If you are spending money on marketing, you need to have your facts straight. We are here to help. It is easy to hear a bunch of rumors and or myths about marketing and what its all about. We are now debunking 5 marketing myths.

1. You need to create content that everyone can relate to.

If you can create content that EVERYONE can relate to then you are one of a kind. Not everyone has the same viewpoints, thoughts, ideas, and likes and that makes it impossible to create content for everyone. If you’re trying to appeal to everyone, you are probably reaching no one. Instead, think about your audience and what makes them unique. Create a persona based on current customers, and think about that single persona when you are writing.

1. Content marketing is just blogging.

Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. Although blogging is a huge part of content marketing it is not the only thing. There are many other engaging types of media you can create, like videos, ebooks, interviews, case studies, success stories, and so much more.

1. Marketing is an art, not a science.

SURPRISE! It’s both!! Marketing is just as much as a science as much as it is an art. Yes, marketing teams do a lot of designing and creating but before doing those things it is important to know the numbers on how those things work! For more detail on this point read more here.

1. Only marketing professionals can create content.

False, false, false! If you’re an expert in your subject and you are focused on your audience, you can create marketing content. Having different kinds of content coming from different departments of the company can be beneficial to a company. Overall, you do not just have to be a “marketer” to create content.

1. Sales and marketing dont mesh.

The biggest marketing myth right here is firmly being debunked. Sales and marketing should and do mesh!! Sales know first hand the question and problems both them and the customers struggle with. Marketing can also help sales in many ways as well. Check it out here!

If you are interested in something look into it and learn about it and make sure you avoid the myths!

The following is an actual text message exchange between my brother and I.

I know what you’re thinking. Who talks about email subject lines with their siblings? My brother works at Constant Contact and I own an inbound agency so this is something that happens. And yes, he did change the subject by telling me how excited he was to have just purchased his first squatty potty.

After this exchange, I knew it was just a matter of time before my favorite daily email had this same idea. A few weeks later, this happened:

TheSkimm is totally inside my head, and I love it. When I read their emails in the morning the voice that I read it in is the voice of my best friend. It sounds like we’re in college studying for an exam on current affairs and having a blast while doing so. They are such a perfect example of knowing your audience.

Mailchimp (sorry brother) posted a blog a while back about how they get to know their target personas. After gathering data from actual users, they created a handful of their target personas. But then they took it a step further. They created posters of each persona, complete with a portrait of them surrounded by a bunch of adjectives about that persona. They printed the posters and hung them up in their headquarters, so they are always thinking of them.

It just so happens that their “power user” persona has very similar characteristics to those of my husband and business partner, Fred. They even have the same name.

When he saw this, he was the opposite of creeped out. He was excited to see that the brand behind a product he loved, really knew him.

So how do you get inside the head of your target personas? Simply put, you have to listen. And I mean, not just listen, but like really listen. It’s not enough to know their age and income level, you have to get to know their struggles, passions, and even their language quirks.

When you meet with a great prospect who would be an ideal client for your company, take really great notes. Write down their questions word for word, and even pay close attention to the subjects they bring up that are unrelated to what you offer.

Put together a survey and send it out to your best clients. Encourage authentic, well thought out answers. Ask the people you know really trust you so that you know they’re 100% authentic.

Here are some tips from a HubSpot blog post for creating buyer personas.

• Look through your contacts database to uncover trends about how certain leads or customers find and consume your content.
• When creating forms to use on your website, use form fields that capture important persona information. For example, if all of your personas vary based on company size, ask each lead for information about company size on your forms.
• Take into consideration your sales team’s feedback on the leads they’re interacting with most. What generalizations can they make about the different types of customers you serve best?
• Interview customers and prospects, either in person or over the phone, to discover what they like about your product or service.

These are some great guidelines, but it’s up to you to take it even further like TheSkimm and MailChimp do. Become obsessed with you buyer persona and get inside their head.

Have you ever been on Kickstarter, seen something super cool, but still didn’t buy it? Have you ever come SO close to submitting your credit card info, only to remember that you don’t actually need a panini press that toasts a picture of Jesus into your grilled cheese?

This isn’t one of those almost stories. This is a story of a product I purchased and what got me to support the product.

Yeah, me too. So much so, I became backer 170 out of 601. And it wasn’t because this Kickstarter campaign came from my hometown.

But why did Yesler Apparel‘s video get me to join 600 other people to become a backer? And all for a hoodie?

