I've been doing a lot of research on advertising and marketing. In the process a friend of mine from LDS Business College's Self Reliance "Starting and Growing My Business" class suggested I take a "free advertising class" and take a close look at all the mail that comes to my house and dissect the strategies of the advertisers that have targeted me.
What are they doing well?
Which pieces of mail am I likely to open?
Why am I drawn to some parcels and not to others?
Which mail do I look at right away and which go on "the stack"?
I have also been checking out the newspaper advertisements, billboards, TV ads, want ads, garage sale signs, other signs etc. There is an old phrase, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." I have learned much about good and bad advertising. One of the main principles is that your customer does not care about you. They do not think like you. They do not know what you know. They do not have the same needs, wants and desires as you. But if you can draw their attention and let them know that you can give them what they need, want and/or desire, you will never go hungry again!...I digress.
A graduate student named Elizabeth Newton at Stanford University performed a study in 1990 about tappers and listeners which I think applies. Try this at home!
Ms. Newton divided a group of human guinea pigs into two groups "tappers" and "listeners". She asked to tappers to choose a familiar song and tap out the rhythm on a table for the listeners to guess. Before the listeners guessed, she asked the tappers to predict the probability that the listeners would correctly guess their song. Out of 120 tapped songs, listeners guessed only three correctly (2.5%). Tappers had predicted a success rate of 50%.
Think of that! The tappers conveyed their message effectively 1/40 times, but guessed that they would convey their message 1/2 times! Does this every happen when we are marketing?
We hear the tune of how awesome our product or service is. We think about all the time and work we put into thinking of a name, a jingle, a meme. We think of all the ways we have made ourselves better than the competition. Then we tap out our message and the customer does not understand or care.
When we advertise we need to make sure that we are not being like the tappers. We should not play the message we have chosen. Instead we need to tune into the song our customers are tapping and fill those needs--not the needs we think they need filled, not our needs. Then we will be able to create simple, effective marketing strategies and campaigns that reverberate with our customers and highlight the ways our products and services meet their needs. Not what we think they should need, and especially not what we need or want.
If we play the game of tapping out our marketing message, we will likely have a success rate similar to Newton's tappers about 2.5%. If we instead tune into what our customers want. We will be tapping out a song they already hear and our success rate can be much higher than 50% with our target market.
Try the game this way. Have a listener hum a song, then begin tapping out that song on the table. See if the hummer can figure out what you are tapping. What do you think the success rate will be now? Let's play tappers and hummers. In this game everybody wins!
Now go figure out what your customers want and advertise that! Listen to them and they will hear and understand your message loud and clear!
Addendum: While I was in the processes of writing this post my (Italian) wife told me that McDonald's had run an ad in Italy stating that Italian kids like Happy Meals more than pizza. While this may be true, it's not a song that they want to hear!
Quiz: Recently in preparing an exercise class I heard some statistics that the class can help elderly people avoid falls. This is a measurable fact. We may even hear an old person say they don't want to fall and are fearful of falling (the class also decreases fear of falling). Should I run an ad that says "ATTENTION OLD PEOPLE: come to my exercise class so you can avoid falling!"?
No! That is not the song they are singing. If it is, it's not the song they want to hear. They don't want to be called old, they don't want to exercise and they don't want to be reminded that they might fall.
How 'bout this: "Mature adults come try this new class! You can stay independent and healthy while meeting new people!"
I'm sure you can come up with an even better message. Leave your comment below to improve the above advertisement!
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