Engineering Perception For Advantage

Do not read this article...

It's probably too much for you to digest.....

I may have gotten your attention with that statement..... and made you quite curious ... you are probably wondering why I would take the time to write an article and ask you not to read it... you are probably getting more curious or quite irritated now... you can't just help it.

Well, if I say that it's an article only to be read by people with an open mind, that is somewhat true, but I can tell you it was not an easy article for me to write and ensure the message is passed as intended without any worries.

If you feel you are up to it, then continue reading and you will later understand why I asked you not to read the article and you will be glad that you ignored me and continued with the article.... a good chance of that happening with an open mind. Now let's get serious.

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Let's start with a story, I love stories...

An old man and a young man were fishing by the lake, the old man with a full basket of recently caught fish, and the young man only had two fish after a full day of fishing by the lake. This scene repeated every weekend for several weeks despite the young man doing his best to mimic the old man's techniques and fishing spots until the young man summoned up the courage to ask for some pointers from the old man.

The old man said, " I know my fish son, I understand the fish in this lake, their habits like where they stay in the morning, afternoon, and evening, also the type of baits that attract them at different times of the day and weather, so I simply follow them and give them the type of bait they want to get the type of fish I need." The young man now understood why he was not successful even though he used the same spots the older fisherman caught lots of fish from. The old man explained the difference in the lake environment, how the dept of the lake, temperature, flow, and other factors affect the choices he makes, and how the fish behave under these situations. With his instruction, he helped the young man fill his basket for the first time.

Many people create wonderful products and services and yet, like the young fisherman, catch little or nothing, then keep pouring money into the product without achieving the effect they wish. Customer acquisition cost keeps rising till it becomes ridiculous, and yet they feel they have no choice but to push ahead. When you get nothing (no results) then you are probably aiming at nothing; when you aim at everything then you are equally aiming at nothing.

As we discussed in the earlier article “hitting your bull’s eye”, your customer model is the ideal target customer who would adopt your product or service without effort in convincing. These types of customers are sometimes called early adopters. This step focuses on the image or perception you want your customers to associate with your product, service, or brand. Your customer model is, therefore, the audience you wish to aim for in your marketing and advertising drive. You don't have to spend a lot of money hiring an expert if you understand some guiding principles you can practice with. As the old man said, "I know my fish" now you do too.

We are all meaning-making machines, every experience, memory, or present action always has meaning. These meanings are always derived from our model of the world, which can also be referred to as our internal reality. Subsequently, these derived meanings feed the laws of our internal realities which are popularly known as values and beliefs which act similarly to various external laws like gravity on everything we see, touch, hear, feel and imagine/think (e.g the belief, everything that goes up will come down). When you hear the phrase "men are from mars", it's a loose reference to internal reality. Internal reality can also be expressed as the lens through which we see the world, if your eye lenses are red, everything will be colored red from your point of view.

It is not inaccurate to say we all live with different internal realities that are similar to worlds/planets in the galaxy or lenses, though unique, still share similarities that make them compatible especially if they have been formed from similar experiences. The key to engineering perception (marketing & advertising), is to understand the internal realities you are targetting and how to influence them by utilizing their own "laws of reality" to achieve your goals ecologically to create the wanted perception in your audience. With this understanding like the old man, you will know where to fish and the baits to use to shape the perception you want.

As we reference our target audience's "laws of reality", an effective pitch or advert should elicit different states/feelings in a particular order in its target audience for it to be very successful. The state we are in dictates how we interact with external information and events, if you are in a non-resourceful state, like anger, disinterest, then you tend to get less productive.

The reverse is also true, once you can elicit the state you wish in your audience, then you are ready. The most important states are curiosity, trust, and motivation. For those that listened to Obama's powerful speech which made him president, most cant remember what was said, but we can all remember how it made us feel till today, the same way our audience we will be engineering will always remember the way we made them feel.

Marketing, advertising, presentations, etc are all about engineering perception to your advantage. It's all about influencing how people see you or your product to get what you want, which is okay so far it's all true, and benefits them.

The 3 important areas you must focus on when marketing your product. (engineering perception) ?

