November 2014 - Rottman Creative

How to Integrate Storytelling into your Marketing

In the last newsletter, we talked about how to use storytelling in your event email marketing.

Definitely do that. But don’t stop there.

If you haven’t caught the first two newsletters in this three-part series on using storytelling in your event marketing, you can find the first one here and the second one here.

THE MAIN IDEAS WE WANT YOU TO TAKE INTO THIS NEXT DISCUSSION ARE:

Traditional messaging around NEC (networking, education, and certification) has grown stale, and to capture people’s attention these days, associations need messaging that shows these things, rather than simply tells about them.
Marketing an event is about connecting the unconnected. It’s about pulling people in. It’s about creating a horizontal movement of people talking to people.
Storytelling is a perfect vehicle to do this, because stories from real people are what create that movement-and ultimately, what make those connections.
Stories hit people in the emotional center of their brain, where decision-making is strongest. Good stories cultivate three essential things research has told us are central for converting people from onlookers to registrants: passion, connection, and affection.

We’re going to look at six different areas where you can use storytelling:

email
direct mail
web site
video
association magazine
social media

Email

We already covered email in detail in the last newsletter, when we talked about finding and mining the stories, interviewing people, using your brand archetype to create the voice of the story, and how to write and design these story-based emails. Because it’s so important to most associations’ events, there are just a few things we want to reiterate about how to use storytelling in your email campaign.

Make sure to use a well-designed, fully-branded HTML-based template. Even the best story can fall flat if it’s simply pasted into a text email and mass-emailed out.
Whether you choose to lay out the entire story in the body of the template or use a teaser paragraph in the template that links through to the entire story on a landing page on your website, your email template needs to be responsive and adaptive for mobile phones.
Take the time to create compelling emails and get it right, because this can be a great jumping off point for other mediums.

Direct mail

If email content is king, direct mail is first in line to inherit the throne. Direct mail has a tangible quality to it-and if you do it correctly, it can have a huge impact on your event registration numbers. Stories are the fodder for your direct mail-and if you’re doing justice to your email campaign, you’ve already got a great start.

Hit people with story-based direct mail in the early stage of the buying cycle. Build the passion for the event, piece by piece. This means that you’ve got to have your stories ready to go, so that you can spin them into direct mail. As with email, you want the stories to jump off the page, with captivating photography and bold graphics and callouts.
Bring storytelling into your postcards and teaser mailings. Do a series of postcards, each featuring a different story, or a mailing that wraps a few of them together.
Populate your most important piece of direct mail-your registration brochure-with stories, rather than just facts about speakers and sessions. Keep the “schedule at a glance,” but rethink how you present the highlights.
Remember, “affection” is one of the key feelings brands need to channel. In those most crucial print pieces, make sure to have current attendees tell other potential attendees about their affection for the event, and why they love it.

Web site

Storytelling has a much wider use than your event marketing campaign: you can bring it into multiple areas of your web site, from blog posts to testimonials. There are a few things we definitely recommend for your site.

Lay out your email stories into a well-designed PDF, put it on your site, and direct people to download and share. PDFs are less tangible than direct mail, but they still create nice stand-alone pieces.
Use storytelling at point-of-registration. Plenty of associations sprinkle testimonials throughout the event pages of their site. But as we said in the last newsletter, one-sentence testimonials aren’t very compelling. Repurpose quotes and pieces of stories to use as testimonials on your site. You can also repurpose them into blog posts.

Video

You can go huge with storytelling for video (a video crew, lighting, locations!) or do something simple, like motion graphics, whiteboard animation, sketch videos, or video testimonials.

If you choose a more graphic treatment of video, you still need to pull out the story. Moving words and pictures around, while nice to look at, isn’t necessarily telling a story. You can keep the treatment simple: still or motion images with quotes, mixed with dynamic B-roll images and voice over and/or music.
The best stories are character-driven, and that’s true for video as well. Whether it means pulling together video testimonials from attendees, or telling a story through the eyes of a specific person, let the people in your videos be the star: that’s what your audience will connect with.
Use video to try something new and fun. Think your organization is too set in its ways? Take a look at what GE is doing with its “Datalandia” video campaign. Who would expect that from GE? Take a lesson and surprise people. Shake it up a bit. Just keep it story-focused.

