Teddy Roosevelt has been quoted many a time, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” And this goes especially for Marketing to Your Audience!
You see, you CAN begin your marketing by sharing your giant Pedigree* of Success, your giant Rolodex* of clients that come at your every beck and call, and your impressive collection of Vintage Star Wars action figures, boxed in mint condition. BUT THEY DON’T CARE!
Okay…maybe the Star Wars figures, I mean especially if they have that one Rare Boba Fett*…
My point being, don’t make your first impression with your audience ABOUT YOU. In fact, you may consider, minimizing the mention of “you” to the smallest amount possible. Your marketing NEEDS to be about THEM.
FOR INSTANCE!
The Mom who is exhausted carrying around a giant purse that contains everything known on the periodic table of elements. She wants to know that you care about her and her plight, when you sell her your amazing, mega-organizational handbag.
Spend the time in your marketing, connecting with her. Show empathy for how hard it is to carry that overgrown purse. Use humor to help her have a chuckle about it because she knows how impossible it is to find that lip gloss when her chapped lips are screaming for moisture, and the kids are clawing their way to find a granola bar in there too. She will totally think to herself, “Been there done that!”
By doing this, you will establish a relationship with your audience, in this case the Moms of the world. Now, they’ll care to listen to YOU! You have their attention because you relate to each other, on an emotional level. You are selling a relationship BEFORE you sell a product or service. So now, proceed to show some of the cool features of this “Heavenly Handbag” and again relate those features to them.
On a side note, keep your features explanation brief. They don’t need to know the process of “cutting and stitching every nuanced detail” that you researched; they just want the HIGH LEVEL facts that relate to them. This will keep them EMOTIONALLY engaged in your marketing.
In the case that you do spend time talking about YOU, make sure it’s to show how you relate to them. The purpose of sharing this piece of you is to connect with them, and not to gloat about you or in any way make you seem superior. If you don’t connect with them, be on their level, share their emotions, they will see right through you and go elsewhere for a solution to their need.
So…QUICK 5 POINT RECAP
Marketing is about THEM
Show Empathy
Use Humor
Emotional Engagement
Sell a Relationship
NOW, get your groove on and practice that Electric Slide together! It’s all about the relationship, and your audience will respond to you once they know that you care about them.
*Pedigree – Pretty sure it’s some type of dog food.
*Rolodex – The Stone Age variety of a contact list on your smart phone. Geesh, writing all those cards sucked.
*Rare Boba Fett – A Boba Fett figure that was designed exclusively as a cereal box mail-in item in 1979. It was advertised with a Rocket firing backpack, but the actual production firing rocket was made stationary, as it was deemed a “choking hazard.” This figure is still highly sought after by collectors and has fetched upwards of 20K at auction.
THAT, my friends, is the power and charm of simplified marketing.
2 words and your mind has been hijacked by a catchy jingle, an image of two bubbly tablets dropping into a glass of crystal clear H20 and possibly a pale faced, indigestion-plagued person sitting next to their half eaten deep dish pizza… about to toss their simmering seltzer salvation down their gullet.
Just 2 words and without thinking, you’ve recalled a problem that can be solved by the product. BRILLIANT.
So let’s take it wayyyyy back to marketing meetings of yesteryear.
It’s probable that at some point the indigestion big-wigs of this company met with the advertising crew and gave an hour long in-depth display of why these dissolvable tablets work. Charts, product testing, scientific results and guarantees were no doubt tossed around during a monumental data-packed discussion that would surely convince even the most discriminating consumer of its usefulness… so why didn’t Alka-Seltzer go with:
“Sodium bicarbonate can be used to treat heartburn, indigestion and acid reflux by reacting with and neutralizing excess stomach acid through effervescent tablets that contain three active ingredients, aspirin, sodium hydrogen carbonate and citric acid. Also, aspirin belongs to a group of medicines called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). It works by blocking the action of an enzyme in the body called cyclo-oxygenase and oh what a relief it is!” as their jingle???
Because they understood that ENTERTAINMENT can be more valuable than the over-stimulation of EDUCATING your audience to death.
Though this product is complex and scientifically proven, the message is simple.
Bottom line… if your stomach hurts, plop-fizz your way to relief.
Problem. Solution. That’s all they need to know.
Close your eyes… (wait, actually don’t because I still need you to read my words) IMAGINE that you’re taking your target-audience out on a blind date.
You put on your best suit, douse yourself with high-end cologne and drive to that fancy corner steakhouse, eager to meet your new muse.
Do you sit across the table from this beautiful stranger, rub your sweaty palms together and then begin reciting every mundane moment of your life so that she can fully appreciate each and every morsel of the man that you have been, currently are and ever hope to be???
(Good luck getting second date.)
But what if you tried courting your audience instead?
What does she need? Why did she agree to this date?
Dinner, companionship and connection… not the details of last week’s wart removal… so take a deep breath and give her just enough of what she needs to get her to agree to date #2.
So what’s the equivalent of a 2nd date in the world of marketing?
Google searches. Leads. Phone calls. Emails. Consultations.
You’ve gotta spark enough interest to get some action from your call to action and that’s done by making sure your message is simple, memorable and easily absorbed into the viewer’s mind.
The more you can narrow in on the meat & potatoes of your message or the sweet & simple essence of your service and stop trying to push your beloved information watermelons through human attention span-keyholes…
The more you’ll start seeing your efforts convert into genuine, profitable results.
Like these campaigns:
Got Milk? (Totally makes you thirsty.)
Maybe She’s Born With It? (Fake your natural beauty.)
Give Me A Break. (Who in their right mind would refuse a chocolate break or a piece of broken chocolate?)
The Breakfast of Champions. (Cereal box heroes.)
