A little appreciation goes a long way

You probably thank your clients in some way as a matter of course. It’s definitely the polite thing to do (my Mom told me that). But it’s more than that. Studies show that a simple thank-you has a significant impact in both social and business settings. In short, gratitude is a big motivator of behavior (wait, Mom told me that, too).

A few examples:

• A study in the Journal of Personal and Social Psychology looked at the effect of a job applicant’s gratitude. Sixty-nine people were asked to help a fictional applicant with his cover letter. He thanked just half of them. Only 32 percent of those he didn’t thank helped him a second time, while 66 percent of those he did thank helped again.

• Restaurant customers who get a handwritten thank-you on their receipt leave bigger tips.

• The owner of a small jewelry store ran an experiment in which some customers got a phone call just to thank them. Another group got a call in which they were thanked and alerted to a sale, while a third group got no call. Business increased that year—with the thanks-only group accounting for 70 percent of the increase, and the second group accounting for 30 percent.

What might some extra thank-yous do in health care, for example? We’re not talking about a great deal of time or money here. How about a thank-you card in the mail after a new patient’s first visit? Or a postcard or email after that annual checkup: “Thanks for coming in!” Be sure to make the thank-you the sole purpose. Patients may well be more inclined to come back—which is good for the practice and for them.

By the way, true feelings of appreciation (and other positive emotions) can actually boost the immune system and increase heart-rhythm coherence, according to research at the Institute for Heart Math. Other benefits include fewer health complaints overall and protection against heart attacks. So when you do a little more to say thanks, you just might get healthier too.

The Case for Engaging Patients on Their Turf

by Bonnie Freitas, Marketing Assistant

The return of flu season reminds us that there is something new in the air: more doctors and patients are engaging outside the exam room, online.

It’s already commonplace for patients to research their symptoms online and even to self-diagnose. They might put themselves at ease, or they might gravitate towards worst-case scenarios (I don’t just have a stiff neck, I have meningitis!). Either way, doctors have less control of the conversation—which is often their worst-case scenario.

Many physicians are responding by stepping up their end of the conversation via social media. And it’s not just to assert control. They see it as an opportunity to make more meaningful connections. According to a study done by YouGov, “twenty-five percent of consumers said that they are likely to connect with hospitals via social media in the future.” And that number is only growing.

Physicians need to be accessible on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Whether it’s tweeting on ways to prevent the flu this season or encouraging their patients to come in for their annual checkup, doctors’ activity on social media is becoming more important in making or breaking their patient-doctor relationships.

The problem for physicians is that opting out is not neutral. It can hurt a practice. That’s because as more and more patients engage online more often, they will gravitate towards physicians who choose to engage online, whoever they are—including quacks.

Engaging online is not just a preference. It is, arguably, a responsibility.

Ben Franklin’s Marketing Tip

When you like someone, you do nice things for them, right? Not necessarily. Psychologists tell us that it can work the other way around: we like people more when we’re nice to them. (The reverse is also true: we come to hate those we treat badly.)

This doesn’t seem to make sense until you look at it through the lens of cognitive dissonance, which is the mental discomfort that comes from holding conflicting thoughts. Your subconscious thought process goes something like this: I just did something nice for someone I don’t like. What?! Why would I do that? I guess I do like him.

The phenomenon is called the Ben Franklin Effect. Franklin was a keen observer of human nature (and “master marketer”). The story goes that he once turned a detractor into an ally—“without paying any servile respect to him”—just by writing to the man to ask whether he could borrow a particularly unusual book from his library. Franklin was known to be a book collector, so the rival was flattered. He sent the book, and Franklin returned it a week later with a thank-you note. Subsequently, the two became good friends.

Can we apply the Ben Franklin Effect to marketing? We should of course keep striving to serve our customers and clients, but maybe we should also consider what we can ask them to do for us. I don’t see this magically converting people who just don’t like or want what you have to offer. But I do see it as a way to strengthen engagement with, and positive feelings for, your brand.