Social media

Storytelling for social media is a visual game. This is where you really need to employ photography, especially for the more visual platforms, like Facebook and Instagram.

Social media platforms are perfect for storytelling-just don’t try to create a one-size-fits-all post (what works well on Instagram isn’t what works well on Twitter). We’ve written in depth about the different platforms and how to tailor your content for each in this newsletter [link to social media newsletter].
Social media is a chance to show a little more of your association’s personality and tell your own stories through slice-of-life images and clever captions. Create a balance of event stories and association stories.
Let those personal connections really shine through in your social media content. People look to social media to connect with other people. Most of your posts aren’t asking people to buy: they are forging connection through stories of people.

Magazine

Your association magazine is tailor-made for storytelling. Association members routinely cite the association magazine as one of the benefits of membership. They are primed to read stories on the pages of your magazine.

At a minimum, create a spread for each story (maybe even a double-spread, depending on how in-depth the story is). As with your direct mail pieces, create strong headings and bold graphics to keep readers interested.
You can run and repurpose stories all year long-not just during the registration push. (Remember, you’re teasing passion.) Create a regular column in each issue that features an attendee story-framed around what “objections” that story helps to overcome, or what elements of the event the story highlights. Not every story has a “register now” call to action.

So, how do you use storytelling to market your event? Find the stories that hinge on passion, connection, and affection. Shape the stories. And finally, integrate the stories into every single piece of content your members, constituents, and potential attendees interact with.

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Seven Stories

SEVEN STORIES EVER

Author Christopher Booker had always heard the popular notion that there are really just a handful of stories told in various forms throughout human history.

As an example, he notes that the 1975 movie Jaws is really the same story as Beowulf, an epic poem penned somewhere between the 8th and 11th centuries. Both tales are about a small seaside town plagued by a monster who is eventually vanquished by a hero.

Seven Archetypes

While conducting research on an unrelated subject, Booker began to notice patterns among the stories he encountered-in everything from Shakespeare to Greek mythology to 1960s French films. Thirty-four years and hundreds of stories later, Booker completed The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories, a book that aims to fit all stories ever told into one of just seven basic archetypes.

Here they are in all their sparse glory, each followed by a few examples:

Overcoming the Monster: Beowulf, Jaws, Star Wars
Rags to Riches: Cinderella, My Fair Lady, Little Orphan Annie
Voyage and Return: The Odyssey, Finding Nemo, Alice in Wonderland
Comedy: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Confederacy of Dunces, Bossypants
Tragedy: Hamlet, JFK, Braveheart
Rebirth: Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Phoenix myth, V for Vendetta, A Christmas Carol

Hidden, Universal Language

According to Booker, these same seven stories span geography and time as well as cultures that couldn’t possibly have been familiar with each other’s stories. Booker describes these plots as a gateway to discovering a “hidden, universal language.” They are evidence that something deep in the human psyche fixates on and arranges information around a few basic structures. Somehow our brains are hard-wired for these particular stories.

Of course not all stories fit cleanly and mechanically into these seven categories. But itís a powerful observation in connectivity that somehow human beings throughout time and space have gravitated to such a small number of tales.

We should also note that some stories contain several of these archetypes. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series features all seven. Tolkien was, among other things, an English professor and literary geek who would have been familiar with a broad range of tales. The popularity of his books and the subsequent movies might not be a coincidence but rather a testament to the universality of these seven structures.

Guide Your Brand Story

What does all of this tell us about marketing? In a way it simplifies your storytelling. Here they are, the seven plotlines that unite humanity. These stories connect people and move people.

On the other hand, you still need to be original and compelling in a fresh and inspiring way.

Examining archetypes just might help you tap into that “hidden, universal language” that moves your base to action.

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Baby Steps

LET’S BE BRIEF

For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.

