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How To Be Valued In Any Marketplace
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Mike is ‘in sales’. He takes care to dress well, to tone down his tie and give a firm handshake. He begins every conversation with a prospective client by first introducing himself and then sharing his perspective about why he’s there. It’s no surprise that Mike is met with hundreds of rejections each year from people who don’t immediately understand the value he creates for them.
A better place for Mike to start is by asking two questions:
Tell me what do you do now. What do you want to do?
Our work becomes valuable when it is valued, and people can’t value something they don’t understand. It turns out that the best way to be understood is first to understand.
Image by Thomas Hawk.
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The Spotlight
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
I went to see Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan perform on Broadway last week.
What was interesting to observe was how little most people in the audience were enjoying the act of ‘going to see Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan perform on Broadway’. There were complaints about the fact that they doors didn’t open early enough. A lot of whining about the lack of adequate toilet facilities for the ladies. Annoyance at having to stand up when the stragglers arrived late and needed to get into the middle of the row. Grumbles about the comfort of the chairs and loud gasps when a phone began to ring mid-performance (agreed on that one, it must be very frustrating for the actors). Two ladies in my row even dosed off for a bit during the first half. Did I mention it was a matinee?
The acting of course was superb, but you can watch Bill and Carey in some great movies from the comfort of your living room for almost free, no queuing required—so why go to the theatre at all?
The reason we pay with time, effort, inconvenience and money isn’t always for the experience, it’s for the story we get to tell. We all want to be in the spotlight like Bill and Carey at some point, even if we don’t acknowledge it and the price of admission is worth it to be able to say;
“I went to see Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan perform on Broadway last week.”
How are you helping your customers to step into the spotlight?
Image by Edinburgh Film Festival.
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5 Steps To Making Things People Want
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Here’s the subject line ‘just curious’ email I got the other day. Maybe you got one too? The marketing consultant had gone to the trouble to know my name, but that’s where the personalisation ended.
“Hi Bernadette,
By any chance, are you interested in solutions for getting sales appointments and leads?
XYZ does so on multiple channels. Our package integrates phone, email and Linkedin marketing.
This results in a better chance of contacting prospects and setting up more meetings.
You get to work with dedicated lead generation experts, a vast contact database and an advanced CRM tool. All these combined expedite the lead generation process. Our Campaign Specialist can tell you more about how our solution works. If you’re open for a quick call to discuss, please send me the best day and time and your direct number.”
The ‘by any chance’ method is not a marketing strategy and it’s no way to build a sustainable business. Here’s the alternative.
5 Steps To Making Things People Want
1. Understand who they are.
2. Listen to what they say.
3. Watch what they do.
4. Understand who they want to become.
5. Make the thing that gets them from here to there.
When you’ve earned the privilege to be curious about people you care about serving, to listen to what they want, and to observe who they want to become, you don’t have to work so hard to make them pay attention to what’s on offer.
Image by Daniel Gregory.
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The Easy Way To Create A Mission And Vision Statement
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
There’s something beyond skill, talent, investment and resources that powers the most successful companies, and that’s a clear sense of where they are going and why. When you have a compass it’s not only easier to get to where you want to go, it’s also possible to take people with you.
I’ve written previously about how to write your mission statement, but since it’s easy to get confused between mission and vision, I thought I’d break it down.
Your mission statement describes why your company exists—it serves as both a guiding light for your team and a public statement of intention. Your vision statement describes your future impact—the result and effect of executing on your mission. In their simplest form a mission and vision can we summarised in a single sentence.
We do, make, create, serve, empower, inspire [ABC], [XYZ] will happen because we did [ABC].
Using this model we could describe the Airbnb mission and vision as follows:
Our mission is to build a community-driven hospitality company, that makes travellers all over the world feel like they belong anywhere.
Now it’s your turn.
Image by Michael R. Perry.
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The Power Of What We Measure
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
It’s easier than ever before to create a set of metrics by which to monitor our progress and measure our success. Click-through rates, subscriber numbers, impressions and customer lifetime value are useful data points.
What if we measured our success by the results we delivered for our customers? Not what the customer did for us, but what we helped them to do.
How would that change the posture of our businesses, societies and the stories we both lived and told?
Image by Brandon Doran.
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Who Exactly?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Who exactly is your ideal customer?
Was her mobile phone on her bedside table when she woke up this morning? Did she reach for it as soon as she opened her eyes? Or did she go for a run before sun up, then sip hot water and lemon as she scrolled through her Facebook feed? Did she catch the train to work, pack lunches before doing the school run, or head to the nearest cafe with nothing but her laptop and a full inbox.
How does she spend her weekends? Does she prefer the art gallery or a night club? What brings her joy? What does she put off doing until the very last minute? What does she care enough about to pay extra for? Where is she hoping life will take her?
Only once you have a sense of all of this, are you really ready to begin.
Image by Melina Souza.
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The Unsurprising Way To Find More Customers
There was clearly a big job of work to do on the old Victorian home close to where we live.
We didn’t envy either the owners, or the painting contractor who was slowly and carefully laying down dust sheets on that first morning, long before many people had started their day.
The painter worked alone, quietly and methodically sanding, undercoating and finishing each part of the project before moving to the next. It took a week of noticing him every day before I asked for his number.
Peter didn’t have a branded van, or a sandwich board on the pavement, or business cards he could give to passers by. All he had was his work and that was enough.
In our rush to grow we sometimes forget that the best way to attract more customers is to do the kind of work that people want to both, experience and talk about.
Image by Mike.
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3 Things Your About Page Must Do
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Your website’s about page is the place where prospective customers come to look you in the virtual eye and it’s also the most overlooked marketing opportunity you have.
3 Things Your Website’s About Page Must Do
1. Build trust.
Think about the reasons we visit about pages. Mostly we want to get a sense of the values of the person or company we’re considering doing business with and to understand what it might be like to work with them.
2. Make the reader feel understood and show how you can help solve her problem.
When you really know the audience you’re serving, you can speak directly to them about the kind of challenges they are facing and describe how you can, and have helped people in similar situations.
3. Tell the reader what to do next.
Without a call to action you’re just inviting the potential customer to leave.
Your about page must have contact details, links your store or services and to other resources on your website.
When you give prospective customers a reason to hang around a bit longer they often do.
UPDATE: Need more help?
The About Page Guide will take you step-by-step through the process.
Image by wee.
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The Gap Between Saying And Doing
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
You will have seen this image of a goldfish making a courageous leap from his bowl on countless websites. It’s meant to convey a message about a company that’s not afraid to challenge the status quo, of course it’s now so ubiquitous, it does exactly the opposite.
Nobody in the marketing department got fired for using the leaping fish, and nobody who encountered it cared.
Our stories live in the gap between what we say and what we do.
The best brand stories by their very nature stand out because they feel new, and fresh, and true.
If you want something safe go with the fish.
If you want something meaningful go with true.
Image by McBeth.
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What Your Competitors Can’t Copy
Back in the day our neighbour had to buy her gluten-free products from a tiny and very expensive range of products at the local pharmacy. If you wanted organic products you trekked across town to a speciality store. Not so today.
As demand drives supply, competitors enter new markets and what was once a tiny but healthy monopoly can become a race to stay ahead of the competition. And so we look for ways to give customers reasons to choose us. We invite them to compare with a ‘this over that’ argument.
The best brands thrive because they are beyond compare. The loyalty and love of their customers is not just determined by what’s inside the package (quality is a given). The best brands win by creating meaning and a connection with their customers in ways that their competitors could never hope to copy.
Brand affinity, trumps brand awareness every time.