Creating a Feeling

The difference between a good movie and a bad movie is the ability of the director, through the actors, creating a feeling in the audience. For the particular scene, they identify the right feeling, and the motions of the actors, the placements of the cameras, the music, and everything else emotes the feeling desired by the production.

The same is basically true for any sort of marketing, advertising, or effective communication. The goal is to create, use, or amplify a feeling in the target of the communication. For example:

• Create a worry surrounding cybersecurity.
• Evoke a relief when they act in the desired way.

I'm hooked on a feeling...

"...that you're in love with me..." [B. J. Thomas version]

The idea is to create an opportunity which is a feeling of excitement and expectation about the future and an opportunity to achieve that desired future that is met when you act...

For sales over the Internet, the act is to push the button to pay to join the future. But there are plenty of other ways this can produce desired actions.

Over the action threshold

There is a threshold of action, and that threshold depends on things like the nature of the person, the resources thought to be required to perform that action, the situation of the parties, and so forth.

The 'freemium' model is an example where getting folks over the action threshold to buy starts with the action being of minimal effort and the cost being 0 (out of pocket). Of course the target is getting an apparent 'something for nothing', but actually paying with their time and effort, which is a finite resource being consumed over other opportunities. The seemingly free exchange gives to the target which creates a sense of obligation to give something back. At least that's the psychological theory.

Theory vs. Practice

In practice, some people resent the free offer and consider it an indicator of unethical behavior. They tend to complain, make nasty comments, and react in a generally aggressive manner. To me, this likely means I don't want them as customers, because I like friendly relationships with customers and suppliers.

This bring us to the underlying question of what you want from and for your customers and other business (and personal) relationships. Your interactions should generally reflect the personality you want for your company. This is where my world sometimes falters...

Interactions at different places in the process

I am a person who has two substantially different aspects of my personality that almost seem inconsistent with each other.

• I like to enjoy my interactions with people. That applies most particularly to real-time interactions. I am not a fan of the automaticity that comes with the standard excessive word sequences we push toward each other, which I view as artificial politeness and thus disingenuous. Automated birthday or holiday messages are, to me, thoughtless expressions of automated attempts to gain something. On the other hand, I send emails to some folks I know to wish them a happy birthday, but I write each one by hand (the keys are touched by my hands), and each is different, often a poem or some such thing. If you don't get one, it's not because I don't like you...
• I like to do things very efficiently. That applies particularly to repetitive tasks. As much as I dislike automaticity in person to person communications, I also dislike long conversations to get to a point that should have been the opening statement. Don't bury the lead! Many of you have gotten one of my calendar invitations for a meeting, followed rapidly by something like:
  Invitation sent under separate cover - please confirm receipt. FC
  and my even shorter: "Call starting now" when my online meetings start.

  I do that by touching CTRL-F1 (F2) - about 3-5 (5-10) times per day. I want the reliability of a redundant message to make certain one of them going to a spam filter won't cause a missed communication. But I also stopped doing them by hand, with spell and typo correction, for efficiency and to save me from repetitive stress injuries.

A meeting of the minds

Of course this interaction style, along with my Web presence(s) and social media interactions reflect the personality I have, have decided my company will have, and want for interactions with others. If you don't like or cannot tolerate this, that's fine. It means you will exit the process early, well before either of us has wasted much time trying to form a relationship where we tolerate each other, instead of one where we like each other and enjoy success together.

On the other hand, if I were running Google or some other such massive impersonal company, personal relationships with individual customers would likely be of little value to the company or interest to the CEO. I would probably want to create a feeling of cold efficiency, low cost of entry, and massive scalability - thus the name "Google" and the image they have. The introduction of AI is marketed as efficient access to your content and possibly to a lesser extent personalization.

Conclusions

Taking feelings into account is part of good business strategy. And automating feelings beyond a certain point will likely lead to a crash when you try to overdo it. But figuring out the feelings you want to present and have between your company and its customers and others it interacts with is a core component of building success.

More information?

Join our monthly free advisory call, usually at 0900 Pacific time on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month, tell us about your company and situation, and learn from others as they learn from you.

In summary

I want you to feel good when we talk, but to be direct and efficient when we exchange information. And there's a difference.