CONSULTANT, SPEAKER, AND CEO OF THOMPSON MEDIA GROUP
Consumers are bombarded with an abundance of marketing messages and promotions on a daily basis. Brands that produce this marketing spend a ton of time, money, and other resources to get those messages in front of their customers and other people they want to serve.
So it's a shame when those messages are ignored or are forgotten five seconds after they've been viewed. The good news is there is a smarter way to connect with your customers. Produce marketing that makes them feel something other than indifference. Produce marketing for them that moves them to action and compels them to take the next step forward with you.
That next step could be sharing your content, giving you more of their attention the next time you try to communicate with them, giving you their email address, or even buying one of your products or services.
The way you make your customers feel along the various touch points you have with them is largely what will fuel what actions they might take as they consume your content.
When I got started on a nontraditional marketing project a while back that involved dancing, I was clear with my choreographers in the very first meeting about how I wanted people viewing the content to feel. "I want them to have goose bumps," I explained. In my mind, goose bumps meant they'd be delighted. And delight is an emotion that moves customers to action.
Just as a point of clarification, content isn't limited to blog posts, podcast episodes, or YouTube videos. It is every place along your customer journey where your customer interacts with any material you produce, such as your website, promotional campaigns, signage, the hold music on your customer service hotline, or even your instruction guide (I've definitely had some strong negative feelings about the picture-only instructions for some of the Ikea furniture I've put together in the past).
Each one of those touch points has an impact on the way your customers feel about your brand. You'll have a much better chance of making sure your customers feel something worthwhile when you begin any marketing campaign or content-creation effort with a clear idea of how you want your customers to feel as a result of engaging with what you produce.
Here are three emotions that when incorporated into your marketing will help you destroy indifference to your brand, and get your customers to take the next step forward with you.
1. Delight
Whenever a business does the work to create a customer experience that delights me, I find that I can't shut up about it. I end up telling anyone who will listen because I want them to experience that awesomeness for themselves or, at the very least, get some enjoyment out of living vicariously through my experience.
This emotion works because it shocks your customers out of the mundaneness of the norm. By delivering the unexpected in a way that induces surprise, delight, and joy, you pave the way to make it a no-brainer for your customers to take action.
2. Pride
On social media, I have people I'm connected to who frequently post directly from their applications whenever they complete a workout. They are proud of what they've accomplished with their fitness goals and are moved to share with others about their progress.
When you create moments of pride for your customers, either as a one-off or on a consistent basis, it keeps them connected to your product or service at a deeper, more emotional level.
It moves your relationship beyond the transaction, and induces your customers to want to continue to use your product and, in some instances, to share with others about the great results they are getting with you.
You can do that by tracking their progress, helping them celebrate wins, milestones, and personal bests. A little gamification can be fun as well, by helping your customers track progress versus data you have for a larger group.
3. Pain
Like it or not, pain is a powerful motivator. In my experience, both personally and in observing others, until people get to a place where staying in their current level of pain is worse than any discomfort associated with taking action to do something different, then not much will change.
That's why lots of smart marketers work to agitate the pains of the people they want to serve.
They magnify the impact of a less-than-desirable situation that can be changed, with the goal of making the current state so unbearable moving forward that action must be taken now.
Life is about moments. The moments that make us feel. Make sure you create the moments for your customers that make them feel something for you.
Because, after all, customers are just humans who feel.