Emotions in Motion: Marketing Strategies that Reach the Heart

Intro VO  00:06

Welcome to revenue rehab, your one stop destination for collective solutions to the biggest challenges faced by marketing leaders today. Now head on over to the couch, make yourself comfortable and get ready to change the way you approach revenue. Leading your recovery is modern marketer, author, speaker and Chief Operating Officer at Tegrita Brandi Starr

Brandi Starr  00:34

Hello, hello hello and welcome to another episode of revenue rehab. I am your host Brandi Starr and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Ellza Malok. Ellza is an award winning cmo who drives businesses into the future. With a data driven and strategic mindset. She has led global marketing teams spearheaded brand transformations and achieved remarkable results. Her expertise lies in developing innovative strategies, leveraging data science and captivating audiences through compelling storytelling. She founded BMG, a psychology based marketing firm that helps brands change hearts and minds through our proprietary approach the butterfly effect. Welcome to revenue rehab, Ellza, your session begins now.

Ellza Malok  01:30

Thank you so much for having me. Brandy. I'm really excited to be here.

Brandi Starr  01:33

I am excited to talk to you. I know that this is one episode where I'm definitely going to learn some new things, which I absolutely love. But before we jump into that, I like to break the ice with a little woosah side moment that I call buzzword. banishment. So tell me, what industry buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Ellza Malok  02:00

You know, I, I come from the data science side. So this is gonna sound a little bit more of an oxymoron. But one word that I do want to banish in the way that it's used is attribution modeling.

Brandi Starr  02:14

Yeah, that one is one that most people don't like attribution just tends to not have a great reputation. So why is it that you don't like it?

Ellza Malok  02:24

So I think that a lot of organizations, the way that attribution modeling is used is in a one to one relationship, meaning one attribution to one sale. And most data is supposed to be directional, you know, given the fact of data privacy and everything that we can use it with, that it's, it's used as a make or break versus a directional aspect, which is the intended use for for a lot of marketing intelligence programs, including masturbation modeling.

Brandi Starr  02:59

I like that. Yeah. And that is, the common challenge is that it is, you know, it assumes that a b2b buyer does this one thing, and then magically, you know, buys this really expensive other thing. And that's not usually how it works. So now that we've gotten that off our chest, tell me what brings you to revenue rehab today,

Ellza Malok  03:25

I am really excited to be here. As I as I mentioned, I'm excited to talk more about the heart side of marketing and the emotions that we bring to our audience, and what strategies we should use to reach the heart of our audience.

Brandi Starr  03:42

Awesome. And so before we jump in there, I believe in setting intentions, it gives us focus, it gives us purpose, and most important, it gives our audience an understanding of what they should expect from our discussion today. So what is your best hope for our talk? What would you like people to take away from listening to this episode?

Ellza Malok  04:04

I would love for people to take a step back and look at their marketing strategies, whether you're a coordinator all the way up to a CMO, or even a CEO that is evaluating how marketing is performing and just say, have we are we looking at this from the right lens? Are we looking at it from the heart of the audience? Or are we looking at it from the heart of ourselves?

Brandi Starr  04:31

Okay, so I want to jump in directly to that heart piece. You know, we always hear like, you know, very common conversation that marketing needs to appeal to the emotion and, you know, really speak to like, what's the real pain point or the need, you know, not about features and benefits, like that's real common conversation at all levels of marketing. But when you talk about the heart, I sense that that It's a little deeper than just, we need to appeal to the emotions. So I'd like to really start by giving us your perspective and like, what does that really mean to speak to the heart of the consumer.

Ellza Malok  05:15

So our organization has pretty extensive research, both from second party and our first party data around, humans behave emotionally. And they use what they deem as rational or data oriented sources, to confirmation bias themselves into their own perceived notions. And you can do one of two things, you can either cry about it and say, well, that's just the way things are. Or you can kind of go meet them where they are, connect with them on a on an emotional basis, and then use your data to confirmation bias themselves into your direction. And and there's a way there's, there's an art to it just as much as there's a science to make that happen. But it does require a lot of internal work within a marketing department to say, Are we are we meeting people where they're at? Are we telling them to follow us along? Hmm.

Brandi Starr  06:20

Very interesting. So talk a bit more about this, because for me, what I really want to understand is the differentiation between what you're talking about at this, you know, deeper level, and the kinds of conversations that, you know, most of us who have been in marketing for a while, have had around, you know, what are they thinking, what are they feeling? What are they need to know, and I know that you've got lots of reset research, and you've got your approach that you leverage for this. So go a little deeper for me and helping me to understand that, you know, what does this really mean for a marketing team? How does this look differently?

