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Articles filed in: Storytelling
Do Your Customers Feel Like They Belong?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
I got a sensory jolt when I arrived at the QT Hotel on the Gold Coast last week, to speak at the Problogger Conference. The concierge greeted me wearing bright pink shorts and a matching smile, offering home made lemonade from the stand in the foyer. The receptionists wore one piece turquoise jumpsuits, with red piping and bright red belts (try carrying an extra kilo on your hips in one of those!).
Did I mention the cockatoo lamps in the bedroom, and the beach ready thongs (not what you’re thinking if you’re not Australian) hanging on pegs in net bags on the bedroom wall?
Everything was designed to say, “you have arrived on the Gold Coast, it’s okay to chill out, let their hair down and feel the sand between your toes.”
What QT have cleverly done, is to turn up the volume on how they want their guests to feel.
And that got me thinking….why do hotel staff wear black waistcoats anyway? And why do most hotels make us feel like we’re just passing through, when what we really want is to belong?
Are you turning up the volume on how your customers want to feel?
Image by Luke Chan.
How To Tell The Story Of Your Idea Using The ‘Value Proposition Hack’
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
The biggest challenge that many of my clients have isn’t coming up with great ideas, it’s articulating why those ideas should matter, to the right people. Explaining the value of an idea can be tough if you don’t have a place to start. I created the ‘value proposition hack’, so that you would have a way to explain the value of your idea succinctly, in just one sentence. Simply fill in the blanks, then finesse as required.
We do ———————————, so that you can do/feel/be ———————————.
We created ———————————, so you don’t have to do/feel/be ———————————.
The value you create may be multi-layered, or it might be intangible (a feeling, not a physical benefit) it still pays to write this down.
Here are some examples of value propositions which could be applied to existing business ideas, that I created using the ‘value proposition hack’.
At Method we make safe, natural cleaning products that work, so that you feel good about using them. And you don’t even need to hide our beautifully designed packaging in the kitchen cupboard.
We created Method, so that you don’t have to breathe toxic fumes as you clean, now you can experience great cleaning results, while caring for the planet too.
We don’t add artificial ingredients to our yogurt, because we want to maintain the integrity of the natural ingredients, so that you can experience the taste of real, good, simple yogurt.
We created Chobani, so that you can enjoy a real, good simple yogurt, made with only natural ingredients.
I blog at The Art of Non Conformity, so that people like you who want to change the world, can be inspired to achieve their personal goals.
I created The Art of Non Conformity, so you could see that you don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.
Your turn.
Image by MTSOfan.
Why People Pay And Why It Matters
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
The dictionary will tell you that marketing is the activity that surrounds the transfer of goods, from consumer to buyer. This, for that. But we also pay with time, attention and love. And even when we pay with money, it’s rarely a ‘this, for that’ transaction, since all value is subjective.
It’s easy to fall in love with your idea, but as you do, it’s important to consider why someone will pay you with their time, attention, love or money, if you want that idea to create an impact in the world. In a world where the definition of value is changing, even big industries like music and publishing are having a hard time figuring this out.
First consider the reasons why your customers might pay you….
Necessity
Taxes, basic food and shelter.
Fear
Life insurance, private school fees.
Fear of missing out
Sales, special offers, peer pressure.
Convenience
Snack size, easy open, home delivery and on and on.
Perceived value
A coke at the cinema, is worth more to the popcorn eater than the coke that’s at home in the fridge.
Scarcity
There is no substitute. Johnny Depp, iPod, Sydney Opera House.
Belonging
Conferences, clubs, concerts, events and online programs.
A shortcut
PayPal, Slimfast, Google.
It feels good
Kickstarter, charity donations, volunteering, books.
To reinforce the story they tell themselves and those around them.
Starbucks, Jimmy Choo shoes, French champagne, organic vegetables, gym membership, Fair Trade, Beats by Dr Dre.
It turns out that transactions are a transfer of emotion, which means you can’t tell a story to the right customers, unless you understand the story they want to believe.
Which story should you be telling?
Image by Jose Quinteros.
The Diminishing Value Of Access
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
When a new business opens in your suburb, the first thing they do, with great fanfare, is plaster ‘now open’ signs around the neighbourhood. The ‘we’ve built it, now you’ll come’ mentality is alive and well in every industry.
