We’ve all experienced marketing campaigns that aim to instil fear. They communicate fear because the marketers are fearful themselves. Panic selling creates panic buying, in the unlikely event it achieves anything. Without fear the marketer introduces their market to trust and tension.
Trust, Tension and Action
To sell you need to build two things: trust and tension. No-one buys from you if they do not trust you. But equally they won’t buy if they do not experience some tension, something they need and feel they lack.
Ideally, you build tension as you build trust. The tension part is an obligation on your part, if you offer something of real value. If you know people benefit from your offer.
How do you build trust? You cannot take action and build tension without trust. Usually trust grows as you take action. As you build tension in your audience, you build trust because you take action.
To build trust you take action
To take action you create tension
Taking Action
- Think of a positive experience of marketing (it could be yours or anyone’s). How did they build tension between “That’s what I want” and “I don’t have it yet”?
- How do you take action to create tension?
- Why should people trust you?
Your Marketing Design
The tension between “That’s what I want” and “I don’t have it yet” is old-school marketing. Our challenge is to build trust and tension but there is more to it. You must design your marketing strategy to take into account things like:
- Pricing and other package details
- How you engage with prospects and customers
- The design of your service
- The story you tell
Your aim is to change your market’s story. You want people to view the status quo in a different way; to see your offer as an alternative to standard offers. You seek to bring change. Change requires action on your part and that action creates tension and builds trust.
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