March 4, 2025 • 37 mins
Why do people buy what they buy? Consumer psychology shapes marketing more than we realize. In this episode, Adam Ortman, founder of Kinetic319, shares how small business owners can use psychology to create stronger marketing messages. He explains what drives customer decisions, how brands build trust, and simple ways to make marketing more effective.
If you’ve ever wondered why certain ads or brands just click with their audience, this episode will be an eye-opener. Adam and I discuss how to use psychology in marketing the right way without gimmicks or shady tactics—just strategies that help businesses connect with customers in a way that feels natural and authentic.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Janice Hostager (00:04):
I'm Janice Hostager.
After three decades in themarketing business and many
years of being an entrepreneur,I've learned a thing or two
about marketing.
Join me as we talk aboutmarketing, small business and
life in between.
Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
(00:34):
Have you ever felt compelled tomake a purchase?
Who hasn't right?
Maybe it was after watching avideo or a webinar, or seeing
something that somebody else waswearing and it was something
that you just had to have.
Chances are some form ofconsumer psychology pulled you
in.
Truthfully, psychology issomething that we all use every
day.
Even from childhood.
We learn that if we share ourtoys or help others, they're
(00:54):
more likely to share theirs too.
That's reciprocity.
Or, in our teen years, we mimicthe behaviors of others around
us and it influences us.
That's how I got in trouble inhigh school for getting an
additional piercing.
Avoiding psychology andmarketing is nothing new.
Of course, we need to adhere toethical guidelines and avoid
tactics that could exploitothers, but, truthfully,
(01:16):
persuasion in psychology isbaked into marketing.
My guest on the podcast todayloves to talk about this as much
as I do.
Adam Ortman is an author, apresident and founder of Kinetic
319, which is a marketing andadvertising agency headquartered
in Denver, Colorado.
As a consumer psychologist,Adam navigates the thrilling
(01:38):
intersection of media,technology and analytics.
He's collaborated with dynamicbrands such as United Health
Group, Nike, American Express,Kellogg and many others.
Adam talks about what we needto know, as small business
owners, about applying consumerpsychology in our own businesses
.
Here's my talk with Adam.
(01:59):
Hey, welcome to the show, Adam.
Adam Ortman (02:02):
Thanks, Janice, how are you?
Janice Hostager (02:04):
I'm doing well.
I love that we're talking aboutthe intersection between
business and psychology, and Iam a true marketing nerd and
it's a big reason why I got intomarketing to begin with.
But how did you get intomarketing psychology and
consumer behavior?
Adam Ortman (02:23):
I am obsessed with consumer psychology and behavior
and, honestly, if I didn'tthink that it would truly
exhaust me and probably put mein the grave, I would probably
be a PhD in it.
But no, I do love it.
I love how it allows us tounderstand theory of behavior,
(02:45):
but with marketing, we actuallyget to see it in practice and,
honestly, there's not a lot ofsciences and the personal
sciences that allow us to dothat.
And I am right there with you.
I'm a big marketing nerd and Ilove it.
Janice Hostager (02:57):
That is interesting because I've never
thought about that.
But really marketing is a sortof a laboratory for psychology
in a way.
Adam Ortman (03:09):
And if your brand is not testing in any way shape
or form in regards to yourwebsite, or in regards to what
words you're putting on youradvertisements, or maybe a
person versus a product, thoseare actual psychological signals
that you're testing in reallife, and I think that so many
businesses are doing it todayand they're not actually
realizing that they're doing it.
Janice Hostager (03:28):
Yeah, that is interesting because I've never
thought about it in that waybefore.
So did you just wake up one dayand say this is where I want to
be?
Or it's like how did you gethere, is it?
You know, running an agency andall the things.
Adam Ortman (03:42):
Do you want to know a very embarrassing story?
Janice Hostager (03:44):
Oh yes.
Adam Ortman (03:46):
The movie What Women Want with Mel Gibson.
Have you seen it?
Janice Hostager (03:49):
Yes, yes.
Adam Ortman (03:51):
So What Women Want?
He is an advertising executiveand he is pitching Nike and in
the movie he is known to be kindof this man's man, you know,
sports liquor type of advertiser, and he has to really change
his whole life and perspectiveand really the movie is about
(04:12):
him learning the inner thoughtsof of women around him in the
world and this actually helpshim in his pitch because he's
pitching not only Nike but Nikewomen's division, and the
journey that he takes andultimately the pitch that he
does at the end of the movie tothe heads of Nike.
Um, it was me watching thatmovie and I said that is what I
(04:34):
want to do with the rest of mylife.
And it was that when I startedgetting my bachelor's in
Marketing, my master's is incommunications with an emphasis
in consumer psychology and youknow I started very early on in
agency world and I started, youknow, when I was 18 in Southern
California.
My first agency job beforeGoogle was even the Google that
(04:54):
it is today.
And ever since then I've beenbaking real consumer behavior
and consumer psychology intomarketing, ever since.
Janice Hostager (05:08):
Very, very cool .
So I just want to clarifysomething here.
I feel like it's kind of theelephant in the room.
When we're talking aboutmarketing psychology or consumer
psychology, we're not talkingabout evil subliminal messages
hidden in an ad or a drink,Coca-Cola, words flashed on a
movie trailer right, we'retalking about like the sort of
(05:31):
psychology that we use every daywithout even realizing it.
Adam Ortman (05:36):
You're absolutely right.
You're absolutely right andhonestly, I think that it's
really best practice for brandsto think about this because, to
your point, it's not about theannoying pop of that, it's not
about you know, the strobingsubliminal message.
It's not about that.
It's really it's about abrand's understanding of its
customer's life andunderstanding your customer and
(05:57):
the degree of what does yourproduct or service, how does it
really impact your customer'slife and how do you seamlessly
interject or align your brandwith that customer's life?
And that's really where thetrue magic of brand and customer
come together.
(06:18):
And that is leveraging thatpsychology of understanding,
empathy for your customer andhaving a true understanding of
the struggles that they may haveor the motivations and
priorities that they have aspeople, and having a true
conversation between your brandand that customer.
That's how I really defineconsumer psychology and the way
(06:39):
that marketing should be.
Janice Hostager (06:43):
So we're not talking about anything that's
overtly manipulative or smarmy.
What we're talking about isreally understanding that
customer and getting to the rootof where you're doing them a
service, because you areproviding them with something
that they really want, right.
Adam Ortman (06:57):
Exactly, exactly, and there might be indicators
right.
So things that they may besearching on Google or maybe
videos that they're watching onYouTube that allow brands to
kind of gather informationaround, maybe that person might
be interested in my product orservice.
That's also a form of consumerpsychology is that you're
allowing some of thoseactivities that you're doing in
(07:17):
the real life, or even online,and aligning those with
potential indicators that youmight be interested in a
business.
Janice Hostager (07:24):
So my listeners are mostly small businesses.
How can they use, now theydon't necessarily have access to
you know a lot of big data,although they probably have
access to more of it than theyrealize actually?
So how would you approach themabout crafting
(07:51):
effective marketing messages,using consumer psychology and
consumer behavior?
Adam Ortman (07:53):
Of course.
Well, first off, I love thatyour viewership and listenership
is primarily small businesses,because there is not a more
resourceful, hardworking personthan a small business owner and
people that lead smallbusinesses.
Coming from a family of fivegenerations of small business
owners, I truly can empathizewith each and every one of you.
(08:13):
You have the highest of highsin your decision to be a small
business owner and you have thelowest of lows, and it is a
roller coaster, but it's onethat I personally would never
change for myself.
But I definitely empathize withall of you.
But to your point about thisidea of consumer psychology and
audiences and things of thatnature should not scare you,
(08:35):
because even small businesseshave access to this technology
and this type of theme today andI just use the word audiences
and if you are starting a newbusiness, you know, if you're
looking at, you know, just maybestarting to advertise or
starting to market yourself,there's a lot of really good
technology that exists, even outof the box, with a Google Ads
(08:57):
campaign, for example, trying toget your ad on Google, or even
Facebook, or even Facebook.
