On Friday I wrote about why trying to create attractive marketing can lead you down the path to hype, and how marketing really needs to be safe.
A kinda weird thought, I know, but check out the post, and it should become clear. As always, feel free to argue with me. 🙂
But, that’s in the past. Today is a new day, ain’t it?
Understanding the difference between Ego and Heart.
Your clients (clients-to-be) have both an ego, and a heart. The heart is their access to their deeper spiritual nature: their values, their dreams, their aspirations. The heart is nourished by love and wants to be in service. The heart avoids any break from truth, integrity, or sincerity.
The ego is the more superficial and physical aspects of the person: their needs and greeds, their addictions and desires. The ego constantly strives for control and pleasure and ease, and to belong. The ego avoids any sense of submission, danger, or the unknown.
You can begin to see the problem in creating marketing that speaks to both, eh? There is a trick to it.
Talk to the driver.
Unless your client is a spiritually enlightened master, for the most part their ego is going to be driving the car. This isn’t to say that they, or you, or I, don’t have moments of transcendance- maybe long moments- when our heart is really what we’re following. But probably not when they’re reading your marketing.
Why not? Because your business is here to solve a problem of some sort- especially if you’re a transformational business, the problem is probably a biggy. So, if they are looking at your marketing, considering your business, they are probably face-to-face with their problem.
Which means they are feeling vulnerable, unsafe, helpless, out-of-whack to some extent.
So talk to the ego first.
What soothes the ego?
Three things: identity, problem, and assurance.
(1) Identity- speak to who they see themselves as. This can include demographics and psychographics. Basically, you want to do what you can to assure them that you see who they are, and that you get their ‘tribe.’
This is so important- more critical than speaking about the problem, and especially more important than talking about your solution or anything about what you do. People want to be known, to feel seen. At the heart level tribe isn’t so important, but at the ego level it’s ultra-important.
This harkens back to our earliest days on the planet, when belonging to a tribe meant life, and being cast out increased your chances of death quite significantly.
Some examples: At Counseling For Moms, what does Karen do to identify the tribe? Or, how about at the Smartist Telesummit, what does Ariane do to help you to identify if you’re in the tribe? Or how about our own site, Heart of Business, what do we do to help you feel like you belong?
In the next post I’ll get to the problem and assurance, but for right now answer me this: who are you trying to reach? What’s your blog/website/business’ tribe? And what have you done to help them feel like they belong and are welcome?
Click here to listen to the podcast. (About four minutes.)
