Welcome to the transcription of our podcast on Social Cohesion Calibration | How to write “Normally” & Generate Cut Through. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

Speaker 1 (00:02)
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Speaker 2 (00:27)
Do you want to reach out to a cold audience? Someone that you’ve acquired their email or their WhatsApp? You want to get in touch with them, but you don’t have a preexisting relationship? Let’s talk about social calibration. This is something that is not talked about in marketing nearly enough. And in fact, I don’t think it’s all that well studied in social sciences anymore either. You see, what it is, is how do you overcome the fear that comes along with reaching out to someone you don’t know? Imagine if you walked up to them on the street and you kind of rudely said, hey, hey you. What are the odds of them stopping and engaging in a conversation with you? Take that very same person on the very same street. And what if you went up and said, excuse me, I’m not trying to hassle you, but it doesn’t matter what comes next? Which one of those two is more likely to elicit a response and a kind response? You’ll never have 100% success rate, but which would have a higher one? The same thing happens when we talk about social credibility. What we’re trying to do is leverage the credibility that we do have.

Speaker 2 (01:46)
However, we’ve come to obtain this list or number in order to put the other person at ease. And today I’m going to use the example of Tuscany from women who golf, who has been given the numbers of a number of female captains of golf courses. We’re here in Dubai at the moment. She wants to reach out to them and invite them to an event she’s running on Thursday, but she doesn’t have a preexisting relationship with them. Now, before I get into telling you how we do it, one book I can strongly recommend is Words That Work. It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear. That is very, very wise words. And what people hear is going to be defined by their past experiences. Most people to go back to that street corner we were talking about, have been taught that if someone is quite abrupt with you, it’s probably not a good thing. They’re probably a bit crazy. We want to get out of there. And if someone disarms us, then they’re probably okay. They’ve called out that there’s nothing to be worried about. Your adrenal system doesn’t need to kick in. You can chill.

Speaker 2 (02:56)
Well, the same thing works with email and messages. When we talk about Tuscany, she could reach out to these people and say, hey guys, come to my event. But she’d be missing a really key part that would just make it spam, because how would you feel if you received a message from someone you’ve never heard of before, who then says, come to this event, whether it’s conscious or subconscious, you’re probably thinking that a serial killer is inviting you along. Maybe not that bad. But you’re questioning, do they want my money? What do they want from me? Why me? So you get around it by using whatever social credibility you can. One of those things is, who’s the person who gave you this list? Or why are you messaging? So in Tuscany’s case, it’s going to be hi person amanda, I’m messaging because you were recommended to me by Tom. That’s a good start. You’ve now lent on the fact that both people know Tom, so there’s a relationship, but we’re missing the socially cohesive part. And socially cohesive is, why are you reaching out to me? Now? I know everyone listening to this knows someone that thinks you can just spam people and get a response.

Speaker 2 (04:12)
No real reason, just, hey, buy this. That is not how it works. Sure, there will be some idiots that just take you up on it, but where you get success is when there’s a reason. And this has been studied. In fact, there was a study to see if you went up to people who are in a line to use a copy machine and you said, Can I go next? A certain percentage of people said there’s a line, but OK, but there was a much, much higher percentage that said yes. If you gave a reason like, hey, can I go next? Because my dog’s sick. It didn’t even matter. It turned out if the reason makes sense, it just had to be a reason. And this created social cohesion, which meant it was okay then to do that person a favour. There was a reason that they’d given you. So let’s wind back to Tuscany’s situation. She said hi, whatever her name was, I’m messaging you because Tom’s recommended you to me. He said that you’d be interested in an event like the one I’m running on Thursday. So you’ve now given the but now how do we really reel them in from here?

Speaker 2 (05:27)
Okay, so now let’s make them feel special. I’ve got a few tickets left. I would love someone like you to take them and bring their friends. Plus it’s going to give me a chance to get to meet you while I’m in town. I’m only here till Monday. Would you be interested in coming along? Here’s the details. Here’s what you’ve got to do. None of that was difficult, but it’s amazing how many messages I receive, particularly emails that don’t follow the social cohesion guidelines. So have a think about the outbound marketing you’re doing, particularly if you’re sending to email lists. Question why would someone want to receive this? How can I make them feel special? And how can I make sure that the very first line I give them gives them confidence that this is something specifically designed for them. It’s a big challenge, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say. I’ll see you in the next episode. Cheers.