The platforms can be daunting,I truly understand that.
But there's a lot of resourcesavailable.
Even my own agency, Kinetic 319, provides a lot of those
resources.
But getting those up andrunning on your own and
leveraging audiences directlyout of the box from some of
these advertising platforms likeGoogle Ads or even Meta Ads is
(09:21):
a good place to start.
Depending on who your targetaudience is or who your customer
is, right out of the box youhave, you know, types of
audiences that Google provides.
I'll give some examples.
Like in market audiences, theseare, these are basically
audiences that if you say youknow I'm selling shoes and
(09:43):
Google already has an audiencethat says I can get your ad in
front of people that areshopping for shoes in the last
30 days.
So those types of audiencesthat are already crafted out of
Google are very easy toimplement into a campaign that
you're running on your own for asmall business.
But inherently you're leveragingconsumer psychology because
(10:03):
you're leveraging the actionsthat are taking place on the
Internet.
You know they're going onAmazon or they're maybe typing
in you know a certain shoe brandor whatever that may be and
you're leveraging that knowledgeto then inject your brand into
that shopping behavior or inthat shopper's journey.
That is a direct example of howyou can literally use what Nike
(10:26):
is using to sell shoes.
You, as a very small businessowner selling shoes, can use the
exact same technology, andthat's where we actually just
wrote a blog post about this afew months ago, about how this
type of technology is reallyleveling the playing field for
larger businesses and smallerbusinesses to really compete and
(10:46):
and again align with aconsumer's best product in their
, in their customer journey.
Janice Hostager (10:52):
Yes, and I love that you brought that up,
because I've been noticing thattoo and I really think now,
granted, a small business isn'tgoing to have the staff and and
you know probably the team toput some of this stuff together,
but it it is all out there.
And you know well, Facebook hasgotten, or Meta has gotten, a
little stingier with whatthey'll make available.
In the olden days, you could goon and just really do some deep
(11:17):
diving into your ideal customerand really find out a lot of
good information about it, andwith privacy laws, that's a
little tougher now.
But you're right, Google Ads ifyou're running a Google Ad and
not everybody does it's notappropriate for probably every
business, but there's a ton ofinformation out there.
So let's walk us through that.
(11:38):
How would you use theinformation to your benefit when
you're putting that ad together?
Adam Ortman (11:42):
Sure, when we start with every client, we have what
we call a move approach: magnify, orient, venture and (11:46):
undefined
evaluate, and so what we'retalking about is that magnify
part of our approach.
And so you have to start withyour audience, and so you have
to start with who your customeris.
You know, we build persona kindof little dashboards, little
persona profiles that allow usto see what's important to them.
(12:09):
You know where do they shop,where are they spending time
online.
You know how much TV do theywatch.
You know, do they care aboutbeing a technophile, versus do
they read a lot of books?
So there's a lot of differentassets that you can get from
understanding your customer.
And small businesses can dothis.
I tell every single one of myclients: talk to your customers,
(12:29):
not just about your product,not just about your service.
Talk to them about their lives,because that's going to give
you indicators on what your adshould look like, where you
should put your ad, what wordsshould be on your ad.
You know what do they lean into.
Are they really, you know, saleshoppers?
They only buy when things areon sale versus they really only
(12:52):
like expensive products.
So it's a very differentpsychology there.
So talking to your customer doesnot have to be this very kind
of, you know, large-scaleactivity where you have survey
data and market research.
Just have a conversation withthem.
Even a 5% off coupon to have 20minutes of their time is gold
(13:17):
when it comes to understandingyour customer and how that can
translate into bettering yourbusiness as a whole, but also in
the marketing world as well.
So I always start there, Janice, in regards to getting
magnification on your customer,something you should also be
thinking about is what yourcompetitors are doing.
So just Googling yourcompetitor's name, for example,
(13:39):
are they running ads?
Where are they showing up onthe internet?
And also, you know the ChatGPTs and AIs of the world are
making a lot of this researcheasier, so you can ask the AI to
help you pull data for youraudience, for your competitor.
I would say, you know,definitely do some fact checking
(14:01):
with those types of tools, butthey can be very, very useful,
especially if you're on a budget, and because some of these
things are free to people,they're great, great resources.
Janice Hostager (14:16):
Yeah, yeah, and even if you don't necessarily
know, like, because you know, alot of times people will put
together a new product and theywill have conversations, but
with their existing clients, butmaybe it's a different customer
, you know, even doing somereview mining, going through
Amazon or other review sites orother your competitors perhaps
(14:39):
looking at what other peoplehave done and said about it and
then go ahead and kind of getsome feedback from that too.
So that's great.
I love that you're having thatconversation, because sometimes
you just really need to getbehind the objections that
people have too and reallyunderstand them at a deeper
(15:00):
level, and you really can't.
It's harder to do that unlessyou have a conversation.
You don't necessarily need awhole focus group.
Adam Ortman (15:06):
You do not and I empathize with this topic, and
it kind of just came to me asyou were explaining this is when
I started Kinetic 319, prior todoing so, I reached out to
folks in my network that I haveworked at for many, many years,
and these are now heads of manybig players UnitedH ealthCare,
Yamaha, Kellogg, etc.
(15:27):
And I was doing this researchand I asked them if you changed
your agency or if you broughtyour advertising in-house to do
it yourself.
What were the motivators by youdoing that?
Obviously, they all came withvariety of answers, but there
was a single thread across eachof them, which was my agency
(15:48):
does not know my business.
Janice Hostager (15:51):
Really.
Adam Ortman (15:51):
That became my differentiator when I started
Kinetic 319.
It's still my, it's still onthe website, still in all of our
collateral is that we seek tobe the agency that knows you're
better, knows your businessbetter than any other agency
team and I we've baked in a lotof proprietary processes and
things in order for us to dothat.
So, for example, we experienceall of our, all of our clients
(16:12):
as brands.
We just signed a physicaltherapy brand that has
franchises all over the countryand all of us, including myself,
made an appointment, went intothe office, actually did the
appointment and lived the brand.
No agency is doing that todayand it's been very, very fun.
But that's a direct example ofme doing research, identifying a
(16:33):
need or a niche andunderstanding the problem or the
pain point the customer has andthen adjusting your business
accordingly.
Janice Hostager (16:41):
Okay, I have to say that's actually quite
shocking that you were able tostand out with that, because
with an agency, I mean that'srule number one.
Know your ideal customer, youknow your target market, and the
fact that agencies aren't doingthat it really kind of says
something about agencies outthere.
It's really amazing.
Adam Ortman (17:01):
It is amazing and it was part of my founder fuel
is what I call it, because italigned very well with the
reason why I went on on my ownwas because you have so many
agencies today, especially likethe big bot, the big, you know,
holding company agencies, whereyou have so many people running
campaigns and others a littlebit off topic, but we're that
(17:24):
are running campaigns or evenworking directly with clients
that have no idea what they'reselling, no idea why the brand
that they're partnering withexists, why was it started?
And so that is that kind ofirked me in a lot of ways and
really lit the fire under me tostart Kinetic319.
Janice Hostager (17:50):
Good for you.
So, switching a little bit here.
How does a brand's personality,let's say it's a personal brand
how does that influenceconsumer perceptions and
decision making, and how cansmall business utilize that
information to really developa stronger brand personality.
Adam Ortman (18:11):
I love this question because brand persona
and brand personality is soimportant because how I love to
explain this with specificallysmall businesses is if you could
build a person, a man or awoman or otherwise, to stand in
front of you as your company,what would they look like?
How would they talk, what wouldthey dress as, what would they
(18:33):
own, what would they do on theweekends?
What makes them laugh?
