Which title works best? How long should the text be?
These are just some of the questions that tend to crop up in marketing groups on social media or that we, as marketing professionals, often receive from our clients.
When people ask their questions in public, more often than not, we see lots of people answering. Including people who know nothing about the person or business in question. And worst of all: they don’t know who the target audience is. Knowing the target audience is the single most crucial thing when it comes to answering questions like these.
If you work with the solution, I’m about to introduce, answering all questions about marketing will be a piece of cake going forward. The solution is called Emotional Client Types and was developed by the company of the same name. It’s based on Sanne Dollerup’s thesis, ENGAGING THE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE, written at Aalborg University.
This model divides all clients into four different archetypes. The idea is that the business chooses one of these archetypes and tailors the marketing to this group. If need be, products can be adjusted and further developed to suit a particular client type.
This model makes it easier for clients to decode the core message presented by the company. In turn, this makes it easier to attract the right clients.
Let’s return to the questions at the beginning.
Which title works best?
Depending on the client type, the title could be:
- Discover our secret stock
- Find out how I messed up when I last bought new clothes
- Nail the professional look with the new suit from Hugo Boss
- Get a thorough consultation for your local shop right now
The titles speak to the four different client types:
One wants to be surprised. Two wants to get to know the sender. Three wants success. Four wants to know what it is that they’re buying.
Whenever they get in touch with us, our clients must receive what our marketing promises. Whether they visit our physical shop, or website, or give us a call.
If we promise surprises, it won’t do to bore our clients.
If we promise personal contact and signal that we want our clients to get to know us as people, it creates disharmony if their interactions with our staff are very closed and formal.
If we promise professionalism, our business needs to appear professional across all platforms.
And if our marketing claims that we provide thorough consultations, our unicorn employees have to know their stuff and have time to consult.
The neat thing about the model is that it all comes together naturally. We know how long the text should be depending on which kind of client type we choose to target.
Choosing the right text
And we also know that the type who wants to be surprised prefers as short a text as possible, so they don’t grow bored. If you can throw in audio, video, or moving elements when they least expect it, that will further stimulate this client type. Surprises and avoiding boredom go hand in hand.
Those who want to get to know the sender need that process to permeate the whole text—not just the title. The content length doesn’t matter, so long as it’s personal and easy to understand. If they can tell they have a lot in common with the sender, that’s positive. That’s what they buy into you and me—together.
If you’re selling to the client type that considers itself professional, all your material, text included, has to be professional and show both results and efficiency. Time is money, so be brief and make it clear to the reader what they stand to gain from reading your material and working with you. Sometimes you have to write longer content. In these situations, it’s crucial to stay professional because you’ll lose the reader as soon as you incorporate a personal anecdote or anything else they see as irrelevant.
The last client type buys into thoroughness, so they want to know everything. When they do their research before making a purchase, they read the complete product description and all the available reviews. As long as there are no mistakes, no text is too long. The only thing that matters is that they get the information they want and that you guide them towards purchasing.
The Key is Choosing the Right Type
Those of us who are certified in emotional client types have particular guidelines for communicating with the different types. And when we find ourselves in a situation that hasn’t considered these instructions, we can predict what the different types want and what repels them because we know them and the model is logical.
The system only has one drawback, and that is its simplicity. The model is so simple that people think they can use it without having gained a thorough understanding of it. Unfortunately, we often see people decide which type they want to target based on one blog post, a single lecture, and so on. And that’s problematic. It’s practically dangerous. When you get it right, you get it really right—but the same is true for getting it wrong. So, choosing the wrong client type can end up scaring away your existing clients. And if your product isn’t fit for your chosen client type then who’s left?
The choice of client type is too complex to cover in a single blog post. But you can read more about the Ph.D. that the client types are based on right here:
https://www.majbrittlund.dk/dokumenteret-viden-giver-dig-en-staerk-konkurrencefordel/
(written in Danish)
About the author
This article was created by Majbritt Lund. She has a journalism degree and has been running her own communications company since 2007. She consults, teaches, and writes marketing texts targeted at emotional client types. Her focus is on website content, SEO, and email marketing. In the summer of 2017, she became one of the first five people in the world to get certification in emotional client types from Emotional Client Types. She’s also the author of multiple sales and marketing books.
