value proposition - Artful Thinkers

February 15, 2017June 1, 2017

Marketing with Emotional Intelligence

In the era of automation, most of the focus has been on the impact to the doer. Those that have “doing” skills and who provide labor to craft, manufacture, architect and supply goods and services have felt the quake of automation for decades.

Automation is evolving and so is the conversation related to the skills it impacts. This comes in the wake of explosive opportunities resulting from artificial intelligence (AI). There are many that believe AI is a form of automation for the “thinker.”

“There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better. I want to be clear. These are not things I wish will happen; these are things I think probably will happen.” Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and Space X

The consequences of automation is very prevalent in sales and marketing, as companies heavily invest and rely upon technology to create, engage and deliver their brand promises and customer experiences to targeted audiences.

The amount of marketing technology available today is staggering, along with the voluminous amounts of data that is produced from its implementation. By example, check out the 2016 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic to get a sense of what marketers are trying to digest as to the vast array of automation options available to deliver “better” results.

As marketing strategy becomes more and more reliant on data and analytics to formulate effective content and messaging, what skills will be required of a modern-era marketer?

One of the most critical skills of a marketer required in the current and future state of automation, is the ability to apply emotional intelligence to both strategy and tactics.

What is emotional intelligence? Psychology Today defines Emotional intelligence as the ability to identify and manage the emotions of others.

Engines, bots and platforms will gather data, analyze content and interpret results. A marketers use of emotional intelligence will motivate the person to take action.

It is the marketer’s responsibility to implement and execute upon what results from machine learning, robots, data and artificial intelligence. Marketers must articulate the next steps and these steps do require an application of emotional intelligence to produce the desired outcomes.

To start marketing with emotional intelligence, it is essential to keenly identify beyond the data-driven personas and profiles the emotions that motivate individuals to act. Emotional intelligence defines how a person sees things and what triggers the feelings they express for solving problems and seizing opportunities. Marketers have to relate to their target’s greatest emotional needs.

Marketers must be able to identify the emotions of the target audience beyond the AI, analytics and data, then execute strategies and tactics that apply this emotional intelligence to motivate their target to take action.

Emotional motivators can range from fear to joy, with all levels of extremes. Common emotions that marketers frequently use to get their targets to act, include:

Success
Security
Happiness
Trust
Confidence
Courage
Assurance
Love
Heroism
Joy
Anticipation
Surprise
Protection
Fear
Anger
Panic
Anxiety
Scarcity
Consternation
Sadness
Disgust

Steps for applying emotional intelligence to marketing, above and beyond the data-driven analytics from automated systems.

1. Identify the Emotional Motivators for All Your Targets: Prospects, Customers, Partners, Employees, Stakeholders, Competitors. Utilize human interaction to identify the emotional triggers through such mechanisms as surveys, interviews, market research and face-to-face events.

2. Create Value Propositions for Each Emotional Motivator. Write each proposition by defining how the company, product or service addresses the emotional motivation to act. It must be a statement that articulates “why” someone would act and answer WIIFM (what’s in it for me).

3. Link the Emotionally-Driven Value Proposition to Desired Outcomes and Actions. Clearly outline the expected outcome and desired action that will result from the target through the adoption or application of what is being “sold,” whether it is an idea, product or service. This will be a basis for measuring success.

4. Test Your Value Propositions in a Series of Solution Statements for Different Mediums to Identify Bias. Never assume that you have nailed the value proposition until you have tested it on your target audience in each type of medium. Motivations can change across different content types, such as social versus white papers. Then sample test audience targets to help refine messages, evaluate emotional intelligence triggers and prove/disapprove the theories applied to expected outcomes and actions.

5. Apply the Value Propositions to Marketing Tactics. Once the value propositions are tested, create content and marketing campaigns. Utilize the proven value propositions, created with emotional intelligence motivators, as the foundation for all messaging.

6. Measure the Results. Evaluate the outcomes and action results monthly for the first six months of use, along with conducting ongoing testing for enhancements to the content and messaging for continuous improvements.

A marketer is the invaluable connector to a target audience that can answer to what success and failure feels like.

Take for example the topic of cyber security. The risks today to business and marketers are high. It is estimated that more than 75% of companies will be at risk in the next year. What does this mean? Every business must prepare to identify, prepare for and solve for the risks related to protecting intellectual property, customer or personnel data. What does success feel like when the cyber security solutions provider help a customer succeed at eliminating threats and risk to their business? What does failure feel like if the company does not prepare and solve for these threats and risks?

Those “feelings” are the emotional intelligence triggers that a great marketer in any industry will use when defining their brand, customer and user experiences to drive the best results.

No matter the machine learning or level of automation, marketers are essential to executing programs using tools and analysis that create an understanding of the target audience’s emotional needs. Marketers must identify motivation and interact in person to develop reliability and loyalty. It will always require a human touch with the right skills to understand, manage and motivate others to act.

Fear not my fellow marketers and business leaders, as machine learning, robots and AI are our friends and they need us. Our only real enemy is not marrying automation with emotional intelligence to seize upon the market opportunities created by all the data and analytics available to us today. It is the marketer’s skills that will manage, motivate and influence others to act.

Jamie

Jamie Glass, President + CMO at Artful Thinkers, a sales and marketing consulting company.

June 25, 2012

Market to Your Strengths

Recently at an entrepreneur camp for high school students, I worked with several teams in preparing a 3 minute pitch to sell their inventions and innovations to a panel of professionals. My focus was to help these young entrepreneurs identify their business and product strengths so they could convincingly sell us on their idea in a very short amount of time — much like the real world.

