Your Communication Style Could Cost You 90% of Your Target Market
Whoa, 90%?! Yep. We’ll talk about those numbers in a minute, but first, let’s talk about what we mean by communication style. This isn’t about your tone or the kind of language that appeals to different generations. This is about how your personality affects the kind of information you naturally communicate–and what you might be missing.
Hi! I’m Katie. I’m a copywriter interested in making your communications more accessible. I’m also trained in the personality test known as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI looks at our natural preferences in four different areas to help us understand how we interact with our world.
Many MBTI practitioners like to talk about preferences in the same way as we talk about our dominant and non-dominant hands. If you’re naturally left-handed, that doesn’t mean you aren’t able to use your right hand for tasks. It just means you prefer to use your left hand, and when asked to switch to your right, it will come less naturally to you.
When it comes to communication, sticking only with your preferences creates blind spots. This leads you to missing out on a large portion of potential customers simply because you didn’t communicate the kind of information they needed to make a purchase.
So how can you be sure that your communications are meeting the unique needs of your audience? A closer look at personality types, like those described by the MBTI, can provide you with the tools you need to be a more successful communicator.
What is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?
The MBTI comes from the work of Katharine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, starting in 1943. Building on Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung’s theory of personality, they created a tool that would determine a person’s preferences in four different categories. There have been many different versions of the tool over the last 80 years, but its purpose has always been the same.
The MBTI was built to answer four main questions:
How do you prefer to give and receive energy?
What kind of information do you most like and trust?
What’s most important to you when you make decisions?
How do you like to interact with the world?
The answers to these questions are what give us the various letter combinations you’ve probably seen when people talk about their personality type. For example: ESFP–the person shows a preference for Extraversion, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving. Or another: INTJ–the person generally prefers Introversion, iNtuition, Thinking, and Judging.
You may not agree with Carl Jung’s theory or the idea of personality tests. However, both Jung and the MBTI have impacted the way people think and talk about themselves. Think about how often you hear “introversion” and “extraversion” in everyday conversations or on social media.
The language of the Myers-Briggs is a part of our society now. And we don’t have to fully agree with a person or theory in order to learn from them. So let’s see what they might have to tell us about how personality affects marketing.
How Can the MBTI Help With Your Marketing?
Simply put, marketing is communicating to customers about products and services, and helping them decide to purchase. To better understand how to market to different personality types, we’ll focus on the different ways people answer the 2nd and 3rd questions addressed by the MBTI:
What kind of information do they like and trust?
What’s important to them when making decisions?
Remember how I said you could be losing out on almost 90% of your potential customers just because of communication style? This potential loss is highest if your marketing materials only speak to the people who prefer Intuition and Thinking. According to the MBTI Manual, only about 10.4% of individuals who have taken the test have a preference for both of those[^1].
If you’re just speaking to the Intuition and Thinking crowd, you’re missing all of the people who prefer Sensing and/or Feeling. Here’s what the other preferences look like in the general population:
Sensing and Thinking: 30%
Sensing and Feeling: 43.4%
Intuition and Feeling: 16.5%
So how is it that you’re losing these people with your marketing communications? Well, you aren’t giving them the kind of information they trust or speaking to what’s important to them as they make decisions. Let’s first take a look at what kind of information is important to different people.
What Do People Need to Know About What You’re Selling Before They Consider Buying? (Sensing and Intuition)
If a person doesn’t trust the information you give them, you can bet they won’t decide to buy your product or use your service. Take a look at the priorities for the different preferences, and work to answer the questions they’ll have for you.
People who prefer Sensing are most interested in getting the facts. They want to know:
What’s the practical problem you’re trying to solve?
What is your solution to the problem? (i.e. What are you selling, exactly?)
What does it do?
How does it work?
How much does it cost?
People who prefer Intuition want to see the big picture. Answer these questions:
Why are you trying to solve this problem?
What’s the bigger need you’re addressing? (e.g. Happiness, peace, comfort, connection, etc.)
What happens if that need goes unaddressed?
What possibilities open up to the customer when they engage with your product?
What’s the value of the benefits they’ll experience from your service? And how do they offset the cost?
Answer these questions and everyone of your potential customers will have an understanding of what you’re offering them. You’re halfway there! Now you move on to helping them make a decision.
What’s Important to Different People as They Decide Whether or Not to Buy? (Thinking and Feeling)
A little disclaimer here: this is where I have beef with Carl Jung. The choice of words for this preference pair is very unhelpful in communicating the meaning! This is not about rational vs. emotional decision-making. Thinking and Feeling are both rational processes, as you’ll see below.
People who prefer Thinking want to know the logical impact of buying your product. Tell them:
The pros and cons of your product. Give it to them straight–you know what you’ve got isn’t perfect, and isn’t for everybody, so be honest with your customers.
How does your product’s cost compare with your competitors?
What’s the logical outcome of going with you vs. someone else?
People who prefer Feeling want to know the human impact of booking your service. Answer these questions for them:
What are your values and do they align with the customer’s values?
How will a decision to go with you impact society, the environment, etc.?
Who are they going to be interacting with?
As you read through these questions, are you starting to see your own preferences showing up? It feels more natural–even more exciting–to answer the questions connected to your preference. For those questions outside of your preference, it feels tedious and unnatural. But you are capable!
Challenge yourself to think and talk about the subjects that are less natural and you’ll become a much stronger, more effective communicator. You’ll increase your customer base simply because you’ve given everyone the information they trust and the ability to make a decision they can feel good about.
And don’t try to do this alone, either! Embark on a learning journey with your team, or add people to your team who already have some understanding of personality types. May I suggest a copywriter who has training in this area?
[^1]. Myers, I. B. (2003). Table 14.1. In MBTI Manual: A guide to the development and use of the Myers-Briggs type indicator (pp. 379–379). essay, CPP.