What makes them cry?
Those types of questions andexercises allow you to build a
personification of your brandthat gives it that personality
and it actually helps you in theearly days, because then you
can actually start to see okay,does my logo?
(18:54):
Is it more pointed, is it morecurved, is it more masculine, is
it more feminine?
So that type of exercise isincredibly impactful for brands,
especially at the beginning,because it kind of helps you
visualize the voice, thepersonality and how that can
actually turn itself intocollateral in advertising.
Janice Hostager (19:12):
I'm so glad you said that, because that's
something that I've struggledwith forever.
Because what's the saying?
A jar can't read its own label.
If you can visualize somebodyelse becoming that brand, I
think that's super powerful.
I might just steal that, that'sokay.
I'll give you credit.
Adam Ortman (19:32):
Please steal it.
No, yeah, steal it.
Janice Hostager (19:34):
Well, go ahead.
Adam Ortman (19:37):
No, I was just going to say it helps
tremendously, especially whenyou get further into more nitty
gritty parts of your business sosay you're talking about you
know you've grown and you're nowposting to social media
multiple times a week or you'rein PR, for example, revisiting
that persona, that person thatyou've built to stand in front
(20:01):
of you.
Always go back and revisit thatperson because it will help you
educate your staff, it willhelp you inform how you respond
to certain scenarios.
So like say, if someoneresponds negatively or even
positively to one of your socialposts, right, they write a
comment on one of your socialposts, how does your brand
respond?
(20:21):
And so revisiting that personthat you built helps you answer
some of those questions.
Janice Hostager (20:27):
Very powerful and we were chatting about time
and time to think just prior tostarting this recording and I
think that would be a reallypowerful thing to just kind of a
little exercise to giveyourself before you really dive
in and really define your brandfor sure and, like you said,
(20:47):
throughout the life of yourbusiness, just kind of keep
revisiting that and think aboutthat, because I may just do that
this weekend.
Adam Ortman (20:55):
Get a glass of wine , Janice.
Get a glass of wine.
Start visualizing your brands.
Yeah, it's incredibly important.
Janice Hostager (21:02):
There we go.
Can you discuss the concept ofcognitive biases in marketing,
like confirmation bias orauthority bias, something like
that, and how small businessescan identify and maybe mitigate
that and how that'll affecttheir marketing?
Adam Ortman (21:21):
Confirmation bias or projection fallacies are
incredibly common.
Still, you would think that youknow you have a $50 million
company.
This would not be the case, itabsolutely is.
So this type of thinking is allaround.
If I believe it to be true, itmust be true.
And so I watch Travel ChannelTV.
(21:46):
All of my customers watchTravel Channel TV.
The worst mistake a brand canmake.
And so when you are thinking toyourself, you know, I, I, you
know, take your, take yourselfout of the equation and put your
customer at the center of yourequation, because it is all
about them.
When it comes to marketing andadvertising, there are so many
(22:09):
of my clients that we arerunning an ad, for example,
online.
This is so common and they sayI have never seen it.
And my immediate response isyou are not our target.
Janice Hostager (22:21):
Right.
Adam Ortman (22:23):
You are not our target.
If you were seeing it, I wouldhave to question my team's
ability to target your mediaeffectively.
So that type of confirmationbias or even projection fallacy
of projecting your own thoughtsand your own personal opinions
onto a larger population likeyour customers incredibly common
but also a very big mistake inmy mind Understand your customer
(22:47):
and then leverage thatinformation to tailor your
efforts, whether that's theconversations you're having in
store or even type of ads thatyou're doing online.
Janice Hostager (22:55):
Yeah, I always recommend just printing off your
persona, all their attributes,their interests, sticking it
right on the wall in front ofyour desk.
So every email you write,everything you do on their
website, is geared toward them,because it's so easy to get in
your own head and think well, ifI like that they must as they
must as well and um all the timeon social media, but that's a
(23:17):
whole another conversation.
But you know, just um, justreally remember that it's.
I mean, there are some caseswhere they may.
There may be some overlap, forsure, but just really
understanding that individualyeah so.
.
.
Adam Ortman (23:32):
And also revisit your personas.
So every about six to eightmonths, that person that you've
taped up to your side of yourwall, revisit them right, even
maybe resurvey your client,maybe re-talk to them or even
pull some data.
Because there's a lot ofvendors now that you can
actually get a large, robust CRMlist of email addresses of your
customers, for example, you canactually have that profile to
(23:55):
say this is above average, thisis below average.
Those types of things,different indicators, whether
it's demographic or evenbehavioral.
I always recommend between sixand eight months, always just
doing a quick read, glance atthat persona profile, because
new technology is always comingout.
Macro environments andpolitical environments and
(24:15):
economic environments areconstantly changing, so it's
important to revisit those aswell.
Janice Hostager (24:21):
Okay, so break down what you said and talk to
me like I'm five with the CRMlist, so tell me exactly what
that would look like.
So how would you go about doingthat?
Adam Ortman (24:30):
So your CRM is your Customer Relationship
Management CRM platform.
These are platforms, like youknow.
HubSpot is probably the biggestone that everyone knows about.
You can also look at Salesforceas being a CRM, or you know
there's a lot of different typesof these types of products.
I personally love HubSpot.
We even use it for ourselves.
(24:50):
It's free to get started likewhy wouldn't you use something
like that?
It's really a place for you tocollect all of your customers'
information, so their name,their email address, their
mailing address.
You can also incorporate someof the notes that you've.
You know, their transactionhistory.
Those types of things are allthings that you should put into
your CRM and if you have arobust list of these customers
(25:16):
that you've saved over time, youcan actually take out all of
those email addresses and workwith a vendor.
We have multiple of them.
Semcasting is one of them whereyou can, they have a lot of
data that they collect basicallyfrom a variety of different
sources, whether that's Amazonshopping data, IP address data,
(25:38):
et cetera and allows you to thensay this group of people index
higher.
I guess I wouldn't really sayindex if you were five years old
, but they are more likely tohit certain types of criteria
across varying behaviors Ifthey're more thrifty shoppers
(26:00):
versus luxury shoppers or ifthey are late night shoppers
versus early morning shoppers.
There's a lot of differentcriteria that you can use, but
that practice is very good.
Janice Hostager (26:13):
Okay.
Okay, that does make a lot ofsense, all right.
So I thought it'd be fun toplay a little game, and so I've
been, I am going to come downwith a list of marketing
triggers.
I'll call them psychologicaltriggers.
I don't know really what theterm, the correct term, is, and
have you talked a little bitabout each one and maybe give us
(26:33):
an example and define howbusiness owners could use it?
Small business owners can useit in their marketing.
Adam Ortman (26:41):
I can't guarantee that I know all of these.
Janice Hostager (26:43):
Oh, I bet you do.
I think actually smallbusinesses are probably using
these already without realizingit, because they're so baked
into our culture and everything.
So we'll start with number onesocial proof.
Adam Ortman (26:57):
I love social proof .
So all of the reviews, all thetestimonials, your neighbor
that's recommending your doggroomer, all social proof, so
incredibly powerful and,honestly, the oldest form of
marketing that exists today.
So maintain it, stimulate itand, whatever you can do, use it
(27:18):
to your advantage as a business.
Janice Hostager (27:20):
It's word of mouth.
Adam Ortman (27:21):
Your word of mouth.
Janice Hostager (27:22):
Scarcity.
Adam Ortman (27:25):
Scarcity is a very powerful tool because this is
also something that goes toanother topic that I really,
really love, which is FOMO.
So fear of missing out is alsovery aligned with scarcity.
So, which I know, FOMO was kindof like a hashtag for many
years but actually became anactual condition, a
psychological condition, acouple of years ago when it was
(27:47):
published.
But scarcity is basically theinventory or the products are
going to run out and I don't getone, so I need to move faster,
right?
