How Marketing Relates to Dating
The idea that most people don’t know what they want is most evident during our first years dating.
Many people experience this…
They get their heart broken and they plead to understand why everything turned out the way that it did. And worst of all, no one knows why. Not even the heart breaker.
You see, most times the young heart-breaker has no clue why their feelings went away. They can tell you it was because of x or it was because of y, but the truth is, they often just don’t know.
In fact, any answer they tell the heart-breakee will be misleading. And the reason they believe they lost feelings will change from week to week.
And so it is with the psychology of buying…
The Psychology of Buying And Attraction
Most people can’t tell you what makes them buy. They think marketing doesn’t affect them. The truth is, most people have no idea just how impacted they are on a subconscious level. When I say subconscious… I’m going to make sure this is clear…
The effect of good marketing affects people on a level they’re not consciously aware of. That’s what makes great marketing so effective.
For example, why do most people think a diamond is worth so much money? I’ll answer in a second but first…
Back to the dating example…
You’ve heard the phrase “nice guys finish last”, right?
Now, there’s a lot of confusion that goes around this quote. Most women will agree they don’t want a jerk, they want a nice partner. However, most women can also reflect back to their choice of dating partners and recall a time they lost attraction because they felt someone was just too nice.
So what gives?
After some time, most women finally start to grasp what they really want in a partner. They realize that…yes… they do want a nice partner, not a jerk (so they were right in that)…
But what they soon notice is that a lot of nice guys tend to be doormats and way too eager to please. In other words, the reason the jerk seems to cause more attraction is not because they are a jerk, but because they often exude a lot more confidence than nice guys.
What happened here is that after some experience and reflection, women become more aware about what really causes attraction. And it’s more complex than our inexperienced mind thinks.
Now of course, because this isn’t a dating blog, I’m being overly simplistic, but how does this apply to marketing?
The Importance of Influence in Good Marketing
At the end of the day, effective marketing is about learning how to influence complex human nature. In the same way dating involves understanding complex human nature, effective marketing is the same. The difference is that most people seek to understand their dating life while most people people will go their entire life not thinking twice about why they decide to buy things.
The average person likes to think they’re a logical person. They’ll tell you “I simply bought because it’s a good product.” Just remember this…
…in the dating world, “I simply bought because it’s a good product” is equivalent to a woman saying “I like nice guys.”
Or even worse… “A good product should sell itself.”
If only we lived in a logical world…
There’s so much more to it. There are so many example of products that initially weren’t successful because the marketing message sucked.
For example, the iPod was not the first mp3 player, but it sure became the most popular. Steve Jobs knew the power of marketing when he crafted the sticky slogan “1000 Songs in Your Pocket.”
Back to the Diamond example…
In 1888, the diamond industry was struggling. Prices were dropping and the few mine owners still standing had to do something to save the industry. The superhero of this story is a company called De Beers who linked diamonds to romance. The story they advertised is that men should “invest two month’s salary” to prove their love. And the story was received because of De Beers’ ability to hit an emotional hotspot. Diamonds are actually not rare at all. And the slogan “A Diamond is Forever” is technically not true. The inherent value isn’t much.
However, a story well told permeates our culture and is accepted without even thinking twice. Most people will die never questioning the actual value of a diamond.
Logical? I’ll let you answer that.
Complex Emotions Rule the Day
A reason I find marketing and sales so fascinating is because it highlights how largely emotional humans are. And emotions tend to be complex and sometimes seemingly irrational. A beautiful thing.
Some people will argue that De Beers is unethical, but the truth is that some people are happy to have stories like this permeating our culture. After all, no one is forcing anyone to buy a diamond. People willingly buy into the hype just like people happily choose to go to expensive restaurants knowing that they can make the same meal at home for a lot cheaper.
If you agree that there’s a beauty to the complex emotional nature of humans, subscribe! A great way to appeal to the complex emotional nature of humans is through story and that’s the focus of this publication.
