9½ Ways to Get People to Love You
The premise of our book is that all
multicellular life on this planet is in a constant state of marketing.
All lifeforms marketing themselves. To find a mate, to be loved, to be
accepted, to earn votes, to win converts, to sell products and services,
or even just to get people to want to hang with us, we're marketing.
So
it isn't just for marketing directors.For those of you too cheap to buy, or impatient to read my book, here's the Cliff Notes version. Of course, you'll miss a lot of the juicy case studies, the nuance, the guru-like wisdom, and the knee-slapping humor. But as I myself need to obey Rule #6 and love my readers, here's a cheat sheet:
RULE # 1 Consistency Beats Ability
Unfortunately, here's the sad truth. Over the long term the company that is consistent with its marketing message is going to whip a competitor who changes their message constantly, even though some of those messages may be compelling, creative, and clever.
Of course, you can also manage to be compelling, creative, clever, and consistent. That's the best. But if you only manage to be just good all the time, let your competitor be occasionally excellent. You'll still beat him.
RULE # 2 Perception is Reality
You've probably noticed, if you've lived any time at all with the denizens of this planet, that people rarely let the facts get in the way of their beliefs. In fact, people are quite skilled at cherry picking facts to support what they already believe to be true.
If you can get in at the head of that cherry picking and influence your audience's belief about you, leave all the rationalization work to them. You should, of course, be ready with just enough facts to support their perception, but once they see you a certain way, it will take a major force of nature to pull them away from that perception. And facts have nothing to do with it.
Perception is what motivates behavior, not reality. Reality is just a perception that a group of people agree on.
RULE # 3 Be Creative or Die
Nobody ever bored their customers into buying their products. You absolutely have to be creative to get through and make your message noticed and sink in. This is the soul of effective marketing.
Creativity often means entertainment. Remember that marketing messages are interruptions (see my home page). So if you've interrupted someone, you'd better make it worth their while, if nothing else but to keep them from muting, fast forwarding, turning the page, or hitting the "skip ad" button.
So entertain. Use humor. Use pathos. Use intrigue. But don't bore.
Boredom is marketing death. At least for you.
RULE # 4 The Medium is Not the Message
If your message is strong, memorable, and entertaining, it doesn't matter what medium you use to send it. It will find its own way. Of course, it helps to post it, print it, broadcast it, stream it, or write it in the sky, but there is no single, magical medium to make it go viral. The magic that does that is the message itself.
Revolutions have been started over the centuries--and are still being started--by a powerful message. like freedom and equality. Great brands have been launched and grown the same way, by a single, resonant message.
And it doesn't matter if the message was broadcast by a multi-million dollar campaign, or on TikTok or Facebook, or by word of mouth; the strong message always gets through. It finds a way.
RULE # 5 Work Hard to Keep it Simple
Your marketing message should be simple. It should be something you could describe in a Tweet, or a bumper sticker, or driving by a billboard at 70 mph. Every employee or loyal customer should be able to sum it up without hesitation. Complicated is forgettable. Simple is memorable.
But keeping your marketing simple is hard work. It requires endless editing, obsessive paring down, and never-ending diligence. It also requires self-discipline to keep it simple. You may be tempted to junk it up with caveats, clauses, after-thoughts, and add-ons. Don't.
Stick to the point.
RULE # 6 Give Love to Get Love
Success in business--or life, for that matter--is ultimately reciprocal. It boils down to a simple maxim: If you love your customers, they'll more likely to love you back. And it goes without saying, they're like to want to keep being your customers.
But you can't just give lip service to this rule. You have to really love your customers. Love isn't a feeling; it's action. You do it in every detail of the way your run your business or your life. It shows in ever detail, from your advertising to the way your craft your products on the factory floor. And you do it from the way you treat your employees to the way they, in turn, want to pass that love on to your customers.
It's as simple as that.
RULE # 7 Emotions Rule the World
Facts and figures will never motivate people like emotions. This is an old truth of neuroscience. An emotional reaction to a stimulus takes milliseconds, while conscious analysis of the same stimulus take several minutes, or hours. The emotional reaction wins by a mile. By the time a person is thinking about their options, they're already looking for reasons to back up what their heart has already decided.
Win people over emotionally and they'll take care of the reasons. Make them laugh. Scare them. Make them cry. Make them hungry. Make them envious. In fact, do anything besides putting them to sleep and they'll be in your complete control.
RULE # 8 Go Big or Go Home
Great marketing messages aren't magic spells. You can't come up with the perfect, creative message, whisper in a secret ceremony at midnight, and expect the customers to come flocking to your website. You have to shout it from the rooftops--or at least on YouTube.
Marketing requires that you go all out. Don't just talk to your existing customers, talk to all of those you don't have yet. Talk to everybody. Your employees, you channel, your shareholders, your suppliers, the press, even your mom should all be able to repeat your simple message in their sleep. They should not be able to get it out of their heads.
Weak marketing gets you nothing. Strong marketing is unstoppable.
RULE # 9 Everything is Marketing
Marketing isn't something done separately by your marketing department. Everything you do is marketing. It includes how you design and make your products. It includes the way you sell them. It includes how you run your organization, how you treat your employees, how you treat your customers, how the public sees you. It even comes down to how your receptionist answers the phone, how you sign off your emails, how your webpage loads.
Everything you do makes an impression. And every impression is marketing
RULE # 9½ Know the 9 Rules, but Know When to Break Them
It's sometimes right to break one of the Unbreakable Rules. But know what rule you are breaking and why. Whether it's a tactical or strategic reason, or you are just willfully ignoring it, make sure that the downside of breaking one of the 9 Rules is outweighed by the net upside to your overall marketing. And the upside is never because it's convenient. Or that you have a new ad agency. Or that it's too hard.
Come to think of it, you'd better ask my permission first.
And you've better have a good reason.