So scarcity is often usedwithin ads, like a countdown,
for example, so you only have 35minutes and 12 seconds and 11
seconds and 10 seconds beforethe sale is over.
(28:09):
That's an example of scarcity.
Janice Hostager (28:12):
So if you're a coach or consultant, maybe
launching something a couple oftimes a year or having a
promotion a couple of times ayear for a limited amount of
time and people use that all thetime in retail even, yeah, so
just to get people to actquickly.
Adam Ortman (28:28):
Scarcity will always stimulate demand.
That is an economic law.
Janice Hostager (28:33):
Yep, love it, love it, certainly used it.
Authority.
Adam Ortman (28:39):
I mean I would absolutely favor a plumber who
has many decades ofcertifications under their belt
and the authority to conduct theservice in my home versus
someone, versus a painter that'snever done plumbing before in
his life or her life to come inand do work.
So authority really justbolsters your ability to align
(29:03):
your customer's expectation of aproduct and service versus your
ability to provide it.
So authority allows you to havethat communication.
Janice Hostager (29:13):
And I always think authority should be
established pretty fast, like inthat awareness stage.
Show people that you are anauthority in your space before
it comes across stronger.
That way to me, and it's justkind of what I recommend.
Adam Ortman (29:31):
I always ask myself , whenever I'm talking to
potentially a new client thatI'm pitching, or maybe even a
new business sector, why shouldthis person believe or even
listen to me or take meseriously?
Those are all really goodauthoritative practices.
Janice Hostager (29:47):
Love that question.
Reciprocity.
Adam Ortman (29:52):
I think reciprocity is incredibly important,
especially in this day and ageof privacy, for example, and
having you know communicationswith your customers.
So reciprocity is basically Igive you something, you give me
something.
And so in this day of everybodywants your email address,
(30:12):
everybody wants your data, whatare you, as a brand, going to
give them for it?
And so that's why I'm a verybig proponent of value exchange,
which is really thatreciprocity idea.
So if you are going to ask forsomeone's email address,
potentially add them to yournewsletter or just get them into
your kind of communicationsuniverse, maybe give them a 5%
(30:34):
off coupon or a 10% off coupon.
You see that a lot today andthat's really idea of
reciprocity, of making thatrelationship a bit more
transactional and exchangingvalue in both directions.
Janice Hostager (30:45):
And I've noticed, because I've been in
this business for a while, thatit's, I think, people expect a
little more now.
It's not like here, take thisfree thing, I'll, you know, just
give me your email address.
People will say, yeah, I don'tthink it's worth my email
address, you know.
So I think you really have toprobably step up a little more.
Yeah, yeah, it does have to bevaluable.
(31:07):
Price anchoring.
Adam Ortman (31:12):
Ooh, this could go a couple different directions.
Give me a little bit more ofwhat you're thinking with price
anchoring.
Janice Hostager (31:17):
So I'm thinking about maybe presenting a higher
price option first, to make thesubsequent option seem a little
more affordable.
Adam Ortman (31:26):
They can also go in the opposite direction, because
if you want to say, you know,come buy our dresses as low as
$15.99.
But there's only one dress,that's..
.
Janice Hostager (31:37):
Gotcha, yeah.
Oh, I see what you mean by that.
Adam Ortman (31:40):
Yeah.
So price anchoring is a goodstrategy because it gets people
on the door, right?
And you're looking to beattractive in one direction or
the other.
So you know cheaper or maybeyou know get up to.
This is that type of priceanchoring, get up to 75% off,
right?
That is an idea of priceanchoring where there might be
(32:00):
only one item that's 75% offright.
It's a little bit of a smokeand beers for a lot of marketers
.
Janice Hostager (32:08):
I've never thought about price anchoring
like that.
I always think of it as the wayI talked about.
But you're right, it goes bothways.
Love it.
How about personalization?
Adam Ortman (32:30):
It is 2025, and we know a lot about our customers.
Every conversation we haveshould be having a degree of
personalization attached to it,right?
So if we know that you're goingback to the example that I gave
earlier in this cast, if weknow that you're looking for
shoes, right, we can personalizethat ad to a specific type of
shoe, or even just shoes ingeneral.
If you are a common customer ofours, having a personalized
(32:53):
email, newsletter, promotionsthat are specific to the types
of product that I purchased fromyou really, really important
and, honestly, it just helps.
It helps show your customers asa brand, that you're listening
to them and it just makes thatcommunication more powerful.
So always personalize where youcan and leverage the
(33:15):
information that you have aboutyour customers in your
communications.
That's really the definition ofpersonalization.
Janice Hostager (33:20):
Right, and one last one.
Risk aversion.
Adam Ortman (33:27):
Risk aversion.
Oof this goes back to likeMaslow's hierarchy of needs.
Risk aversion is, it can go ina lot of different ways, either
like your physical risk, or yourrecent or your scarcity example
is also another one, becauseyou want to avert your risk in
not purchasing a product orpurchasing a service when it was
happening.
(33:47):
So I would actually tie thosetwo, unless you had a different
example, the scarcity and riskaversion.
Janice Hostager (33:55):
I guess I was thinking more in terms of
guarantees and warranties.
Like, yeah, how do I know thatI'm putting my money down and
let's say you're selling acourse, and what if I don't like
it?
Is there a money back guarantee?
You know that sort of thing.
Adam Ortman (34:08):
Yeah, free returns, those types of things.
Yeah, it breaks down thosebarriers of entry, especially
when you're looking at, you know, a potentially high, high
valued item or service.
People want to know thatthey're getting, that they have
an ability to get back theirmoney if something doesn't pan
out as expected.
Janice Hostager (34:26):
Yeah, right, right, well, I would say, you
hit a gold star.
You did very well.
Adam Ortman (34:31):
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
Some of them were a little.
I feel like I could haveanswered some of them better,
but anyway.
Janice Hostager (34:37):
No no.
I think you did a great job, sohow can people find out more
about you and your agency?
Adam Ortman (34:43):
Absolutely, wwwkinetic319.com.
You can also follow us onFacebook, on LinkedIn, on
Twitter.
We're posting multiple times aweek.
Actually, something that'sreally good for specifically
this audience is every week wehave a Stay Kinetic Tip, and
these are tips that areincredibly important if you're
launching your first campaign orif you're launching on social
(35:05):
media, or if you're buildingcontent for yourself.
You know even things to aspecific setting that you can
set a Google campaign to to helpyou optimize, because Google is
always trying to make money.
So Stay Kinetic Tips every weekis on all of our socials, so
definitely follow our socials.
There's another thing that'sactually launching here in the
next week, which is very, veryexciting.
(35:25):
It's called the Get MovingPackage.
So we, as Kinetic 319, we'reworking with you know a number
of clients across industriesthat are typically larger in
size.
These are individuals that wereon a monthly retainer, but we
also recognize the need forsmall businesses that are
wanting to just get started andthe enormous anxiety that comes
(35:49):
with building a campaign andsetting up website, tracking and
, you know, getting dashboardsand analytics.
I think that that is that canbe very, very overwhelming.
So the Get Moving Package withus, with Kinetic319, actually
helps us, helps you, excuse me,put all of that together in one
package and we basically hand itback to you completely built
(36:09):
and you know that you canactually start advertising in
the right way.
So that's launching next week,which is very exciting,
depending on when this cast goeslive, but you can find that at
kinetic319.
19.com as well.
Janice Hostager (36:21):
All right, we will put all the links in the
show notes.
Thank you so much, Adam.
I learned a lot and I'mguessing my audience did as well
, so appreciate it.
Adam Ortman (36:31):
I hope they did and thank you very much for having
me on.
Janice Hostager (36:33):
Thanks so much for tuning in today.
I hope you found today'sepisode informative and
empowering.
If you enjoyed what you heard,please don't forget to hit that
subscribe button on ApplePodcasts, Spotify or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Your support means so much tome.
