The principles of good communication have not changed for as long as human beings have existed.  In fact our exceptional ability to pass information from one person to another is at the core of what makes us human.

Good communicators are differentiated by their ability to relate to their audience on an emotional level.  We choose our partners in life and our friends because we relate to them better than others.  We touch each other emotionally; we are on the same wavelength; we understand each other.

Your ability to relate to your customers, to understand them and to provoke the reaction you want, will define your ability as a marketeer.

You need to get that emotional buy-in in order for your customers to feel compelled to buy your product or service.

If you fail to invoke an emotional reaction in your audience they’ll do nothing.  If you invoke the wrong emotional reaction, more often than not they’ll go elsewhere.

The right product or service, marketed poorly is a waste of your resources and will turn your customers off.

Even worse, the wrong product or service, regardless of how well you communicate it, will really drive them insane.  As a 48 year old being inundated with marketing communications about over 50 plans I can vouch for that!

Good marketeers put themselves in the shoes of their customers in order to understand the impact of their next communication.  If you don’t know your customers this is impossible. 

So take steps to find out:

You can guess, but more often than not, you’ll miss the mark. You may have great news or a fantastic offer to give them, but if they’re not in a happy or positive frame of mind the impact you were hoping for could be lost.

In addition, customers’ moods change very quickly and can be influenced by a number of factors so it’s important that you have a current state assessment at your fingertips when planning any marketing activity.

The best way to do this is to simply ask them. Speak to them or commission some research. 

In doing a current state assessment you may reveal a need to further segment your customers and adapt your style or messages for the best impact. If you don’t check you could potentially communicate the wrong messages and/or in the wrong way to a large part of your audience.

Key influencers are the people within or outside your organisation who can have a positive or negative impact on your success. Within the organisation they may be respected individuals who can capture the attention of people within their sphere of influence. Alternatively they may have an area of responsibility that is an enabler to your success.  Externally they may be existing customers, newspaper reporters, politicians, local councilors or members of a regulatory body – people you may need to work with, have onside or positively influence in order to ensure your own success.

Establishing good relations with key influencers is vital to the success of your organisation.  The challenge is often that there are a great many people who can have a positive or negative influence over your organisation but finding the time to spend getting to know or ‘man-marking’ them is often difficult.

Click here for an exercise to help you identify and prioritise your key influencers.