Marketing to Introverts

by | Dec 15, 2006 | Blog, Marketing

Reading a post on the Businesspundit blog about networking for introverts (via lifehack), I had a major flash of recognition with the first paragraph:

I have a problem. I’m an introvert. I’m not shy. I’m not afraid of being in public. But I am horrible at chit-chat and gossip. If I spend an evening at a social function with people I don’t know or don’t like, I get home and feel like I’ve spent all day at the ocean. It’s that fighting-the-waves and drained-by-the-sun kind of tired. I would rather spend four hours with my head stapled to the carpet. I would be more comfortable that way.

That’s me. Absolutely. I do enjoy meeting new people and spending time with friends, but the minutiae of socializing does not come naturally to me. If you’re an extrovert, you are probably thinking, “What is her problem? You just talk. About anything. It’s easy.”

I have found that introverts and extroverts have a Mars-Venus thing going on. It’s hard for an extrovert to get inside the mind of an introvert and understand where they are coming from. This article by Jonathan Rauch explains it better than I ever could (and might help you understand the introverts in your life better). We’re just hard-wired differently.

This got me to thinking about whether marketers might need to take a different approach to be more effective in reaching introverts, who make up 25-40% of the general population (but 60% of the gifted population!). That percentage is large enough to think about taking the needs of introverts into account in your marketing, even if you are not trying to specifically reach engineers, writers, researchers, lawyers, programmers, college faculty or Star Trek fans, all of whom are more likely to be introverts.

Here are some tips for marketing to introverts (or just dealing with my people effectively):

  • Use e-mail, blogs, message boards and other asynchronous online methods of communicating that allow an introvert to take time to think about what to say, then write and edit a thoughtful response.
  • Be aware when you are conducting research, such as focus groups or interviews, that introverts think carefully about what they are going to say before it comes out of their mouths. If you do not give them enough time to think about their answer, you will miss out on their insights. Use a minimum 5-second rule of silence after asking a question or between other people’s questions to give the introverts a chance to respond before you move on.
  • Do not expect an immediate purchase or change to be made once you have laid out your case. Introverts need time to process information before making a decision, and will wait until we are sure before letting you know. Don’t rush us or put us on the spot.
  • Realize that introverts may have a few close friends, but not necessarily an extensive social network. We may not be comfortable recommending your product to others we don’t know well, but be very happy to have something to talk about with our best friends. You won’t see many introverts with thousands of “friends” on MySpace.
  • Introverts hate small talk. We say what we mean and we mean what we say. And don’t make us say it again. And that means that you should also get to the point as quickly as possible.
  • Introverts love to read, so give us written information we can look over and go back to as we think about it.
  • Introverts may not tell you what we are thinking. Our innermost thoughts are private and not shared easily. Don’t assume that we agree with you just because we are being quiet. But if you give us an opportunity to give you asynchronous feedback once we’ve had a chance to think things over, we can provide lots of thoughtful comments.
  • Introverts are great in one-on-one interactions, but we often clam up in group settings. If a lot of people are talking, we may not be able to get a word in edgewise, or we may feel that what we have to say does not add enough new or interesting content to the conversation and is not worth the effort of speaking up. We don’t like to interrupt others who are talking, and we don’t like to be interrupted.
  • We like to operate independently, not as part of a team. Don’t force us to interact or compete with others in order to participate in your program.
  • Introverts prefer to deal with people we already have a relationship with. Take the time to get to know us and let us get to know you. A blog is an excellent way for an introvert to become familiar with you over time and feel comfortable interacting with you.
  • If you have a product or behavior you want an introvert to try out, let us go off and do it by ourselves rather than in front of someone. We will want to explore and make mistakes with it on our own before being comfortable with someone watching us.
  • We learn best by watching and mentally rehearsing. Provide modeling of the skills we need to develop to be successful.
  • Honor our need for privacy and personal space. Give us the option whether to self-identify as being part of your group or program – we might not want to reveal our participation.
  • Because introverts are more internally motivated, we do not succumb easily to peer pressure or following trends. The fact that everyone else is doing something doesn’t necessarily make us want to do it.

I hope I didn’t come off as a curmudgeon, and I hope I am not making too many generalizations from my own experience assuming that most introverts feel the same way. If you are an introvert, please let me know if these tips ring true for you.

Most marketers and sales people are extroverts. Don’t forget about us introverts and you will be much more successful.

Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish readers! First candle is tonight.

UPDATE (12/18/06): Welcome to my thousands of Reddit visitors and fellow introverts! If you enjoyed this article, please consider donating to my ongoing campaign to raise money to fight modern-day slavery through the American Anti-Slavery Group (see sidebar widget on right). Give someone the gift of freedom this holiday season. Thanks!

