I like reading. Give me a good book and I’ll power through the book in a few days usually. But give me a business book and I’ll postpone it for ever and ever, only reading a few pages at a time. I just find them too boring and hard to read due to the lack of story telling.
Buuuut (you probably sensed this coming), once in a blue moon, I’ll find a book I’ll really, really like. Recently, this has been „Surrounded by idiots” by Thomas Erikson, a book I received as a gift, but that I would have certainly bought on the title alone.
In a nutshell, the book talks about the four main types of human behaviour, based on the DISC profile. The author presents the 4 different personalities types, also including what makes them tick, how to give feedback and what stresses each one. This also got me thinking about marketing – what can we do adapt our communication to each personality type, also called personality based marketing?
The four types of personalities
Long story short, there are four different personality types and according to the author, about 80% of people have a combination of two colours that dominate their behaviour, approximately 5% are dominated by 1 colour and the rest are dominated by three.
They all have their good/less good sides and honestly, by looking at the table below, I think you can pick the positives and turn them into negatives – or the other way around. For more details on each personality, check out each chapter from the book.
For the sake of brevity, I will go on and try to comprise the essence of each personality, bearing in mind that since most people are dominated by two or three colours, a combination of sales techniques and messaging will work best. So here’s how to plan your personality based marketing strategy for each of the four.
Marketing to a Red personality
Reds care about winning
Reds don’t like details. They are time conscious – so you know that complex presentation you’ve prepared? They don’t care about it. If you’ve identified a red character, hit them with messages that are short and sweet, capturing the essence.
Reds are also ambitious and results oriented, so your marketing needs to be focused on KPIs and ROIs. What are they going to achieve using your services? How are they going to perform better and faster? How will that make them win, because everything for them is a competition.
Here is a sample message that will appeal to Reds, via Adespresso:
Marketing to a Yellow personality
Yellows care about themselves
Yellows are entertaining and outgoing. They like new things, so what you need to them is how innovative your service is. What are the cool features they can only find in your services/products? What will help them look cool?
In the adoption curve, yellows will be the early adopters, the one who are willing (and eager) to test out new things. They’re creative and inspiring, so they’ll love the stuff they can inspire other people with. Pull out those storytelling techniques for the yellows and make sure to bank on that FOMO (fear of missing out) – they’re the most likely to react to that type of messaging.
Here is a sample message that will appeal to Yellows, via LinkedIn:
Marketing to a Green personality
Green care about other people
Out of all the personalities, greens are the best team players. They are considerate and thoughtful, so you want to tell them how your services will help the team work better. But be aware, they don’t really like change, so emphasise on how your new products/services will produce minimum disruption.
Greens are also discreet, so avoid putting them in the spotlight. They want things to be predictable and easy going, in order to avoid creating a fuss. Present how you will offer continuous support and help with any potential issues that may arise.
Here is a sample message that will appeal to Greens, via Design Pickle:
Marketing to a Blue personality
Blues care about structure and know how
If you don’t know everything there is to need know about your service, don’t even considering marketing to a blue. They are well structured and methodical and nothing short of perfect will be ok for them. Remember that long presentation you ditched when talking to the red? Now it’s time to work on it and include as much relevant information as possible.
Blues are detail and quality oriented, so be prepared to talk about the science and how your services or product came together. What are the quality checks you perform and how thorough is your development process. However, too much detail can lead to decision paralysis, so try to pair every extra info with another promise/step taken towards the sale from their part. Once they promise, they will be diligent and deliver.
Here is a sample message that will appeal to Blues, via CoSchedule:
Now imagine mapping out your customer personalities and using ABM and personalisation to get the right messaging in front of each personality – how would your marketing ROI increase? And how effective could you become? Understand your customer, speak their language and you’ll get the best results.
P.S. I’m blue (mostly) and red (secondly), so if you want to get things done in a thorough and quick way, send them my way. Just make sure they’re organised, otherwise, I’ll have a headache :).
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About the author:
I am Raluca Apostol, Founder and Account Director at Event Marketing Stars and I have helped generate over 30,000 leads for clients in B2B and B2C, on 3 continents.
I am passionate about events, lead generation and monetisation. If you want to reach out, you can find me on LinkedIn here.