How To Connect With Your Audience

If you have ever thought, "If only they knew how great our products and services are!" You, my friend, are struggling to connect with your audience. Take a seat. 

Here is a quote from someone far smarter than myself:

“The most startling truth is we don’t even think our way to logical solutions. We feel our way to reason. Emotions are the substrate, the base layer of neural circuitry underpinning even rational deliberation. Emotions don’t hinder decisions. They constitute the foundation on which they’re made!” Douglas Van Praet, author of Unconscious Branding: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketingwrote in Fast Company.

With that in mind, how do you connect your brand, your face, and your products on an emotional level with your target audience?

The secret is in understanding the three levels of connection that EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION MUST GO THROUGH. It doesn't matter if this is a sales interaction, a friendly interaction, or an interaction with a Facebook video.

All marketing messages must pass through these 3 levels of connection:

1. Primal (fight or flight)

2. Emotional/Social

3. Logical

Allow me to explain...

Fight Or Flight

Our brains are designed to protect us and keep us safe, so this stage of interaction is largely based on instinct. Every message you ever speak, every commercial your business puts into the world - they all must pass through this filter.

People who come into contact with your message will first judge if this is an opportunity or a threat. Does it feel right? Is it even okay to listen to what you have to say?

Have you ever been in a social situation where, within 10 seconds of meeting someone, you were trying to figure out a way to get away? That is your brain perceiving that interaction as threatening.  

So, the first task to accomplish in developing a marketing initiative is to get your target to let their guard down. You want them to be at ease so they can move past the fight or flight stage of connection. 

There must be something about our advertising, our marketing, and our messaging that is disarming and relatable.

Emotional and social

Only after the prospect has connected with us on the fight or flight level can we try to make an emotional connection. Remember - there must be an emotional connection in order for anything rational to even be considered.

Think of a young child or an animal - they do not have the rational mind to assess a situation. All "thought" is done based on feeling and sensing. As adults, these same feelings still underpin our rational process. 

In this stage of connection, our brains are looking for social cues. Does this person represent something trustworthy? Do they seem like they know what they are talking about? Does this feel right?

Someone once said, "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

An emotional connection does not mean tears and weeping. Humor, inspiration, and relatable storytelling can all create an emotional connection. Your prospects are looking for things like social proof and testimonials while they consider if you look or sound like them and other people that they trust. 

Consider using things like humor, stories that relate to your target viewer, inspiration, testimonials, case studies, endorsements, and credibility statements. These will satisfy the need for the emotional level connection that needs to be in place before someone will rationally consider your offering. 


After the primal and emotional underpinnings of our thought processes have been satisfied, now a person can begin to process a message rationally. 

Although it is believed this is the highest form of thought, this is the last to be used by ALL PEOPLE.

At this stage of connection we are actually thinking about things like numbers, pros and cons, and value. Does this decision make sense? Do the nuts and bolts actually mean what I think they do?

Depending on who you are selling to, this will need to be present to higher or lesser degrees. Generally, the more affluent, educated, and successful your target audience is, the more important the logical implications of the decision will be. 

Though many would tell the beginning salesperson or marketer to focus only on emotional selling, there has to be a logical component to the message or it will fall short. 


Is this a benefit or a threat? Does this feel right? Does it make logical sense? These are the three levels of connection that every marketing or sales message must pass through.

We use a four-step process to create video ads that drive connection on these three levels. It's the same formula that has been known but kept secret for decades by the worlds greatest advertisers. Download "The 4-Step Guide to Facebook Video Commercials that Sell" to start developing a video marketing message that connects with your market.