Archive for Attracting Clients – Page 18

Customer Media Congress: Patsi’s in Dutch…

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

There aren’t many conferences that I’d fly 5700 miles to get to, but the 5th International Customer Media Congress looks as if it’s going to be another smash hit. I’ve been invited to speak, by uber-publishing-content-marketing icon, Sak van den Boom.

Somewhow in my family it meant you were in real trouble when you were “in dutch…”

Patsi Krakoff keynote speaker op 7 november: een effectieve tekst raakt je onderbewuste

Met wat voor tekst scoor je nu het beste op het web. Internetguru Patsi Krakoff uit Mexico blogt dagelijks en heeft wereldwijd veel volgers. Ze komt speciaal voor het jubleumcongres naar Haarlem om haar kennis te delen. 11 topvrouwen in marketing en communicatie op het netwerkcongres over customer media in de Philharmonie in Haarlem. Verzeker jezelf van een plaats. Schrijf nu in.

I don’t suppose I’ll see you there, but consider yourself invited. Here’s the line-up: 11 top notch experts in creating content that engages the hearts and minds of customers through custom publishing. Who says print is dying? Read More→

Categories : Brain Based Content Marketing, Content Marketing, In the News..., Online Marketing, Online Persuasion
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Content Marketing Tips: The Brain Runs the Show

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

If you’re going to create content that grabs readers’ attention, sparks emotional engagement, and gets them to take action, you need to know what makes people tick. Although traditionally the heart is referred to as “the ticker,” it’s the brain that runs the show.

Your brain:

  • Occupies 2-3% of your body space
  • Is a small organ of 1,500 cubic centimeters
  • Weighs 6 kilograms
  • Contains 100 billion cells
  • Houses 1 million kilometers of interconnecting fiber
  • Uses up 20% of your body’s energy supply of glucose

This last tidbit of information is key. Although it’s a small organ, it is a huge consumer of energy. The way it conserves energy is by going on automatic pilot, similar to the way Kindle and laptops go into sleep mode.

This is why the brain prefers to not have to think. If it can rely on the subconscious parts of the brain, it will, because this part decides without thinking, using intuition. It doesn’t have to use up precious energy reserves.

Your brain is responsible for a huge number of functions:

  1. Sensory perceptions
  2. Interpretations, assigning meaning
  3. Emotions
  4. Memory
  5. Bodily movements, both autonomic and voluntary
  6. Motivations, drive
  7. Planning, goal setting
  8. Imagining, anticipating
  9. Speaking, communicating
  10. Innovations, creativity
  11. Decisions, both conscious and subconscious, both logically and irrationally

Feelings Come  First

The emotional parts of the brain are larger than the rational part. Feelings come first, and are processed five times more rapidly in the subconscious brain than in the conscious, thinking brain. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Brain Based Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion
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Content Marketing Matters: What’s Your Brand Personality?

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, November 11th, 2010

What are two key elements to creating content that get results? I stumbled across an interesting quote on a site that gets to the heart of content marketing matters:

“Evolution tends to favor action over thinking.  That hasn’t changed.  Emotion controls the mind as it did when humans first came on the scene.

“People react much more emotionally than companies dare to think.  Purchasing decisions are never driven by logic alone.  Emotion and narrative are key, they are the very structure of mind and of human nature.

“All successful marketing campaigns – whether using primeval or post-digital technologies — have responded to this phenomenon.” ~ Dr. Bob Deutsch, cognitive anthropologist, BrainSells.com

Emotion and narrative… Remember these two crucial keys to content marketing.

I’m going to take a broader view and relate narrative to branding. Branding tells a story in the blink of an eye.

How can brands, which are designed to make an instant visual and emotional impact, take advantage of emotions and narrative to connect with consumers emotionally?

