By lbrowning@hubspot.com (Laura M. Browning)

This pains me greatly to say, but: That typo in your last campaign may have made your audience more engaged.

That’s because in a world where you don’t always know what’s real and what’s AI — and trust in general is in rapid decline — a little tyop indicates that a real human wrote it (see what I did there?).

“We’ve been taught to think about B2B or B2C,” says today’s marketing master, “but I’m actually interested in B2H — there’s a human on the other side.”

Meet the Master

Bryetta Calloway

Founder and CEO, Stories Seen

Claim to fame: Calloway isn’t anti-AI by any means — her company has just produced the MVP of IDA, an AI tool that helps people tell their stories within systems that may have been built without them in mind. “AI is a really great tool to scale your strategy,” she says. “Not replace it.”

Lesson 1: Emotion + Logic = Engagement.

“I always say to start with emotional resonance,” Calloway tells me. “Literally, if you’re building a four-sentence story, start with emotion.”

To find that point of connection, ask yourself: “What did you feel? What did you see? What did you hear?” And don’t underestimate humor — “if you can get your audience to laugh, you have already bypassed the part of the brain that‘s like, ‘I don’t trust this.’”

Now you want to support that emotion with something logical, she says. “That’s a data point, a proof point. It’s something that solidifies the emotion so that the brain can hold onto it.”

“We like emotional resonance, but I need something tangible so that my trust can be solidified,” Calloway explains. And it’s not until you’ve provided an emotional connection and the data or proof points that you’ve earned the right to a product explanation.

The emotion + logic equation works across any channel, Calloway says — “if you combine emotion and logic in any sort of format, you will have exponentially increased engagement with your content.”

So, back to that four sentence story: 1. Emotional resonance. 2. Data or proof point. 3. Product explanation. 4. CTA. Boom.

Lesson 2: Follow the 85/15 rule.

Okay, so there’s a little bit of a caveat to the first lesson.

Emotion + logic should always be your storytelling guardrails, but the ratio may vary from platform to platform. And that’s where Calloway’s 85/15 rule comes into play.

“85% of what you do should be templatized, refined — checking the boxes of your strategic marketing plan,” she says. “And if you’re a marketing leader, you should give your team 15% of that work to play with.” (Cue: Everybody forwarding this to their bosses.)

The point of this is “to be …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron