Anyone who’s spent much time around me has probably heard me harp on about making activity fun, easy and popular. Why do I say that so often? Here comes the science part – it’s been proven by hundreds of studies that if you can increase the perceived benefits, improve the self-efficacy of the audience and alter the social norms then you will be the most successful in getting people active (or stopping smoking, starting recycling, etc.). In normal people’s terms that means making the activity fun, easy and popular.
Fun can mean competition to one person or relaxation to another. Easy could be cheaper or more convenient. Popular means doing it with people like you.
Well that’s all great – but how do you put that into your marketing? Fun comes first – so show that as the heading or sub-heading. Easy comes next – explain how you’re making it easier for them in the main text. Popular is trickier to do in words, but you don’t need to. You can show normal people who look like your audience in your photos.
If you don’t know what benefits to promote or what things to make easier then just look them up in the communications plans on promotingactivity.com. Or use the Poster design tool – it’s got suggested messages and photos built in.