How to go about doing this? Typically, we ask customers to do something for us in return for something. But it may be better if you don’t return the favor immediately. That leaves some space for the effect to kick in.

For example, a bread bakery in my town closed for a number of weeks to renovate and expand. The owners made a special appeal to their customers to help them through the income gap by purchasing “bread futures”—to pay them now for bread they would get later, when the bakery reopened. I’m sure this was a purely practical request on the part of the bakers. But it was also good marketing. Anyone who bought bread futures was probably already a regular, but I suspect that they felt even more devoted to the bakery after extending themselves in this way.

What can your customers do for you?

In marketing, critters can be an asset or a liability

Animals loom large in human culture and consciousness. That’s not news. At my house, Dudley practically runs the place (poodles are that smart). What is news is that our brains are very specifically wired to pay attention to animals of all kinds.

Recent research has revealed that some cells in the amygdala, a deep part of the brain known to process emotions, are specialized to detect animals. (The research appears in the journal Nature Neuroscience; read an NPR story here.) Scientists studied several parts of the brain, but only in the amygdala did they find cells that responded just to animals, not to people or objects. This makes evolutionary sense: animals can mean food or danger, both extremely important. (though Dudley is neither…go figure)

Earlier work hinted at this. For example, behavioral studies showed that we keep track of people and animals better than things. In one study, people shown a farm scene noticed when a tiny image of person or animal changed, but not when an entire grain silo disappeared.

It’s no wonder that marketers have instinctively turned to animals again and again. Take the MGM lion, which goes all the way back to 1916. Or the Firefox logo, or the Taco Bell Chihuahua. At Bidwell ID, we created a hummingbird logo for Glenmeadow, a retirement-living community. And think of all the sports teams that identify themselves with strong, threatening animals: eagles, hawks, tigers, lions, panthers, bulldogs, bulls, bears.

Still, be careful about associating an animal with your brand. Remember that disappearing grain silo? Just like sex and cuteness, animals are great attention-getters, but they don’t like to share the stage.

Consider these two dog-ad campaigns:

Traveler’s Insurance. Dogs and insurance are not a natural match, so I have to wonder whether the audience remembered what was being sold, never mind the specific brand.

Subaru. I’ll bet that their 2010 “dog-tested” ads were more successful, and not just because US News and World Report named one of them “Best Car Commercial of Superbowl XLIV Sunday.” We strongly associate dogs with cars. And Subaru knew that 7 out of 10 Subaru owners have pets. In contrast, check out their 2007 shark ad. Cool, but how many viewers remembered the brand?

Whether an animal serves as your logo or merely makes an appearance in an ad, it has to support the brand, not steal the show.

Stickiness Means Analytics Plus Planning

I’m all for throwing spaghetti on the walls. It’s fun! I learned that from my sons years ago. But I also learned that actually, it rarely sticks.

If you are not careful, you may find the same thing to be true of online analytics.

Google Analytics is more powerful than you can even imagine. Testing and tweaking is a breeze—well, provided you have some training. Still, continuous feedback has never been so easy, data and refinement never so accessible. Geeky, yes, but I love it.

However, analytics are not a panacea for market research and marketing communications (marcom) planning, which is actually great news. You need to be sure what you are testing in analytics is viable. Here is my conversation with a Google Analytics manager last week:

“How do you determine what to test online?” I asked.

“The client tells us.”

“How do they know what to test?”

He shrugged. He wasn’t sure.

“Couldn’t that lead to bad conclusions?”

Shrug.

I’m not relaying this conversation to sound like a smarty pants; I’m saying that relying solely on analytics is just throwing more spaghetti on the wall, more frequently. You look busier, but you may still end up with spaghetti piled on the floor instead of stuck to the wall.

Back to planning. For those who don’t know, your marcom plan is the matrix that outlines your communications over the next year. It details—by audience—what you are doing, the frequency, the budget, etc. It is static, but that is one of its blessings. It makes sense of your communications for a whole year. No shooting from the hip.