I am reading Dan Hill’s excellent book Emotionomics. He says this about branding and narrative:

“…brand equity accrues to the extent that a company’s brand story provides the two main components of a successful story. The first is an attractive personality. The second is positive signature associations by which the company becomes familiar and comfortable to members of its target market.”

In other words, a company’s brand works when: Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion
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Content Marketing to the Male Brain

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

What can we learn from brain science about how to market to men?

79% of men are alienated and barely able to recognize themselves in the ads portraying their gender (Business Week, 2006)

The Old Spice site has some great TV clips that do a good job of appealing to men’s views of themselves, using humor and exaggerations of stereotypes.

Here’s what else grabs the attention of male brains…

Attention: They live in the ‘now.’ They are concrete thinkers that like to consummate, finish. Men are goal-oriented. A male axiom is “get it done.”

Men are interested in power and in looking good, even more than being good.

Time– Men tend to hone in, more quickly than women, on what they’re looking for. Men are not browsers. A male motto, “Get what I want and move on.”  Provide clear links to what they are looking for.

Causality– Men are concrete and tend to tightly focus their awareness. Their notion of cause and effect is linear and men are visually-oriented because of this concrete perspective.

Seeking clarity, men create absolute distinctions: black-white, yes-no. First- last, winner-loser.

Men like to feel unique and special, and as such they will follow their gurus, heroes and sports stars and teams.

Celebrity endorsements and affiliation – If Michael Jordon wears them, they’re good enough for men.

Look at Steve Jobs, Richard Branson: If the company president is a rebel and a renegade, then others will join their cause and identify with the company and their products.

Other people – For the male it’s every man for himself. Men prize individuality and self-reliance. They conceive of other people as “my competition.“

They ask, “What will your product do to make me better than the others?”

Look at Razerzone.com, a manufacturer of PC gaming hardware such as mice. This company publishes a gaming guide to show “noobs” how to rapidly improve their online game scores. It’s a list builder that is responsible for the company going from a list of 8,000 to 200,000 in less than 2 years.

It’s their key content marketing piece, and there are others. The president, RazerGuy, has his own blog, and they have active participation on Facebook. There are even Razer fan sites built by evangelists, and many tattoo the company logo, a three-headed snake, on their bodies.

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing
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The Senior Brain: How to Market to Oldies but Goodies…

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, November 8th, 2010

Something’s wrong with the way marketers are trying to reach people over 65. I know this from personal experience.

I am learning new stuff about the brain all the time, and since I have one myself, older brains are particularly interesting to me.

If marketers don’t get wise to the way seniors perceive their marketing messages they are are in for a rude awakening. Marketing to the older brain isn’t done by showing pictures of frail people, confused people, or trying to frighten them into buying stuff.

Wake up, folks. “Seniors,” doesn’t mean senile. Older people aren’t all decrepit and stupid. Not only that, but we’ve got more of the money, honey.

Let’s just take the young seniors, those Baby Boomers who are just coming of age now. The 44 million baby boomers are maturing rapidly, and represent the richest generational cohort in history. In the US, they control 77% of all financial assets. They use ½ of all credit cards, and spend 2½ times the per capita average on discretionary purchases.

The level of spending by those over 45 will soon exceed that of people between 18 and 39 by $1 trillion US. Yet, despite these statistics, only 10 percent of all branded marketing target older consumers (Wolfe and Snyder, 2003).

I know that neither myself, my husband or any of my friends of similar ages are attracted to the way seniors are depicted in marketing messages.

Some of us don’t use a cane or a walker. We actually play sports and even dress like younger peeps.

Here are a few facts about the older brain and how it likes to be marketed to. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion
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Basic Human Motivation: 4 Ways to Engage Readers

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, October 28th, 2010

As content marketers, if you are writing content designed to persuade and influence, you need to know what makes people tick.

There are universal drives that are common in all human beings, across cultures, across the globe. When you create content that appeals to either of these four basic drives, you can’t help but engage the hearts and minds of readers on a profound level.

