Don’t Leave Me ( Design And Brand Positioning Principle Review)
Twitter Nigeria has been agog for weeks now, with the popular and funny "Don’t leave me challenge". Many people have used the platform to show their witty ability to formulate crazy ideas from normal word conjoining.
Don’t worry, this post is not a compendium of jokes to entertain you during this pressure filled pandemic. If you’re a business owner, employee or naturally just curious about design principles, this post is for you!
If you follow me till the end, you’ll know the foundation on which many groundbreaking persuasive content and positioning stands. Yeah, I know if you’ve read my posts on medium, you’ll conclude that "I tend to create solutions around the same circle." (After all,Digital marketing is holistic)
But who can ascribe success to only one principle? Certainly not any serious person!
Let’s begin!
If you must design and position your offerings properly, kindly take note of the following;
1. Attention
2. Education
3. Emotions
4. Trust and credibility
ATTENTION
A simple tip to getting attention should be ;
"At all times, try to make use of pre attentive processing".
It simply means, the subconscious accumulation of information from one’s environment to control where one looks on a page. the page could be a copy, website or content in general.
When things break patterns,they instantly stand out to us. When they don’t break patterns, they sort of fall within the line and become hidden. It is in similitude to the VAN RESTORFF EFFECT. When you want things to be remembered, try to make it more visible. In terms of contrast, size, pattern etc.
Our CTA should be highlighted with the right colors and with the right background. A color wheel can be an effective tool for picking the best color combinations.
Try to avoid the popular red and green marriage. Research has shown that 8% of men are color blind. Although it’s to the red and green combination after all, no one is truly color blind to see only black and white (as movies depict very old/poor/past scenes).
Our CTA button should always be banking on pre attentive processing principle.
If it stands out,it definitely can be memorable.
EDUCATION
You need to get your audience to know what you’re doing or offering even if it’s without the technical knowledge first.
If possible, let the designs simulate the experience of using the product or service.
It needs to be done professionally to evoke liking and preference from the target.
Features tell but it’s the benefits that sell.
So,make sure people are properly educated with a blend of aesthetic and technical information. We need to be sure our clients have atleast a basic understanding of what we’re doing within the first few seconds of encountering our landing page or content in general.
Not all customers will like the same type of information. Some are skewed to the technical side while others are to the pictorial appeal. It’s safe to serve both with a mix.
Recognize that people are getting smarter as time progresses,so we have to adjust where necessary.
Always remember that customer education can be done in various forms and platforms.
EMOTIONS
It is all about our greedy genes and moving them on.
The Hallmark of all brand successes is an excellent customer experience. We all want customers to love and recommend our services or products to others. They’ll do so when we have fulfilled our USP.
What are we promising? What would be their benefits? How can we make them happy when we exchange value? Why pick us when there are others in the industry? Etc.These are the questions that form our unique selling proposition.
In evoking emotional resonance with your target market, we need to position our brand to cater for their covert and overt needs.
Many models motivate people, and have the capability to be properly infused in traditional and digital marketing. But my preference would be in a popular and largely criticized model. The Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of need model.
The model forms;
1. The Evolutionary psychology point of view, and
2. The neurochemical motivational point of view.
How do we evoke emotions and motivate people through this model?
First we have to use 2 variables; the loss aversion ( Where people avoid and feel threatened) , and incentives( people move to get it because it is rewarding and a survival advantage).
A. Psychological Need: The need to recognize that people have basic needs for survival. Insurance firms can capitalize on this to use loss aversion to get people. A negative type of marketing should be employed to capitalize on this need. No one wants to feel left out of the basic necessities personally or within a group.
B. Self Protection/Security Need: Social and environmental threat avoidance. IT security, anti virus firms, self Protection agencies,etc can tap from the human need.
C. Affiliation: The brain naturally releases oxytocin to make us need love. It is a desire to be connected to people. Social interaction triggers it.
Positioning our service or content to serve this need or fire people up can backfire if not done properly. Negative behaviors like territorial behavior and jealousy can come up.
D. Status: Some brands use status as their positioning strategy to get emotional resonance. It can be done by integrating social comparison even in a little or large scale.
Although serotonin is the main neural chemical that underpins this motivation. It can be very dangerous because in a bid to get people to become loyali our brands, we may trigger much of this chemical.
The chemical is associated with lots of mental issue, the feeling or inadequacy, lacking power, lacking control,etc.
Other motivations closely linked to the Maslow’s need model is the mate aquisition,mate retention, and parenting. A brand can position itself to be a solution to all these motivations of man.
We need to position our designs and USP to cater for these needs. Only then can we get their attention.
TRUST AND CREDIBILITY
As humans,we tend to trust and distrust very easily. When individuals encounter any brand(let’s say a new brand) , we are naturally prejudiced to the brand by what we see within the first few seconds.
When things go in line with the prejudiced thought ( be it good or bad), it would create a Halo effect.
You’ll be lucky if it is a positive effect because it would rub off on other of your offerings. People would feel it’s their responsibility to make excuses for you if you eventually get any subsequent shortfalls.
Conversely,if it is a bad impression that was confirmed through your poor service delivery,poor contents,etc. It would form a devil effect. It would be difficult to come out of this situation.
Never abuse the power position when you’re being tested by your target. In positioning your brand as a good one, remember to ;
A. Be honest about your offerings, and
B. Improve consistently with your USP and capacity.
You can deceive your way with tricky psychology and gimmicks,but people talk about every of their brand encounter and can dent your image.
When you have been spoken ill of consistently, it would be an uphill task to prove your credibility. For some firms, it drags them to their death without a fight. And the don’t leave me plea might just be their cry!
Don’t be left out! Make sure you Unlearn, Relearn and learn! Don’t be left out of the biggest opportunity to innovate. Only then would you not be left out.
This is my 9th submission for the mini degree am currently running on digital psychology and persuation from CXL institute. Stay safe everyone!
