The Law
of Dissatisfaction: How To Motivate Prospects By Jerry Bader
(c) 2007
The 7%-38%-55% Communication Rule Dr. Albert Mehrabian,
Professor Emeritus of Psychology, UCLA is best known for his
7%-38%-55% Rule that states 55% of communication is
attributable to non-verbal behaviors like body language and
facial expressions; that 38% of communication is
attributable to voice including volume, tone, pitch,
cadence, and quality; and only 7% of communication is
attributable to the words used.
Despite this persuasive evidence, companies continue to
pile on the Web-text in the vain hope that search engines
will index it and that someone might actually read it, even
though the reality is 70% of website visitors merely scan
for headlines, bulleted points and captions.
The evidence is clear, the most effective way to deliver
a marketing message is a Web-video using a professional
performer who knows how to use his or her voice, expression,
and body language to drive the point home.
"But Wait, There's More ..."
I have noticed a proliferation on the Web of the sad old
direct marketing formula that you see in sales pitches for
magazine subscriptions. Can you really expect people to take
you seriously when you adopt this 'Barnum and Bailey'
approach to marketing? It is a formula that flies in the
face of Dr. Mehrabian's research and every other usability
study that warns against over-burdening website visitors
with too much text. Your search engine optimizer may think
it's great for driving traffic to your landing page, but
I'll bet if you check your logs, 50% of that traffic
disappears in under 5 seconds.
This format is an outdated sales technique that doesn't
work in a Web environment where people find it difficult to
read large amounts of text. It is also a tactic that insults
your customer's intelligence.
A Red Flag Marketing
Formula
If ever there was a red flag telling people to stay away
from your company it's a website presentation that includes:
Huge bold headlines, Copious amounts of text, Bright
yellow highlighted key phrases, Photos of smiling semi-ugly
customers, Photos of smiling semi-pretty nonexistent staff,
Lots of useless free crap, Loads of bulleted points with big
red check marks, Numerous testimonials on pale yellow
backgrounds and quotations in Courier with more bad
photographs, More extra bold, underlined, red text, The
phrase 'But Wait, There's More' offering more useless free
e-books you'll never read and special bonus gifts you don't
want or need, Lots of 'Click Here To Order" buttons, And
finally make sure you bury the price at the bottom of over
4689 words.
The entire presentation could be made in two minutes
using a cost effective video presentation delivered by a
professional, but that wouldn't be search engine friendly
would it, never mind it's the best way to sell your product
or service.
Reducing Video Load
Times
Which brings me to the issue of load times. We all know
that video and audio files take longer to load than text,
however there are many ways that load times can be reduced
and kept to a minimum.
1. The size of the video can be adjusted.
2. Choose an
alternative codex to compress the file.
3. Design your
presentation with simple, minimalist backgrounds so the
number of pixels that change from frame to frame are
reduced.
4. Decrease the frame rate.
5. Alter the audio
settings.
6. Adjust the amount of video that is preloaded.
We also know that there is a class of Web-surfer who will
not wait for videos to load. This is a fact of life, I admit
it, but from a marketing and sales perspective it really
doesn't matter and I'll tell you why: websites visitors who
will not wait a reasonable amount of time for a presentation
to load will also not read your copious amounts of text and
the reason is simple: they are not motivated enough by what
you sell and if they aren't motivated they're not potential
customers. If They Aren't Motivated, They're Not Customers
Two things motivate all potential customers: a feeling of
dissatisfaction and a desire for change. All good
advertising creates a focused storyline with a singular
message that stirs the emotional dissatisfaction in the
audience and offers a solution that will initiate change.
Thank goodness people are insatiable for what's new and
improved. We are a species motivated to constantly strive
for more: more money, more power, more success, more stuff;
and when we have more stuff, we want better stuff. We are in
a constant state of desire. The advertisers job is to access
that desire and push that motivational button so that the
audience takes action.
The Law of
Dissatisfaction
The job of advertisers is to create dissatisfaction in
its audience. If people are happy with how they look, they
are not going to buy cosmetics or diet books; if people are
happy with their old twenty-inch tube television they are
not going to buy a sixty-inch LCD flat screen TV. If people
are happy with who they are, where they are in life, and
what they got, they just aren't customer-potential, that is,
unless you make them unhappy.
