We live in complex times, we have complex jobs, and our real and quasi-social relationships are as confused and frustrating as ever. So in a world of such complexity how can businesses truly understand what makes people tick? You may ask does it matter? And of course the answer is you bet it does. Without understanding how people make decisions and what motivates those decisions, you will not be able to connect with people, and failure to connect will severely hamper your sales efforts.
Connecting with an audience is not so much about social media likes or pseudo friends, as it is about communicating your fundamental emotional value proposition in an articulate metaphorical manner.
The single strongest motivating drive that each person has is survival. In man’s early history, survival was almost exclusively a matter of life and death, but today that instinct has grown to include many aspects of both personal and business life. People are in a life long competition for food, money, companionship, knowledge, status, and personal perfection, all of which are filtered through the primitive reptilian brain’s instinct for survival.
If you really want to connect to your audience, make sure your marketing strategy answers one of the three questions that form the fundamental motivating imperative of why people make decisions to buy one product over another:
- Will it kill me?
- Can I eat it?
- Will it have sex with me?
These seemingly simple, almost silly, questions are the essence of why, how, and what we do: from the tires we buy for our cars (will it kill me?), to the calorie-light dressing we put on our salads (can I eat it?), to the color of lipstick a woman uses (will it have sex with me?). Each decision we make boils down to the subconscious need to win the competition for survival both directly and metaphorically. Whether it’s who gets the big contract, the corner office, or the pretty blonde, it’s all about safety, well-being, and procreation, in short, survival.
Business executives are trained to view the world from a perspective of cold hard facts, but somehow the cold hard fact of survival gets lost and confused by an overload of conflicting information and technical bafflegab that distorts, distracts, and prevaricates. When all is said and done everything boils down to the above three questions.
If you can creatively re-imagine your product or service to answer one of these questions, you will ultimately win the competitive battle for survival. Our company is in business to do just that for you and we are eager and happy to help. If you would like to know just how we do it, we have created an e-book that contains twenty-eight concepts that can be used to reinvent your marketing strategy for the long haul. Viewing your business through the prism of one of these concepts might just be the secret marketing weapon you’ve been looking for. The e-book, “What’s The Big Idea?” is available from Blurb.com or you can contact me directly to discuss how we can help develop a creative marketing strategy that will help you win the battle for business survival.
“What’s The Big Idea?” is available on Blurb.com
The e-book contains 67 pages, a Concept Mind Map Chart, 28 photographic illustrations, text explaining the overall conceptual framework, a description for each idea, plus 29 videos (53+ minutes) further explaining the concepts.
“What’s The Big Idea?” was written by Jerry Bader, Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a Thornhill, Ontario marketing communication firm that specializes in Web video and audio production. He is the author of over one hundred articles on online marketing that have been published in various prestigious marketing blogs based on his forty plus years of business marketing experience. He can be reached at info@mrpwebmedia.com or at (905) 764‑1246 and through MRPwebmedia.com.