Imagine that you can hire a psychologist to analyze and fix your marketing messages so they hit your target market right between the eyes. What would that look like?
For example, let's say your work involves retirement planning. How would a marketing therapist fix your out-bound messages?
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First, he'd look closely at your intended target market and ask if it's actually a viable target market. In other words, do they fit the criteria: 1) need what you have, 2) want what you have, 3 able to afford what you have, 4) willing to spend money to get it? 5) most importantly – could they realistically be motivated to buy it from you? Surprisingly, many retirees or people seeking to retire do not meet all of those. Still, many advisors hammer away at them anyway, wasting priceless resources.
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Second, a marketing therapist would look at your offering. Do the words and images attract the exact people you want to work with? Most financial and insurance messages fall on deaf ears. Why is that? Because they're the wrong messages sent to the wrong target markets. The most absurd reference we see is referring to Boomers as Seniors. Next, is approaching retirees in hopes of doing investment planning for them. Both of those tell retirees that your offer is off-target.
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Third, he'd look at you. Are you someone your intended target market would easily and quickly gravitate to? Do they find you immediately trustworthy and credible? Do they like you? After researching this for about twenty years, we've discovered that many advisors who work with retirees are indeed credible, but they are terrible at demonstrating their credibility. Thus, most people they meet don't trust them.
What the heck is Marketing Psychology? Marketing psychology is simply a scientific effort to match pegs and holes. When you get the square peg matched up with the square hole, you have far better potential for success. Unfortunately, very few people in the financial industry understand this point. As a result, they spend vast sums of money to publish and transmit the wrong messages to the wrong people. Square peg, round hole.
Psychological mismatches. The obvious mismatches include investment options with too much risk or not enough flexibility. However, the most important ones are emotional issues – things that help your prospect feel safe with you. They include: photos of staff members on your website; a personal phone call from the advisor; clear descriptions and directions; relevant information rather than a never-ending sales pitch; content written in the language of the target market, rather than an industry professional.
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The first phase in getting a new client is safety. If you don't know how to make the prospect feel safe, chances are nil that you'll write new business with him/her.
More Specifics! What does this look like in real life?
Since we're looking at retirement planning, let's look at some specific examples:
Business Owners. If this is your target market, does the psychology imbedded in your marketing match up with business owners? Do the specific words in your marketing resonate with and attract business owners? In most examples that we've seen, NO, and here's why.
Business owners tend to be highly proactive people with a very deep understanding of their business processes, and with a sharp eye on whatever affects their bottom line. Agents, advisors, planners and analysts tend to be very different people. They might be proactive (though most are not). They might understand process (but not business processes). And, they might keep an eye on the bottom line (but only on their own bottom line, not the client's).
Research indicates that most HNW people (many who own businesses) choose their financial advisors by referral from personal friends. Yet, most advisors, use traditional marketing in attempts to reach those people It does not match.
Engineers. Let's look at their psychology. They are highly analytical and need resources and claims substantiated with lots of relevant research. They also communicate in compound-complex sentences, so if your marketing material contains "marketing speak," you'll turn them off. The words engineers respond to include: tool, process, resource, research, system, strategy, workable and effective.
If your marketing does not approach engineers with that type of language, you'll be shooting off-target. Wrong peg, wrong hole. Engineers are compulsive researchers, and tend to trust conclusions drawn by other engineers. Match the right psychology to a couple of engineers and you will likely tap into an enormous referral network. But, most advisors don't like their advice being questioned, so they avoid engineers, thus missing out on one of the most affluent target markets in America.
In Conclusion
A Marketing Therapist is a psychologist who specializes in business communication effectiveness. That includes both marketing and sales messages. And, that includes every message transmitted to a stakeholder: websites, blogs, forums, brochures, white papers, letters, books, reports, Power Point presentations, seminars, keynotes, elevator statements and letterhead (to name a few).
The more you learn about how to apply psychology to perform therapy on your own messages, the more successful you can become. And, the more messages you deliver without the benefit of this help, the greater the probability of alienating your target market.
Your Reward
In every article I write, I give away a Reward to people who read to the bottom of the article. This time, I want to give you a "Psycho Analysis" of your marketing. If you want to see how a Marketing Therapist can help you, this is your chance. Time permitting – I will perform our special therapy on one of your marketing pieces. Just paste this paragraph into an email and I'll contact you with details.
Ever wonder why your marketing is not working? Time Permitting – I'll show you exactly why, and tell you how to fix it – no cost. This Reward expires on August 1, 2010.
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