Marketing

The Science of Selling to Women

August 31, 2016

There is no magic sauce that will help you gain women’s attention as you market your products or services. You can’t paint your product pink and think that will do the trick. You can’t wrap your service in motherhood, ballet or shopping and magically the women will come.  The science of selling to women is more complex than that.

It’s safe to say that no matter what you sell, some subset of women is going to be a key audience.

The truth is – you literally cannot afford to ignore women when it comes to attracting new customers. Women, as a whole, account for over 80% of consumer buying decisions. Even in traditional male dominated categories, women purchase in excess of 50% of those goods/services.

The reality is that women have not been a minority for years, when you think of them as a consumer group. Bottom line – you need to learn how to communicate effectively with them and this is where the science of selling comes in.

Men think and buy in a linear fashion. They want the facts and they’d prefer them in a bullet pointed list. Women will take into account the items in the bullet pointed list, but that’s not enough for them. They are much more holistic and need more information and need that information presented in a very different way.

This actually is tied to the physiology of our brains. A woman’s brain typically has more connecting fibers between cells and between the two hemispheres of the brain — it literally is more connected and that influences her need to have all the threads woven together. A man’s buying process might be thought of as a single thread while a woman’s tends to be more of a whole series of threads creating a web of connections and inter-related factors.

This additional connectivity between the hemispheres is also why women can and do access both sides of their brain when making a decision. The emotional aspects of your brand will matter just as much as the rational aspects. If they perceive any sort of disconnect between the two, they probably will not choose to buy. They need the whole package to work together. This is why storytelling, case studies, testimonials and visuals become so important in your marketing efforts.

A woman’s Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) is larger and more active than a man’s ACC. This section of the brain is responsible for weighing options and making choices.  It is often what causes someone to worry before making an important decision. Again, this speaks to the non-linear, decision-making style of most women – the need to have been exposed to enough options that she can move to a decision with confidence.

Another part of the brain, the Insula, controls a person’s gut feelings and is also larger and more active in women than men. This may be why women’s intuition is right so often. The female brain’s larger Insula equips women with the ability to read faces, interpret tones of voice (both spoken and written) and gauge the emotions of conversations and other forms of communication.

The female brain structure literally allows a woman to receive stronger emotional signals and those signals provide the context in which the facts are weighed and measured.

What you say and how you say it, in terms of marketing messages, are both important to your women consumers. But, it is the emotional side of the brain that will most often derail a buying decision. If something feels right but there’s not enough data, the woman will seek out more information. But if it just doesn’t feel right, then you’re done.

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Your customer’s point of view – walk a mile in their shoes

August 17, 2016

Sometimes, I think the best marketing advice I can give someone is before you say it, do it, print it, record it or announce it – find a way to see it from your customer’s point of view.

Many times, we get so caught up in our own world that we make the false assumption that everyone in the world sees and experiences things exactly as we do. When I say it that way, you shake your head and say, “No, I recognize that there are many different viewpoints.” Intellectually that may be true but when you’re scrambling to get some marketing element done and out there – you very quickly forget that reality.

Let me give you a few examples:

When your voicemail system invites me to hit zero at any time to talk to a real, live human being – do not send my calls to someone’s voicemail. Let me talk to a human. (Technology should make it easier to talk to you, not more difficult.)

When I unsubscribe to your enewsletter – do not take me to your sales page. Take me to a page that confirms that I’ve unsubscribed. (I want to be reassured that you got my message, not pitched a product.)

When I interrupt your uninvited sales call with a polite, “I’m not interested,” – do not keep talking. Gracefully accept my answer and say goodbye. (If you aren’t good at cold calling, don’t do it unless you want to alienate the prospect.)

Are you shaking your head at the silly people who do the above? You would never do something so dumb, right? How about any of these:

When I walk into your store, don’t have your sales people swarm me from all angles, talking to me about everything I touch. (There’s a fine line between helpful and hovering. Most sales people have not been taught the difference.)

When you send a media release out, don’t call or email the reporter to see if they got it. If they want to cover the story, they’ll call you. (Just because you think its news, doesn’t mean they have to agree.)

