INBOUND 2016: Jeff Coon "Data Driven Marketing: The Science, Strategy, and Software for Success"

Well, good morning and happy Friday to everyone. I hope you've had a good Inbound 16 thus far. Appreciate you making this session. When we get our slides queued up here, we'll get started. Before I get into the meat of the presentation, the first slide I'm going to show you is some additional resources if you're interested in diving further into neural marketing. Oftentimes people ask me how do you dive in, or what resources do you recommend to learn more about this? I won't be able to cover everything in a 45-minute session, so the first slide I'm going to show you, if you're interested, you can take a picture. It'll just be some books that I'm going to recommend if you're interested in diving more into neural marketing. A couple books I recommend: 'Decoding the New Consumer Mind', 'The Buying Brain', 'Biology' — three good books. And then a website, BrainTrust101.com, great resources and topics on this. So that's what some of this is based on today.

As we look at the agenda, you may have noticed in the title of my session that I'm using alliteration, where we're really playing off the word 'S'. There's a little brain science trick for you: if you can use alliteration and things like acronyms, it really helps with memory recall. I just want to tee this up because you can see all the S's here, and that just tees up my next slide. If we have the luxury and financial means to have all of us in this room hooked up with brain monitors and brain activity monitors, what we would see is that when we're looking at the Superman logo, it's more than just looking at an 'S'. There's color theory going on, the implications we have with color theory, as well as all the emotions and memories that come back — maybe from when you saw the movie, maybe a memory as a childhood for me going to the movie with my parents, or a scene in the movie that resonates with you. But also there are the characteristics of Superman himself, the character that are implied within this logo. So we're talking about strength, speed, good looks — all those things that are associated with the Superman icon. That will subconsciously affect how we behave in our actions. Our subconscious plays a bigger role than any of us might think in our actions and behaviors, and I'm going to show that to you later in the presentation.

Now, I've always been interested in superheroes as a kid. One was being an artist — I always liked drawing, I always liked the superhero artwork. That was one reason. But the other one was I truly wanted to be Superman as a child. My parents were very supportive. My mom would always say, 'You guys can be whatever you want to be in life, as long as you work hard and commit to it.' And I thought, well, if I'm going to work hard, I might as well go for the best, right? That would be Superman. I figured I was going to fly. In addition to being supportive, she would say things like, 'Jeff, you know, you're really special, and there's no one else in this world just like you.' Which was ironic because I have a twin brother. So I'm not the sharpest tool she had either. I didn't figure that out till I was 40. Maybe I'm not so special. We also see this in personality tests. Just a show of hands of people who have ever taken a personality test like a Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinder 2.0. Okay, yeah. So what I'm showing here is the Fascination Advantage test. We took this in our office, and it was a fun activity. I'm not here to debate whether one's more accurate than the other; it's just we took the Fascination Advantage test. But what's interesting is that I got a report back that you would have swore somebody was following me for the 40 years on Earth. I mean, this report was so detailed to me. What I have highlighted here in yellow is that I only had to answer 28 questions. So I answer 28 questions, and they could spit out a report that sounded like it was just made for me. So it must tell you that we're not nearly as special as we think.

It comes down to also, as human beings, we are hardwired to survive. We are hardwired to protect ourselves. It doesn't mean we're selfish and mean; it just means that's how we're made. And we need to leverage that in our marketing and our communications. So when we take a look at basic human needs, the number one is our physiological needs. I'm not going to dive into these in too much detail, but all I'm going to say is your physiological needs are just about survival — both eating, getting sleep — all the way if you work down the scale to self-actualization. Well, I can tell you if I'm being chased by a tiger, I'm not worried about my self-esteem or my self-actualization. I just don't want to be lunch. Or if I'm on an island and I'm hungry, I'm just worried about my physiological needs. Those always come first, and then we work through other basic needs. If we look at a diagram of the brain — I'm going to make it people's version — if we look at this diagram, let's just break it down into three parts. The outer part, labeled three here, is really about our rational thinking. As we move our way in, what's labeled two in the diagram is really about our emotions and feelings. And then what's labeled one in this diagram is the core of our brain, our primitive brain. It's really about fight or flight and survival. Now, we need to be talking to the buying brain in any of our sales and marketing communications. We need to build trust. We have to let that primitive part of the brain know, 'Hey, this person isn't here to take advantage of me. They're not here to harm me.' Because then you're more receptive to messaging. We have to make an emotional connection. Then we work our way into area two of the brain, where we're talking to emotions and feelings. We need an emotional connection. And then only then will people listen to your rational discussions. It's not a surprise that we all know that people like to do business with those they know, like, and trust. That's not a surprise to any of us. But yet, when we talk to people, their sales and marketing messages a lot of times are coming in like, 'Hey, look what we can do, and look at our offerings and our product.' We made no attempt to make a personal connection or to get them to let their guard down in any way. We've probably seen this where you've talked to somebody who is overly salesy, and the first thing you do is kind of step back and like, 'Whoa,' and you find yourself more reserved. You're not going to let that person in. Same thing — we need to be speaking to the buying brain.

