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The most powerful emotion in marketing?

Posted byIan Brodie on January 17th, 2016.

People talk a lot about getting emotion into your marketing. People buy based on emotion we're told, so you've got to use that somehow.

So marketers try to harness fear, envy, joy, desire. All to get you to part with your hard earned cash.

But I think there's a more useful and perhaps more powerful emotion than any of these. Particularly when it comes to the type of marketing you and I do.

It's surprise.

Surprise is the power behind much great art and entertainment. The punchline in comedy gets its bite by subverting the setup. And nobody pays much attention to dramas they can guess the ending of. It's the expectation of surprise: the revelation, the twist and the end, the whodunnit that keeps us watching.

Surprise grabs your attention. Surprise releases dopamine and enhances your senses. Surprise is memorable.

It's the expectation of new and surprising information that causes us to read something. And it's the payoff from that surprise that makes us feel good and remember it.

Most of us do some form of content marketing. Our goal is to share our expertise to build credibility and trust with potential clients.

But no matter how great your content or expertise, if you only say things that people already know, you won't stand out and you won't be remembered.

You've got to focus on the areas of your expertise that are different and unusual. That your audience won't expect.

You've got to surprise them, or frankly, you'll lose them. 

Now you don't necessarily have to shock them every time. The kind of surprise I'm talking about often shows up as a raised eyebrow or a knowing nod. 

It happens when a little lightbulb goes off in the head of your reader. Or their perception shifts just that little bit. Or they see things that bit more clearly than before.

Whenever you're thinking of writing an article or blog post or making a video, podcast or other piece of content, ask yourself what new and surprising information you have to share and focus on that.

You'll get a lot more interest as a result. 

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Habit = done

Posted byIan Brodie on December 27th, 2015.

I've been reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg recently.

There are some powerful, and frankly, troubling stories and examples in there.

And a lot directly relevant to marketing too.

A great many people struggle to get results from their marketing, not because what they're doing doesn't work. But simply because they don't actually do it.

Some how, some way, client work, admin, or pretty much anything else always seems to be in emergency mode and push marketing to another day.

But with marketing, just like with diet or exercise, it's consistency that gets results.

“Binge marketing” doesn't work.

What does work is regularly generating new leads and contacts. Regularly keeping in touch to build your relationship. And regularly talking to them about opportunities they have to get great results.

One of the keys to habits is a “cue”. Something which triggers the routine of the habit to start.

Many people who take up regular exercise find that the simplest and best cue is simply to make sure they exercise at a regular time. The clock hitting 6pm is all the cue they need for the habit of exercising to kick in.

You can do the same thing with your marketing. I advise picking a time when your brain is at its freshest – usually the morning.

Put it on your schedule and keep the time consistent.

Take yourself somewhere away from the hustle, bustle and interruptions of your normal work environment. Go to a coffee shop, or just change rooms.

Then get down and do what you need to do. And make sure you give yourself a little reward afterwards to embed the habit.

As ever, no rocket science. It just works. Turning marketing into a habit means it gets done.

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How to be free

Posted byIan Brodie on December 6th, 2015.

A bit of a stream-of-consciousness-dip-into-philosophy email today – so apologies if you came expecting a hardcore marketing tip.

But honestly, I think it's vital for all of us to step back every now and then and make sure we're clear why we're doing this.

I didn't used to think this way. I was Mr Pragmatism. All hints and tips to get the job done.

But at the end of the day, the reason we're getting the job done, for most of us, is to have a good life. And so it's important to make sure that all the pragmatic tactics actually take us closer to that good life rather than further away.

Now exactly what your “good life” looks like I'm not sure of, I only know what it is for me.

But I can guess that if you run your own business or are an independent or do any form of professional service then “freedom” looms large in what you're looking for.

For me, freedom is the ability to do what I want, when I want, as much as possible.

Now some people try to achieve their freedom of sorts by working hard doing something they hate but which pays them a lot of money so they can then disappear to a far flung shore for a few weeks a year to finally enjoy themselves.

That route's not for me. I think it's a sure fire recipe for a painful life.

For me, freedom is doing work I enjoy, not working too many hours, and doing what I want a lot. Like reading, walking, spending time with my family.

So when it comes to marketing (hey, I have to link back to marketing somehow) that means a number of things:

1. The marketing I do has to be fun and fulfilling for me.

That means I don't do cold calling, I don't do networking. I don't even answer my phone these days. I do the sort of marketing that I enjoy (usually content marketing through video, blogs and emails).

I like to think the way I do marketing is some of the most effective there is. But in truth it just has to be good enough. If I discovered that cold calling was way better than what I do now I still wouldn't do it, because I don't enjoy it and I want to spend as much time as I can doing things I enjoy, even if there are better ways.

My goal is not necessarily to do things the best they can be done, but to do them well enough in ways I enjoy doing.

2. My marketing has to generate a surplus of leads and clients.

I've found that having “just enough” leads to hit my revenue targets tends to result in me pitching for and accepting work that I don't really want to do but I need to do to hit my goals.

Much better to have a surplus of leads way above what I need, so I can pick and choose and only work on the things that get me really energised.

3. I need to work the 80:20 rule.

If I'm going to have the free time I want to do things I enjoy other than work then I'm going to need to be super-efficient with my marketing. I need to focus on the 20% of activities that deliver 80% of my results.

Now as it turns out, I'm pretty good at figuring that out. What I'm hopeless at is then stopping doing the other things or outsourcing the ones I can't stop. That's probably going to need to be my main development goal of the next 18 months.

So what does freedom mean for you? And what are your steps to achieving it? Maybe your steps are similar to mine. Maybe not. Either way, thinking them through can be immensely helpful for you.

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John Stuart Mill’s networking wisdom

Posted byIan Brodie on November 29th, 2015.

If you've studied history, politics or economics you'll have no doubt heard of the 19th-century Utilitarian philosopher and economist, John Stuart Mill.

He was an early proponent of liberty, equality and women's rights. Way ahead of his time in many respects. And recently I stumbled across a quote of his of huge relevance if networking is part of your marketing approach.

“It is hardly possible to overrate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar.”

Mill was highlighting back in 1848 what social scientists have only recently been able to prove: that the most valuable human networks are diverse ones.

We may feel more comfortable networking with people who are like us. We may enjoy hanging around with “like-minded people” and having our opinions validated. But we get the most new ideas and new opportunities from people we know who are different to us and we don't hang around with all the time.

These “weak ties” to people who move in different circles to us and who have different opinions and experiences are easy to overlook or even avoid.

But since they move in those different circles, know different people and have different experiences, they're the ones most likely to bring different and new information and opportunities to us. Far more so than the people who think like us, act like us and know the same people as us.

So whenever you're networking: make sure to connect with people who are a bit different to your normal crowd. And keep those connections live. You don't need to be in regular contact, but you do need to stay familiar.

And ignore the advice of people who tell you to only connect to people on Linkedin who you already know. If you want new opportunities and ideas you need to expand the diversity of your network, not keep it narrow.