Ellza Malok  07:04

I think it starts at the top. So when you're building a marketing strategy, going deeper into the pain points of what does someone experience on a day in day out with this pain point, makes a world of a difference. In some instances, when when when organization does CIPS we actually do character profiles, instead of personas, almost as if you're writing a book about that person. Because you know, you only understand someone if you walk a mile in their shoes. And this is our mode of it. And by by sitting there and saying, oh, okay, this is also the impact. And this is the personal and the business impacts that are occurring. From those pain points, you get a much deeper understanding that everything from the way you talk, and the way you write about it all the way down to how your creatives put pieces together, totally shifts, it's a very, it becomes very introspective versus extra perspective in many ways. Because now your your your, your mindset has changed on how you should talk to them, because you understand their world.

Brandi Starr  08:16

Okay, and I, you know, I you hit on one thing that I do think is often overlooked, that I think is important is those, the personal impact. You know, a lot of times, especially in b2b, we are thinking about our customer as being the business. And this is why, you know, you have people talk about betta h, that it's business to human or B to E business to everyone, you know, that's why these concepts come into play, is that we are a bunch of individuals who collectively have our own motivations. And some of those motivations are personal, in how does this impact my career? How does this impact my day to day? You know, how does this, you know, how does this change how I'm perceived at work, and those are things that I think are much harder to really put our fingers on, we can make some assumptions. You know, there's no like, database, like, you know, a lot of people lean on personas because you can get some of the basics of the demographic and firmographic information. But this level of understanding of what people are thinking and feeling and how they're impacted is something that's not easy to come by. And so how do you write you know, what do you recommend to companies that are like, yeah, it'd be great if we could really think about it this way. But how do I get there?

Ellza Malok  09:48

Yeah, so it starts with doing some market research into your core audience. And in most organizations, you're gonna have one more than one persona. So you know, prioritizing which personas do you Do you feel would be best beneficial for this type of character profile? And and then going down into whether it be focus groups or surveys or whatever access, whatever mode of research you're going to do, there is kind of a series of questions and the questions are less important than the way that they're answered. Because the way that they're answered gives you ideas of what biases does this audience particularly have, you know, if you're a tech company, and you're selling to, maybe a CMO or CTO, there are inherent biases that almost every, every CTO has, they have a, they have a preference on what language they like to use, they have a preference on all of these aspects. So by Lee understanding that world, you you become a part of their community, and say, oh, okay, now you understand the level of the what, why I have this bias or why go through it. And some instances, we've even been able to go down as far as to say, we'll because we know the demographic is this is this point. We know that 1020 years ago, they were facing this, which is a direct byproduct of their current pain points. So we were even able to lean into some from familiarity of their past lives, that we were able to subliminally message moving forward to say, Oh, I'm going to use that joke or that that that play, because I know that they can relate to it, because our demographic just happened to be really tight in one in some of our projects. So I think once you again, I kind of equivalent it back to a book, if you can, if you can write a character profile, that you can say, Okay, here's this person's arc for their story, you get much more personal. And you understand, oh, this is why Jane Doe is doing this. And this is why John, John Smith is doing why it you start to understand the whys of their actions, which helps you way farther in everything from strategy development, all the way down to content creation. Because you you know, the lens you're looking from it's sometimes our team calls it a little bit like fanfiction, like we wrote the book, now we're writing the fiction, but after because it does have that element of continuing storylines, that because we know those characters, so well. Okay.

Brandi Starr  12:29

And so I know just from some of the previous information that you had shared with me that there is a direct impact to doing this well, with coupled with your brand authenticity, and you know, how you want to show up in the marketplace? And so I'd like to kind of connect the two in terms of like, how does this change your organization? How does this help you live your brand? Or how does it change? You know, what does it change?