There you have it, a story in six words. Who is selling these shoes-a grieving mother? A widower? Why were the shoes never worn? Was the mother unable to bear children? Did the baby pass away unexpectedly? Or is it something else entirely?

Sometimes attributed to Earnest Hemmingway, this brief story has characters, tension, and a climax. It evokes empathy and wonder in the reader. In just six short words, it SHOWS us a very human story, tugs at our heartstrings, and moves us. It engages. It makes us hungry for more information.

Draw people in using just a few words

While long copy is a proven effective way to reach your audience with storytelling, this tiny example shows us the power of brevity. Consider your ad headlines, taglines, and email subject lines. These should be concise stories that introduce a setting and characters, evoke emotions, create tension, and draw people in-using just a few words.

A case for storytelling headlines

John Caples’ famously effective ad headline from 1926 reads: “They laughed when I sat down at the piano but when I started to play!” While the full text of the ad tells the whole story of this piano player, in 15 words Caples gives us a lot of information: The speaker is a jokester. All he has to do is sit down and his audience is already laughing. The scene is a fun family or social gathering and offers the speaker the chance to amaze and impress with his secret musical talents. The headline leaves the reader wanting to know more. How did the speaker secretly learn how to play the piano? How might we, the reader, also impress others by learning piano? Most importantly, this headline is a human story, one that’s pretty easy for other humans to read and relate to.

Consider if the headline was written instead like this: “Impress your friends. Learn to play the piano in just 2 weeks.” This headline is specific and benefits-driven, but there’s no story. It doesn’t engage or inspire on a human level the same way the Caples headline does. It doesn’t make us feel connected or leave us wanting more.

Show, don’t tell, your short stories

Below are a few more examples you can use as inspiration for your short stories, headlines, taglines, etc. Notice how the words show instead of tell. Which ones make you feel something?

Email headline from RedEnvelope.com in 2007: Shop now for Mother’s Day or pay until 2008.
Ad headline for Worst Salons: Where the women you hate have their hair done.
Quantum fishing gear ad headline: After thirty seconds you’re afraid your line might break. After thirty minutes you’re afraid it might not.
Ad for The Economist: Lose the ability to slip out of the office unnoticed.
Clairol hair color tagline: Does she or doesn’t she?
Las Vegas tagline: What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.

What’s your short story? How might you tell a gripping story in just a few words?

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Pass the Tissues

When was the last time you were moved to tears? Well, if you’ve watched any television lately it probably wasn’t very long ago. It seems more and more marketers are setting out to make us cry.

This so-called “sadvertising” engages us with tear-jerking tales of triumph after a struggle, outright tragedy, unlikely friendships, or tender coming-of-age moments. We see heartrending ads for beer, beauty products, household cleaning products, search engines, insurance, and more.

It’s worth pointing out that there’s nothing inherently emotional about these brands or products. I love beer as much as the next person, but there’s nothing intrinsically moving about itóor shower cleaner, for that matter. These marketers have created stories and built emotions around their brands. And you can do this too.

A Case for Authenticity

Keep in mind emotions alone won’t inspire your base over the long term. Your stories have to be real, authentic, and believable. They also have to be in line with the rest of your branding and true to what your organization has to offer. The last thing you want to do is create a memorable story without people remembering who created it.

The Dear Sophie Ad

Consider Google’s “Dear Sophie” ad, which tells the tale of young Sophie growing up through the emails her father sends her over Gmail since the day she was born. The Google ad tells an emotionally engaging story without ever losing site of its job: to promote Google’s capabilities.

Throughout the heartwarming tale viewers see all the possibilities offered by Google-search, photographs, videos, maps, Gmail, and more. At the end, you feel touched by this family relationship, but you also feel inspired by the technology. You might even adopt some of the ideas for your own life, i.e. you’ll start using Google more frequently and for more functions. Mission accomplished, Google.

Too Sweet for Your Taste?