We can learn a lot from evolutionary studies. Our brains haven’t changed much, nor have our fundamental motivations.

I suggest a frame work for understanding basic human motivations: the Four Drive Theory, presented by Professors Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Noria in their 2001 book Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices.

There are many theories about what motivates behaviors, but I like this Four Drive theory because it is based on studies of primitive man, primitive societies, and the evolution of brain functioning over the last 100,000 years.

It doesn’t matter if you view humans as being motivated according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, or Freud’s Pleasure/Pain framework, or any other drive theory. What matters for marketing is that you understand basic human drives, and what drives peoples’ behaviors at their most fundamental sources.

This theory doesn’t exclude other theories, but as a framework for marketing, I think it works quite well. Keeping these four things in mind, you can create more effective marketing that reaches the subconscious brains of your consumers.

These four fundamental drives motivate all human beings. Some are stronger drives than others, but we all have all four operating in the background of our lives.

Neuroscientists and anthropologists know that our brains haven’t changed much over the last 100,000 years. We are still driven by four key motivators. Everything the brain does is strongly motivated by these four drives:

  1. The drive to acquire objects and experiences that improve our status relative to others.
  2. The drive to bond with others in long-term relationships of mutually caring commitment.
  3. The drive to learn and make sense of the world and of ourselves.
  4. The drive to defend ourselves, our loved ones, our beliefs and resources from harm. Read More→
Categories : Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion
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Engaging Content: Get Emotional, Really Emotional

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

How can content  marketers create content that engages – truly engages – the emotions of readers?

When Harry Met Sally, Sally insisted men could never tell when women were faking an orgasm. To prove it, she demonstrated her own audio version, fully clothed, sitting in a crowded restaurant. The diners at Katz’ Deli were shocked and amused, as were millions of movie goers.

The scene features one of the funniest lines ever, “I’ll have what she’s having,” spoken  by Estelle Reiner, the director’s mother who played one of the restaurant patrons.

This is important stuff for content marketers to grasp and use when creating content that engages the hearts and minds of readers.

If you want your readers to be so moved that they ask you for some of what “she’s having,” then make your stories emotional.

Scientists have shown that humans have an innate ability to feel what others feel through neurons called mirror neurons. These are what allow us to feel empathy, to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes.

Our brain neurons fire just as if we were actually doing or feeling what we see another human doing or feeling. Each time you tell a story about a client, we put ourselves into the picture.

Telling stories about clients who use your services and products isn’t just a marketing tactic. It’s neuroscience in action. Your readers can feel the pain of the client who was frustrated, angry, disappointed… and feel their relief when you helped them out. In those moments, they are that client, they get it. They are right there in the story.

How many of you did that when you watched Meg Ryan fake an orgasm? The director tells us that in test showings, the women in the audience were all laughing. The men were silent. Maybe they were worried…  I don’t know. For sure, no one was bored or unengaged…

Try to imagine the feelings your audience of readers will experience when you tell a story. Will it make them want “some of what you’ve got?”

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing
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Brain Scans Reveal 3 Elements of “Buying Brain”

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

As more brands are being studied in laboratories around the world, consumers are being hooked up to brain imaging machines, fMRI, EEG and other devices so that they are monitored while they read marketing messages and make decisions.

Neuromarketing is extremely expensive market research to do, but fortunately most brains work the same, with some exceptions for age and gender. So the results acquired for companies with big budgets are showing us how to create messages that have a powerful impact on the brains of all consumers.

So far, neuromarketing studies have shown that these three factors determine whether or not a consumer is inclined to make a buying decision:

  1. The degree of ATTENTION
  2. Whether or not there is emotional ENGAGEMENT
  3. How easily the message and the brand is encoded to MEMORY

Attention, emotional engagement, memory: 3 keys to priming the brains of your audience to buy or take the action you want. (Source: The Buying Brain, A.K. Pradeep, CEO of NeuroFocus)

And this makes sense, doesn’t it? … you can’t get someone to the point of wanting to buy something without first getting their attention. And if your message resonates with them on an emotional level, they’ll have trust. It’s well known that experiences that carry a strong feeling have better chances of being remembered.