When you get a new fan/follower on social media, don’t send them a bunch of direct messages or sales pitches. Ask them questions, share helpful tips and be interested in them. (Social isn’t for sales, it’s for helping/sharing.)

When someone signs up for your helpful ebook, cheat sheet or infographic, don’t follow that up with an email inviting them to speak to a salesperson. That’s like going from “can I buy you a drink” to “will you marry me” in five minutes. (Cultivate a lead by being so valuable and helpful that they can’t imagine not having access to you before you put your hand in their pocket.)

I’ve personally been the victim of every one of the blunders I just listed and I am betting that you have too. Bad marketing is everywhere and much of it boils down to bad manners. Honestly, I think all of them could have been avoided if the marketing team had simply said to themselves – “Would I want to be treated this way?”

Marketing should always be created with the prospect in mind. Ask yourself these questions before you launch anything.

Will our audience:

• Find this useful/helpful?
• Be inspired or encouraged by this?
• Feel like we understand them and their world?
• Pass this onto someone else?
• Learn something or be reminded of something important?
• See a new opportunity or a solution to a challenge they’re having?
• Be grateful we communicated this?

If you can’t answer yes to all or most of those questions, then ask this final question:

Why would I think this is going to be effective?

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Is your Facebook page dead in the water?

June 29, 2016

The organic (natural, without paying any money) reach of your Facebook page has never been something to write home about (you’d be lucky with 13-18%) but now it’s even less.

The simplest explanation is – as more content is created (by both our friends and the brands we’ve liked) there simply isn’t enough real estate. Facebook cannot fit all of the content into our newsfeeds. And it’s estimated that the average Facebook user’s total number of pages liked increases by 50% every year.

So we are adding more friends and more pages and everyone is adding more content. There’s simply no more room.

Add to that the fact that Facebook is trying to give each user the content they care most about, based on a mix of factors like:

• The interest level of each recipient
• The type of post it is (status update, sharing a link, a photo etc.) and the level of interest each recipient has indicated for that type of post
• Who the creator is and how well their past posts have been received
• How popular this specific post is with the people who have already seen it
• How recently the post was published
• A whole host of other factors that Facebook has personalized to every single user

There are a few reasons for this:

• Facebook figures that you’d rather see content in your newsfeed from the people you are closest to, based on your interactions with them
• They also believe that you’re more interested in people than organizations
• They’ve given you the opportunity to both like and follow a page, and if you really want to track their content, you can add it to an interest list
• They want to make more money by selling you ads and boosted posts

So what’s a brand to do? What Facebook is saying to you is – you need to earn your spot. You need to consistently produce content that your audience cares about enough to interact with it.

On your Facebook page:

• Be interesting enough that people not only like your page but also add it to an interest list. In other words – talk about something other than yourself
• Think interactive when you think content. Ask a question, ask for stories or reactions, or say something that will trigger a response
• Don’t play the “like this post for the free XYZ” game. It’s annoying and FB will penalize you for it.
• Buy ads and pay to boost your posts

While many companies are calling foul on this trend, I think that’s a little ridiculous. Facebook is a company built to make money for its stockholders. Since they’ve given us our personal accounts for free – how did we think they were going to generate revenue?

Probably the most important adjustment you can make is to level set your expectations. Facebook pages have never been and will never be the end all and be all of free advertising and marketing. I worry about the small businesses out there who have been sold a bill of goods and believe that a few posts a week (where all they do is talk about themselves) is the golden ticket to success.

There is no magic bullet and marketing is neither free nor easy. Your Facebook page probably still has a place in your marketing mix. But how large a role or how much business you can drive from it is really dependent on whether or not your audience values what you share.

Hmm, are you sensing a theme?

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What’s your halftime speech?

June 22, 2016

We’re a few days away from July and that means the first half of the game is over. It’s halftime.  Are you heading into the locker room to slap everyone on the back and tell them to protect your lead or are you about to give a hell and brimstone speech about digging deep and finding more?

We don’t usually think of business in these terms but just like halftime is a critical element in a football game, we can choose to make this halfway point equally important to our 2016 business outcomes.

One of the reasons why the halftime speech works is because they only have 12 minutes. That’s how long a regulation halftime lasts. There’s no wiggle room or opportunity for a bullet pointed list of topics. Twelve minutes means you need to get to the point and you only get one point.

