Persuasive Resolutions
It’s hard to imagine someone who has recently made a purchase saying to another, “You know I bought this product because of the extraordinary communication that preceded my purchase”. Yet that is exactly why products are purchased. Every purchase is motivated by the communication that precedes it. The communication comes first. The act of purchasing comes second. And what is true for products is equally true for votes, verdicts and volitions. Every human undertaking is motivated first by communication.
Before reading past this sentence take a moment and reread the first paragraph of this article.
Now consider this familiar proverb, “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression”. Can there be any doubt in your mind that the words “good first impression” denote communication? The practical upshot of this realization forms the basis of two important New Year’s resolutions.
Be it resolved in 2012 that product quality does not correlate with first impressions. Be it further resolved that first impressions are composed solely of communication. In order for a first impression to be positive it must be composed of communication that is received positively by those for whom it is intended.
Suppose you have control of a product that is in every quantifiable way better than the products currently in existence. The usual list of requirements has been satisfied. The product is well tested. Manufacturing and distribution requirements have been satisfied. A sales team is in place. The only thing left to do is, “take the product to market”. Which means what exactly? One is tempted to reply that the question is superfluous. The only thing required to take the product to market is to make the product’s facts known to prospective customers – a simple quantitative exercise.
Well, good luck with that. Customers do not pay attention to facts when forming a first impression about products. Customers pay attention to what they have already experienced when forming a first impression about products.
The phenomenon of using past experience as a basis for forming new impressions is technically known as perceptual and cognitive mechanics. What it means practically is that customers feel deeply before thinking clearly. When a customer is exposed to communication that echoes his or her own life and beliefs, he or she is likely to form a positive impression. This is not a quantitative exercise. It is a qualitative exercise.
One way to put a finger on the difference is to apply the “Used Car Salesman Test”. There is no quantitative statement a used car salesman can make that will make us feel he is telling us the truth. Why? Because we are incapable of thinking past the existing impressions in our mind of a used car salesman. A truly sad thing to recognize is that even if the used car salesman is telling the truth we will not believe what he is saying. A used car salesman is a used car salesman. End of story!
Imagine that part of your “take to market” strategy is to send a blast Email to those who are likely to be interested in your product. Do you suppose there is any list of facts you can include in that Email that will create a positive first impression? The chances are many to one that such an Email will never even be opened let alone evaluated. Email, you see, is an electronic equivalent to the used car salesman. Their form speaks louder than their message.
It is most revealing when a client asks us why we chose a particular medium over another, or why we decided to create a message that did not extol a products technical achievement(s). The question assumes we were in control of how such a communication would be received by those for whom it was intended.
The marketer who is seriously committed to achieving success must accept that product merit comes second to meritorious communication. If it were the other way round every meritorious product would become successful.
The year 2012, and those that follow, will be better served when we resolve to understand that facts are not the same as impressions and that they are miles from truth as it is understood by the mind and the heart.
Bob
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Matt
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