You can find the show notes fortoday at myweeklymarketingcom
forward slash 97, where I sharethe links to anything we talked
(36:57):
about in this episode.
So until next time, keeppushing forward with your
marketing and making a positiveimpact in your business.
Thanks again, see you next time.
Bye for now.
I'm Janice Hostager.
After three decades in themarketing business and many
years of being an entrepreneur,I've learned a thing or two
about marketing.
Join me as we talk aboutmarketing, small business and
life in between.
Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
(00:34):
Have you ever felt compelled tomake a purchase?
Who hasn't right?
Maybe it was after watching avideo or a webinar, or seeing
something that somebody else waswearing and it was something
that you just had to have.
Chances are some form ofconsumer psychology pulled you
in.
Truthfully, psychology issomething that we all use every
day.
Even from childhood.
We learn that if we share ourtoys or help others, they're
(00:54):
more likely to share theirs too.
That's reciprocity.
Or, in our teen years, we mimicthe behaviors of others around
us and it influences us.
That's how I got in trouble inhigh school for getting an
additional piercing.
Avoiding psychology andmarketing is nothing new.
Of course, we need to adhere toethical guidelines and avoid
tactics that could exploitothers, but, truthfully,
(01:16):
persuasion in psychology isbaked into marketing.
My guest on the podcast todayloves to talk about this as much
as I do.
Adam Ortman is an author, apresident and founder of Kinetic
319, which is a marketing andadvertising agency headquartered
in Denver, Colorado.
As a consumer psychologist,Adam navigates the thrilling
(01:38):
intersection of media,technology and analytics.
He's collaborated with dynamicbrands such as United Health
Group, Nike, American Express,Kellogg and many others.
Adam talks about what we needto know, as small business
owners, about applying consumerpsychology in our own businesses
.
Here's my talk with Adam.
(01:59):
Hey, welcome to the show, Adam.
Adam Ortman (02:02):
Thanks, Janice, how are you?
Janice Hostager (02:04):
I'm doing well.
I love that we're talking aboutthe intersection between
business and psychology, and Iam a true marketing nerd and
it's a big reason why I got intomarketing to begin with.
But how did you get intomarketing psychology and
consumer behavior?
Adam Ortman (02:23):
I am obsessed with consumer psychology and behavior
and, honestly, if I didn'tthink that it would truly
exhaust me and probably put mein the grave, I would probably
be a PhD in it.
But no, I do love it.
I love how it allows us tounderstand theory of behavior,
(02:45):
but with marketing, we actuallyget to see it in practice and,
honestly, there's not a lot ofsciences and the personal
sciences that allow us to dothat.
And I am right there with you.
I'm a big marketing nerd and Ilove it.
Janice Hostager (02:57):
That is interesting because I've never
thought about that.
But really marketing is a sortof a laboratory for psychology
in a way.
Adam Ortman (03:09):
And if your brand is not testing in any way shape
or form in regards to yourwebsite, or in regards to what
words you're putting on youradvertisements, or maybe a
person versus a product, thoseare actual psychological signals
that you're testing in reallife, and I think that so many
businesses are doing it todayand they're not actually
realizing that they're doing it.
Janice Hostager (03:28):
Yeah, that is interesting because I've never
thought about it in that waybefore.
So did you just wake up one dayand say this is where I want to
be?
Or it's like how did you gethere, is it?
You know, running an agency andall the things.
Adam Ortman (03:42):
Do you want to know a very embarrassing story?
Janice Hostager (03:44):
Oh yes.
Adam Ortman (03:46):
The movie What Women Want with Mel Gibson.
Have you seen it?
Janice Hostager (03:49):
Yes, yes.
Adam Ortman (03:51):
So What Women Want?
He is an advertising executiveand he is pitching Nike and in
the movie he is known to be kindof this man's man, you know,
sports liquor type of advertiser, and he has to really change
his whole life and perspectiveand really the movie is about
(04:12):
him learning the inner thoughtsof of women around him in the
world and this actually helpshim in his pitch because he's
pitching not only Nike but Nikewomen's division, and the
journey that he takes andultimately the pitch that he
does at the end of the movie tothe heads of Nike.
Um, it was me watching thatmovie and I said that is what I
(04:34):
want to do with the rest of mylife.
And it was that when I startedgetting my bachelor's in
Marketing, my master's is incommunications with an emphasis
in consumer psychology and youknow I started very early on in
agency world and I started, youknow, when I was 18 in Southern
California.
My first agency job beforeGoogle was even the Google that
(04:54):
it is today.
And ever since then I've beenbaking real consumer behavior
and consumer psychology intomarketing, ever since.
Janice Hostager (05:08):
Very, very cool .
So I just want to clarifysomething here.
I feel like it's kind of theelephant in the room.
When we're talking aboutmarketing psychology or consumer
psychology, we're not talkingabout evil subliminal messages
hidden in an ad or a drink,Coca-Cola, words flashed on a
movie trailer right, we'retalking about like the sort of
(05:31):
psychology that we use every daywithout even realizing it.
Adam Ortman (05:36):
You're absolutely right.
You're absolutely right andhonestly, I think that it's
really best practice for brandsto think about this because, to
your point, it's not about theannoying pop of that, it's not
about you know, the strobingsubliminal message.
It's not about that.
It's really it's about abrand's understanding of its
customer's life andunderstanding your customer and
(05:57):
the degree of what does yourproduct or service, how does it
really impact your customer'slife and how do you seamlessly
interject or align your brandwith that customer's life?
And that's really where thetrue magic of brand and customer
come together.
(06:18):
And that is leveraging thatpsychology of understanding,
empathy for your customer andhaving a true understanding of
the struggles that they may haveor the motivations and
priorities that they have aspeople, and having a true
conversation between your brandand that customer.
That's how I really defineconsumer psychology and the way
(06:39):
that marketing should be.
Janice Hostager (06:43):
So we're not talking about anything that's
overtly manipulative or smarmy.
What we're talking about isreally understanding that
customer and getting to the rootof where you're doing them a
service, because you areproviding them with something
that they really want, right.
Adam Ortman (06:57):
Exactly, exactly, and there might be indicators
right.
So things that they may besearching on Google or maybe
videos that they're watching onYouTube that allow brands to
kind of gather informationaround, maybe that person might
be interested in my product orservice.
That's also a form of consumerpsychology is that you're
allowing some of thoseactivities that you're doing in
(07:17):
the real life, or even online,and aligning those with
potential indicators that youmight be interested in a
business.
Janice Hostager (07:24):
So my listeners are mostly small businesses.
How can they use, now theydon't necessarily have access to
you know a lot of big data,although they probably have
access to more of it than theyrealize actually?
So how would you approach themabout crafting
(07:51):
effective marketing messages,using consumer psychology and
consumer behavior?
Adam Ortman (07:53):
Of course.
Well, first off, I love thatyour viewership and listenership
is primarily small businesses,because there is not a more
resourceful, hardworking personthan a small business owner and
people that lead smallbusinesses.
Coming from a family of fivegenerations of small business
owners, I truly can empathizewith each and every one of you.
(08:13):
You have the highest of highsin your decision to be a small
business owner and you have thelowest of lows, and it is a
roller coaster, but it's onethat I personally would never
change for myself.
But I definitely empathize withall of you.
But to your point about thisidea of consumer psychology and
audiences and things of thatnature should not scare you,
(08:35):
because even small businesseshave access to this technology
and this type of theme today andI just use the word audiences
and if you are starting a newbusiness, you know, if you're
looking at, you know, just maybestarting to advertise or
starting to market yourself,there's a lot of really good
technology that exists, even outof the box, with a Google Ads
(08:57):
campaign, for example, trying toget your ad on Google, or even
Facebook, or even Facebook.
The platforms can be daunting,I truly understand that.
But there's a lot of resourcesavailable.
