Mind Meld
It would appear that Leonard Nimoy, a.k.a. Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, has announced his intention to “hang up the ears” and retire, not only from the character but from a six-decade career as an actor.
Sure, I watch Star Trek. Writers spend a lot of time cooped up at home, and yes, most of us are okay with that. I enjoy cruising through the galaxy at warp speed with the Star Trek gang, mainly because it allows me to pretend that I’m getting out of the house occasionally. But even if I couldn’t care less about the franchise, there’s no denying that it has developed into a formidable chunk of pop culture over the past half-century. So even those of us who don’t know about it kinda-sorta do.
Anyway, Nimoy’s announcement got me thinking about the show, and about Mr. Spock’s home planet, Vulcan. You see, Vulcans have this ability to “mind meld” with people. They grab your head and perform a kind of telepathy on you, reading your thoughts and feeling your emotions (which must stink on ice for Vulcans who mind-meld with humans, since they really aren’t into the whole emotion thing). For a moment, the Vulcan sees the meld-ee’s point of view in perfect clarity, “becoming” that person long enough to achieve a deep level of empathy.
Vulcan must have fantastic marketing departments. Want to know your target audience? Invite a representative of that demographic into your office, plant a hand on the subject’s noggin and blam, instant market research.
We poor humans have no such skills, at least not readily on tap, as far as we can measure. Yet we who market ourselves must perform this very task — we must get inside the heads of our audience, as best we can, and see through their eyes. We must feel their pain or frustration, recognize the things that make them smile, or look at that product or service as if we’ve never seen it before and have no idea what it could do for us.
It’s an acting technique of sorts. Actors train long and hard to learn to inhabit another person’s skin, to make that fictional character move and talk and feel as a flesh-and-blood person by first asking, “How would I feel, what would I do, if I were this character, with this background, education, physical condition, mental state, et cetera?” Writers have to go into this mode as well. When we write fiction, we have to understand our characters so clearly that we can empathize with them from cover to cover — even if we don’t like them. We also have to understand our readers and know what’s most likely to make the right impact on them. And marketing writing requires no less.
So my challenge to you, when you’re planning that email blast or brochure or website, is to try to read the mind of your ideal prospect. Picture that person in your mind as completely as you can. Try to “become” that person long enough to get a crystal-clear idea of what that person wants, fears or needs. Then write your marketing piece to that person.
Live long and prosper.
