The 2 Golden Rules Of Marketing To Humans

Edward Tufte, the graphic designer/statistician who made art out of charts and graphs once said that PowerPoint is used to guide and reassure the presenter rather than to enlighten the audience.  That comment stopped me dead in my tracks. It is such a perfect example of the many mistakes we all make when we try to communicate.  It is so easy to get caught up in our ideas and our own need to hear ourselves that we forget to think about, and listen, to our audience.  Ask yourself:

• How often do I catch myself not listening to someone who is talking to because I am too busy thinking about what I am planning on saying?  
• How often have I been pre occupied with what I just said and forgot to listen to the response?
• How often do I focus on listening for responses that support my ideas rather than all the responses being communicated?

Marketing and marketers can easily fall into the same traps. After all, marketing at its core is the act of communicating ideas.  I think two of the golden rules of marketing should be:  

1. Always remember, communicating with humans is hard and messy.  They filter what they see and hear based on hidden agendas...some of which they hide from themselves.
2. Always remember, you are a human too!

Here is an example, and I've seen it happen numerous times:

We read a report that says when people see our ads, FaceBook page, etc., they have increased purchase interest in our product.  That's what we want to hear so we stop digging and asking questions.  Customers seem to like what we have to say and gosh....so do we!  

However, messy human thinking doesn't fit into a chart very well.  Just because purchase interest increased in your product because of your marketing doesn't prevent people from also being interested in other products...and being influenced at a greater degree by your competition's marketing.
Good communicating begins and finishes with good listening. So, if you really want to know if you are changing purchase interest you need to ask more out of your market research and listen more too. Ask to look at the attributes that influence purchase interest.  Do you own them or does your competition?  That's what really matters.  That's a more meaningful measure.  That's the customer talking to you.  And if you listen you can craft a message that will become a true dialogue and not a boardroom lecture.