Using Color, Beauty, and Words to Increase Your Engagement.

Color sells. Uniqueness engages. Strange attracts.

Bottom line, in today’s world boring may not get you where you want to go. During strategy sessions I try to push people to define their brand in new and exciting ways. Ways that may stimulate new audiences and certainly speak to millennial clientele.

Let’s start with color.

The Manchester Color Wheel fascinates me. It explains why I may feel certain ways in certain situations. Lately I am drawn to pinks and purples. Girly? Maybe. Actually these colors were chosen as either positive or neutral regardless of the moods of those selecting. I could delve more into why these appeal to me individually – but too much to cover there.

Why is color important? Mood is hard to determine. While we can look at all kinds of demographics for potential clients – we can’t determine moods and moods vary on a day to day basis. Therefore, I will always push you to pick design colors that appeal regardless of mood.

Where this gets tricky is that there are 50 shades of blue (sorry I couldn’t resist) and intense shades of blue (blue 25) and purple (purple 17) join the negative color selection group. So even shades and nuances make a difference.

If color choice based on research seems like too much work – then at least understand that grays and blacks and browns (while seemingly contemporary and even popular) are overall looked at as negative colors. If your potential audience is in a bad mood - why not try to engage them with some positive color choices?

Yellow and Blue (specific shades) were chosen as most drawn to and most popular regardless of whether the volunteer was healthy or anxious. So, if your office, restaurant, hotel or other gathering place (yes this includes your website) is gray and black – you may want to opt for an accent color. While color is a personal preference – there is certainly lots to be learned by examining your color choices. And the results show that color itself seems to rate higher than neutrals. I personally think every office needs a splash of blue and yellow and can’t help but wonder if I could do something cool in the dating world (think first date clothing line) with this knowledge.

This may have you shaking your head as you look at today’s interior design world and the obvious focus on grays and neutrals. However, if you examine further you will find these are meant to be a backdrop for color…much like we would recommend a splash of positive color in a gray and black logo.

Uniqueness.

During a recent research session for a potential client I was looking for joint marketing opportunities and was amazed at all the uniqueness…new companies and services I was able to find in a certain geographic region. There is certainly no shortage on creativity and uniqueness in 2018. In fact, I challenge you to think of a business that you feel would be unique and new and then go do the research. I believe it (or something close to it) already exists. One example I found was Rooftop Reds Winery in Brooklyn. I was brainstorming an opportunity for a unique joint marketing event. We know wine is big and we know urban gardening is growing.

Low and behold – there it was…an urban rooftop winery. While I can’t wait to go and personally experience their venue; I encourage you to let this idea inspire you to look for unique ways to gather, market, and share your services. I encourage you to look for unique joint marketing opportunities.

Experiential is still a valid buzzword. Millennials (to the tune of over 56 million) are now fully embedded in the workplace… making up a market you can’t afford to ignore. These millennials work to live – they don’t live to work. So bring “living” into your marketing events. Bring them unique ways to meet and learn new things, while engaging with you and your brand. Don’t be afraid of trying.

Uniqueness sells and millennials are buying.

So what the heck do I mean by strange attracts?

Ok, so strange, funny, emotional. I sort of lump these all together; but heck I am a marketer and I wanted you to keep reading. Gotcha, didn’t I? But it wasn’t just a subtitle.

The reality is that there is no shortage of strange and trending topics that catch people’s attention. One of my favorites to follow is funniest trending hashtags. If you are looking to get people to open your emails, direct mail, or even to follow you on social – get in the know. In fact using a campaign like how not to give the #worstgiftever and explaining all the reasons why your product or service may be the best gift – could help you gain traction. Yes, I may push you to create your #hashtag list – but listen, it’s just because #icare.

Emotions sell. And in fact some of my clients have struggled to identify which emotions to tap into. This is always more difficult in the technology world- because technology is often associated with the dumbing down of emotions. But if you really take your strategy seriously – you can figure it out. Trust me

business people like strangeness and emotions too. They will be the first ones to fall for a cool image that leads to a great blog.

One article suggested that you could bucket most emotions into the following categories: status, reassurance, time or convenience, pleasure and personal empowerment. So let’s take the typical emotional campaign associated with saving you time. There are a million average ways to get that message across. But how strange are you willing to go?

So, let’s say you are selling a technology that helps streamline the decision maker’s job and impact operational efficiency and gets them out of the office in time for dinner. The message falls into the time/convenience category. Instead of a boring email title like – Save Precious Time at Work… focus on the subject line for your next email… Are You Able to Watch Big Bang Theory Reruns Tonight? ... Or are you stuck at the office? Or…

Real Work Keeping You Away From That Game of Solitaire?

You get the drift…focus on whatever latest trend resonates with your personas or may make them LOL. Spend some solid time on the titles and the images that go with then deliver solid content. Getting people to open is half the battle.

Hopefully we’ve sparked your creativity and have you thinking about how you can re-engage your audience. There are so many components to creating strategy…but this is a short list to get you started.

Interested in discussing your marketing strategy or sharing a product, service or idea on #finethings? Hit me up.

Color, uniqueness, and being strange – now those are all #Finethings.