By: Misty Buck, Founder & President of Miss Ink, LLC
“It’s not personal; it’s business.” How many times have you heard that phrase? Sometimes we are forced to make business decisions that don’t coincide with our emotions. Think with your head, not with your heart. And while that generally is a smart business practice, when it comes to marketing, people buy services and products because of emotion.
Good marketers know how to effectively and succinctly explain why you need a product or service. Great marketers know how to appeal to the emotional endgame of the solution being provided.
Is your ego hurting your brand?
I recently heard a business “coach” speaking to a group of professionals explain why it’s important to stand out and be unique. Correct and correct. He then followed that up by saying that he was overwhelmingly uninspired by the individuals who presented about their business before he took the platform and wouldn’t refer them business. Ouch. When he was challenged by an audience member who happened to like the presentations, he stood his ground. Nervous laughs could be heard echoing from different tables as the exchange went on. It was clearly this speaker’s way or the highway and everyone in the room was wrong. The mood in the room quickly shifted from inspired to bemused. Bring out the gong and the hook! It couldn’t end fast enough, and it didn’t get any better from there. I’m all for tough love, but this quickly headed in an ineffective direction.
Ego is a hell of a drug. This person opened his presentation about the need for business owners to be open-minded about their financial decisions and strategy, only to clearly demonstrate that he was by far the most close-minded person in the room. I don’t think he sold even one of his specially priced for one day only autographed books.
The personal side of branding
I always say, “people do business with people that they like.” In today’s social media direct-access landscape, people want to know who you are as a person and a company. They want to see the human side of your operation. In fact, they crave it. Regardless of the industry, whenever one of Miss Ink’s client posts something that shows who they are, where they are, what they’re doing, that post is always a highly engaged organic post. What does this tell me? People care about people! Shocking.
See, we tend to think that there’s a disconnect because we’re so buried in technology, but what people really care about while they’re digging their nose into social media is connecting with people.
Creating emotional connections with your marketing
Marketing is a highly complex art. The tactics are constantly shifting as we (marketers) seek out ways to help businesses maintain relationships with current clients and create new relationships with the right messages on the right platforms. There’s no magic formula for doing this. (ar15discounts.com) If I ever figure one out, watch out Jeff Bezos, there’s a new billionaire Miami Palmetto High School alum in town.
We have to constantly take into consideration things like: where is my target audience hanging out these days; how do they like to receive information; what problems are we solving for them; what’s our unique selling proposition. And most of the time we’re doing this with a specific intent to not be, “salesy.” People are complicated, therefore so is marketing.
Here’s what I do know: People pay attention to what stirs their emotions. And guess what people want now more than ever? To feel good! Whether that’s through humor, inspiration, stress relief, or whatever will make them smile. Help them! Create an offer or an appeal that will genuinely help the person receiving the message. Be humble and be helpful.
Everyone knows a business needs to make money. Consumers are savvier than ever. To stand out, all you have to do is be personal. It’s that simple. Consider the aforementioned example of the speaker. What if instead of saying that the presentations were awful, he would have said, I’d like to give each of you a free 30-minute consult to see if we can improve your pitch and left it at that? He could have used that one-on-one time to provide a constructive professional service rather than bashing them in a public forum. Plus, everyone would have thought, gee what a swell guy. (Okay maybe not so Leave it to Beaver, but you get my point.)
The moral of the story is there’s nothing wrong with being personal and in fact, it’s those personal relationships that build a business. When you’re a small business, you need those one-on-one relationships because those become your best sources of referrals. Your messages should also be less “buy this from me now,” and be more, “here’s how I’d like to genuinely help you because I’m genuinely interested in your personal wellbeing by solving xyz problem.” There are countless of ways to do this, but the point is, don’t be afraid of being personal and making people feel good. It’ll bring you business and if your product or service delivers, it’ll help you maintain your business.
