Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our organisations, in our communities, and in our own lives? The primary obstacle is a conflict that’s built into our brains, says Dan Heath, the co-author of the new book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.

Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems – the rational mind and the emotional mind – that compete for control:

• The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie.
• The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort-but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.

For us natural entrepreneurs, (being around 8% of the population), change is normal and healthy. We actually thrive on it. However this is not the ‘normal’ human condition. Most people (92%) abhor change, even when the change can make a significant improvement in their lives or business results. We have internal and external ‘systems’ that always want to maintain the status quo.

This discussion isn’t about the management of the process once the initial decision is made. We have project managers and change management consultants that do that chore. No, this is how we get to the point of accepting the need for change in the first place. Dan Health is one of several who have examined all this. This new book should help us understand why we act as we do.

For those in sales and marketing, it’s essential reading… Order it here.

For frustrated salespeople that want another perspective on all this, read Sharon Drew Morgans book, Dirty Little secrets. However as Sharon notes, that fact that our best strike rate in sales is under 10% simply reinforces the fact that people aren’t good at change – Giving them features and benefits is seldom, if ever enough. We have to manage their buying process too.

Finally, the other hidden factor in all this seems to be around perceived risk when buying anything. It’s long been known that if a money-back guarantee or similar is included, sales often improve by up to 50%. This is especially vital for new products or services. With no other change, just lowering this risk factor can make a huge difference when selling….

However if you’re selling, there may be a bigger elephant in the room. Is it just the message,  or the fact that we’ve made a connection? If you’re in sales and working with established clients, the message or offer may not be important. It’s the connection and fact we’ve taken the time is the key – Relationship selling concepts come to mind. We’ve spoken a lot on this blog about the emotional factors when selling. An article on what new strategies to employ with email marketing being the most recent. (Read more) 

It perhaps emphasises the need to remain human when selling. Less of the old ‘hard sell’. Local guru Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics had an interesting observation on all this in his weekly podcast. Take a listen…

Why Connection Is Way More Important

Be sure to signup to his newsletters. Better still, buy his book, Brain Audit – Why Customers Buy

We already know that email isn’t perfect and is constantly battling with spam filters.   Delivery is a big problem and for a while, I really thought this technical issue was the main reason that email open rates were so low, typically 10-30%. Yet email experts tell us that the subject line is critical too and fine tuning this did provide some modest improvements pushing up rates as high as 35-40%.  Then  I noticed a couple of my clients individual campaigns achieved over  65% open rates, which for email marketing is almost unheard of. Obviously my old mail was getting through, but people were simply deleting them, since the focus was, quite naturally, on a new product offering or service. So, which campaign ‘subjects’ got opened at these 65% rates?

Well, it wasn’t those messages about new products, services, business opportunity or even [surprisingly] how to save money. Clear winners were those where the subject line and content was more on helping others, charitable works or personal interest stories. (These were often added as an afterthought). Yes, it seems even your customers may want to know if one of your staff is getting married, having children, celebrating an achievement or more often, know more about your charitable efforts or a local children’s fundraiser that you (and they) could help out.

It’s not just about selling – It’s about how messages make us feel

My own theory is that this type of message creates a tiny bond between the recipient and your company, or rather, your people. The lesson here is that your email communications should focus more around topics people can actually relate to, are relevant and perhaps makes them feel better as a person. Invoke an emotional response, which is something top marketers and psychologists have told us for decades. Its been proven that buying decisions are nearly always made from the emotional, not logical side of the brain. Feelings, it is said, is the language of the soul. Invoking feelings means you become less of a big corporate, and more a human being. It obviously builds trust and a closer relationship, which if nurtured will help build your business in the long term.

It perhaps reminds us that we are in fact human, not just another sales opportunity for someone….

Maybe it’s also the fact that we’re being bombarded with clinical, impersonal sales messages every day, and these little personal interest stories suddenly stand out. A tiny light in the darkness called marketing. It reminds us that we are in fact human beings, not just another sales opportunity or prospect for someone.

Where is Emails Sweet Spot?

I think even using the term email marketing puts us on the wrong foot today. Maybe email should be less about ‘marketing’ or selling, and all about educating, communicating and relationship building at a more personal level. It’s certainly what our readers seem to want.

Copywriters who write for all media channels have long noted that email alone is not good at pure lead generation. In fact it’s a bad choice. Too many like to use it this way purely because it is perceived to be cheap and easy to do. But even if you’re able to find or build an email list (which isn’t a cheap process),  sending out a product-focused email blast, like you’d put an ad in a magazine, to those you have no prior relationship with produces very poor results and likely to antagonize people. In fact they’ll probably blacklist or filter out your companies email address so that future emails are never seen, even if they do have some real benefit.

However for existing clients we already know and have permission to communicate with, email appears much more efficient and cost-effective than other media – Ideal for nurturing that relationship and keeping your clients loyal. Considering that finding a new client is 5x more costly than retaining (or regaining) one, this puts email in a very powerful and critical position in any company’s business strategy. And keeping a more human face on our email messages ensures that they’ll be opened, read and treasured.

Read also: Sometimes simple works  and Seth on Web 2.0

Susan simply reconfirmed from an academic and ‘brain function’ viewpoint, what good marketers have known for many years – That many of our decision making process, including those around buying decisions, are triggered firstly by the unconscious mind. The rational, logical processes come in second.

She reminded us too of the three core things that drive us as a species. Fear, Food and Sex. Correctly incorporate one or more of these factors into your marketing campaigns and response rates are sure to rise. It also explained to me why good products, services and magazines around the healthy food industry continue to do well, even in tough times.

Her latest, highly readable book (check out here) discusses how all this can be used to make your websites better! This reminded me of the great work done by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg at www.futurenowinc.com They too focus upon the motivation and persuasion aspects of web design, specifically e-commerce sites.

Seth Godin has taught us much in this arena too, as does Rafi Albo who constantly emphasises the importance of emotion in high response campaigns. Again, it’s not brain surgery (pun intended).

However whether the marketing medium used is print, web or TV, the base principles will always remain the same. A great book.

Listen to the podcast [audio:http://www.digitalmarketing.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/NeuroWeb.mp3|titles=NeuroWeb]

It seems we’re all readable and somewhat predictable, especially once we’ve been profiled and diced up into a particular segment. The best marketers and copywriters know this and apply their secrets to get higher response rates to their ads or promotions, regardless of the media channel.

But it goes way beyond knowing the right words to put on paper, TV or in an email. It gets personal. We can literally be ‘read’ by our body language – Remember all the Allan Pease books, popular in the 70s?. Now it seems the lines on our face, expressions, voice inflection count too. There’s even a drama about it on TV3 called Lie to Me. All this knowledge comes in real handy for professional sales and marketing people.

One of the most interesting interviews I’ve found on the latest developments in this area was with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, talking with the authors of Face Values. Click on the audio icon below to hear a short 4 min extract from that 30 min interview talking about the use of Mental Filters to boost marketing response rates.

The trick to all this I guess is how to have this type of information put into a CRM system as part of our marketing planning and management. But what’s an easy way to profile people then catalogue and use the data? Maybe we have to buy the book to find out.

Website Conversion Tricks

The World’s number one website conversion guru Bryan Eisenberg was also interviewed on this general topic, proving again that no matter what the media channel used (web, print), the same principles apply. Here’s his advice.

What a local expert on this? Check out Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics. who has his superb Training books, podcasts and CDs entitled Brain Audit