In order to buy your brand, they have to remember where they saw it, and where they can go take action.

Think of a monkey waking up in a tree… he swings through the branches and he sees a bright yellow banana through the branches. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion
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What Drives Us? 4 Keys to Creating Compelling Content

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, October 18th, 2010

I’m extremely curious about the subconscious drives that compel people to do the things they do, in their work, in their choices, and their buying decisions, aren’t you? Sometimes, you feel driven to do things, and you don’t really know why.

Engaging the hearts and minds of readers through written content isn’t easy. The Content Marketing Institute recently surveyed content marketers who report that’s their #1 challenge:

How to write content that is “engaging,“ that gets readers to pay attention, the compels them to take action.

I think to be successful with content, one has to appeal to fundamental human drives and motivations, the ones that our primitive ancestors passed down to us over the last 100,000 years.

Recently, I came across a fascinating book I read 10 years ago, based on evolutionary biology, sociology, and psychology: Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices by Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Noria.

These two incredibly smart professors propose a theory of four fundamental motivations at the heart of all human behavior.

  1. The drive to acquire objects and experiences that improve our status relative to others.
  2. The drive to bond with others in long-term relationships of mutually caring commitment.
  3. The drive to learn and make sense of the world and of ourselves.
  4. The drive to defend ourselves, our loved ones, our beliefs and resources from harm.

This theory says that humans and social groups will enjoy an advantage to the extent that they are able to fulfill all four of these basic human drives.

It suggests these drives have a strong emotional component, and would probably show up in the limbic system of the brain if monitored under brain scans. What that means is that they are embedded in the subconscious mind, out of our awareness.

After reading this book and a few others on human motivation, I can see how these four drives apply to writing emotionally engaging content that compels readers to take action:

Content written to appeal to each of these four drives will engage the emotional brains of readers.

Let me tell you a story that shows how this works. Information passes to the brain through the sense organs.

Let’s say Fred is reading the news online, and his eye catches a picture of an ad: a business man driving to work in a red sports car. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion, Writing Great Copy
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Neuroscientists Discover “WIIFM” Center in Brain…

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Through the magic of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), neuroscientists are able to look inside the brains of consumers while reading marketing messages.

Copywriters and content marketers have been telling us for years how important it is to address the “what’s in it for me” filter in consumers’ minds.

Really Big News: They’ve found this WIIFM center located in the old brain!

Thanks to advanced scientific formulas and algorithms, we can now market directly to the subconscious mind and get anybody to do what we want without even knowing it!

I’m just kidding you… If that were actually true, it’d be really scary. It’s not that easy, neither is neuroscience easily applied to content marketing. Every time I read about a new neuromarketing study, it seems they’re only confirming what copywriters and marketers knew all along.

But here’s some new information, which could improve your marketing messages. Although we can’t directly cause people to do something, we can use knowledge of the brain to improve our chances of influencing their buying decisions. We can write better content because we understand how consumers make decisions.

We know more about the subconscious functions than ever before. We know what kinds of messages reach the emotional brain and the old brain, even though consumers aren’t aware of their influence. More importantly, we now understand that much of our decision making goes on in the old brain, out of conscious awareness.

Neuromarketing and science can help improve your content writing so that it has more of an impact on people in your target audience.

I just love this site: SalesBrain, a neuromarketing company. Founded by Christophe Morin and Patrick Renvoise, authors of Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Button Inside Your Customers’ Brains. The company does sales training using neuroscience as it applies to what influences buying decisions.

I recommend you visit the site, as it is clear and easy to navigate to find great information about buying decisions. I found the page on 6 ways to stimulate the old brain especially illuminating.

Here’s an excerpt: Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion
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