Archive for brain science – Page 2

Emotional Marketing Makes Memories

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

If you want your content marketing messages to be remembered, you must engage the emotional memories of your readers. Memory formation happens in two ways:

  1. A new memory is formed when it hits the amygdala and makes an emotional connection.
  2. A stimulus may hit the amygdala and be assimilated because it resembles a previously established emotional connection.

What results is a neural network of recalled associations that gets triggered by a memory of a hot-button stimulus. Everything we retain in memory is because it’s gained an emotional place in our brain. At some point, something was important enough because it was emotional. That’s what hot-buttons are… we feel as if someone has poked us.

What can you do to stimulate memory formation? Make an emotional impact.

How? As a content marketing professional, you have words and visuals in your quiver of tools. How do you poke someone and push their hot buttons?

Stories are key. Negative stories can get people’s attention, but can also leave a negative aftertaste, if not followed by positive stories. I’ve talked about this before:

► Grab the audience’s attention ► Stimulate desire ► Reinforce with reasons

What else can you do to poke someone’s hot buttons? How else do you make an emotional impact? Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Brain Based Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion
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Neuromarketing and How Content Marketing Works

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

What are 3 ways to frustrated your reader’s brains? Last week, I presented a speech at the 5th International Customer Media Congress in Haarlem, The Netherlands. Besides sharing what neuromarketing is teaching us about the brain and marketing, there are tips here for most web-based content publications.

I hope you enjoy it and learn something. Let me know if you have questions…

Categories : About Blogs, Brain Based Content Marketing, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Persuasion
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Print Consumer Magazines Score Big in Europe

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, November 18th, 2010

Print magazines are alive and well, but they’re in transition. The ones that are thriving are customer magazines, designed to be helpful and relevant to consumers while delivering marketing messages and building brand loyalty.

Yesterday I led a workshop in the Netherlands at Media Partners Group. They specialize in both Dutch and English language publications for large companies, like Shell Oil and Heineken Beer, among others. Here’s the way they describe themselves:

MediaPartners Group inspires with text and images. We build relationships, stimulate sales and promote loyalty. We reach clients or employees by performing the unexpected, but without being creative for creativity’s sake.

Our dedicated team of specialists in the areas of strategy, design, content, copy, account and project management provide clients with sponsored magazines, web design, direct marketing solutions, in store communications, advertising and loyalty programmes for internal and external target groups.

As almost everywhere in Holland, professional people all speak English. There were several staff members from the UK, which is why they are able to create high quality communications for huge global corporations. The other reasons are because they are a group of talented smart people who love their work. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Brain Based Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Persuasion
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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 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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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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Content Marketing with Blogs: New edition

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

Want to know more about online persuasion and how you can write content that gets results? Here’s a quick one minute video promoting my Content Marketing with Blogs ebook, newly revised. The formatting and design was done by my son-in-law, expert graphic designer and creative genius, Scott Krakoff. Tell me what you think…

If you haven’t downloaded it yet, be my guest: Content Marketing with Blogs…

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Persuasion
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Neuromarketing Books for Marketing to Brains

By Patsi Krakoff
Sunday, October 24th, 2010

If you want to know more about how to write content that makes an impact on the brains of your readers, here are some interesting sites and books about the emerging field of neuromarketing.

There are new neuromarketing companies and books galore, and I believe most offer important clues for content marketers. Here are a few of my favorites:

Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion, Writing Great Copy
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