By contrast, if you tell an overly emotional story that’s not aligned with your brand-perhaps in an attempt to get more clicks, shares, and likesóyour audience will likely smell a rat. At the very least, they’re not likely to buy. At the worst, you’ll turn them off of your brand for good. (You’re also likely to attract scorn and ridicule from the likes of Stephen Colbert.)

Good sadvertising works because it engages our empathic brain and our inherent need to connect with other humans. It’s also Marketing 101 to sell what a product does for people, rather than sell the product itself.

If a sad story works for your brand, go with it. If another gripping emotion is more aligned with your organization, that’s great too. Happiness and humor can connect your organization to your membership in meaningful ways. The idea is to engage emotionally to inspire your base, forge connections, and incite action.

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The Anatomy of a Story

In 1863, German novelist Gustav Freytag proposed that a dramatic story has five distinct parts: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. This pattern is so prevalent in stories across time, geography, and cultures it has become known as The Universal Story Structure.

Fast forward to present day. Neuroscientist Paul Zak concludes that stories following Freytag’s dramatic arc increase feelings of empathy and connection among viewers/readers. To prove it, Zak took blood samples from his test subjects to measure brain chemistry before and after viewing an emotional story about a boy with cancer.

Stories Literally Change People

He found two chemicals in subjects’ brains after viewing the story: cortisol and oxytocin. Cortisol is associated with stress and also causes us to focus our attention on what’s causing the stress. Oxytocin is associated with care and empathy. The more oxytocin released, the more empathy we feel.

Zak then asked his test subjects to donate money after viewing the story. They donated generously-to a children’s charity and also to random strangers. According to Zak’s research, storytelling literally changed the brain chemistry of his subjects and directly influenced their behavior.

Zak’s research is a shining example of just how powerful storytelling can be. Storytelling hearkens back to our basic need to connect. We don’t necessarily know the people in the stories we hear, but that doesn’t stop us from feeling something, from being literally and figuratively moved by what we see, and changing our behavior as a result.

How You Can Use Freytag’s Arc

Not all stories follow Freytag’s arc, but as you can see from Zak’s research this structure is certainly a good place to start when developing emotionally engaging brand stories. First, capture audience attention with lively personalities and compelling scenes (exposition). Next, set the hook with increasing action and vivid details (rising action). This all leads up to surprising/shocking/rewarding your audience with a thrilling turning point (climax) before resolving the tension (falling action) and tying up any loose ends (denouement).

Incredibly, this same structure can play out over the course of a novel or a one-line joke. The story doesn’t have to be as sad as a boy with cancer. (Although, “sadvertising” seems to be a current trend. More on this next time). The key is simply that you take your audience on an emotional journey so they feel connected and moved to action.

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Brain Deep

Just how effective is storytelling compared to a straightforward presentation of information? The bloggers at BufferSocial recently completed an experiment to find out. Using a/b testing, they sent half their list step-by-step instructions to complete a process. They sent the other half the same instructions but began the message with a 12-paragraph story. Incredibly, the story version had 300% more readers than the non-story version.

Why the dramatic increase in readership? The answer is brain deep. When we read or hear information presented to us, the language processing center of our brain engages to decode what the words mean. When we hear stories, however, many areas of the brain are engaged and we feel the stories on an emotional and physical level.

We feel what the characters feel

A study from the University of Washington in St. Louis monitored subjects’ brain activity while they read stories about a boy named Raymond. Amazingly, when the story indicated that Raymond looked around, the neurons related to vision fired in the test subjects. When Raymond picked up an object, the neurons related to hand movements fired in subjects.

Other research concluded similar findings. Stories do engage the language processing center of the brain, but they also engage any other areas we would use if we experienced the events in the story ourselves. When we hear a story involving food, our sensory cortex lights up. When we hear a story about motion, our motor cortex engages.

This means there’s potential for incredible connections between storyteller and listener. Relaying your experiences to others causes their brains to experience the same thing you did. Our brains can be so convinced that we sometimes believe the events we heard about actually happened to us. This phenomenon also makes it more likely that we’ll remember the information in the story.