My son, along with thousands of others is in his first year at university. Most of his lectures are posted online, so he needs a good reason to spend an hour taking two buses and a train to get to lectures. Like many of his friends he shows up on the days when his mates will have the same two hours free mid afternoon, so they can hang out together after lectures. Many university students agree, that their real education no longer has to happen in a lecture theatre. The information isn’t more valuable because it’s delivered in person, by a guy wearing a blazer in a sandstone building.
Access to both information and stuff was scarce ten years ago. It’s not what’s valuable now. Just showing up, unlocking the door, putting on the conference or giving the lecture is no longer good enough. Access is no longer the point.
In a world where everything is a tap or a click away, what matters is not what is taught or sold, but how it’s delivered, and how that made someone feel as she walked out the door.
Image by Matt Jones.
Don’t Sell A Man A Saw, Teach A Man To Build
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Mike works at our local ‘big box’ hardware store, alongside people who cut wood, motion directions and stack paint cans. Each weekend Mike sees a steady stream of ‘have a go’ DIY enthusiasts, the kind of guys who were too busy on their way to becoming accountants and lawyers in their teens, to learn how to cut wood, drill holes or make things. Mike’s colleagues help them to pay for the things they say they want, and to load their cars with the things they’ve paid for.
Mike does things differently.
He never asks the customer what he wants, instead he asks,
“What do you want to do?”
Which is code for….
“What do you want to be?”
Then, and only then, does Mike help the guy to understand what he needs for the job, and why.
“Measure twice, cut once, take your time with it, and come back to me if you get stuck,” he says.
Mike doesn’t sell wood and saws, he makes each man the hero of his own story.
If you sell a man a saw, you’ve got the profit from one sale, when you make him a hero, you have a customer for life.
Image by Rachel Andrew.
The Purpose Of Innovation In A ‘Needless’ Economy
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
For the most part in the West we have everything we need. Roofs over our heads, food in the fridge and a lot more besides. Even in the developing world where more people have mobile phones than have access to toilets, it seems that sometimes ‘wants’ trump real needs.
So, if we have everything we need and it’s mostly ‘good enough’, what’s the purpose of of innovation?
As an innovator, or bringer of ideas to the world you need to make things that add meaning to peoples’ lives. Things that change how people feel first, which in turn changes what they do, and what they come to expect and embrace.
In the year 2000 all earphones were functional and black. When Apple simply changed them from black to white in 2001 earbuds became a symbol of belonging to the iPod tribe. White earbuds were not a commodity. They were a status symbol. The product had barely been altered, and yet the story had changed entirely.
In the ‘needless’ economy the job of innovation isn’t to make something new, it’s to make something that matters.
Image by Lauren.
The Elephant In The Marketing Room
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
“Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think”
—Jill Bolte Taylor
I was raised in Dublin, the storytelling capital of the world. There is no place on earth that is more hardwired for story than Ireland, home of Guinness and oversize teapots.
Wikipedia will tell you that the Irish are some of the biggest consumers of tea. What Wikipedia won’t tell you is that in Ireland, tea (like Guinness), isn’t just a drink—it’s a lubricator of story.
When I was five or six and there was nothing to do on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, my dad would drive my little brother and me down to Hector Grey’s Sunday market on his Honda 50. One of us would ride on the front, the other on the back—which I’m guessing wasn’t strictly legal.
Hector Grey was a sliver haired, silver tongued shop owner. Watching him was the closest I’d come to witnessing theatre. He erected a small platform outside The Woolen Mills, (his stage) and beckoned people to come closer so they could hear, but actually I suspect so they could feel the heightened emotion and sense of expectation in each other. Hector sold imported hardware and trinkets. He never once described what a product would do, he painted a picture of what it would feel like to have.
Nobody knew what might be in the boxes on any given Sunday, or how many were in stock. Hector told stories about gold plated tea sets shipped from exotic Hong Kong, and of Mandarin scented soaps from Taiwan, places most people there would never see, even on a map. He framed the scarcity of everything he sold. There was always limited stock and there wasn’t much of an opportunity to see the products up close. When Hector finally finished by tapping on the box like a magician about to produce a rabbit from a hat, he explained the bargain he was prepared to give to the first hands that inevitably shot up.
Many of the things we bought on those Sundays were used once, or became a memory at the back of some glass cabinet, or at the bottom of the kitchen drawer.
Some might say that Hector was what they would call in Dublin, ‘a gangster’ and that we were idiots for falling for his spiel, when in fact we were all characters, playing a part in the same story. We wanted to be taken on a journey. Hector took us there. He didn’t try to convince us, he changed how we felt. And like people waiting in lines outside Apple stores at iPhone launches, we weren’t there for the box we would take home at the end of the day, we were there for the story.