Ellza Malok  12:57

Yeah, so we put character profiling, brand authenticity, and neuroscience and psychology research, kind of in a triangle, and the three are all is a symbiotic relationship between the three. So doing almost the same work to your brand identity, will actually get you a deeper sense of who you really are. So similar format, but you just do it introspectively versus identifying others gets you an idea of okay, this is who our organization truly is, not who necessarily we want to be. But this is who we are today. And having that level of authenticity to say, here's a little bit of our character flaws. Here's the things that we're good at. Here's the emotions we convey, whether we want to or not, that level of authenticity. And that level of transparency tends to go way further when you couple it, and then even more when you couple it with that character profiling, to say, here's who we are. Good, bad, indifferent, here's who we are. And here's who our audience is, and here's how we want to talk to them. It resonates significantly further, because buyers are, you know, historically, have way more access to data than they've ever had before have show a much more higher level of intelligence when it comes to research. We know that some 87% of them have basically picked out their top companies that they want to partner with with a with a particular initiative before they even contact the organization. So I always look at it from a perspective of everything speaks, and we know how they want to be spoken to they being the target audience, and we know the psychological research and then we also know how you speak. Now you've got a really interesting effect on the three to say you know how people behave you You know what these people want to talk, how they want to be communicated to, and then you know who you are, it becomes much more clear, when you start everything from from strategy to, to conversion. Because you, you have a more predictable model to say, I can empathize with that behavior.

Brandi Starr  15:23

Okay. And so I want to dig a little bit more, because I'm really intrigued about what you're saying in terms of bringing forth the brand's personality, the good, bad and indifferent. And I love that you phrased it that way. Because I know, in general, if you look at most marketing material, whether it's websites, collateral, emails, whatever, it focuses on the good, you know, that is what everybody wants to bring forth, here is why we're great. And the bad, you know, most people want to tuck away, and the indifferent is kind of there, and we just don't highlight it. And I do believe, you know, I like to use a lot of dating analogies, and I think about, you know, choosing a company like looking at, you know, dating profiles and figuring out which way you're going to swipe, it's like something has to come through in terms of who is that person and in this case, who is that brand, and that transparency, like I think about, you know, the transparency that comes across in someone's dating profile is actually attractive, because you recognize they're not putting forth a front, it feels like that's a whole lot harder to do, and to get people comfortable with because, you know, even thinking about how I could write that way. Like, it's not that difficult to, you know, write with transparency, but being able to, like get that approved through the various, you know, cycles of, well, we don't want to say that because we're not stellar here, or we don't want to say that because it, you know, paints us in this light, when you're working with your clients, how do you advise them? Or what sort of ways are you seeing that people are able to put that level of transparency about who they are, as an organization, out in the marketplace, without, you know, that fear of we got to appear perfect.

Ellza Malok  17:20

I think that, in, in our instance, with our clients, the way that we've used it is finding a balance between being transparent. And, and but still showing that we're, they're a very capable organization. And in almost all instances where our clients have potentially refused to go down that route, versus the ones that have the ones that have are doing, you know, somewhere between 15 and 20%, better than the ones that don't, because there is something to be said about being open to say, if this is your problem, we don't actually do that well. So it's better for us to tell you now than for us to lose you six months down the line, because we didn't solve your problem, specifically for b2b Because I think b2c has a different, slightly different emotional basis, and longevity feel. But for the b2b, if you're going to be in a long sales cycle, which is a lot of our clients, you really want to make sure you don't lose them within, you know, a year or so, because it took you a year to gain them. And now not only because the other part is we have this, we have this, you know, post close, or customer lost effect where the moment you lose a customer, they're probably going to tell 10 other people, yeah, they lost them. So now you've also lost the opportunity to connect with any of theirs, because you've broken their trust by just not being honest in the front and the forefront. And there is a timer placed on what levels of transparency at what medium. So you do have to play that dance a little bit. When what we found is the further down the process you go, the more transparent you have to become. Because they they are also being transparent with you. You're building a an emotional capital with them, and you trade vulnerabilities. And that's a really good way to build emotional capital as they tell you what they're vulnerable with. They tell you their pain points, they tell you what they are looking for. So it's only beneficial for you to say, this is what we do well, these are the things we don't do so well. And if any of those are your deal breakers, then we know now versus you know spending time and then realizing your close rate is not as great as you'd like it to be because you weren't as transparent, so it's really all about building that emotional capital as you go down the sales funnel, as well.

Brandi Starr  20:06

Okay, yeah. And it, what I'm hearing is that this approach is really important at both the marketing and you know, or within the marketing and sales functions. In that we've got to be able to put everything that we're putting out there have the right level of vulnerability and transparency in it based on where they are. But given that we've got to have more of this further in the process, it's like, you've really got to get sales on board, which is counterintuitive to your stereotypical sales motions, where, you know, like, if I think about sales folks in like the 90s, and the early 2000s, it very much was a tap dance of like, let me just tell you why we're great. You would never, especially in tech, you know, have a vendor be like, Oh, we're not great in this area, like, it was very much close everything, you know, that you can. So it's like that, that approach has to really be woven into the organization. And I think that that ties back to what you were saying in Who are you, as opposed to Who do you aspire to be? Because it's like, if this is who you are, then everybody needs to be able to effectively communicate that.