Engage the senses, avoid clichés

Research shows readers connect to stories involving senses-smell, touch, taste, sight, and sound-more deeply than other types of information. Research also finds that certain clichés, like “a rough day” are so overused that they are processed only as language and evoke no empathic response. This makes a compelling case for original visuals and content with vivid sensory details to tell your brand story.

Here’s an approach to inspiring your base: tell your story and let your story become their story. How’s that for connectivity!?

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Freytag in Action

We talked previously about Freytag’s Universal Storytelling Structure and how you can use it to connect with your base and move them to action. If implementing a 150-year old theory from a German playwright seems a bit tricky, here’s an example from modern day marketing.

To promote the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association’s annual conference, Rottman Creative packaged key benefits in story form to connect members to the association. The goal was to use ASTRA’s caregiver archetype and cheerful, playful voice to resonate with members and encourage attendance. We followed Freytag’s pyramid as a surefire way to pique interest, forge connections, and inspire action.

Our commentary appears first, then the story appears after

2014 ASTRA’s Marketplace & Academy: Where Everyone is on the Same Page

Exposition

The first few sentences introduce the character, Todd, and set the scene: the ASTRA conference in St. Paul, MN.

People who know Todd Andersen wouldn’t believe he’s shy. A people person by nature, he’s no wallflower. But at his first ASTRA conference in 2009 (which just happened to be in his backyard of St. Paul)

Rising Action

The next few sentences introduce tension and additional information. Todd is intimidated. There are lots of strangers who already seem to know each other. What should he do?

He was momentarily intimidated when he walked into the mixer and saw groups chatting. Should he just walk up and introduce himself, he wondered? Before he even had a chance to consider it, something remarkable happened.

Climax

The turning point of this story happens when Todd dives in head first to a group of colleagues who turn out to be friendly and welcoming. It’s all smooth sailing for Todd from here to the end of the story.

“I just got pulled in,” he says. “It was such a friendly and welcoming group.” He was ensconced before he knew it.

Falling Action

Here we see even more tension released as Todd gains an awareness of the many benefits the conference offers, connectivity chief among them. We get a sense of the excitement and possibilities that come from attending. A powerful example is that competitors will come to one another’s aid as a result of connections forged here.

Coming from the hobby industry (which is highly competitive), Todd wasn’t prepared for the free-flow of information and sharing. “At ASTRA, you feel like everyone is on the same team. We’ve all come together…” says Todd, the CEO of Hub Hobby Center. That attitude pervades the Academy, where Todd wound up making some of his strongest connections. You sit down next to someone in a session, and it’s an automatic ice-breaker. The conversation and ideas just start flowing. The Marketplace has the same feel. “That first year, I was thoroughly enamored with the product selection. We have always tried to find unique products…and there were all kinds of things there,î he says. It’s not just a hunt for merchandise: it’s conversations. It’s connections. And it’s cooperation.

If Todd is out of product and customers are asking for it, he knows that in a pinch he can call on a fellow retailer he’s met at ASTRA to ship some product at cost-and he would do the same for them. The Marketplace & Academy has become a key part of his year-both for buying and for new ideas.

Denouement

The story comes to a close with Todd’s recommendation that retailers shouldn’t send just one person to the conference; they should send a whole team.

Todd knows that first-timers may be tempted to skip the sessions and just walk the floor. But don’t skimp, he says, because literally every part of the conference enriches the experience. In fact, he encourages retailers to bring as many key people on their team as possible, because absorbing things together-in the context in which they are presented-makes a huge difference once you get back to life and back to the store to implement what you’ve learned. “You may not be aware of it yet, but the Marketplace & Academy is really something special.”

You’ll notice the climax in Todd’s story appears fairly early. In Romeo and Juliet, the climax happens about half way through the play. There are no strict rules for when to introduce each section of a story or how long each should be. You might find you need more time to introduce your characters and setting, to build tension and engage the reader before the climax. Or you might find, as in this story, that the falling action is most illustrative and deserves the most space. Experiment with your brand story to see what works to move your membership.

