Chris Brogan issued a plea at the CUNA Marketing & Business Development Council Conference Sunday in San Francisco: “Stop putting junky marketing out into the universe.”

That starts with creating high-impact marketing content, says Brogan, a best-selling author and marketing guru who delivered the preconference session, “Get Spicy: Content Marketing for Credit Unions.”

“Impact is a mix of clear, important, and obvious with a dash of compelling on top,” he says. “Impact writing front-loads the important point instead of hinting around, although sometimes curiosity is a good impact lever. No matter the format, your goal is to drive an open, then a read, and then action.”

Brogan cites six characteristics of high-impact content marketing:

1. Clarity. “Our brains turn off the moment we perceive something to be confusing or vague,” he says. Take out extraneous “junk words.”

2. Threat perception. When people feel safe physically, they don’t to pay attention to potential threats. The same holds true for “safe” marketing.

“Stop being safe,” Brogan says. “You don’t need to use [expletive] in your marketing, but pick a side.”

3. Action-driven. “If you can push me forward, you’re making an impact,” he says.

4. Urgency. Sometimes, pushing a time constraint or immediate action spurs people to act. “Fifty percent of my revenue on email marketing comes from two words: ‘Last call,’” Brogan says.

5. Novelty. When something is novel, it resonates with people. “Any time I can turn a phrase around a bit, it engages the ‘clever’ parts of our brain.”

6. Familiarity. "When we see something that reminds us of home, family, or self, we feel the impact on a tribal level,” Brogan says. “Tribes are how we get together, but most marketing doesn’t reflect that. You need your inside jokes. Market to your tribe.

“The No. 1 thing we do wrong is when we try to write for grownups, try to be important, or require some gravitas,” he continues. “If you wouldn’t say something a certain way during a barbecue, don’t say it like that on your website.”

► Visit CUNA News for more conference coverage, and get live updates on Twitter via @CUNACraig, @cumagazine, @CUNACouncils, and by using the #MBDCouncil hashtag. Learn more about the CUNA Marketing & Business Development Council, a member-led professional society for credit union executives, at cunacouncils.org.