With Google Analytics, though, marcom plans are becoming less static, in good ways. You don’t have to wait a year to evaluate and change your marketing efforts. Google Analytics and marcom planning can be merged this way:

1. Define your audiences

2. Define what online efforts make the most sense to your audience(s)

3. Budget into your marcom plan monthly Google monitoring

4. Make changes! Remember that some online changes can impact those offline, too. For example, an online test might show that a certain headline works better, and that can be carried over to print.

Lastly—and this goes out to all my CEO friends, who, I might add, you should always keep happy—I’m not talking about a budget in flux. I’m talking about planned agility in terms of messaging and channels. Oh look, noodles on the wall!

It is not all subjective

My Ann Arbor beer buddy, and retired University of Michigan Professor, Charles Butter, PhD recently launched “Crossing Cultural Borders: Universals in Art and Their Biological Roots.” But don’t let the academic titles deter you. Charlie’s book is as accessible as a Corona on Cinco de Mayo: easy to digest, fun, and some nice twists.

The book talks art, but everything is applicable to design: what we prefer and why. He talks about balance, emotions, and ornamentation—my favorite. Charlie explains why the mind prefers variety in unity, which is to say we are attracted to what we know and like, but there has to be enough variation to keep us interested.

Scientific American Mind has a similar feature in its latest issue called “Thinking by Design.” Here we learn that people prefer:

• Big objects to small ones

• Round forms to sharp ones

• Symmetry

• Prototypes as the most attractive, but “average” examples can easily bore us, which gets back to Charlie’s “variety in unity.”

• More novelty within an area of expertise–less so with nonspecialists (an argument for knowing your audiences)

• Looks…at the beginning, but visual appeal is less important after a month of ownership. This is a reminder for businesses to play up the non-visual aspects of their products to help combat buyer’s remorse, or a consumers doubts after a purchase.

All of this is to say the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it is not as subjective as we might think, or want, it to be.

Is Status Quo the Way to Go?

You’ve just been paid, and you’re feeling pretty flush what with all that cash in your pocket (so to speak). So the next time you’re in CVS, you go ahead and do it: you pass over the cavity-fighting toothpaste for the whitening toothpaste that’s going to turn your teeth into dazzling instruments of seduction!

If you’re thinking that doesn’t sound quite like a splurge, you’re right. For one thing, it’s subconscious.

I recently came across a University of Utah study that found that consumers’ motives—and their responses to advertising messages—change depending on “payday proximity.”

When we’ve just been paid, we’re more likely to buy “promotion-focused” products and services: those that ostensibly make our lives better in some way. Such as toothpaste with a whitening message. Or a slab of cake (fun!). As payday fades in the rearview, we’re more likely to buy “prevention-focused” things: those that preserve or maintain. Such as toothpaste with a cavity-fighting message. Or a double serving of bean sprouts (sensible!).

Just to be clear, we’re talking about the time that has passed since your last paycheck, not how much money you’ve actually got in the bank. And we’re talking about the underlying promise of the product, not how much it costs.

Admittedly, this information might be a bit tricky to make use of, since not everyone is on the same pay cycle. But I find myself wondering: In a down economy, with unemployment claims still rising and wages falling, is every day a prevention-focused day? Should we give more of our messaging a prevention slant?

We might even speculate that prevention-focused products/services and messaging always have an edge. The prevention focus, after all, sounds very much like loss aversion, the very well documented tendency to perceive loss much more strongly than gain. Losing what we have is really painful—every day.

Tip: In the study, consumers were asked whether they had “aspired to buy” (promotion) or felt they “ought to buy” (prevention) their purchases. Take that as your cue if you want to look at your marketing through the promotion/prevention lens. I aspire to/would like to buy this; it will improve my life, make it more fun: that’s promotion. I should buy this; this is the smart, responsible thing to do: that’s prevention.