Even my own agency, Kinetic 319, provides a lot of those
resources.
But getting those up andrunning on your own and
leveraging audiences directlyout of the box from some of
these advertising platforms likeGoogle Ads or even Meta Ads is
(09:21):
a good place to start.
Depending on who your targetaudience is or who your customer
is, right out of the box youhave, you know, types of
audiences that Google provides.
I'll give some examples.
Like in market audiences, theseare, these are basically
audiences that if you say youknow I'm selling shoes and
(09:43):
Google already has an audiencethat says I can get your ad in
front of people that areshopping for shoes in the last
30 days.
So those types of audiencesthat are already crafted out of
Google are very easy toimplement into a campaign that
you're running on your own for asmall business.
But inherently you're leveragingconsumer psychology because
(10:03):
you're leveraging the actionsthat are taking place on the
Internet.
You know they're going onAmazon or they're maybe typing
in you know a certain shoe brandor whatever that may be and
you're leveraging that knowledgeto then inject your brand into
that shopping behavior or inthat shopper's journey.
That is a direct example of howyou can literally use what Nike
(10:26):
is using to sell shoes.
You, as a very small businessowner selling shoes, can use the
exact same technology, andthat's where we actually just
wrote a blog post about this afew months ago, about how this
type of technology is reallyleveling the playing field for
larger businesses and smallerbusinesses to really compete and
(10:46):
and again align with aconsumer's best product in their
, in their customer journey.
Janice Hostager (10:52):
Yes, and I love that you brought that up,
because I've been noticing thattoo and I really think now,
granted, a small business isn'tgoing to have the staff and and
you know probably the team toput some of this stuff together,
but it it is all out there.
And you know well, Facebook hasgotten, or Meta has gotten, a
little stingier with whatthey'll make available.
In the olden days, you could goon and just really do some deep
(11:17):
diving into your ideal customerand really find out a lot of
good information about it, andwith privacy laws, that's a
little tougher now.
But you're right, Google Ads ifyou're running a Google Ad and
not everybody does it's notappropriate for probably every
business, but there's a ton ofinformation out there.
So let's walk us through that.
(11:38):
How would you use theinformation to your benefit when
you're putting that ad together?
Adam Ortman (11:42):
Sure, when we start with every client, we have what
we call a move approach: magnify, orient, venture and (11:46):
undefined
evaluate, and so what we'retalking about is that magnify
part of our approach.
And so you have to start withyour audience, and so you have
to start with who your customeris.
You know, we build persona kindof little dashboards, little
persona profiles that allow usto see what's important to them.
(12:09):
You know where do they shop,where are they spending time
online.
You know how much TV do theywatch.
You know, do they care aboutbeing a technophile, versus do
they read a lot of books?
So there's a lot of differentassets that you can get from
understanding your customer.
And small businesses can dothis.
I tell every single one of myclients: talk to your customers,
(12:29):
not just about your product,not just about your service.
Talk to them about their lives,because that's going to give
you indicators on what your adshould look like, where you
should put your ad, what wordsshould be on your ad.
You know what do they lean into.
Are they really, you know, saleshoppers?
They only buy when things areon sale versus they really only
(12:52):
like expensive products.
So it's a very differentpsychology there.
So talking to your customer doesnot have to be this very kind
of, you know, large-scaleactivity where you have survey
data and market research.
Just have a conversation withthem.
Even a 5% off coupon to have 20minutes of their time is gold
(13:17):
when it comes to understandingyour customer and how that can
translate into bettering yourbusiness as a whole, but also in
the marketing world as well.
So I always start there, Janice, in regards to getting
magnification on your customer,something you should also be
thinking about is what yourcompetitors are doing.
So just Googling yourcompetitor's name, for example,
(13:39):
are they running ads?
Where are they showing up onthe internet?
And also, you know the ChatGPTs and AIs of the world are
making a lot of this researcheasier, so you can ask the AI to
help you pull data for youraudience, for your competitor.
I would say, you know,definitely do some fact checking
(14:01):
with those types of tools, butthey can be very, very useful,
especially if you're on a budget, and because some of these
things are free to people,they're great, great resources.
Janice Hostager (14:16):
Yeah, yeah, and even if you don't necessarily
know, like, because you know, alot of times people will put
together a new product and theywill have conversations, but
with their existing clients, butmaybe it's a different customer
, you know, even doing somereview mining, going through
Amazon or other review sites orother your competitors perhaps
(14:39):
looking at what other peoplehave done and said about it and
then go ahead and kind of getsome feedback from that too.
So that's great.
I love that you're having thatconversation, because sometimes
you just really need to getbehind the objections that
people have too and reallyunderstand them at a deeper
(15:00):
level, and you really can't.
It's harder to do that unlessyou have a conversation.
You don't necessarily need awhole focus group.
Adam Ortman (15:06):
You do not and I empathize with this topic, and
it kind of just came to me asyou were explaining this is when
I started Kinetic 319, prior todoing so, I reached out to
folks in my network that I haveworked at for many, many years,
and these are now heads of manybig players UnitedH ealthCare,
Yamaha, Kellogg, etc.
(15:27):
And I was doing this researchand I asked them if you changed
your agency or if you broughtyour advertising in-house to do
it yourself.
What were the motivators by youdoing that?
Obviously, they all came withvariety of answers, but there
was a single thread across eachof them, which was my agency
(15:48):
does not know my business.
Janice Hostager (15:51):
Really.
Adam Ortman (15:51):
That became my differentiator when I started
Kinetic 319.
It's still my, it's still onthe website, still in all of our
collateral is that we seek tobe the agency that knows you're
better, knows your businessbetter than any other agency
team and I we've baked in a lotof proprietary processes and
things in order for us to dothat.
So, for example, we experienceall of our, all of our clients
(16:12):
as brands.
We just signed a physicaltherapy brand that has
franchises all over the countryand all of us, including myself,
made an appointment, went intothe office, actually did the
appointment and lived the brand.
No agency is doing that todayand it's been very, very fun.
But that's a direct example ofme doing research, identifying a
(16:33):
need or a niche andunderstanding the problem or the
pain point the customer has andthen adjusting your business
accordingly.
Janice Hostager (16:41):
Okay, I have to say that's actually quite
shocking that you were able tostand out with that, because
with an agency, I mean that'srule number one.
Know your ideal customer, youknow your target market, and the
fact that agencies aren't doingthat it really kind of says
something about agencies outthere.
It's really amazing.
Adam Ortman (17:01):
It is amazing and it was part of my founder fuel
is what I call it, because italigned very well with the
reason why I went on on my ownwas because you have so many
agencies today, especially likethe big bot, the big, you know,
holding company agencies, whereyou have so many people running
campaigns and others a littlebit off topic, but we're that
(17:24):
are running campaigns or evenworking directly with clients
that have no idea what they'reselling, no idea why the brand
that they're partnering withexists, why was it started?
And so that is that kind ofirked me in a lot of ways and
really lit the fire under me tostart Kinetic319.
Janice Hostager (17:50):
Good for you.
So, switching a little bit here.
How does a brand's personality,let's say it's a personal brand
how does that influenceconsumer perceptions and
decision making, and how cansmall business utilize that
information to really developa stronger brand personality.
Adam Ortman (18:11):
I love this question because brand persona
and brand personality is soimportant because how I love to
explain this with specificallysmall businesses is if you could
build a person, a man or awoman or otherwise, to stand in
front of you as your company,what would they look like?
How would they talk, what wouldthey dress as, what would they
(18:33):
own, what would they do on theweekends?
What makes them laugh?
What makes them cry?
Those types of questions andexercises allow you to build a
personification of your brandthat gives it that personality
and it actually helps you in theearly days, because then you
can actually start to see okay,does my logo?
(18:54):
Is it more pointed, is it morecurved, is it more masculine, is
it more feminine?
