every damn time I am battling a Z-Index. Big damn mouth on me. But I realized most professionals and entrepreneurs think that same thing: that their budget will cover hiring for these tasks. Or that they will have the time and energy to handle these tasks. Who could have predicted that a copyrighter, a master of persuasion and killer of the comma splice, would need to become tech-savvy? Madness. How many skills do I need to master to keep funding my 401k? Seriously. When I launched my first website for my law office, I hired someone. My interest level to create a website – even my own – was zero. Yet, when the contractor presented her finished product, the branding was so far off from my luxury style, I paid her and never used the site. I mean, really – lime green and yellow? With clip art characters? I’m pretty convinced she was a devotee of Timothy Leary. I’m a Dennis Leary girl. Without the time or inclination, I hired website guru number two. She correctly branded the site, ensured it loaded it quickly, embedded the important links, and made it look great. But every sentence contained a misspelled word and grammatical errors. (After I provided the copy, she rewrote it. Because, yeah… she thought it sounded hip. Thank you, Miley Cyrus. Please don’t write a legal brief or business plan anytime soon.) As a small business owner, you have limited time. A talented copyrighter is not enough. You need more than a tech savvy web developer and a marketing specialist. You need a Jill-of-all-trades who can write, capture your brand identity, structure your site, embed links, and respect analytics…. I’ve been trying to be Jill for three years. And I struggle. My small-business owners experience that same struggle when they hire five people to get one webpage published. And hire another three to post to social media. It’s a wallet blood-bath and most small business owners default to “I’ll do what I can when I can.” You not only have to earn your street MBA but also have to graduate with journalism, programing, social media management, and psychology degrees. It’s unrealistic. A dear friend and her husband own a small business. They hired a Millennial web developer two years ago. They still don’t have a website (which is promised in excuse-email after excuse email) and they rely on Yelp reviews and social media to promote their business. It’s not a good look. But what can they do? The budget doesn’t permit hiring a team of people. Some digging (also known as research) provided me with insight into the state of small business marketing efforts: Corporations who boast market success can afford teams to accomplish all that needs to be accomplished in our tech-dependent world. Where does that leave mom-and-pop entrepreneurs? The local mechanic relies on word-of-mouth and his kid occasionally helping him post to Instagram while the big-box mechanic, with the flashy website, runs him out of business? Seems like a danger to competition. Worse, whether we want to avoid discussing it, those who can code and who grew up in the tech-world are Quiet Quitting. Or can’t form a coherent sentence. (Honestly, I fired a Gen Z employee when I found her taking a selfie while at her desk. She can quiet quit on someone else’s dime.) And if you hire an older marketing guru, they deem current initiatives fluff: What’s a backlink? You don’t need QR codes or a bit.ly. Let’s run
Persuade Them Powerfully
A recent study from the Journal of Marketing makes it clear: Feelings over Facts when persuading last-minute donors. The researchers found at the start of a campaign, logic motivates donors: I’ll donate if the organization proves its initiative is likely to succeed. But at the end of a campaign, to reach that big goal, emotion motivates donors. If I donate, am I part of something I value? What does this tell us? If you have a short-term campaign – days – use emotional appeals. If you have a long-term campaign – months, years – reason and logic win the day. Why did I already know this without spending years on some research project? Because the nature of persuasion is bifurcated. People are persuaded along two routes: a logical one and an emotional one. This Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is long-appreciated by those of us who rely on persuasion. What the hell is that? you ask. Bear with me. This is vital information for all entrepreneurs. ELM states that in some cases, logic is persuasive. A logical – or cognitive – appeal triggers central processing. The listener evaluates or elaborates on the information. Elaboration takes time and effort. It takes context and, often, basic knowledge. And for a person to think about anything, he or she has to be invested – he or she has to care enough to take the time and energy to think. Elaboration also takes some cognitive ability. (Smart people choose central processing over emotional processing.) ELM also states in other cases, emotion is persuasive. An emotional – or affect – appeal triggers feelings. The listener does not consciously evaluate a thing. He or she reacts. Scientists call this peripheral processing. Aspects like attractiveness or likability are emotional appeals and have nothing to do with logic. They do not ask the listener to elaborate or logically evaluate the proposal. In my textbook, I have multiple chapters on this stuff! And, in my workshops, I share a personal story to illustrate: When my teen sons were buying a game console, I couldn’t care less which one we purchased because I rarely play video games on the console. I relied on the peripheral route: That one looks cool. I like the pretty lights. My sons, however, urged us to choose the system with the best ratings, most game choices, and most options. They used central processing, cognitively weighing the information because the decision was very important to them. Most persuasive marketing depends on affect appeals. Quick! Now or never! Isn’t this sexy? Isn’t this fun? Do it for the children! I’m handsome, trust me! Emotional appeals work when the person has low or passing interest, lack of knowledge, or lack of time. So, in those last-minute moments of any campaign, the listener does not have the time to use central processing. Lack of time equals defaulting to peripheral processing. Period. How can you take advantage of this human foible? Contact me to be your personal content consultant. I’m a professional persuader and will use my skill for your benefit!
Oh, Holy Night
The trees speak of this night. This holy night.
Epimetheus and Janus
A stable orbit desired.