Think You're a Change Agent? Think Again
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As marketers, it's our job to be obsessed with the new, to embrace new products and services and spread the faith. We often think of ourselves as being in the vanguard of change. But in reality, all of us are naturally inclined to resist changing and learning new things. Thanks to advances in brain-scanning imagery, scientists have determined that our reaction to new concepts is both predictable and universal: We avoid them whenever possible.
Learning new things hurts. Not the boo-hoo, woe-is-me kind of hurt that executives tend to dismiss as an affliction of the weak and sentimental, but actual physical and psychological discomfort. And the brain pictures prove it.
New concepts light up an area of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, which is like RAM in a PC. The prefrontal cortex is fast and agile, able to hold multiple threads of logic at once to enable quick calculations. But like RAM, the prefrontal cortex's capacity is finite—it can deal comfortably with only a handful of concepts before bumping up against limits. That bump generates a palpable sense of discomfort and produces fatigue and even anger. That's because the prefrontal cortex links tightly to the primitive emotional center of the brain, the amygdala, which controls our fight-or-flight response.
What does this have to do with B2B marketing? Science has affirmed what we have all suspected for years: People hate being told what to think. For those of us who do not have the ad budgets to pound our messages into customers' brains whether they like it or not, we need a different approach. The way to get past the brain's defenses is to help people come to their own resolutions regarding the messages we are trying to impart—to get them to change their minds themselves. These moments of insight—call them epiphanies or "aha moments"—appear to be as soothing to the brain as the unfamiliar is threatening. Think about the moment when you finally figure out a puzzle you have been struggling with. You can feel your face lighting up with pleasure.
Marketing messages need to be clear, simple, and not overly detailed for the light bulbs to go on over customers' heads. Especially in B2B, which is so complex, marketers need to resist the urge to think that specification sheets constitute effective marketing. Complex explanations do not leave enough room for people to have their individual epiphanies. Leave room in your marketing messages for customers to fill in some of the details themselves.
Do you agree? How are you getting customers to have epiphanies about your products and services? Email me at ckoch@itsma.com.
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Chris Koch is associate director of research and thought leadership for Information Technology Services Marketing Association. He is an award-winning writer and editor, having served as executive editor for CIO, a trade magazine for chief information officers and other IT leaders.
Copyright 2008, Information Technology Services Marketing Association. Permission to Blue MauMau to reprint this article.
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