So if people buy the story, the fortune not the cookie, the comparison not the raw ingredients. Why do many marketers feel that working on the story is not a very noble pursuit?
Whether we are marketers, consumers, or both it can be uncomfortable to realise that we are less rational than we think. This disturbs us on several levels. As consumers should we feel like fools because we pay for story and context if that’s what really matters to us? Should Howard Schultz feel bad because he recognised the opportunity in selling coffee by the cup, rather than beans by the pound, as Starbucks did in the old days? Is it wrong to give people what they want wrapped in a story, if the value of what they want is subjective and intangible?
The genius of Hector Grey, Steve Jobs and Howard Schultz was in two things. They knew that we were there for the story, AND they were not afraid to sell it to us. Perhaps it’s time to get comfortable with the fact that if we want to change the world, then we need to stop being afraid to tell better true stories and simply let people buy into them.
Image by Cody Simms.
Value And The Macaron Effect
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
Let’s face it, a macaron isn’t even a bite. It’s gone before you know it and although your brain knows you’ve had one, your stomach could beg to differ. Macarons have been around for centuries, but I don’t remember seeing the dainty, coloured, every flavoured, sandwiched confections that are ubiquitous now, even a few years ago. And they’re expensive for what they are in any language, doesn’t matter if it’s $3 or €3.
A lot of people don’t ‘get’ macarons.
“This is the single most overpriced thing in the history of capitalism. It’s a single, stupid little macaroon.”
—Rory Sutherland
Macarons are not designed for Rory, they are marketed to a sensibility and dare I say it, to women. Their value is highly subjective. The thing about a macaron is that much of its value is perceived.
The real value is psychological and therefore intangible.
It’s a sweet ‘treat’ with damage limitation built in.
A macaron is mostly almonds and egg white, low in fat, gluten free (two things we’ve come to care about), and so tiny the sugar can hardly count….right? When you’re rationalising about how many minutes on the treadmill it’s going to take to work it off, a macaron feels like a bargain compared to the other available choices in the cake cabinet.
One man’s rip-off, is another woman’s indulgence.
It turns out that like most things we buy, or value when we have everything we need, macarons are not a product, they are a story we tell ourselves.
Image by Katie.
People Don’t Buy Features, They Buy Promises
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Every day another product, tool or app comes to market. One more shortcut to this or that.
Want to save lists, share something, buy, sell, store, capture, talk, listen, watch, wake up or waste time? There’s definitely a feature filled app that can help you do that.
As marketers we often get bogged down in the features and benefits of what it is we have to offer. We get stuck at the telling people what it does part.
But here’s the thing, deep down most people don’t care about what the features enable them to do.
Because people don’t want to ‘do’ they want to ‘be’. They want to be less busy and more productive, less alone and more connected, less fearful and feel more safe.
People don’t buy features, they buy promises.
So, don’t tell me what you do. Make me a promise you can keep.
Image by Walt Jabsco.
What Story Are You Selling?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
It feels risky to put the words story and selling side by side in the same sentence. ‘Selling’ someone on something has had a bad rap since the days of snake oil salesmen with their bogus claims, snappy taglines and half truths designed to make people buy more of the average this or that. Although ‘selling’ is often seen as manipulating people into doing something they don’t want to do, the truth is that it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, as soon as you get out of the shower every morning, you’re selling a story.
All markets, industries, tribes, leaders and individuals sell stories. We have to.
We don’t have a choice, because stories are how humans read each other.
My husband has been a doctor for over 25 years. He was a medical student when we met. We’ve had many a long walk punctuated by a conversation about what makes people tick. He’s told me stories of examining babies and the way they look deep into your eyes, searching, as you press the cool metal of the stethoscope on their chest. Already looking to make sense of the story. And in that moment they create an association between the stethoscope and the person who has earned the right to wear one. It turns out that we are more likely to trust a man wearing a stethoscope, than one who doesn’t. Doctors sell trust by getting the grades to go to medical school in the first place, by doing the time and then behaving in a way that reinforces our worldview.
Medicine doesn’t sell cures, it sells trust. The lottery sells hope (it might be you) and many brands sell a promise of a better version of ourselves. Tiffany sells mattering, BootsnAll sells non-conformist adventure, Facebook sells belonging and Wholefoods sells nurturing and self-love.
You are not selling coffee, concert tickets, books, lipstick, yogurt, entertainment or information.
You’re selling a story. It’s never been more important to know which one.
Image by Les Taylor.