Virtually You: How Online is Radically Changing Our Offline Personality by Elias Aboujaoude, MD

Author and psychiatrist Elias Aboujaoude, MD has released Virtually You: How Online is Radically Changing Our Offline Personality, a curmudgeonly book about how spending so much time online is making us vicious, childish, and narcissistic. I must confess that I’ve read only a review of the book in the recent issue of Psychology Today, but I got the gist. In a nutshell, online is ruining our moral fiber.

I don’t believe it. Aboudjaoude implies a golden past when we were all polite to one another. When was that? When were we all perched on the pedestal of civility? People behave badly.

More to the point, this supposed recent degeneration en masse flies in the face of branding and interactive communications. All the organizations we work with are working double time to engage with prospects and clients in a more authentic, friendly, responsible, and responsive way. Organizations are quickly learning that being too self-centered is bad business.

This is a far cry from Aboujaoude’s claim that if things continue as is, “we’ll become a nation of spoiled, sheltered brats.”

My ultimate point is that I think cranky generalizations lead to faulty assumptions about customers and audiences, especially younger cohorts. I subscribe to the idea that communications is changing. It is not better, it is not worse. It is only changing, and understanding that change, without the filter of negative perception, is what will best serve our branding and marketing efforts.

Believe what comes from their mouths!

According to recent studies, a sneeze is worth a thousand words…and thousands of dollars! Researchers at the National Institute for NeuroNasology found that a nose blow does more than clear the nostrils (even if it doesn’t clear the air!), it reveals an individual’s intentions. Dr. Bill Nares sums it up, “One sneeze indicates skepticism, while two says, ‘I’m buying.’ In other words, we’ve found the Holy Grail of reading minds.”

And apparently, we can’t dodge it. Even if we know that sneezes give us away, we can’t stop it. As such, it has been dubbed the Holy Hurl-istic. Market researchers are ecstatic, and are experimenting with the best way to incorporate this knowledge. Chuck Aöt, VP Marketing for Whole Flair said, “Sounds obvious, but we find that pumping a little pepper, or other iritant, into the focus group, or whatever, gets us to where we want.”

So, the next time you research, pull out the shaker and hand out some tissues. ‘Cause your subjects will be giving you gold. And suddenly, “blowing it” takes on a hole new meaning.

Customers are wired to believe it

I’ve said it before: trust is the most important thing a business can cultivate. Yet these days, trust—especially of marketers—is hard to come by in the U.S.

I’ve blogged about ways to foster trust before. But add to the top of that list a dead-simple yet overlooked way to approach the problem: If you want your customers to trust you, just tell them they can. Really.

Researchers tacked the following statement to the end of an ad for an auto service firm:

You can trust us to do the job for you.

The surprising result of those 10 words was that trust scores improved by as much as 33 percent (you can read more about the study in Dan Hill’s new book, About Face).

Strange but true. The thing is, your customers are looking for a reason to trust you, because human beings are hardwired to trust.

Neuroscientists exploring the underpinnings of trust have identified a hormone that seems designed to encourage it. It’s called oxytocin. The amygdala, a region of the brain involved in emotion and fear, is full of oxytocin receptors. When oxytocin hits those receptors, it appears to calm the amygdala’s fear response. We become more willing to take a risk like trusting someone—even a complete stranger, or even after we’ve been ripped off.

It makes sense that evolution put a premium on trust. Without it, there would be no social cohesion. Complex societies like ours would be totally impossible. When you buy a used book from some faraway Amazon vendor, you’re trusting that it will show up. When you get into your car, you’re trusting that other drivers will follow the rules of the road, more or less. When your house is on fire, you can trust that the  firefighters will race over and put it out (well, in most places, speaking of declining trust). High levels of social trust are associated with stronger democracies, more affluence, better health, and fewer social ills like crime and corruption. Social trust is also a much better predictor of perceived quality of life and personal happiness than a community’s education or income level.

So just say it: “You can trust us.” Don’t assume that it goes without saying, and ignore any cynical snorts. You’ll be telling your customers exactly what their brains want to hear.