Photo Credit: Introspectrum

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Three Rights to Make a Left – Detouring Around Stigma

by | Dec 13, 2006 | Behavior Change, Blog, Social Marketing

Monday’s Wall Street Journal had an article about how some companies are trying to reduce the stigma around the use of flexible work schedules by their female employees through campaigns aggressively pitching flextime to men. It’s somewhat counterintuitive, but it seems to be working.

Some employers are trying to overcome a perceived stigma on flexible work schedules — often viewed as a concession to women — by redefining the issue as a quality-of-life concern for everyone. The approach is gaining traction, especially in the male-dominated financial-services sector, where employers have long struggled to retain and promote women.

Among the techniques companies are testing: highlighting successful men who have tapped flexible work arrangements; encouraging more employees to work from home part of the time; and promoting alternative career paths.

Ernst & Young displayed a 9-foot poster in Times Square as part of a campaign to spotlight successful men who value their personal lives. Lehman Brothers is presenting their initiative encouraging employees to occasionally work from home as contingency planning for a disaster. But ultimately the goal is to destigmatize flex schedules to retain women and recruit younger workers by making the issue gender neutral.

The article includes several tips from human resource experts for removing the stigma, which could also be applied to social marketing programs for issues like AIDS, disability and mental illness (bold is theirs, nonbolded is mine):

  • Use men in promotional materials for flexible-work options – Social marketers should consider using people who are NOT the primary target audience in their imagery to make it seem acceptable to everyone. For example, in a campaign aimed at encouraging people with disabilities to become a volunteer, use pictures of people with different ability levels volunteering so it is shown as something that every person could and should do.

  • Make a business case for telecommuting, such as planning for a disaster – Identify other acceptable reasons for participating in the program or taking an action besides the one associated with the stigma. So in promoting the new HPV vaccine, emphasize the fact that it will protect a teenager from cervical cancer rather than from an STD. Or a college-based mental health screening day (obviously not billed as such) might be trying most to reach students at risk of depression but also reach out to people who are stressed out, not sleeping well, or having problems concentrating on their studies.
  • Customize career paths for all workers, and encourage alternative paths – Show people in different audience segments, including the one you are most trying to reach, how they can benefit from the program or action. Let them figure out themselves what most applies to their situation. Rather than having nature trails specifically labelled as being for people with disabilities (and which trails are appropriate for which kind of disability), highlight the level of accessibility of each trail for everyone to apply to their own situation, including people with strollers or the elderly – e.g., whether it is paved, has uneven surfaces, guide ropes, stairs, ramps, etc.

  • Offer concierge services that simplify life, such as emergency day care – As always, make it easy for people to take the action you are promoting. If they have to go out of their way to do it, it probably won’t happen. An article (subscriber access only) on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal discusses a proposal to screen all pregnant women for the genital herpes virus. Instead of having a pregnant woman bring herself in to get checked, or letting the doctor decide whether someone is at risk or not, it would just be part of the routine prenatal testing she is doing anyways, and the fact that everyone has to have it reduces any stigma to getting tested for herpes.

Though it seems strange to think about directing your marketing efforts to other audiences besides the one you most want to reach, sometimes you have to take a detour in order to get to your destination.

Photo credit: Soferet

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Tag, I’m It!

by | Dec 11, 2006 | Blog, Personal

I really hate the word “meme.” It’s so abstract and academic that you would think it couldn’t be any fun at all. But this is the term that’s used to describe these amusing games of tag that go around among bloggers where you answer questions about yourself and then choose others to do the same.

Ann Handley of the Marketing Profs Daily Fix blog (if you haven’t checked it out yet, you really should – it’s a great community of marketers) tagged me for the latest blogger meme, in which I must share five things you didn’t know about me. I usually balk at sharing these kinds of things (there’s a REASON I have kept them hidden), but since she gave me such a nice compliment, here goes:

  1. I can touch my tongue to my nose. Not a very useful talent, but my mom’s cousin is the only other person I’ve met who can do it too.

  2. My Daddy wrestled alligators as a boy growing up in Miami, raced cars and boats, and worked in the Dolphinarium assisting the vets with the sea mammals. My great great grand uncle (or something like that) on his side was Jim Younger of the Younger Brothers, who rode in Jesse James’ gang.

  3. I sued the Girl Scouts (and won) when I was about 8. It’s a long story, but basically had to do with negligence on their part when I got third degree burns covering my leg at a Girl Scout overnight camp. I had the same burn doctor as Richard Pryor. Got the payout when I turned 18, went on a nice trip to Europe and bought a car. Amazingly, they did not put me on their blacklist for life and let my daughter sign up to be a Brownie.

  4. I wanted to be a doctor all throughout high school and was pre-med in college (until I discovered that with public health I could reach more people and prevent medical problems from starting in the first place). When I was 16, I spent the summer with my uncle and aunt in Atlanta and worked at a medical clinic where my uncle’s friend was a doctor. An ER doc there took me under his wing and taught me all kinds of things like how EKGs work, how to stitch up a cut, how to take a blood pressure, and he let me try drawing blood on him (he was amazingly brave, especially when I accidentally squirted him with his own blood from the syringe).

