Tag: communication

Deaf to ads

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Banner blindness is a concept that dates back to 1998. It is a phenomenon according to which when scrolling a web page, we consciously or unconsciously ignore banner like information.

As consumers (and therefore advertisers) shift towards audio consumption, I have the impression we are also developing a sort of advertising deafness. Similar to banner blindness, advertising deafness means that when we are listening to a podcast, music streaming, or even a video, we tune out the promotional messages, as we perceive them as a disturbance.

Considering the serial nature of podcast in particular, and the fact that the audience tends to listen to them regularly, a nice way to overcome advertising deafness would be to take advantage of the potential of this medium. So, instead of running 30 seconds ads, marketers could try to tell episodic stories about their brand, their product, their service, and the way they are impacting the world.

It is lazy and inefficient to use old formats in new media. If you give people something to wait for, something to even long for, they will listen. And your message will have the power it (perhaps) deserves.

Great communicators

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There’s a general belief that a great talker is also a great communicator. That might be true, and yet I find that most often it is not.

The way I see it, there are three core qualities of a great communicator (that a great talker not necessarily has).

First, great communicators craft their messages carefully. I mean this in the broadest possible way. A good framework to look at it through is Grice’s maxims: quality (a message that is true), quantity (a message that is no more than what required), relevance (a message that is pertinent to the discussion) and manner (a message that is orderly, polite and clear).

Then, great communicators are consistent in their messages. They are not afraid of repeating, as they are aware that different people absorb information at different paces. Furthermore, having the message well-crafted allows them to experiment with channels and formats in ways that benefit the spreading of the message in the long term.

Finally, great communicators have profound understanding of their audience. This is also true in a broad way: they know who they are communicating with before the communication actually happens; they are awake and aware to signals from the audience while the communication is undergoing; and they are capable of redesigning (without losing consistency), learning from feedback and sentiment they perceive after the communication is over.

If you want to be a great communicator, talking a lot and well is not enough. Establishing a relationship aimed at some type of change is much more important. And much more complicated.

Isolated acting

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Your actions will have a much higher impact if they fit in a story you live every day.

Your feedback will be taken more seriously if it’s part of a more general attempt to genuinely help move the situation forward.

Your survey will get a better response rate if it’s framed in an ongoing effort to better understand and serve.

Your marketing will be more effective if it’s part of a strategy that aims at generating value for the prospect at every step of their journey.

Your message might actually be heard if it’s the bit of a story your audience has been waiting for and cannot do without.

Of course, for all of this to be possible, you need to spend a considerable amount of time tryin to understand the other(s).

The alternative, though, is to share your opinion every time you do not get things your way, to send out a survey without having set the stage for it in the months before, to run campaign after campaign tweaking for conversion, to forge the message with what we have in mind.

It happens every day, almost everywhere. And it drives us crazy when it is done to us.

Numbers have stories

Fabrizio1 Comment

If the chances to contract a disease increase 10%, we would all be much more worried and depending on the disease even panic. Yet it would be more accurate to ask how much the disease is common in our population: if originally out of 100 people 1 catched the disease, the 10% increase would sound much less worrying than if 90 did.

If a company boasts a 100% increase in revenue in the past 3 years, we would feel confident in its good shape. Yet it would be better to ask how it got there year after year: if the revenue progression would be something like 100 – 150 – 250 – 200, than we might want to inquire what happened during the last year and our confidence would fade.

These are just a couple of examples of size instinct, the tendency to be impressed by a lonely number out of context.

Even though it requires more effort, we should always attempt to evalute things within their stories, to avoid being pulled back and forth by the latest trending number. This is true also when we try to tell about the latest marketing campaign, or the results of the latest customer satisfaction survey.

Overcommunication is about frequency

Fabrizio1 Comment

There is an important distinction to make when we say we want to overcommunicate.

Overcommunication is essential in certain circumstances: change, growth, downsize, new team, new team members, just to mention a few. I actually think that overcommunication is good in general, as we too often have the tendency to assume and take for granted that others know and understand things the same way as we do.

Nonetheless, overcommunication deals with frequency, not with content. It is not necessary to tell more, it is to tell more often.

Sometimes, when reading a presentation, or an e-mail, or a report, it feels like one can almost see the different layers that have been added in the attempt of increasing clarity or including an additional point. At times, it looks like the more bullet points you have, the better.

It does not work.

The more you add to your message, the less it will be understood. Keep it simple, real simple. Make sure anybody who has a superficial knowledge of the matter could get it after reading it once. Read it out loud and listen to how it flows. If you have even a single doubt, start cutting. And if you have no doubts, cut anyway.

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English—it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. […] An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.

Mark Twain