Now, in addition to being hardwired to survive, we're also hardwired as visual people. Ninety percent of the information coming to us is visual, and we process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. That's why you can see things like infographics were so important. It's why social media, other than the voyeuristic nature of it, is visuals. When you look at Instagram, Pinterest, it's a visual experience, and we love that as human beings. If you don't believe me, look at how we communicate with each other. This is like a sample text to my wife. We don't even say anything anymore; it's just like thumbs up, love you, smooches, all that kind of stuff. Even just for the purpose of showing this on my phone, it doesn't even want me to type words. I just typed 'Happy birthday, Connie, have a great day,' and it wants me to replace 'Happy birthday' with the birthday cake emoji, and it wants me to replace 'great' with a smiley face. So I'm not saying you go into your boardroom the next time and you present with nothing but emojis. That's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is, if this is how we really communicate in the real world, then we might want to think about that in our marketing and in our messaging. So maybe a 40-page proposal isn't the way to go. Maybe we need to shorten it up, make it more of a visual experience. And better yet, how do we incorporate video to create that human interaction? We heard Gary Vaynerchuk in his opening keynote for Inbound 16 talk about the importance of video. He talked about Facebook Live being important, and I would definitely say if that isn't part of your strategy moving forward, it should be. But video is a great way to speak to that buying brain. It makes a human connection. And we can see that executives are using it and sharing it with colleagues to make purchase decisions. The best example — it's an old one, I'm sure most of you have seen it — but the Blendtec example with 'Will It Blend?' Just a show of hands so I get a sense of how many people have seen this. Okay, for those in the room, the quick story is they sell industrial and commercial grade blenders. In this series, what they're doing is taking different things and dropping them in their blender and pureeing them to dust. So they take things like an iPhone and iPad, drop them in the blender, puree them to dust, and they do it in a fun way like a 60s or 70s game show. The gentleman you're seeing on screen is their founder. So they could have gone the traditional route. They could have done a traditional television spot or an advertising spot, but no one would have cared. It could have been the most beautiful beach with the most beautiful couple, and in the background you see their blenders making thousands of margaritas, and everybody's in love and it's great. That's crap. Nobody would share that stuff. Instead, they drop an iPhone in there, blend it, and we've got — in this case, iPad — they've got over 18 million people that viewed this. So people are sharing it because they're entertained. And that's a great way to get people to trust you and to let their guard down. People like to laugh, they like to be entertained. And if you can do that, you're slowly opening them up to be more receptive to your message. And they did a great thing here. The arrow you're seeing right here is pointing to their call to action, driving back to their relevant information on their website. So a great example.

Now, how do you do this in the real world? If you don't have the budget to be setting up a Blendtec 'Will It Blend?' set, well, one of the things we do with our clients is we simply set up an iPad. So we had a salesperson that was interested in doing more with his LinkedIn connections. I'm sure a lot of you are on LinkedIn, but maybe you're thinking, 'I'm not really active,' or 'Maybe I'm not using it to the best that I could.' He was in that same situation. So he said, 'Well, why don't you reach out to 52 people in your LinkedIn network, and we'll do a 52 and 52 interview series.' He would bring in industry subject-matter experts, we'd sit him down in the conference room — he wanted to do all of it. So he simply put his iPad on a tripod, recorded it, made some very minor edits with the iMovie app on his iPad, uploaded it to YouTube, and then every week he would share a valuable piece of content in a video with his network. And he can attribute nearly $1 million in premium for the agency because of this. And better yet, he was able to drive business to his guests. So you talk about a win-win, and that whole relationship about building trust and doing more with your LinkedIn network and that human connection. It doesn't have to be fancy. We are blessed to have phones that have awesome cameras. Take advantage of it.

