With everyone seeming to have their smartphone with them 24/7, why aren’t they answering them when they ring?  If you know the person that’s one thing, but what about when the number you see on your screen is unfamiliar?  We did a Cortex poll last week on the K-92 radio show, Mornin’ Thang, (thank you, Zack Jackson – one of this semester’s

Do you answer phone calls from an unfamiliar number?

Here are the responses we received:

50% said sometimes

38% said never

11% said always

77% of Americans use a smartphone according to the newest Pew research data.  So, how are we communicating with each other on our smartphones if we aren’t using the phone feature as much as we used to?  Click here for the rest of the article and more importantly, the best ways to get your calls answered.

Statistics were derived from Pew Research and other data and can be found here.

Think about this.  When you receive a text rather than a phone call it is:

• Convenient.  A situation is that is convenient for you and perhaps not for them
• Documented. Who carries paper anymore? If there’s information that has to be remembered it’s right there in text to retrieve later
• Private. Talking on the phone can be overheard by others. Texting is private.
• Quick.  Takes 10x less time that talking…. At least for short messages.
• Personal.  Texting feels personal – less formal, therefore less it can seem less stressful.

In today’s workplace, when you want to influence employees and customers, the solution question becomes…how do you get people’s attention with your request or message?  Try these:

1. Build real relationships.  It would seem that people’s circle of friends is getting bigger and bigger if you look at social media stats.  Some of the research is not supporting that, though.  In fact, the opposite may be true.  With that in mind, creating and maintaining a relationship with someone where you have spent the time and energy to build connection in a personal and private way is even more impactful than before.  Think quality instead of quantity.  What are you doing, daily, to build relationships with the people that are most important in your life and to your business?
2. Get creative. Mass messaging is becoming less and less effective.  While everyone scrambling to come up with the best headline or “tweet” to grab tons of attention, the truth is that most initiatives at work would be successful if you spent the same amount of time choosing those employees and customers that would drive that success, for you, and going deep with them, instead of trying to go wide to everyone else.
3. Think personalization. People look at mass messages and might agree or disagree with them.  They may get read or seen.  To make something stick, though, your message needs to be authentically tailored for the person if you want them to act.  Just because you can send one message to 1,000 people doesn’t mean you should.  The payoff to send personalized messages will be immediate when you are trying to reach someone that you want to have an impact on.

Recently, I tested these theories.  Many of you may know that my “previous” career entailed advertising and marketing.  I’ve been creating messages that will break through the clutter of noise for decades now.  In a recent initiative we had I used the new application Viewedit to create personalized videos for each person we wanted to reach and sent them via email.   I also created other personalized, individual videos to send via text messaging, on my phone, to a different list.  For the same initiative we hand delivered unique invitations we placed inside a bottle with that had red sand at the bottom.  Here’s what our team found.

The majority of personalized text message videos were returned within minutes.  Yes, I said minutes.  What was also interesting is that those that were able to respond quickly waited until they could thoughtfully respond, some even a week later, to the message.  I had strong relationships with all of the people I was reaching out to with the videos and especially the text messaging videos.  The total number of messages that were hand delivered, video emailed and video text was 75.  We got a response from a total 65 of them.  We got a 90% response from those that I sent the video text to.

Did it take more effort to personalize the messages?  Not really.  We had to send out just one message to get a response instead of having to craft a half dozen.  We didn’t risk our “spam free” reputation and we launched an important initiative to influencers.   Our principles of customization for executives remain in tact.  Do we send out mass emails like this one, yes, every Sunday evening.  If you are a client of Cortex, though, you will always, also, experience the personalization that we provide in the classroom and boardroom.

Don’t say you can’t possibly add personalization to your most important messages… instead, ask how?  Almost anything you believe to be possible can be done with today’s technology.  If you don’t figure out how to build real relationships, be creative, and truly personalize your messages, someone else in your industry will.

I know that you are smart and resourceful.  I can’t wait to see what you create!