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Articles filed in: Strategy
9 Elements Of The Perfect Pitch
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
This image was captured in Marrakech at the largest open air market in Africa. On the day the photo was taken the market was apparently in full swing, complete with everything from average snake charmers, to exceptional orange juicers and trinket traders. The photographer captures how many of the tourists seem to be more interested in their maps and to do lists than the sights, sounds, and the smells of the bazaar.
It doesn’t matter how good your idea is if nobody knows. If you want to make your idea matter, then you’ll need to get better at helping people to understand it why it should.
9 ELEMENTS OF THE PERFECT PITCH
Preparation
It’s hard to sell anything without having a plan and putting some effort in beforehand. Even the guy who walks up to a girl in a bar has put on a clean shirt and rehearsed what he’s going to say.
Emotion
A pitch is based less on logic and more on tapping into emotions. It’s less about presenting information and more about persuading people deep down. Studies from the Journal of Advertising Research show that we are twice as likely to be persuaded by emotion than facts. You must make people care before you can persuade them to believe.
Story and Substance
Delivery is important but falls flat without a great story. The words you use and the stories you tell matter.
Passion
You’re not simply asking people to buy your idea, you’re persuading them to ‘buy into’ it, and you. This will not happen if you can’t communicate your genuine passion to the audience.
A Problem
Understand the problem you solve and communicate that.
An Answer
You’ve demonstrated that you know what the problem is, now reveal your valuable solution.
Simplicity
You’ve got nine seconds to convince them that you are the one. Don’t overload people with information, concentrate on what really matters to them.
Confidence
You’re asking people to bet on you, to embrace the fact that there is not certainty in most decisions they make. If you don’t believe in yourself and your idea how can you expect others to?
Practice
Delivery is part science, part theatre, part art, it can be learned with practice.
What would you add? What has worked best for you in situations where you wanted to persuade?
The Only Reason You’re In Business
When you don’t answer the phone after the third ring. When the wait staff you hired forget to look people in the eye. When you make it easy for people to sign up and say yes, but penalise them for changing their minds, you are forgetting the only reason your business exists and why it will ultimately succeed.
You are in business to acknowledge the significance of, and create meaning for clients and customers.
Your job is to practice the art of making people matter.
The same rules apply whether you’re Richard Branson or a boutique design studio in Melbourne.
Image by Tasayu Tasnaphun.
The Best McDonalds Adverts McDonalds Never Made
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
The golden arches might be ubiquitous, but now we can and do, choose to ignore advertising campaigns created by even the biggest global companies. We skip commercials and we switch off, while marketing departments spend plenty best guessing what might capture us for a few more seconds.
What fascinates us, what holds our attention in the moment is not the product itself, but how it in some way makes meaning in our lives. Marketing is the tough job of working out what makes meaning on seven billion different levels.
As consumers we are no longer waiting for manufacturers and marketing departments to create context for us, we are doing it for ourselves. The 50,000 best McDonalds adverts ever made, (and counting—hit refresh), were created by you and me.
The opportunity for marketers is that consumers are now creating content about that context and they are sharing it with their friends.
Image by hustle roses.
The Purpose Of Branding
If a brand is more than just a logo, a tagline and the colour of the packaging, then what is branding?
Branding is simply turning up the volume on your mission
Branding is not something that’s arranged on the surface, like a stiffly coiffed hairstyle on a fashion model. It takes place from the inside out, so successful brands and ideas that fly are founded on a great mission, a story that we want to believe in.
Everything you do to tell that story from your brand name, to your social media interactions must amplify what you stand for, and communicate to the world why they should care that you brought this thing to life in the first place.
Branding is shorthand, not a shortcut.
Image by Stathis Stavrianos.
The First Question Every Marketer Must Ask
It doesn’t matter if you are solopreneur hacking code in your bedroom, or a challenger brand trying to launch the next big thing. In fact this rule of thumb applies as much to high school kids begging for an extension on their end of semester essay assignment, as it does to Apple pitching us the latest iPad.
If you are out to convince anyone of anything, but especially if you’re working out how to make your idea matter this is the most important question to ask.
Why will people care about this?
When you’ve worked out why you have given someone a reason to care, then you’re onto something.
Image by el patojo.
