FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Aaron Konzelman: Hey, everybody. Welcome to American Small Institute. I’m Aaron Konzelman and we are back again today with Stephen Semple.
Stephen Semple: It’s great to be back.
Aaron Konzelman: Yeah, glad to have you with us in the studio. What are we talking about today?
Stephen Semple: Well, what we’re talking about is this whole idea of a trigger. A trigger is an event that basically starts the buying process. Other marketers talk about the zero moment of truth or things along that line. It’s a really important, strategic decision that drives a lot of your marketing decisions that need to be made. Basically, what it is is it’s an emotion or an event that basically starts the buying process. There are two types of triggers.
Aaron Konzelman: Okay.
Stephen Semple: There’s an internal trigger and an external trigger. Basically, what an external trigger is it’s an event that is outside of your control that starts the buying process. An example of that would be roofing products. My roof’s starting to leak. I need to replace the roof. That’s an external trigger. Most people, if the roof’s fine, they’re not replacing the roof. If I can convince somebody to replace the roof before it’s worn out, that would be an internal trigger.
Aaron Konzelman: Right.
Stephen Semple: An internal trigger is an emotional event and so an example of that would be something along the lines of indoor painting, so your interior paint. The interior paint is worn out or it’s outdated and you fear mom coming you over and giving you that look of like, “Are you going to repaint the place?” Well, that’s an internal trigger. How we can get somebody to buy on an internal trigger is you actually kind of have to aggravate that emotion to the stage where it overcomes the inertia, and then the person buys.
When we’re thinking about marketing, we’re thinking about the message, and we’re thinking about media and all those things, it’s really important to understand whether I’m speaking to an internal trigger an external trigger. Because if I’m speaking to an external trigger, that’s much more your classic branding campaigns. Make them think of you first and like you the most because when that external trigger fires, I want to be there. They go, “Oh, I’ve decided to replace the roof. I’m hiring those guys.”
Aaron Konzelman: Yeah.
Stephen Semple: An internal trigger, what I need to do is I need to aggravate it. If you think about it, with an external trigger I have to convince the person of one thing. That’s why I can do it in a 30-second act. “When you’re ready to buy, buy from me.” An internal trigger, I have to convince you of three things; I have to aggravate the emotion so that you want to buy. I, then, have to convince you to actually do it now, and then do it with me. I have three things I have to convince you of.
Aaron Konzelman: Okay.
Stephen Semple: When we look at marketing, your traditional branding type ads are speaking to an external trigger delivering that one message. When you start talking to the internal trigger, that’s when you start seeing things like advertorials, infomercials, long-form copy because I’ve got to spell out a much longer argument.
Aaron Konzelman: Yeah.
Stephen Semple: Where this breaks down is if you’re talking to an internal trigger and you’re trying to do short, mass media ads, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work at all. Really deciding and determining, “Am I speaking to an internal trigger or an external trigger?” Is one of the first big decisions you need to make before deciding, “What type of message do I need to do and what type of medium am I going to carry that on?”
Aaron Konzelman: Picking the trigger first before you go into the details of it.
Stephen Semple: Yep, one of the first things you need to decide.
Aaron Konzelman: Okay, are there any businesses that would use both of these different internal and external? Or, businesses that would work for them to do both?
Stephen Semple: Yeah. A great example of that is insurance companies. If you think about most insurance companies today sell a broad range of insurance. They sell everything from auto insurance, fire insurance, all the way through to life insurance. When you look at things like fire insurance and auto insurance, that’s typically bought at the time you either buy the car or buy the house, or take out the mortgage, and usually at the time of renewal. Although you can switch between renewals, most people don’t. That’s very much an external trigger. The thing that’s triggering the event is buying the car or the house, the renewal of the insurance policy. If you look at those campaigns, they really all should be working off of an external trigger.
If you tried to sell life insurance that way, it doesn’t work. Because when we think about life insurance, life insurance is that emotional event. There’s not a specific thing that makes you sort of go, “I’ve got to get it now.” Usually, it’s all of the sudden, it’s like, “I’ve got to take care of my family,” or there’s this need or this desire. If you look at really good marketing campaigns for life insurance, that’s what they’re talking about; that need to take care of your family, that emotion, that desire. That’s the thing they stir to drive that desire for purchasing life insurance.
Aaron Konzelman: They’re not focusing on the, “You’re going to die at some point and need this,” it’s all about the ramifications of why.
Stephen Semple: Right. It’s all about the ramifications, rest of the family, you’re the bread winner, you’re a good guy, you’re going to take care of your family because that’s what you do.
Aaron Konzelman: Yeah. That’s great. I love it. Great example.
Stephen Semple: Alright.
Aaron Konzelman: Love it. Good info.
Stephen Semple: Perfect. Thank you.
Aaron Konzelman: Thank you so much for being with us.
Stephen Semple: Yeah.
Aaron Konzelman: We’ll see you guys next week.
