Encoding your message — Kelford Labs Daily

“The general idea with most memory techniques is to change whatever boring thing is being inputted into your memory into something that is so colorful, so exciting, and so different from anything you’ve seen before that you can’t possibly forget it.

That's what elaborative encoding is.”

— Memory champion Ed Cooke in Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein

The trick to remembering things, so say the experts, is “encoding” the information in your mind, in a specific place, with some element of absurdity or shock attached to it.

Simply—and unscientifically—put, we remember strange things in real places.

I once memorized the order and tenures of all the American presidents—don’t ask why—by “placing” a caricature of each president in prominent places along a route through my house and backyard.

Hoover was vacuuming, Wilson was playing volleyball. For the Community fans out there, Franklin Pierce was played by Chevy Chase.

What does this have to do with marketing?

I mean, everything.

People won’t remember our message just because we say it to them. We’ve got to place it in space, and we need to encode it with some surprising element.

But, I must say, this isn’t about polluting the media environment through shock value or outrageous behavior. It’s not about being so annoying that we can’t be ignored.

It’s about being so clear, honest, and demonstrative in our messages that they’re surprisingly compelling. Instead of being bland or boring, or blending in.

It’s about placing them where our ideal clients are most likely to form positive associations with them. Instead of blanketing every platform and channel.

It’s about being the one person—or business—in our category talking to the customer instead of just talking about ourselves.

One way to make your message surprising is by sharing something you’ve learned from experience that your customer doesn’t know—but might matter to them based on their values or priorities. Like why you don’t do something that everyone else in your category does.

You can place your message in space by repeating it on platforms and places where your prospects go for more information about the sort of thing you do. That might be something as simple as LinkedIn, or something as significant as speaking at an industry convention.

Memories are, well, memorable because they stand out against the backdrop of everything else that isn’t.

Marketing works the same way.

Kelford Inc. shows you the way to always knowing what to say. Demonstrate your value at a distance—the essence of marketing—to the people who value it most.