Why You Need A Mission More Than A Website
filed in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Strategy
Nine times out of ten when I consult with clients they are impatient to get to work on the tactical side of spreading their idea. They wonder about what website and social media platforms to use. They worry about design elements and website functionality. Maybe you do too?
Of course you want to get your idea out there into the world. But while tactics are necessary to spread your idea, in the long run it’s more important to have an idea that matters first.
Many of the answers to the tactical stuff can be found with a quick sixty second search. You can’t Google your unique mission and vision, that’s why it is the foundation of your business or cause. The same rules apply to global corporations, solitary artists or tiny cafes.
Tactics help to promote your idea, a clear strategy is what really sells it. The first question you need to ask is ‘why will people care about this?’ and not, ‘how will we get them to buy this?’
People don’t buy into your platform, they buy into the difference you make.
Image by Retinafunk.
Why Instagram Changes The Face Of Marketing
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
It’s no secret that I’ve been a huge advocate of Instagram as a customer engagement and brand storytelling tool since Pintrest was knee high to a grasshopper. I’m amazed that more brands are not taking advantage of what I believe is one of the most rich marketing and brand storytelling opportunities of the decade.
So imagine the thrill I got when I saw Jamie Oliver post this photo and a message that shows why Instagram changes everything.
“Free chilli freak Artisan pizza today show this picture as proof its on me only for instagram posse!!” —Jamie Oliver
How many pizzas do you reckon Jamie gave away that day….. a handful maybe? Who cares?!
There he is being himself, marketing in the moment, without the aid of a billboard or printed coupons. Speaking directly to the people who want to hear from him (over 200,000). Creating a bucket load of good will and telling a brand story that people can believe in.
Goodness knows why Instagram is probably the most overlooked social media platform for business and brands. Your idea can spread there in an instant. You can engage with customers on a deeper level and see how they are engaging with your brand in the moment, as they share their moments. Instagram goes beyond the Like, the Pin and the Tweet, because it shows you what people care enough about to capture, save and share. It’s the ultimate truth telling focus group, in real time.
It’s now possible for Orla Kiely to see how her products fit into her customer’s lives.. She can witness their reality from the comfort of her studio and engage with them if she chooses to.
And it’s not just the big guys who can leverage this platform. I’ve watched designers grow followings and artists create a fan base that led to real world demand for their work.
This is big. It changes everything…. don’t say I didn’t tell you so.
UPDATE: Just a day after I published this post I heard about newly launched Hashpix and how power Instagram users can sell (and are), limited edition photo prints online. This changes everything…. again.
Image by Kevin Harber.
Jimmy Choo Doesn’t Sell Shoes
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Jimmy Choo has spent the past fifteen years successfully selling exactly the same thing over and over again and that thing isn’t leather or heels.
When a woman holds or covets a pair of Jimmy Choos, she isn’t imagining how the shoes will feel on her feet, she’s fantasizing about how she will feel in those shoes. Jimmy Choo packages that feeling and the story she tells herself, then sells it back to her.
If you’re in any doubt about that, just read these Choo Stories.
Then work out how to get your customers to tell those kinds of stories too.
Image by Kekkoz.
Why Fascinate?— An Interview With Sally Hogshead
If you haven’t read Fascinate by Sally Hogshead go out and grab yourself a copy. In the book Sally explains how fascination plays a role in every type of decision making, from the brands you choose to the songs you remember, from the person you marry to the employees you hire. And by activating the right triggers (there are seven), you can make anything become fascinating, including you.
You can take Sally’s {F}SCORE test to discover your triggers and learn more about how to fascinate.
I had the huge pleasure of speaking to Sally last week, no mean feat, she’s one of the most in demand keynote speakers on the planet). Sally answered some of the questions I’ve been dying to ask her for six months and talked about how we can use our own metrics to differentiate.
So why do we need to fascinate?
Have we forgotten how to be fascinating?
And is being fascinating really a choice?
Image by Sharon Sperry Bloom.
Show Them What You’re Made Of
You could wait around until the CEO rubber stamps your ideas. Your book can gather dust for years until an agent discovers your writing and you can while away a decade in a cubicle wondering when Saatchi and Saatchi will call.
Or you can simply show the world what you’re made of and pick yourself.
I love the story Ji Lee tells in the video below about how he decided to put some joy back into his work, by doing a project he had creative control over.
Proof that doing accomplishes what wishing never can.
Image by Jorge Quinteros.