I think that’s where we get into trouble, don’t you?

By now, your marketing plan (if you ever wrote one) has been blown out of the water by distractions, delays, or determined opponents. Or more likely – all three.

If you aren’t thrilled with the score at this halfway point in the year – I’d be willing to bet that you’ve allowed the distractions, delays and determined opponents get in the way. You stopped playing your own game.

It’s time to get back to that singular focus on the 12-minute halftime speech. Here are some questions to ask yourself as you prep.

How far behind are you? What are the tangible costs/losses?

You have to start by re-assessing your situation and being realistic about what you’ve sacrificed. It also can be very motivating. You can’t make up sales any better than you can make up sleep. You can do better – but it doesn’t go back and replace what was lost.

Are your original goals still viable or do you need to set a new goal?

You can’t win every game. But that doesn’t mean you can’t gain something from it and still call it a win. It’s like the football team that is losing by 30 or 40 points so they start rotating in their second string to give them playing time. That means the game can still provide value. You’ll waste the whole year if you keep chasing a goal that’s no longer viable.

What have you learned about the field of play and do you need to change your game plan?

You may have spent months putting together your game plan but it was based on assumptions. Now, six months into the game, you have plenty of real data and experiences to draw from. Now is the time to adjust based on your game day observations and the pace and tenor of the game so far.

What do you need to neutralize to win?

It might be a consumer perception, it could be that you are trying to do too many things so none of them are being done as well as you need, it might be your pricing structure or your financing model. But something has prevented you from being as successful as you wanted to be at this point in the year. If you don’t neutralize it – the second half will play out pretty much how this first half did. Now it’s time to sum all of that up into a single message. If you can’t describe it and get everyone fired up in 12 minutes or less – you’ve made it too complicated. What’s the new win? What’s in the way? How will you change the playing field to your advantage? What’s in it for the organization if you win? How will you keep score?

It’s time to get out there and make the rest of 2016 an exciting game!

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Branding – The Inside Out Rule

June 15, 2016

Branding is one of those marketing terms that everyone uses but very few actually embrace. When companies try to brand themselves, they often suffer from the “can’t accurately describe the bottle from inside the bottle” reality. One of the other huge threats to a branding effort is when a company does not follow the inside out rule.

Disregarding the inside out rule in branding is such a common mistake and the risk it poses to your efforts is significant.

When a company identifies their brand position, the typical normal roll out process is to change their tagline, maybe update the logo and introduce the new positioning through their marketing efforts. They might tout the new brand promise in communications with existing customers as part of their announcement. Some companies might even hold an internal unveiling to share the new assets with the employees as well.

That’s all cart before the horse thinking. The truth is – if you want your branding efforts to be more than a new coat of marketing paint, then you’re going to be stepping out into the marketplace and making a bold promise. That promise isn’t going to just impact your marketing department or your sales team. It is going to change the way that each and every employee approaches their work. It should change policy. It should change your decision-making process.

For your brand to have real meaning to your audiences – it’s going to have to make a promise that most of your competitors would not have the courage to make. You can’t pull that off on your own and neither can just your marketing department or your C-suite. It’s going to take all of you to keep a promise that big.

Real branding needs to be built and nurtured from the inside out. It can’t be displayed on the outside of your building if it’s not on the inside of how the company is actually run. If your brand rings hollow in the accounting department, it’s not going to survive. If the HR department doesn’t see their role in honoring the brand, it can’t possibly become a part of your culture. If your newest and your oldest employees both don’t understand how they either do or don’t keep the promise, then you’re sunk.

The most important step of building an authentic brand that truly will differentiate you from your competitors is the step that is almost always skipped. Why?

Impatience and short-term budget thinking.

Businesses and their leadership are under a lot of pressure. Things need to happen fast. I get that. But branding can’t be forced and it can’t be rushed. If you want it to work, you have to be willing to commit the resources.

The toughest to commit? The time. In the branding process that my agency developed, we allow for a year of internal work, identifying the policies, processes, products and internal workings that get in the way of someone keeping the brand promise and one-by-one, remove them.