1. Get Their Attention, Get Them Curious - This step is about grabbing the audience's attention, generating interest and desire to hear more about what you are talking about. Usually, there is a very short window to achieve this, so it has to be well constructed and raise the audience's curiosity in seconds. Ever wonder why some of your ads don't get many clicks no matter how long you show them, It's because you need to stand out from the pack, and also need to know if your ad inspires curiosity in the internal reality of your target audience. Standing out grabs their attention, while curiosity makes them listen. When you can elicit a state of curiosity in your audience, they become focused in anticipation. Now you see why I started my article this way.
2. Build Rapport, Create Trust - By leveraging on showing familiarity and similarity trust can be quickly achieved. It must make sense to the audience model of the world or reality model. Should ultimately be very relatable to the target audience's experience, lifestyle, and environment. You need to establish rapport with the audience at this point, to build trust through familiarity and similarity. For example, this step requires you to "speak the language" of your audience in the way your audience communicates, and act in a way that shows an understanding of the lifestyle, and culture of the environment your audience belongs to as much as possible. You want to communicate "I am like you" or "I am one of you" with this step. for example, endorsement ads gain trust by borrowing the trust already established by public personalities like movie and music stars or brands whom their followers trust explicitly.
3. Motivate Your Message - This is all about making sure you tie your message to what is most important to your audience (Values). Your understanding of the core values your audience share, helps you motivate your message and shape their perception without resistance. For instance, if you are marketing your product in a community that believes a lot in interpersonal relationships including when doing business, then connecting your product or brand message in a way that connects your image to interpersonal relationships will be the right way to go in connecting with your audience to motivate your message. Imagine the 'Value' as a car with full access to the internal reality of your audience, meaning it can go anywhere and commands great power over the audience's decisions, your goal is to ensure your message hitches a ride in the front seat of that car which will act as a delivery system. The more important the value is to your audience the more impact your message will achieve.

The internal journey you want your audience/client to go through:

Attentiveness > Curiosity > Familiarity > Trusting > Motivated

You may have noticed the unique way I started this article, and its effect on you the reader, whenever I am presenting, I always follow these principles as well and ensure that my first minutes of presenting focuses on these 3 areas to move my audience from one state to another.

There is a need to understand that this is not just relevant to people that have products to sell, it is also relevant to building your image with people around you. Someone once told me, that these steps helped him with his social life. When out for an event, he dresses in clothes that make him stand out and also selects accessories to act as conversation pieces to create interest (step one). Furthermore, At the start of any conversation, he is always seeking common ground to focus on during the discussion for familiarity (step 2). Finally, he listens for what's important to his guest and makes a connection to it by agreeing with their views (step 3). At the end of the evening, they both agree they hit it off..

The Voice USA coaches like Blake Shelton, are masters of these steps, especially during the blind auditions. They start by getting your attention (by standing up, clapping, etc) fulfilling step 1, then go on to ask you where you are from or what you do, to look for opportunities to show familiarity and similarity between yourself and them fulfilling step 2, then they try to figure out what is important to you by asking you questions like what kind of music do you like, your ambition and insert themselves into the picture of what's important to you, thereby fulfilling step 3. without you realizing it, you are already making a choice you have been led towards willingly simply because all your mental decision-making i's have been dotted and your feelings have been shaped in a short amount of time.

When next you are engineering perception by advertising on the various online platforms and creating your content or creating a presentation or pitch, ask yourself these questions you may be surprised how effective you can become.

1. Does it immediately grab the attention of my target audience? 10 points
2. Does it inspire the curiosity of my target audience to continue watching, listening, or reading? 10 points
3. Is the information provided familiar/relatable to my audience in terms of their environment, culture, and lifestyle? 15 points
4. Does the core message connect closely with one or more shared primary values of my target audience? (remember, values are what's most important to you like family, freedom, love, truth, etc) 15 points

When all these questions are answered by your content, then you can move ahead with confidence that you have engineered the perception you intended, but like every engineering project, it should be tested in a controlled environment to make sure there are no unwanted extras in the perception you generate. Of the total maximum of 50 points, you should aim to score 40 points or more to be very effective.

Most important, you must ensure all your actions are ecological, not giving harm to your audience in any way, and also be less manipulative and more persuasive so your audience know what your intention is, Other than that, its a useful skill that helps all round when mastered and applied responsibly, and protects you from being manipulated unconsciously.

A common mistake made is to try to change the "laws of reality" existing in your audience's worldview. This always results in strong resistance which ultimately fails. Your goal is not to challenge the reality of your audience but to leverage their preconceived beliefs and values to achieve your objectives. If by any remote chance you feel you can't find leverage, then you are targetting the wrong audience.

Next article, I will discuss how to convert perception to value.