  5. I have a very strange range of musical tastes. Though the first record I ever bought with my own money was “Donny and Marie’s Greatest Hits,” once I discovered Rush and Pink Floyd I became a closet rocker (none of my friends at the time listened to anything but top 40 and new wave). But my music collection includes everything from Air Supply to Judas Priest to Beethoven (the second movement of the 7th symphony makes me cry every time!) to Ella Fitzgerald to Hank Williams Jr. to Duran Duran to the Bobs to Pearl Jam to Beck and pretty much everything in between.

So there you have it. I have opened the vault. Now it’s time to pass on the fun. I am tagging:

  1. Beth Kanter – because she shares so much knowledge, but I don’t know that much about her
  2. Katya Andresen – because her blog is fun to read, and she seems to have done a lot of interesting things in the past
  3. John Anderton – because I keep learning fascinating tidbits about him, and I’m sure he has much more he hasn’t revealed (besides, he’s just getting his new blog off the ground and needs a little push to post)
  4. Toby Bloomberg – because I would like to get to know her better
  5. Craig Lefebvre – because he’s the one who got me started in blogging

Tag – you’re it!

photo credit: Margie Mueller
(Isn’t this a great picture? I love the negative space between the two shadows – it looks like an upside-down woman throwing her head back laughing.)

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Social Marketing University Returns!

by | Dec 10, 2006 | Blog, Professional Development

I hope you will consider joining me in Washington DC this March, when I will be offering another Social Marketing University training. This is a great introduction to using social marketing to bring about health and social change.

This time I have expanded it to 2-1/2 days, with the last half-day focusing on Next Generation Social Marketing. If you are a social marketer who already knows the basics and are interested in expanding your bag of tricks to include newer marketing methods using social media and other technologies — many of the things I write about on this blog — you can register just for the last day.

Here’s all the important information:

Social Marketing University
March 28-30, 2007
Cafritz Conference Center
The George Washington University

Next Generation Social Marketing Seminar
March 30, 2007, 8:30 am – 12:00 pm
included in registration for SMU
OR register separately for seminar only

Complete information about the agenda and topics to be covered, hotel reservations, registration fees and what past participants have said can be found on the Social Marketing University information page.

The training is co-sponsored by the Public Health Communication & Marketing Program at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Ed Maibach, veteran social marketer and director of the new program, will be speaking at the training, along with other guest speakers to be announced.

If you register before January 31st, you will receive $100 off the regular price. There are also discounts for additional participants coming from the same organization (send your team to be trained!) and a student discount. Seats are limited, so reserve your spot soon.

And, as a special bonus just for my blog readers, use this discount code to get an additional $50 off the registration cost of the full Social Marketing University tuition: SMU50.

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A Different View

by | Dec 10, 2006 | Blog, Miscellaneous


Here is a spectacular view (click link to zoom) of our sun setting over Mars. I was going to make a point about social marketing and taking a different view of the problem you are trying to address. But in the end I decided to shut up and let you enjoy the picture. Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the rovers.

via Wil Wheaton

Badges for Charity

by | Dec 8, 2006 | Blog, Cause Marketing

Katya’s post this morning about Network for Good’s new charity badge widget inspired me to create one for the nonprofit that’s nearest and dearest to my heart, the American Anti-Slavery Group. If you check out the right side of this blog, you’ll see what the badge looks like.

These charity badges allow you to upload photos and write the text, link to a video and fundraise for a nonprofit — either your own or one you care about. If you don’t have a blog or website, you can put it in your e-mail signature. It all goes through Network for Good, so you can feel confident that the donations will get to where they are supposed to go. And you can track in real time how much you have raised, so your donors get immediate feedback that they are making a difference.

The reason why I think these will be so successful is that they are personalized. It’s not just another random plea for charity, but a direct request from someone you know, who can give their specific reasons for supporting the cause. This is similar to the idea behind Buttons of Hope, which employs the slightly lower tech medium of buttons that you can wear to personalize and inspire fundraising.

The one problem I had with the widget is that it kept cutting off my text in the middle without letting me know exactly how many characters I could use, so I had to use trial and error to get it to fit.

So, here’s my more extended plug for the American Anti-Slavery Group, a group I’ve been involved with for a while. Did you know that, by conservative estimates, over 27 million children, women and men around the world are enslaved? They are essentially “owned” by another person. AASG provides direct aid to free slaves and help them reclaim their lives, conducts advocacy, and educates the public about the fact that slavery is not history. What better gift could you give someone than the gift of freedom? If you’re trying to figure out what to get for the person on your list who has everything, think about making a donation in their honor to help a person who has nothing. Give it a click and then make your own badge for your favorite nonprofit.

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