Two Simple Words That Will Boost Any Business’s Marketing Efforts
Businesses work hard to craft marketing campaigns and sales pitches that will bring results. They come up with the latest set of buzzwords and include them in every conversation, social media post, and email message they deploy. They’re sure that with the right combination of words, they’ll strike gold with a potential new customer.
Interestingly, the most important words of all may be left out of most generic campaigns. Those two words? A person’s first and last name. When used in an authentic way, a person’s name can be extremely compelling. They make a person stop and listen to whatever is being said, increasing the chance that a brand’s messages will be heard.
Brain Activation
The personal impact of hearing one’s own name has actually been scientifically proven. Researchers compared brain activation patterns in study participants and found that when a person heard his own name, several regions in the left hemisphere show greater activity than when a person heard someone else’s name. Brands have begun to tap into this by using personalization more often in marketing efforts, but effective use of customers’ names goes beyond mechanically inserting the information at the top of an email. It must feel authentic.
A child learns to respond to his own name from a very young age. As he grows older, hearing or seeing his name in print feeds into that childhood conditioning. If a person’s name is used in a positive manner, he’s likely to share that mention with others, whether through social media or old-fashioned word of mouth. It feeds into a person’s ego and, more importantly, it allows them to show their own followers that they’re getting mentions. This helps them increase their own authenticity as they seek to impress customers and colleagues.
[Tweet “Do you know the 2 words that @MikeMichalowicz says will boost the #marketing efforts for any #business”]How to Put This to Work
Realizing this, businesses must find a way to put this information to use in their own marketing efforts. One way to accomplish maximum impact is to crowdsource information. Businesses should ask social media followers to provide simple tips on a specific topic, with the promise that a participant’s comments will be attributed to them. Once the piece is published, a business simply notifies each participant that the blog is now live and features their tips. They’ll inevitably share it with all of their own followers, giving a brand greater recognition.
Tools that can make this process easier. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) lets a professional post request for tips from subject matter experts in exchange for credit. However you get your crowdsourced information, one of the best ways to get mass exposure quickly is to post a piece with attributed statements from multiple experts. You could publish “top tips from small business owners” on a specific subject, for instance, and include numerous people in the same article.
Once the piece is live, post about it on social media and tag as many participants as you can. You’ll move things along faster that way, since everyone involved will likely repost the information, as well, helping you reach new audiences and permanently bringing new followers.