So that type of exercise isincredibly impactful for brands,
especially at the beginning,because it kind of helps you
visualize the voice, thepersonality and how that can
actually turn itself intocollateral in advertising.
Janice Hostager (19:12):
I'm so glad you said that, because that's
something that I've struggledwith forever.
Because what's the saying?
A jar can't read its own label.
If you can visualize somebodyelse becoming that brand, I
think that's super powerful.
I might just steal that, that'sokay.
I'll give you credit.
Adam Ortman (19:32):
Please steal it.
No, yeah, steal it.
Janice Hostager (19:34):
Well, go ahead.
Adam Ortman (19:37):
No, I was just going to say it helps
tremendously, especially whenyou get further into more nitty
gritty parts of your business sosay you're talking about you
know you've grown and you're nowposting to social media
multiple times a week or you'rein PR, for example, revisiting
that persona, that person thatyou've built to stand in front
(20:01):
of you.
Always go back and revisit thatperson because it will help you
educate your staff, it willhelp you inform how you respond
to certain scenarios.
So like say, if someoneresponds negatively or even
positively to one of your socialposts, right, they write a
comment on one of your socialposts, how does your brand
respond?
(20:21):
And so revisiting that personthat you built helps you answer
some of those questions.
Janice Hostager (20:27):
Very powerful and we were chatting about time
and time to think just prior tostarting this recording and I
think that would be a reallypowerful thing to just kind of a
little exercise to giveyourself before you really dive
in and really define your brandfor sure and, like you said,
(20:47):
throughout the life of yourbusiness, just kind of keep
revisiting that and think aboutthat, because I may just do that
this weekend.
Adam Ortman (20:55):
Get a glass of wine , Janice.
Get a glass of wine.
Start visualizing your brands.
Yeah, it's incredibly important.
Janice Hostager (21:02):
There we go.
Can you discuss the concept ofcognitive biases in marketing,
like confirmation bias orauthority bias, something like
that, and how small businessescan identify and maybe mitigate
that and how that'll affecttheir marketing?
Adam Ortman (21:21):
Confirmation bias or projection fallacies are
incredibly common.
Still, you would think that youknow you have a $50 million
company.
This would not be the case, itabsolutely is.
So this type of thinking is allaround.
If I believe it to be true, itmust be true.
And so I watch Travel ChannelTV.
(21:46):
All of my customers watchTravel Channel TV.
The worst mistake a brand canmake.
And so when you are thinking toyourself, you know, I, I, you
know, take your, take yourselfout of the equation and put your
customer at the center of yourequation, because it is all
about them.
When it comes to marketing andadvertising, there are so many
(22:09):
of my clients that we arerunning an ad, for example,
online.
This is so common and they sayI have never seen it.
And my immediate response isyou are not our target.
Janice Hostager (22:21):
Right.
Adam Ortman (22:23):
You are not our target.
If you were seeing it, I wouldhave to question my team's
ability to target your mediaeffectively.
So that type of confirmationbias or even projection fallacy
of projecting your own thoughtsand your own personal opinions
onto a larger population likeyour customers incredibly common
but also a very big mistake inmy mind Understand your customer
(22:47):
and then leverage thatinformation to tailor your
efforts, whether that's theconversations you're having in
store or even type of ads thatyou're doing online.
Janice Hostager (22:55):
Yeah, I always recommend just printing off your
persona, all their attributes,their interests, sticking it
right on the wall in front ofyour desk.
So every email you write,everything you do on their
website, is geared toward them,because it's so easy to get in
your own head and think well, ifI like that they must as they
must as well and um all the timeon social media, but that's a
(23:17):
whole another conversation.
But you know, just um, justreally remember that it's.
I mean, there are some caseswhere they may.
There may be some overlap, forsure, but just really
understanding that individualyeah so.
.
.
Adam Ortman (23:32):
And also revisit your personas.
So every about six to eightmonths, that person that you've
taped up to your side of yourwall, revisit them right, even
maybe resurvey your client,maybe re-talk to them or even
pull some data.
Because there's a lot ofvendors now that you can
actually get a large, robust CRMlist of email addresses of your
customers, for example, you canactually have that profile to
(23:55):
say this is above average, thisis below average.
Those types of things,different indicators, whether
it's demographic or evenbehavioral.
I always recommend between sixand eight months, always just
doing a quick read, glance atthat persona profile, because
new technology is always comingout.
Macro environments andpolitical environments and
(24:15):
economic environments areconstantly changing, so it's
important to revisit those aswell.
Janice Hostager (24:21):
Okay, so break down what you said and talk to
me like I'm five with the CRMlist, so tell me exactly what
that would look like.
So how would you go about doingthat?
Adam Ortman (24:30):
So your CRM is your Customer Relationship
Management CRM platform.
These are platforms, like youknow.
HubSpot is probably the biggestone that everyone knows about.
You can also look at Salesforceas being a CRM, or you know
there's a lot of different typesof these types of products.
I personally love HubSpot.
We even use it for ourselves.
(24:50):
It's free to get started likewhy wouldn't you use something
like that?
It's really a place for you tocollect all of your customers'
information, so their name,their email address, their
mailing address.
You can also incorporate someof the notes that you've.
You know, their transactionhistory.
Those types of things are allthings that you should put into
your CRM and if you have arobust list of these customers
(25:16):
that you've saved over time, youcan actually take out all of
those email addresses and workwith a vendor.
We have multiple of them.
Semcasting is one of them whereyou can, they have a lot of
data that they collect basicallyfrom a variety of different
sources, whether that's Amazonshopping data, IP address data,
(25:38):
et cetera and allows you to thensay this group of people index
higher.
I guess I wouldn't really sayindex if you were five years old
, but they are more likely tohit certain types of criteria
across varying behaviors Ifthey're more thrifty shoppers
(26:00):
versus luxury shoppers or ifthey are late night shoppers
versus early morning shoppers.
There's a lot of differentcriteria that you can use, but
that practice is very good.
Janice Hostager (26:13):
Okay.
Okay, that does make a lot ofsense, all right.
So I thought it'd be fun toplay a little game, and so I've
been, I am going to come downwith a list of marketing
triggers.
I'll call them psychologicaltriggers.
I don't know really what theterm, the correct term, is, and
have you talked a little bitabout each one and maybe give us
(26:33):
an example and define howbusiness owners could use it?
Small business owners can useit in their marketing.
Adam Ortman (26:41):
I can't guarantee that I know all of these.
Janice Hostager (26:43):
Oh, I bet you do.
I think actually smallbusinesses are probably using
these already without realizingit, because they're so baked
into our culture and everything.
So we'll start with number onesocial proof.
Adam Ortman (26:57):
I love social proof .
So all of the reviews, all thetestimonials, your neighbor
that's recommending your doggroomer, all social proof, so
incredibly powerful and,honestly, the oldest form of
marketing that exists today.
So maintain it, stimulate itand, whatever you can do, use it
(27:18):
to your advantage as a business.
Janice Hostager (27:20):
It's word of mouth.
Adam Ortman (27:21):
Your word of mouth.
Janice Hostager (27:22):
Scarcity.
Adam Ortman (27:25):
Scarcity is a very powerful tool because this is
also something that goes toanother topic that I really,
really love, which is FOMO.
So fear of missing out is alsovery aligned with scarcity.
So, which I know, FOMO was kindof like a hashtag for many
years but actually became anactual condition, a
psychological condition, acouple of years ago when it was
(27:47):
published.
But scarcity is basically theinventory or the products are
going to run out and I don't getone, so I need to move faster,
right?
So scarcity is often usedwithin ads, like a countdown,
for example, so you only have 35minutes and 12 seconds and 11
seconds and 10 seconds beforethe sale is over.
(28:09):
That's an example of scarcity.