The story.

The second I was introduced to a compelling narrative, I was hooked on the campaign. I had to watch their video until the end–and I was sold before the end of it.

You’ll find that there’s a lot of interesting neuroscience behind storytelling in marketing and how all of that is more convincing than a sale price, or some great photography of the product.

Studies show that stories engage more of the brain than facts and figures. Facts only engage two areas of the brain, the Broca area and the Wernicke area, whereas stories engage those parts, but also much more.

Some of the other parts of the brain that are engaged by storytelling are the motor cortex, sensory cortex, and the frontal cortex.

Our brains are built to connect with compelling stories, and its been one of the most fundamental communication methods.

Storytelling is a way to plant thoughts, ideas, and emotions into the listener’s brain without either person realizing it. So your experience is transferred to the listener, and they experience it too.

“While the brain watches a story, you’ll find something interesting—the brain doesn’t look like a spectator, it looks more like a participant in the action,” said author, Jonathan Gottschall, in his book The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.

According to a study by researchers in Spain, more of the brain is engaged when descriptions using the senses are referenced. A few examples of this would be, “he had leathery hands,” or “she had a sultry voice.”

Descriptive language appeals to all of the reader’s senses and is specific. This is a way to show details rather than tell them to the reader via touch, taste, smell, sound, and looks. They are descriptions and details about a subject that your audience will remember and make them experience what your character or characters are experiencing.

One author example is Douglas Adams, most famously known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which is chock full of his clever and quirky descriptions. “Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green plant whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” – from the beginning of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

And another author known for his descriptions is Neil Gaiman, who is most known for his novel, American Gods. “I remembered being just-sixteen, and kissing red-cheeked, fair-haired Callie Anders, who lived there, and whose family would soon move to the Shetlands, and I would never kiss her or see her again.” – from the novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

The brain releases dopamine when it experiences an emotionally-charged event which makes you able to remember it with more accuracy.

Its how our brain is wired. When stripped down to its skeleton, a story is a cause and effect.

We think this way.

So how do you make use of our biological wiring?

You take the time to tell a story. It doesn’t need to be complex with lots of layers. It just needs to be something with details that people will hold on to.

Yesler’s Kickstarter campaign accomplished telling a story that compelled me to purchase their product.

The best marketers have figured this out, and they use some stellar storytelling in their campaigns.

What makes people want to share? These viral marketing campaigns have figured it out. If you tap into a user’s emotion, they naturally want to share your work.
 

When a user experiences a strong emotion, it is natural for them to want to share that emotion. Here are a few viral marketing campaigns, and the emotions that they tapped into to get their work shared.

Amusement

A set of quirky commercials from Old Spice took off after their original 2010 Super Bowl spot. While I’m not a consumer of their product, this is a memorable commercial for how ridiculous every beat of this punchy script is.
 

 
This series of commercials were memorable in promoting a specific product. They are using humor to make their product memorable and, more importantly, shareable. When someone watches something that they are amused by, it’s natural for them to want to share that amusement with the people around them, which is why this video in particular reached 12 million views in 6 months. It has 51 million views to date and it was posted almost 5 years ago. Taking a look at the comments on the YouTube post, the viewers are all conversing and sharing… still, almost 5 years later

Shock

As promotion for the movie Carrie in 2013, a coffee shop in NYC was rigged to make it seem as if a customer had telekinetic powers, just like Carrie. Watching this video for the first time, it’s hard to not have a physical response to it. The viewers tend to feel a portion of the shock and fear that the coffee shop patrons are feeling.
 

 
A video like this makes people say, “Oh my gosh, I gotta show this to so-and-so,” so that they can share what they just felt.

Pride

Dove has spent less time promoting their products, and more time focusing on positive beliefs in relation to body image and self-perception. Their first campaign was Real Beauty Sketches, which explored self-perception versus external perception. They’ve continued to explore perception through their Self-Esteem Project.
 

 
All of the videos in the Self-Esteem Project reinforce the company’s vision “of a world where beauty is a source of confidence, and not anxiety.” These campaigns support their mission of positive self-esteem for children. As more and more people understand the importance of this mission, they share videos like these out of pride. They are proud to support these views and they want the world to know.
 
These viral marketing campaigns all focus on emotions, and they’re unique and memorable. Each production started with a goal, and that goal was to make their viewers feel something. If they are successful in reaching that goal, the shares will come naturally.