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The Tale is in the Telling

Help your reader enjoy your long content with these simple tricks.

We talked last time about the benefits of long content. The first step is having something meaningful to say and articulating it in an inviting, conversational voice. The next step is presenting your story in a way that’s easy for your audience to digest.

Here are a few tips and tricks to make your copy more reader-friendly:

1. Include an attention-grabbing headline.

Copywriter Bob Bly suggests a good headline is four U’s: Unique, Urgent,Unforgettable, and Ultra-Specific. A headline should never be an afterthought. Take the time to craft several effective attention-getters for your story. Ask colleagues or select members to weigh in, and go with the most compelling option.

2. Use bulleted or numbered lists when appropriate.

Notice how the list you’re reading right now helps guide you to key takeaways? Use bullet points, numbers, pull quotes, sidebars, and/or bold text to help readers connect with your story.

3. Insert subheadings.

Subheadings guide readers with bite-sized tidbits of information, and they should be as good as your headline. Their job is to grab attention with specific details and more or less tell your whole story to anyone skimming your text.

4. Don’t forget whitespace.

Advertising guru David Ogilvy advised “Avoid gray walls of type.” You might scare off readers before they read a word. At the very least, include a line of white space after each paragraph to gives your readers room to breathe.

5. Choose fonts that are easy to read.

Sans serif fonts, like Helvetica, are a good choice for electronic communications. Make sure the point size is 10 or larger. Black is always easier to read than any other color. Don’t sacrifice readability for design.

6. Use short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs.

Don’t confuse long content with the need for flowery language and rambling sentences. Your members are more likely to connect with conversational everyday language in short chunks. A good rule is sentences with 20 words or less and 5 to 7 sentences or less per paragraph.

Good meaningful content that’s relevant to your audience is way more than half the battle when it comes to long form storytelling.

Just don’t forget to go the extra mile to ensure your fabulous long tale reaches your membership and drives them to act.

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Your Story:

How long is too long?

It’s a popular belief that nobody reads anymore. That our short attention spans only have time for the brief content in text messages and tweets… Tell that to all the Harry Potter fans out there who voraciously read more than 4000 pages of seven seriously thick books they just couldn’t put down.

Clearly, if the tale being told is good enough-if it’s gripping and compelling, unique and extraordinary-people will read it. The same is true for your marketing content. If you’ve ever uttered the phrase “Well, people just don’t read” after a marketing promo flopped, it’s time to look at the quality of your content.

Direct Mail Proves Longer is Better

Consider direct mail. In test after test, long form direct mail outperforms shorter copy in terms of ROI. Some classic direct mail letters are 16 pages long; a few are more than 50! A captive audience craves information to help them get emotionally and logically involved in whatever youíre selling.

You need time to build trust and connect with your audience-things not easily achieved in a few pictures or bullet points.

No matter what type of piece you are developing, take a nod from direct mail. At its core, direct mail is one person communicating something of value to just one other person. The sender typically conveys the message in a friendly, conversational tone of voice. And the recipient, who might be opposed to receiving a sales message, is immediately disarmed by the intimate nature of this person-to-person storytelling.

How to Tell a Good Long Story

Don’t be afraid to write long copy for white papers, newsletters, your website, and other marketing pieces.

But before you do, take a moment to think about each human being you’re communicating with.

What might you say in the headline to get their attention? What pain point are they experiencing that you can solve? What value do you offer that will make their life better? What do they need from you?

Next define your story (and don’t do this until after you’ve completed the audience analysis). What are the most illustrative, compelling details from your annual conference, a recent webinar, a local event, or your organization’s founding that you could share to draw people to you? What epic successes or failures can you use to resonate with your base?

Show, Don’t Tell: How to Get Read

Once you’ve defined your audience values and your story, it’s time to write in a way that gets read. (Take a gander at our newsletter on strategic storytelling for a few ways you can accomplish this.) A good place to start is to use the same language you would use around the campfire-intimate, familiar, authentic words other human beings can understand and relate to.