The value of this effort is two-fold. It removes the things that prevent you from keeping your brand promise and it communicates to your entire staff that this is not a passing fad. When they are a part of the process – you will get both their ideas and buy-in.

That doesn’t mean you can’t externally launch the brand at the same time. But without the work on the inside, the brand’s candy coating shell can only last so long.

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What kind of branding sticks?

May 17, 2016

What kind of branding sticks?

There have been some shifts in how brands are perceived as of late. The change has been triggered by the availability of so much data in the forms of ratings, reviews and Internet searches and the lasting impact of viral storms that can be triggered by a single angry customer or prospect.

While I don’t discount the new variables and their influence on our perceptions of brands, I also don’t think building a strong brand is a lost cause. In fact, I think all of this bright light of scrutiny being shone on brands is a good thing. Many examples are outlined in the book that triggered all of this (Absolute Value by Itamar Simonson and Emanuel Rosen).  It shows how companies were exposed for claiming a brand that they didn’t truly live or own. I think many companies play that game – they come up with a clever tagline and put it on their website, business cards or ads but that’s about it. It’s a marketing gimmick.

Fortunately, it’s not every organization’s intention to whitewash the public with the public facing façade of a brand. A company that understands that a brand isn’t a marketing slight of hand, but instead is the expression of a deeply held belief and business absolute, can still benefit from a successful branding effort.

So how, as a consumer do you determine the difference? And how, as a marketer do you make sure that your brand isn’t an inch deep and a mile wide?

A brand is genuine and in place to benefit both the consumer and the company when you see it woven into every aspect of the organization. Here are some good signs:

Every employee can tell you how their department and their position impacts the brand: A brand is a organization’s ultimate promise to everyone who comes into contact with that company. It’s easy for the marketing department to understand how they might deliver on the brand but you know a brand is more than skin deep when the accounting department, HR and the guys on the dock also understand and can articulate how they help bring the brand to life.

The brand promise is infused into every aspect of HR from hiring, reviews, employee awards and even in the exit interviews: One of the best ways to help employees understand that the brand is not just the CEO’s passion of the month is to create policies and programs that include it. When the brand is reflected in your interview questions, in how employees are reviewed and rewarded and even in how you separate from team members – that speaks volumes.

The brand isn’t a cliché that anyone could claim: You know the ones I mean. We see them every day. “The difference is our people” or “Your satisfaction is our guarantee” types of brands sound great but they don’t really say anything. Or they don’t say anything unique or specific to that company. No one purposefully hires incompetent, uncaring people or doesn’t want their customers to be satisfied. A real brand of depth is a bold promise that uses strong language to make an audacious promise. Don’t let pretty words fool you and don’t try to use pretty words to fool your customers.

You know a brand is built on a wobbly foundation when 3-5 people sit in a room and decide what it should be. That begs for a superficial brand that’s mostly fluff and little substance. You need to discover and seed a brand that will truly benefit your organization and the people you serve.

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Do you really understand your buyers?

November 16, 2015

Do you really understand your buyers?

No matter what you sell or whether your buyers are purchasing your wares for themselves or on behalf of their company – you are selling to human beings and they’re an odd bunch.  They make decisions based on some very odd triggers, beliefs and reactions.

Yet somehow, we have to figure out how to market to them in a way that allows them to consider what we’re offering. This isn’t about tricking them or selling them something they don’t need. It’s about removing the barriers that get in the way of someone being ready to buy. This is about really understanding your buyers — their needs, their emotions and their buying triggers.

Create a minimum: For some reason, many people get frozen and are unable to move to either say “no thank you” or “I’ll buy one” if they don’t have a sense of the minimum investment required. I know – I would expect that they’d want to know the maximum they might have to spend, but research shows that’s not the case.

A recent study showed that people were motivated not only to move forward but also in most cases to spend more, once they understood the low end of the potential spend.

Show them how you stink: People are drawn to companies, products and services that don’t oversell and actually admit to their failings. Rather than resorting to hype and slick language – be accurate and realistic when talking about what you sell. No product or service is perfect for everyone, so acknowledge who you are the prefect fit for and who you’re not.