I shared my experience in managing sales teams and evaluating investor presentations about what works and what does not work in pitching. I let them know that even the most seasoned professionals can mistakenly focus on the “hot” features without direct alignment to what makes you stand out against your competition.

My lesson, you must compete for mind share before you get market share. Whether selling your idea, your services, your business or just you, always use your valuable marketing resources to promote what makes you better than the rest — your strengths!

Have you identified your market strengths? Recently? And once you found your strengths, have you effectively managed and built them up in your marketing?

The easiest tool to define your strengths is the simple risk assessment that every marketing plan must include — SWOT Analysis. No matter the size of your business, you must know your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

If you have already completed a SWOT analysis on your company, product or service, dust it off and review it today. Is it still accurate? Hopefully you have evolved! Your strengths are not set in stone. They are dynamic based on competition, economics, innovation, market growth or decline and shifting attitudes toward your business and products from consumers and employees.

If you have not completed a SWOT Analysis, take out a piece of paper now. Draw four boxes and label them: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In each box, list out what you currently say, believe or understand as your strengths and your weaknesses, the opportunities you see where you can grow and threats in your business to achieving your goals.

This initial SWOT Analysis is meant to be quick; however, a thorough strategic marketing plan will take more time and resources for a complete evaluation. You will ultimately want an assessment that has multiple inputs including employees, executives, vendors, partners and current, potential and lost customers.

A SWOT analysis is useful to make sure you are current with messaging on how you are perceived and understood in the market place. It is a business planning tool that should be evaluated quarterly to make sure market opportunities are seized and threats are assessed and mitigated.

The next step is to audit your current marketing programs and communications to see how effective you are in defining your strengths. Are you placing all your strengths on the first page, first paragraph, above the fold and in your elevator pitch? Review your marketing tactics to see how well you represent your strengths. Start your assessment with:

1. Branding – Do you clearly communicate and represent your strengths in the essence of your brand and your identity?

2. Communications – Do you detail your strengths in all your marketing communications, including sales presentations, collateral and on your web site?

3. Sales – Can your sales representatives and customer-facing employees recite your top five strengths? Where are they detailed in your standard sales presentation?

4. Public and Analyst Relations – Does your boiler “About Us” include your marketing strengths? Are you able to weave your strengths into every new release?

5. Social Media – How often do you remind your fans and followers about your strengths? Are they listed in your social profiles? How many weekly posts include mention of your strengths?

In order to create demand and achieve anticipated growth, you need to market to your strengths. Make sure you are consistent, clear and current in your messaging and get the word out why you are better than all the rest.

May 6, 2012

Best Networkers Go Where Others Won’t Go

Yesterday I met with a successful executive coach who is starting to explore opportunities of expanding her business. She was sent to me by a trusted colleague and notable networking expert. The typical goal of these meetings are to learn about our respective businesses and then make introductions or provide advice on how to reach new clients. It’s the life of an independent business owner and consultant.

One of the questions I always ask people looking to develop more business is “who owns your customer?”. Often there is pause. Yes, I want to know who owns the relationship with your customer, not who is your customer. The reason I ask this question is to identify the strongest influencers of those potential new customers. In my experience, it is the shortest path to multiple buyers.

An influencer provides reach and accelerates your ability to grow market share. Research suggests that we “buy” when we are influenced by someone we trust. In fact, ninety percent of consumers surveyed in a 2009 Nielsen Survey said they trust recommendations from people they know.

This is not only applicable in retail situations or online recommendations, but also in business services as well. The business community often gives their business to those that come through their trusted network of peers or with whom they have a past relationship. Why? It eliminates the vetting and testing. In the old fashioned sales vernacular, it saves time and money.

Here are a few recommended steps to reaching your influencer:

1. Identify your influencer, ask yourself who “owns” your customer.

2. Research your influencer. Where do they meet? Who is in their network? Who are their customers? What events do they attend? What association and industry groups do they belong to?

3. Start following. Not literally stalking of course, but follow companies and connections in LinkedIn, through social media channels like Twitter, Facebook Fan Pages and Google+. What are they talking about?

4. Go to events where they gather and start building your circle of influence.

The biggest mistake I see others make in networking to find business is they go to where their friends and competitors go. For example, I am probably less likely to get business at another marketing event, as opposed to hanging out at a physicians conference or speaking at a non-profit event about advisory boards. My competitors do not go to these events, or at least very few do. I get more time to interact. I can learn more about their needs in a particular industry or market vertical. More importantly, I can start to build a network of influencers face-to-face.

How do I get those in the room that have nothing in common with me enter into a trusted relationship? I start by listening. I then offer to make introductions to my trusted network, when there is a good match. I share my knowledge to see where we have similar business interests, like expanding markets, growing revenues. Sometimes I offer to participate in events as a speaker on mutually defined topics of interest. Finally, I look for ways I can help them achieve their business goals and give them a “sample” of what I have to offer at no charge.

The saying, nothing ventured nothing gained seems to work well in the world of networking for business. Sole proprietors and consultants have little time to work on their business, as they are the business. You need to be your own best PR agent and maximize your limited selling time effectively. If you are competing for air time in a room of people that look and talk just like you, that is an educational or skill expanding event. Learn about your craft and further your expertise. Don’t expect to get customers at these events.

When you want to network for business, go where you expect to see the least amount of your competition. The fewer people that are “talking just like you” that are in the room, the better chance you have to find business. You also create more awareness about your services because you are not a peer. You have more “meme” time. That will drive curiosity, and that opens a door to “sell yourself”.

Networking is a skill. Before you say no or turn away from the idea of going to a meeting or speaking at an event of complete strangers, realize that this is where business starts. Venture out. Be different. Go where others won’t go.