Ellza Malok  21:30

Exactly. And it's it, there is a balance between you know, what your vision is, right, say, we want to be this company at some point. But you still have to say, this is where we are right, you know, you can't, for lack of a better word, you can't turn, you know, a little Chevy Aveo, which is what I used to have, when I was in college, too, you know, a luxury car, that, that that's not the type of transformation that's feasible, in a very short period of time. However, you can say, Okay, this is where we are today, here's our 10 year aspiration, but here's where we're at, here's the next step for us. And there's a lot of interesting product lead growth initiatives that can help you with that, where you can steal some of those scenarios, in your messaging, even if you're not using a product lead approach, in its entirety, as well.

Brandi Starr  22:25

Yeah, and you know, even just thinking about, you know, our business and like their, as consultants, we, you know, we are not the end all to be all, like we have our places where we shine, we have those places where it's like, yeah, we can do that. That's not our core expertise. And then those like, Yeah, we don't touch that. And I can even think of times where I have told a prospect, like, that's not where we are amazing, like, We're amazing here, we can help you there, we can, you know, collaborate with another vendor to help you there. And they've, you know, I'm thinking of a particular scenario, they didn't sign with us, because they did need, they wanted a single agency to cover, you know, more swim lanes than we could, but I later got a referral from that person who had referred someone else. And, you know, I didn't think about it, then because, you know, hadn't really had this thought process. But now that I'm thinking about it, that transparency of being able to say, here's why, you know, here's where we're amazing, and probably not for you, you know, because you need one of the deal breaker kind of things using your wording from earlier, I am making an assumption that that is probably what led them to refer someone because they had never worked with us had, you know, no, real true experience other than the sales process. So that's really interesting. And definitely I see a potential outcome there. Yeah. So where are your clients are really successful? I know, you said the ones that really adopt this approach are doing, you know, 25% better? What does that really look like? Like I always like to focus on, you know, because any sort of transformation within an organization comes with effort. And so it's like, why do we embark on this effort? And so what are some of the business outcomes that when you really, you know, build that authentic brand, put the emotion you know, really understand the customer and their character? What does that do for a business?

Ellza Malok  24:41

So, there is there's, there's a balance between having intrinsic value built on as well as revenue value built on and we try to balance the two to say, these are long term projects where the revenue won't come until probably A year three to five. And here, here's the, you know, 18 months to three years. And then here's the short term. So we do try to balance the two, I would say for our, for our startup, more younger clients, it's the difference between, you know, doubling revenue year over year versus the 15 to 20%, that they were having previously, if you're a larger organization, that's a much bigger ship to turn. So there's a longer, you know, tenure that we have to kind of manage. In some instances where we've taken over maybe entire channels. For them, we've seen that really spike quite drastically because of the way that we've we've compound it. If we're doing more top level or research, I had one client who came to us and we had we, we decided to do all their creative moving forward, because that was one area that they really struggled with, in creating emotionally captivating and triggering pieces. And it took us about three months to actually start a creative piece because we had to go all the way back. And then we had to meet to a point where we felt comfortable generating content for them. And with that, we ended up doing several proposals on their behalf for for this long term, RFP that they're going into, and they have probably a 40% Higher close rate than they've had before because of that, just just the creative aspect, nothing else has changed in their organization. In fact, they have less opportunities than they've had before because of, you know, concerns about the economy and so on. But they've been closing way faster. And on a much better rate, just from the visual perspective. So there, we try to kind of say, Where are the areas we can make impact because similar to you, there are things that we don't do like we're we're not, we operate on hearts and minds. So technical pieces outside of data science are not really our skill set. So we'll say here's, here's context that you can go to that we've, we've worked with in the past. But so when we try to carve our pie, we say this is the area that we think is going to make an impact. Because it doesn't really make sense for us to take a piece of a slice, if we know that we've compartmentalized this pie so much, that we're not going to make a dent. Right.

Brandi Starr  27:29

And so the last thing I want to ask about, I know you have this butterfly effect approach, and I've been dying to know what is that so can you kind of give me the summary of what that approach is and why you developed it.