So we've talked about the importance of visuals and video, but words matter too. Here's a couple examples. There was an interesting research study done by a group where they brought in two separate groups into two separate rooms. The age was balanced; they had a good mix of young and old folks. Group A was primed with words associated with being young, and Group B was associated with words associated with being old or aging. What they were really testing this group on, unbeknownst to them, was by being primed with words, does it physically have an effect on the speed at which you walk? And it did. Those that were primed in that room with words associated with aging, when they were measured from that conference room to wherever point B was, that group walked slower. So if just being presented with words can affect the speed at which we walk, words can definitely affect what we do in a purchase decision. Another example — another study was done, and we're just talking about it doesn't always have to be visual, but how can we play off the other senses? There was a wine shop that for one week they played French music softly in the background, and then for the following week they played German music in the background. The week that the French music was played, French wine sales went up. And the week that the German music was played in the background, German wine sales went up. Nothing else about the store changed, just subtle music in the background. Last example: two groups again brought into a room. They thought they were being brought in to do a taste test on a new muffin that was going out on the market. What they were really being tested on is the sense of smell — how does it affect our behavior? Group A was in a room that just smelled like whatever that conference room smelled like, and they ate their muffins. Group B, the room was scented to smell like lemons. Group B actually was cleaner. They smelled lemon scent, it reminded them of something just being freshly clean, and they actually took more care in how they were eating. They cleaned up after themselves. Nothing else changed, just simply a little bit of fragrance in the air. So my point in telling you this is don't think that you always need to redo your website. Start with small iterations. Start with small things. Test a few things. Test the length of your content. Are you using more bullet points? It doesn't have to be this big redo strategy, redo your website. Start with the little things.

All right, so we've been talking a lot about our brains. Let's see how sharp you guys are, test your memory. If you know who this next character is when I flip the slide, just shout it out. Okay. E.T. All right, so that was an easy one. Can anybody tell me what candy was featured in the movie E.T.? Wow, okay, so that took you like a good quarter of a second to know that that is correct. Now, the reason you probably remember that was it was product placement, sure. But the important part, the reason we remember that, is because that was an integral part of the movie. That was part of the story. It wasn't just that Reese's Pieces were sitting on the table while Elliott was choking down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was what got E.T. out of the woods and into Elliott's care and into his house. Without the Reese's Pieces, E.T. may still be in those woods, still trying to phone home. So we remember that because it was a part of the story. Another example: can anybody name the manufacturer who makes those sunglasses that Tom Cruise is wearing? Ray-Ban. Okay, you guys want to be Maverick, don't you? So if you take a look at this, aviator sunglasses sales rose by 40% in the seven months following Top Gun's release. Now, it wasn't just that those sunglasses were on his dashboard. Tom Cruise doesn't need much help to be hunky, he's doing fine on his own. But these sunglasses were an important part of his character, and that reflected — people wanted to be Maverick. Now, if you ask these guys who bought these sunglasses after the fact, they'd say, 'Well, bro, it keeps the sun out of my eyes.' And I'm like, 'Bro, you want to be Maverick and you want to get the chicks.' And that's the reality. This character was subconsciously affecting what we're doing and how we're purchasing things. Last example, we look at a more recent example: American Idol when it first came out had three primary sponsors: Coke, AT&T, and Ford. AT&T at the time was singular. They did a research study to show what was the brand impression, was there a brand lift, better recall after being a sponsor for American Idol. Both Coke and AT&T had a brand boost, better recall. Ford actually went down. So can you imagine having to explain that to your boss? 'Hey, I just spent X millions of dollars, and now people remember us less.' Here's the reason: Coke and AT&T wove their message into the story of the show. Other than the obvious product placement in front of the judges, Coke also was said to have used Coca-Cola red in some of the walls and backgrounds, they had chairs shaped like Coca-Cola bottles. AT&T was very directly part of the show — that was the voting mechanism by which you would vote for your favorite performer. Ford, on the other hand, although their advertising was geared toward their target, they did it in a traditional TV spot slot, timeslot, which people ignore. Coke and AT&T wove it into the show, they made it an integral part of it, and that's why people remembered it. It's no different than how native advertising can be more effective than banner ads. It's that banner blindness versus native advertising where we work it into the story. That's important for us to know.