Most cosmetic advertisements feature a beautiful woman,
igniting the promise that you too can look like a drop-dead
glorious model if only you use their product. This approach
is based on showing an ideal that the audience will
undoubtedly be unable to stack-up against. The audience
after seeing what they could look like, is no longer happy
with what they do look like, and are now motivated to buy
into the promise of change.
The Psychology of
Contrary Thinking
Anyone who is interested in marketing and the Web is most
likely aware of the brilliant Dove Self-Esteem campaign. For
those who want to excise all video from the Web in favor of
search engine optimization tactics in order to drive
traffic, it should be noted that the original Dove Web-video
has been viewed by over 3.3 million viewers and has driven
huge numbers of traffic to the Dove website, not to mention
an incredible amount of free publicity.
On the surface it may seem like the Dove campaign is an
example of the opposite of the law of dissatisfaction. The
series of campaign videos show real people with all their
flaws and the message that people should be happy with who
they are, and how they look. But what's the real underlying
message of advertising videos that show slightly
over-weight, wrinkled, aging women?
If ever there was a case of reverse psychology, this is
it. Women may initially be attracted by the sentiment
expressed and it certainly generated a lot of media
coverage, but when all is said and done, women will look at
these ads and say, 'hell no, I don't want to be fat,
wrinkled and old, and I'm going to do whatever I can to
avoid it." Dove has masterfully managed to create a positive
campaign that still remains true to the law of
dissatisfaction. Whether or not that was Dove's intent
doesn't matter, the psychology of contrary thinking works.
Creating Successful
Dissatisfaction
In order to implement a Web-video marketing campaign that
motivates action, you must present a storyline that accesses
the emotional and psychological subtext of desire. Your
campaign is based on this defining underlying message.
In order to create this underlying communication we must
first decide to whom the campaign is aimed. We each have a
self image, in fact we each have four self-images. We must
figure out which self our product or service serves.
1. The Public Self is the self we present to the world.
If we sell high priced luxury goods or services that appeal
to status, we are probably aiming our presentation at the
public-self, the one we display to others. 2. The Private
Self is the self we hide from the world. If we sell a hidden
pleasure product or service we should probably direct our
presentation to the private-self, the one we keep locked
away and hidden.
3. The Ideal Self defines who we wish we were. If we sell
a self-improvement or motivational product or service, we
want to access the ideal-self, the self we desperately wish
to become.
4. And the Actual Self defines who we really are. If we
sell a product or service that justifies our real behavior,
then it's the actual-self we want to target.
The dissatisfaction we are accessing may be active or
inactive. Active dissatisfaction like having acne, being
overweight, or worrying about a dysfunctional website is a
concern that the audience is aware. Inactive dissatisfaction
like halitosis, body odor, or ineffective marketing is a
problem that the audience is unaware.
To what degrees is our audience able to acknowledge a
problem exists even after we make it active? Does our
audience acknowledge they are overweight, have halitosis, or
need a new marketing strategy or do they deny or fail to
recognize the existence of the problem?
Next we need to decide whether the essence of
dissatisfaction is general or specific. Will our audience
suffice with any solution that comes along or does
satisfaction depend on fulfilling a specific requirement.
Lastly we must determine if the dissatisfaction is based
on a desire for something or on the avoidance of something.
We may desire an exotic sports car to show-off our wealth
and status to friends and colleagues, or we may avoid
driving a flashy car no matter how rich we are to avoid
showing-up our friends and colleagues.
Once we have analyzed the nature of our audience's
dissatisfaction and the ability of our product or service to
effect change, we can create an effective Web-video
marketing campaign. If your website content doesn't connect
with your audience's desire for change, if you're website
traffic is not motivated by dissatisfaction, then that
traffic is just congestion, not prospects.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About The Author: Jerry Bader is Senior
Partner at
MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in
Web-audio and Web-video. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads,
www.136words.com and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at
info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.
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