Or, if there’s a flaw that you’re working to fix, talk about that too. Studies show that buyers are drawn to companies who own up to their shortcomings and they love a good redemption story.

Create an enemy: Interestingly, people naturally take sides. If you can create a foe for your product or service (think Apple versus PC), your prospects will quickly align with one or the other. Odds are, if they align with the foe, they weren’t going to be a right fit customer for you anyway.

But, if they align with you, they are more likely to buy and buy more often, out of loyalty and to help with the fight.

Call them names: When you assign a positive label to someone, they are psychologically driven to live up to that label. When a product or service is associated with something aspirational – people are drawn to it. You might call this the midlife crisis reality. Convertibles and Harleys would fall into this category.

But it doesn’t have to be a vanity purchase. If you assign someone a label like well dressed, politically active, or socially responsible, they will often take an action to prove that the label is correct. In the case of my examples – buying nicer clothes, voting or donating money to a worthy cause.

Keep them engaged: Lingering equals buying, sooner or later. If someone is in a retail establishment, they longer they stay in the store, the more likely they are to make an impulse purchase.   This is true online as well. The stickier your website, they more likely you are to make a sale.

For a brick and mortar store, you might use free samples, live demonstrations, or interesting displays to entice people to stick around. Online, you could have entertaining videos, helpful articles or interesting polls to get make it tough to leave.

It’s long been known that we buy based on emotion and then use features and facts to justify the purchase.   The more you understand your buyers and what motivates them to take action, logical or not, the better.

Why not use these psychological insights to get your potential buyers to see your products or services in a new light?

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Your 80/20 marketing plan

November 5, 2015

One of the age-old rules in business is that 80% of your revenue is generated through 20% of your customer base. While the numbers may not align perfectly – the axiom is accurate. Your best customers generate the lion’s share of your earnings.

In fact, over the lifetime of your relationship, your most loyal customers will spend 10x what the average customer will spend. They’re also responsible for over 70% of the total visits to your business.

Even if you didn’t know the numbers – you know how important your best customers are. Yet – 63% of marketers believe that new customer acquisition is the most important advertising goal.

A recent study of over one retail million customers looking at both their behavior and their attitudes revealed some very compelling data.

• VIP and loyalty program members are 70% more likely to spread the word about your business
• 65% actually want their favorite stores to frequently email them coupons and promotions
• The probability of making an additional sale or up selling a loyal customer is 60-70%

I’m not suggesting you stop chasing new customers but based on what we know in our gut and the data in this study, we sure need to focus a little more attention on those best customers too. Keep in mind that the average conversion rate (a new sale) from efforts aimed at new customers is less than 1%. The new ones are more price conscious, less likely to come back and pay full price and are going to require a lot of wooing to earn their return.

On the flip side, you have this group of people who has already made it clear that they choose you. They’re already in the habit of spending money with you and like how you conduct business. These are people worth investing in.

Whether you call it a loyalty program or just put together a marketing plan aimed at making your best customers feel your appreciation and love – it will pay off. This shouldn’t be a generic effort. You need to do a little homework so you actually create something of value.

First, identify who your best customers are: This sounds silly. Of course you know, right? Actually, I’ll bet there will be some surprises. Crunch the numbers to identify your best customers.

Spend some time thinking about them: Don’t just assume you know what perks or added value would mean the most to your loyal clients. Or better yet – ask them. Come up with a list of options and find out which would really put their buying into overdrive and make you their only choice of vendors.

Keep it simple: Don’t make them carry a card, memorize a customer number or jump through hoops to take advantage of your program. The average American belongs to 18 rewards programs, so your goal is to make yours the best in terms of value and the easiest in terms of use.

Do some testing and tracking: Don’t assume you’ll get it exactly right the first go around. You absolutely need to track which aspects of your effort are gaining traction and which are falling flat. Adjust accordingly.

Spread the word: Once you have it working well, you want to invite others to join. A loyalty program has two core benefits. First, it rewards your best customers and encourages them to spend more. The other benefit is that it can entice your average customer to increase their activity level.

One of the biggest marketing mistakes most businesses make is they don’t pay enough attention to their best customers because they’re too busy chasing new ones. Don’t make that mistake – it could cost you more than you want to spend.

 

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