Adopt the motto “Show, don’t tell.” Engage your members with colorful details and descriptions, real names and places, numbers and data, or even the weather. Create suspense by not revealing all at once. Paint a picture so vivid your members feel like they’re reading the next Harry Potter.

Yes, actual images tend to boost audience engagement and improve response rates. But they canít do all the work to tell the twists, turns and gripping details of your unique story. You need copy, and lots of it.

The End of It

Not producing long content means you run the risk of alienating your audience. You might be omitting key information that will help them get to know you and connect with you. If you don’t tell your entire story, your base simply can’t be inspired by it.

Don’t let a the myth that “nobody reads” determine the length of your content.

Instead, tell your story vividly and completely and see how long it turns out to be. Then sit back and wait for your inbox to fill with messages from your engaged audience begging for more interaction with you.

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Something Old…

A few times a year, Mary and I head up to Baltimore Print Studios to use a traditional printing press to make letterpress creations. This printing process is very manual and involves hand setting type using blocks of wood or metal. We can choose from existing ink colors or mix our own to achieve precisely the shades we like. The results are one-of-a-kind pieces infused with a human touch. The nature of letterpress means that even with the same typesetting, each copy often has slight color and texture variations-a lovely marriage of industry and art. This traditional process got us to thinking about other classic forms of communication…

While the latest innovations and technologies are absolutely indispensable to your marketing efforts, some tried and true (read: old) techniques are turning heads, making connections, and moving your audience to action.

Direct Mail

Despite dire predictions that paper as a medium is doomed, savvy marketers who use hard copy direct mail can realize major ROI, increase attendance, and boost connectivity among membership.

Mail allows you to make a physical connection with your membership by putting your message-your stories-literally in their hands.

Direct mail also invites them to take action and connect with you by calling, filling out a reply card, or visiting a personalized website. Don’t forget, you can capitalize on the fact that mail volume is seriously low and your piece will get noticed. You can’t say the same for email.

Phone Calls

So your mailer ended up in the trash. And your email didn’t make it through the spam filter. A surefire way to reach your membership is to pick up the phone and talk. Not only is a phone call a “touch” that helps your organization stay top-of-mind among members; it’s also a valuable opportunity for you to connect with your base, to hear what they’re saying, learn what keeps them up at night, and discover what you can do to make their lives better. Ring, ring.

Opportunity is calling.

Face-to-Face Networking

It doesn’t get any more old school than face-to-face oral communication. Think about it: Your annual conference is really just a glorified campfire, a meeting place that allows for oral tradition to continue-to pass on information, tell old stories, and create new ones. Consider how other face-to-face opportunities might connect your membership to your organization all year long. Would select individuals benefit from a one-on-one coffee break? How about a lunch seminar? As they say, there’s no such thing as a virtual beer.

Reach out and shake a hand.

It’s in the Mix

Good marketing is a mixture of channels and media. And it’s sometimes easy to forget about effective methods from the past.

Forge ahead with innovation, but consider adding some low-tech components to better reach your audience, make meaningful connections, and move people to action.

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Get Emotional

WHY YOU CAN’T IGNORE EMOTION IN MARKETING

Of course logic matters.

Logic is why you spend hours developing a polished presentation filled with facts, data, pie charts, and cited research. Car commercials talk miles per gallon, horsepower, maintenance record, and longevity. As consumers we need truth in advertising, we weigh the economics of our purchases, and we use logical reasoning when we make decisions. But, neuroscience suggests, all the logic in the world won’t win over customers unless they are emotionally attached to a brand.

Emotion Trumps Logic

Recent research by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio reveals that the part of our brain responsible for 90% of our decision-making is the same part of the brain where emotions reside-the limbic system. Damasio studied people with damage to the limbic system who seemed normal except for their inability to feel emotions. He discovered these people had difficulty making any decisions at all. They couldnÌt even decide what to have for lunch.

What’s more, according to an article in Psychology Today, MRI imagery of the brain proves that when consumers evaluate brands, they use emotions-including personal feelings and past experiences-rather than information.

