The great unspoken truth about Marketing is that while marketers create names, taglines, websites, social media campaigns, etc. – they are unlikely to know WHY people reacted positively to their work. They may think they understand, but odds are they’ve simply been lucky.

When we talk with someone else one-to-one, we think we’re having a heart-to-heart connection. We’re listening, thinking, and reacting. But the reality is, the other person has an entirely different world experience than we do. The better you know the person, the more you’ve heard their “stories”, struggles, and motivations. That gives you a glimmer of their true self. But you don’t truly know how they think, since you’re not them.

So imagine the difficulty trying to create a marketing strategy that will produce a desired outcome to a large number of people. If you’re starting afresh with a campaign – you start by understanding the logical/common/emotional motivations for your target audience. You spend a lot of time crafting the offer, the headline, and timing of your message.

Is that enough to cause people to understand and react to your marketing? Probably not. So, to be safe you add visuals (colors, pictures, typefaces, layout) and perhaps audio (background music). Can you confidently predict what % of the people seeing the campaign will act on your offer?

Let’s say that your marketing was a success. What was the magic that unlocked your prospects into action (copy, visuals, audio)? If you don’t know, then the next message that you send may or may not work.

That’s why smart marketing people are continually testing their marketing cause-and-effect using A/B split testing and/or multivariate testing. They know that they don’t know WHY until they understand WHAT. Our ability to rapidly draw conclusions (read: Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink for discussions on intuition) is a double-edge sword. The smart money’s in not assuming – but uncovering – motivation.

Photo by Patrick Fitzgerald

Do you know if your marketing efforts are backfiring on you? Look through the list to ensure that your well meaning work is actually causing you professional harm:

Talk LOUDER. If someone isn’t paying attention to you, you might be tempted to raise your voice. The first time you do it, it seems to work. But eventually people learn to tune you out, since you’re not saying anything new – just LOUDER. This is true not only for face-to-face conversations, but also in print (bigger font size, flashier graphics, etc.). Make sure your communications are worth listening to.

Talk Non-Stop. If you’re monologue-ing your conversation, you’re not listening to your prospect. First, ask questions to qualify them. Find out what types of problems they have and then craft a message that shows you listened.

Talk Repetitively. Don’t find 10 ways to say the same thing. While repetition is important to ensure that your key points aren’t missed, respect your audience’s intelligence. If the first way you say something isn’t interesting, neither will the tenth repetition.

Talk More Often. If you email someone once a month, then emailing them once a week is unlikely to endear yourself to them. If you have something new to say, say it. If you don’t, respect your prospect’s time.

Talk Nonsense. We get caught up in the latest buzzwords and keywords. Pretty soon no one can quickly make sense of what you’re saying. The goal is to talk simply to be understood. Once you’re sure your prospect likes to use buzzwords, by all means shower them with words. Until then, speak naturally in all your communication.