Ellza Malok  27:44

So we've kind of talked about pieces of it. And the way that the butterfly effect works is really those strategic movements, that marketing and really any area of an organization moves and how they impact behavior. It's a lot around, if you think about the ripple effect, I, I dropped a stone in the middle of the water and you see the ripples kind of go through. It's that mindset of of doing things way earlier, and building that emotional capital slowly. A really good scenario is the one that you mentioned, where you told you told the prospect that this is not what you do, and then later on you, you've got a referral out of it. It's that emotional build, build that we work through. And our psychology research shows us that this journey is much far it's way deeper than the funnel. There's a there's a subliminal side that is inherently built. And that's actually what shapes biases and perceptions. So we work on that level as well. And then start from that point all the way down versus necessarily what's what's traditionally used as the awareness stage. If you've gotten to the awareness stage, someone's already formed an opinion about you. Right? So we want to get to a point where we determine the opinion before the opinion is formed. Okay,

Brandi Starr  29:13

I didn't say so. So interesting. I love it. I think probably my favorite part of hosting revenue rehab is just the amount that I learned from my guests. So this has been really, really awesome. And talking about our challenges is just the first step and nothing changes if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapist gives the client some homework, but here at revenue rehab, we like to flip that on its head and ask you to give us some homework. So for those that are listening, and you know, they're really what you're saying is really resonating with them in the need to tap More into the emotion of both their company and their target audience. What's the first step? What's your one thing where do you You recommend people start?

Ellza Malok  30:01

So I think it starts from from the internal team, like if you're investigating this, do a sample within your existing team of how they they personally perceive it's going. Because I think that a lot of marketers inherently No, there it is, but there may not be tangible data to prove it, because they're not measuring at that point. That's a really good stage. And a lot of our clients, we've seen that were there, their team feels validated with some of the information we've brought through because they may feel it and they see it anecdotally. But they just don't have the the business case to bring something forward. I think that's a great first step to say is, how are we how are we? How do we think we're doing? Excluding the numbers? What are what is our perception of our how our clients are behaving in? Are we reaching the line The line, and it's obviously done in a personal, enclosed environment? And creating that space for authenticity within your team? And then go from there, like, understand where where things are? If if, depending on what the feedback is, because sometimes the feedback is, we're doing great, but you have to continue to ask, right? Because you may not have an ecosystem of people saying we should change XY and Z, or I think we're doing this wrong. So it's that continuous aspect. And I have had some clients that may not have gotten an answer until three months of asking every every, because there's just that hesitation of not rocking the boat. And then I have had some where they've been very vocal on day one. So you just don't know what bag, what mixed bag you have.

Brandi Starr  31:48

Okay, I love that as a good starting point. Because that's, that's an easy next step, or first step to just start to talk to your team. Because there probably are probably are things that they are seeing that they're like, Oh, we could totally do better here. Or, you know, I feel like I've even seen some things with like, some of the brand guidelines and standards, it's like, oh, we do this, because this is what, you know, we're told we have to, but really, you know, we feel like this would be you know, a better voice or whatever. So, I do think that that's a great starting point. So now everybody's got their one thing. And that's to talk to your team. And to start to get that insight. Well, I have enjoyed our conversation. Ellza so much. But that's our time for today. But before we go, how can our audience stay connected with you?

Ellza Malok  32:45

Um, so easiest way to connect with me personally, is LinkedIn. My URL is just my first and last name alza Malik. If you want to connect more, just read more insights on the butterfly effect or any of our research that's available at Blue monarch group.com under the butterfly Chronicles, where we have insight and tips and so on. And yeah, I think that's a good way. But thank you so much. This has been a lovely conversation. I've really enjoyed it.

Brandi Starr  33:17

Awesome. Well, we will make sure to link to your LinkedIn as well as BMG. So wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, check the show notes. And you'll be able to connect with Ellza, I have thoroughly enjoyed this discussion. You've given me some things to think about. So I really, really appreciate you taking the time to come to the couch today. So I hope everyone has enjoyed my discussion. Can't believe we're already at the end. We will see you next week. Bye. Bye. Thanks, Brandi, take care. 

Outro VO  33:55

You've been listening to revenue rehab with your host Brandi Starr. Your session is now over but the learning is just begun. join our mailing list and catch up on all our shows at revenue rehab dot live. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at revenue we have. This concludes this week's session. We'll see you next week.