Janice Hostager (28:12):
So if you're a coach or consultant, maybe
launching something a couple oftimes a year or having a
promotion a couple of times ayear for a limited amount of
time and people use that all thetime in retail even, yeah, so
just to get people to actquickly.
Adam Ortman (28:28):
Scarcity will always stimulate demand.
That is an economic law.
Janice Hostager (28:33):
Yep, love it, love it, certainly used it.
Authority.
Adam Ortman (28:39):
I mean I would absolutely favor a plumber who
has many decades ofcertifications under their belt
and the authority to conduct theservice in my home versus
someone, versus a painter that'snever done plumbing before in
his life or her life to come inand do work.
So authority really justbolsters your ability to align
(29:03):
your customer's expectation of aproduct and service versus your
ability to provide it.
So authority allows you to havethat communication.
Janice Hostager (29:13):
And I always think authority should be
established pretty fast, like inthat awareness stage.
Show people that you are anauthority in your space before
it comes across stronger.
That way to me, and it's justkind of what I recommend.
Adam Ortman (29:31):
I always ask myself , whenever I'm talking to
potentially a new client thatI'm pitching, or maybe even a
new business sector, why shouldthis person believe or even
listen to me or take meseriously?
Those are all really goodauthoritative practices.
Janice Hostager (29:47):
Love that question.
Reciprocity.
Adam Ortman (29:52):
I think reciprocity is incredibly important,
especially in this day and ageof privacy, for example, and
having you know communicationswith your customers.
So reciprocity is basically Igive you something, you give me
something.
And so in this day of everybodywants your email address,
(30:12):
everybody wants your data, whatare you, as a brand, going to
give them for it?
And so that's why I'm a verybig proponent of value exchange,
which is really thatreciprocity idea.
So if you are going to ask forsomeone's email address,
potentially add them to yournewsletter or just get them into
your kind of communicationsuniverse, maybe give them a 5%
(30:34):
off coupon or a 10% off coupon.
You see that a lot today andthat's really idea of
reciprocity, of making thatrelationship a bit more
transactional and exchangingvalue in both directions.
Janice Hostager (30:45):
And I've noticed, because I've been in
this business for a while, thatit's, I think, people expect a
little more now.
It's not like here, take thisfree thing, I'll, you know, just
give me your email address.
People will say, yeah, I don'tthink it's worth my email
address, you know.
So I think you really have toprobably step up a little more.
Yeah, yeah, it does have to bevaluable.
(31:07):
Price anchoring.
Adam Ortman (31:12):
Ooh, this could go a couple different directions.
Give me a little bit more ofwhat you're thinking with price
anchoring.
Janice Hostager (31:17):
So I'm thinking about maybe presenting a higher
price option first, to make thesubsequent option seem a little
more affordable.
Adam Ortman (31:26):
They can also go in the opposite direction, because
if you want to say, you know,come buy our dresses as low as
$15.99.
But there's only one dress,that's..
.
Janice Hostager (31:37):
Gotcha, yeah.
Oh, I see what you mean by that.
Adam Ortman (31:40):
Yeah.
So price anchoring is a goodstrategy because it gets people
on the door, right?
And you're looking to beattractive in one direction or
the other.
So you know cheaper or maybeyou know get up to.
This is that type of priceanchoring, get up to 75% off,
right?
That is an idea of priceanchoring where there might be
(32:00):
only one item that's 75% offright.
It's a little bit of a smokeand beers for a lot of marketers
.
Janice Hostager (32:08):
I've never thought about price anchoring
like that.
I always think of it as the wayI talked about.
But you're right, it goes bothways.
Love it.
How about personalization?
Adam Ortman (32:30):
It is 2025, and we know a lot about our customers.
Every conversation we haveshould be having a degree of
personalization attached to it,right?
So if we know that you're goingback to the example that I gave
earlier in this cast, if weknow that you're looking for
shoes, right, we can personalizethat ad to a specific type of
shoe, or even just shoes ingeneral.
If you are a common customer ofours, having a personalized
(32:53):
email, newsletter, promotionsthat are specific to the types
of product that I purchased fromyou really, really important
and, honestly, it just helps.
It helps show your customers asa brand, that you're listening
to them and it just makes thatcommunication more powerful.
So always personalize where youcan and leverage the
(33:15):
information that you have aboutyour customers in your
communications.
That's really the definition ofpersonalization.
Janice Hostager (33:20):
Right, and one last one.
Risk aversion.
Adam Ortman (33:27):
Risk aversion.
Oof this goes back to likeMaslow's hierarchy of needs.
Risk aversion is, it can go ina lot of different ways, either
like your physical risk, or yourrecent or your scarcity example
is also another one, becauseyou want to avert your risk in
not purchasing a product orpurchasing a service when it was
happening.
(33:47):
So I would actually tie thosetwo, unless you had a different
example, the scarcity and riskaversion.
Janice Hostager (33:55):
I guess I was thinking more in terms of
guarantees and warranties.
Like, yeah, how do I know thatI'm putting my money down and
let's say you're selling acourse, and what if I don't like
it?
Is there a money back guarantee?
You know that sort of thing.
Adam Ortman (34:08):
Yeah, free returns, those types of things.
Yeah, it breaks down thosebarriers of entry, especially
when you're looking at, you know, a potentially high, high
valued item or service.
People want to know thatthey're getting, that they have
an ability to get back theirmoney if something doesn't pan
out as expected.
Janice Hostager (34:26):
Yeah, right, right, well, I would say, you
hit a gold star.
You did very well.
Adam Ortman (34:31):
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
Some of them were a little.
I feel like I could haveanswered some of them better,
but anyway.
Janice Hostager (34:37):
No no.
I think you did a great job, sohow can people find out more
about you and your agency?
Adam Ortman (34:43):
Absolutely, wwwkinetic319.com.
You can also follow us onFacebook, on LinkedIn, on
Twitter.
We're posting multiple times aweek.
Actually, something that'sreally good for specifically
this audience is every week wehave a Stay Kinetic Tip, and
these are tips that areincredibly important if you're
launching your first campaign orif you're launching on social
(35:05):
media, or if you're buildingcontent for yourself.
You know even things to aspecific setting that you can
set a Google campaign to to helpyou optimize, because Google is
always trying to make money.
So Stay Kinetic Tips every weekis on all of our socials, so
definitely follow our socials.
There's another thing that'sactually launching here in the
next week, which is very, veryexciting.
(35:25):
It's called the Get MovingPackage.
So we, as Kinetic 319, we'reworking with you know a number
of clients across industriesthat are typically larger in
size.
These are individuals that wereon a monthly retainer, but we
also recognize the need forsmall businesses that are
wanting to just get started andthe enormous anxiety that comes
(35:49):
with building a campaign andsetting up website, tracking and
, you know, getting dashboardsand analytics.
I think that that is that canbe very, very overwhelming.
So the Get Moving Package withus, with Kinetic319, actually
helps us, helps you, excuse me,put all of that together in one
package and we basically hand itback to you completely built
(36:09):
and you know that you canactually start advertising in
the right way.
So that's launching next week,which is very exciting,
depending on when this cast goeslive, but you can find that at
kinetic319.
19.com as well.
Janice Hostager (36:21):
All right, we will put all the links in the
show notes.
Thank you so much, Adam.
I learned a lot and I'mguessing my audience did as well
, so appreciate it.
Adam Ortman (36:31):
I hope they did and thank you very much for having
me on.
Janice Hostager (36:33):
Thanks so much for tuning in today.
I hope you found today'sepisode informative and
empowering.
If you enjoyed what you heard,please don't forget to hit that
subscribe button on ApplePodcasts, Spotify or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Your support means so much tome.
You can find the show notes fortoday at myweeklymarketingcom
forward slash 97, where I sharethe links to anything we talked
(36:57):
about in this episode.
So until next time, keeppushing forward with your
marketing and making a positiveimpact in your business.
Thanks again, see you next time.
Bye for now.
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