I saw an interesting study recently that showed if someone is in distress shouting help wasn’t the way to get people’s attention. Why? People are choosing to become increasingly insular, detached and worse still scared to get involved.
But if you change help to something different it has a huge effect. If you shout out help to a specific person – while looking at them – and calling them out by appearance you will get a much stronger result.
Want an example? You in the red shirt – HELP Me. If you get red shirt’s attention they will be MUCH more likely to respond to your plea.
This has an interesting mirror in marketing. Every heard “Speak to many – speak to none?” Or put more simply, if you speak to a whole lot of people, you end up speaking to no one. Don’t do the shotgun blast and hope to hit someone. Do the laser target and aim for a very specific audience.
Don’t believe me? Listen to a radio station sometime. The ones that ask listeners to call in if something has happened to them. They never say something like: Call up now if you own a pet. What they do say is: Call up now if you own a dog that walks backwards when it eats.
Why? The first one is too generic and everyone listening thinks… I might own a dog but … I can’t be bothered.
The second one is very different. If someone has a dog like that they will think, you know I have to call, because they are talking to me!
So next time you plan on doing any marketing. Get narrowed in. Think about a niche! Think about a specific group and make the message all about them. They will feel connected to it and call. Not sure how? Call us!!