The article also notes that emotional response to a print ad trumps the ad’s content by more than double when it comes to a consumer’s intent to buy; for television ads, it’s triple.

Brand Attachment Boosts Sales

JoAnn Sciarrino, a researcher and the Knight Chair in Digital Advertising and Marketing at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, presented on the link between emotion and decision-making at the 2014 Content Marketing World conference. Sciarrino’s findings concluded that an emotional brand attachment had a higher correlation to sales than any other factor-including overall satisfaction, willingness to recommend, likes, shares, and a host of other metrics.

Not convinced that emotions are powerful drivers action -more so than logic or even instead of logic? Think about luxury brands. There’s very little logic that can justify owning, say, a Bentley compared to a Toyota Camry. But, there are plenty of emotional drivers-including vanity, greed, and pride-that compel people to spend serious money on luxury products. You could say the same thing about diamonds. (If we analyzed only the logic behind owning a diamond, perhaps no one would ever buy one.)

What You Can Do

What does all this brain science mean for us as marketers?

Not only do we need foster a strong emotional connection between our membership and our brand-we simply can’t exist without one.

If your marketing aims to convince people to attend your conference solely based on logic and reasonable information, you might be falling short of attendance goals. Keep in mind that on a brain-deep level buying decisions are primarily emotional. A more effective approach is to engage your membership with stories, with value, and with benefits about how your conference will make their lives better. They will fill seats not because you’ve convinced them but because you’ve compelled them.

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ARE YOUR MEMBERS TRULY ENGAGED?

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Tap into Emotions to Fill More Seats

We’ve discussed in the past just how powerful emotions are when it comes to making decisions. Figuring out the emotional reasons people attend your events can help you market more effectively and fill even more seats. While fear and greed are the two most common emotional triggers in marketing, there are dozens of other emotions you can use to move your audience to action.

Below are a few examples of emotions your members might be feeling. Imagine how you can use these to craft more effective messaging and promotions:

Fear and Insecurity

Members are worried they’ll miss out on key information that could help them be more successful at their jobs and, by extension, their lives. They’re also worried that “everyone will be there” so they should be, too, or risk missing out on key insights and experiences that could help them in the future.

Vanity and Exclusivity

Members want to hobnob with the leaders in their field. Your annual conference is often a who’s who of your industry. The conference might be the only time members get face time with these luminaries. Then they can go back to work and tell everyone whom they met and what they learned from such an exclusive opportunity.

Pride and Passion

Certain members are your cheerleaders. They love your association and are proud to be part of it. They feel connected. They want to connect with other tribe members to forge new connections, renew existing relationships, participate in the conversation, and generally support your association. They would miss your annual conference like they would miss their daughter’s wedding.

Security, Confidence, and Value

Members know your conference is the source of the latest information, trends, techniques, research, and thought leadership. They also know that if they attend, they too will know the latest information, trends, techniques etc. and they will be better at what they do because of it.

Greed

Your conference has the goods, and your members want the goods. These might include exclusive information from panel speakers, access to industry partners on the showroom floor, and irresistible giveaways and incentives. Members appreciate that what you offer enhances their lives, so they attend your conference to get more of a good thing.

More Emotional Triggers to Consider

optimism
pessimism
embarrassment
revenge
stickin’ it to the man
complacence
love
envy
desperation
benevolence
boredom
sadness
wit
shyness
whimsy
guilt
disgust
patriotism
anger

Get to know your audience. What keeps them up at night? If fear isn’t a strong emotion your audience members experience, don’t use fear in your next postcard or email campaign. If you know that the majority of conference goers are repeat attendees, use pride and passion to your advantage.

It’s okay to promote your expertise, but it’s much more powerful to sell your attendees on how your expertise will solve their problems and enhance their lives.

Homing in on a primary emotional trigger means your marketing efforts will resonate with your members, connect with them “where they live” emotionally, and move them to book a seat.

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ARE YOUR MEMBERS TRULY ENGAGED?

NOT ANOTHER SNOOZELETTER.