The Best A Man Can Get. (Smooth, manly jawlines.)
Melts In Your Mouth Not In Your Hand.
(This is a lie, but I still buy/eat them.)
I Want My BabyBack-BabyBack-BabyBack-BabyBack. (You just sang, again… didn’t ya?)
Double The Pleasure, Double The Fun. (Hot twins. Who cares what they’re selling.)
Dilly Dilly. (Nothing to do with beer. Sometimes simple & stupid = memorable.)
When done right, marketing with simple, clever videos can be powerful enough to make your message last a lifetime (just ask the plop-plop peeps)… and Ydraw can help you do just that, oh what relief it is!
At one point or another, each of us have had that gut feeling that defies the facts and numbers. When everything looks right on paper but for some reason it just doesn’t “feel” right.
So where does that feeling come from?
Contrary to what you may be thinking, it actually comes from the BRAIN!
Simon Sinek, a British-American author and motivational speaker, does a great job explaining this in his book called “Start with Why.”
He talks about the two parts of your brain
The Neocortex or “the what” and the Limbic or “the why”
The Neocortex being responsible for our rational and analytical thought and language and the Limbic being responsible for our feelings, behavior and decision making. He also talks about how our Limbic brain has no capacity for language.
What this means is the part of our brain that DRIVES BEHAVIOR, our Limbic Brain, doesn’t even understand the vast amounts of information you are throwing at it. It just hears BLA BLA BLA!
So how does knowing all this, help make better videos?
Studying the human brain helps us understand what motivates our audience leading to lifelong business.
Like Simon mentions, when we first communicate the “why” and get our viewer believing what we believe, we establish an emotional connection. After that connection is formed, it doesn’t really matter what we have to offer them or how we have it because “people don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it.”
You can explain to your viewer till your blue in the face what all of the facts, features, benefits and details are of your company but at the end of the day, if they don’t trust you, they aren’t going to click on your website or set up that free consultation or even think about contacting you.
So before smack your viewers in the face with 7 million reasons why your company is exponentially greater than your competitors….
Ask your self WHY you do what you do. Ask yourself if you actually need all that nitty gritty, technical jargon in your video. Ask yourself if you are selling a product or selling an idea.
Understanding the role of the emotional unconscious and how it plays a role in the decision-making process of your audience is critical in making your video successful.
Remember…. “People don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it.”
Develop Descriptive Details to Delight Your Audience
In my last post, I taught you how to create an outline in preparation to write a selling story. As promised, I’m going to teach you how to write a selling story by adding details.
1-Put Your Right Brain to Work to Fill in Details
Once you have your outline together, fill in the details.
New York Times Best Selling Author and Trainer, M. Bridget Cook-Burch teaches that you need to know your characters just as well or more than you know your audience.
Know what your character eats for breakfast, what he/she likes to do for fun, things like that. You don’t have to tell or even hint at it in your story, but knowing those things about your characters will help you write them in a more realistic and well-rounded way, just as if you were writing a story about your best friend.
Imagine writing a story about a random person versus writing a story about your best friend. How would they differ in description?
You also need to put a lot into the scene. Make sure you have enough details so your audience can picture themselves where the characters are. If you’re writing for video, write out details you want in the scene like an old knotted oak tree or mountains in the background.
If your viewers feel themselves in the scene they will much more likely to relate to your character. And your character naturally uses your product or service successfully–you definitely want your audience to relate to that!
2-Use Your Life Experiences as Raw Material
Creative director Erica Schmidt Jabali gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received when it comes to creativity and making things real and funny!
Ditch the old social norm of hiding who you really are and keeping your skeletons in the closet. Time to take them out, dress them up and show them off!
Use your life experiences, embarrassing, humorous, heartbreaking, whatever, as fodder for creating a storyline.
Remember that time you went to your first junior high dance and the cute boy next door crossed the floor to ask you to dance? How about the summer you got three speeding tickets in three weeks, or the road trip where everything that could go wrong did–how you crossed the Mohave with no air conditioning mid summer and made it alive is still a mystery.
Dig deep into your life history. You’ve lived through it so why not benefit from what life has handed you by turning it into a profitable story? Chances are, many in your audience will relate because something like that has happened to them before.
As I’ve said so many times, connecting with your audience emotionally is one of the best ways to get them to listen to you and hopefully answer your call to action.
3-When Possible..Add Humor
This can’t be overstated! Most stories need at least a little humor. Save harsh reality for real life, and even then look for something to make you smile.
The last thing you want is a depressed and unmotivated audience.
6-Save Unused Great Ideas for Later
When I went to M.Bridget Cook-Burch’s writer’s retreat, one of the most notable things she said was that no writing is ever wasted.
I looked from the dry 500 page manuscript I brought with me that I’d worked on for so long to the new outline waiting to be brought to life. I felt deflated–I had a lot of wasted work!
Or did I?
As it turned out, those 500 pages made the book writing process go so much faster and the book is so much better!
My point–don’t be afraid to sit down and write, even if you aren’t sure if the story you put together is going to be used for your video or not.
File away all stories and writings; you never know when you will need them for speeches, blog posts, possibly a book or even, once you’ve seen the success from your first video, another video.
No writing is useless or wasted-keep a file for your next projects!
I hope these tips help you not only get past the anxiety that can come with a writing project, but help you love the story writing process! Writing really can be a fun activity, especially when you have the right tools to give you just a little more confidence to produce a story that touches emotions and of course–sells!
Thank you for reading both parts of How to Write a Selling Story!
In my recent article How to Write a Perfect Script, I went over several technical aspects of script writing and touched on the importance of storytelling. I discussed 5 Key Elements and the importance of following the Made to Stick Principles.
A second article, 7 Reasons Whiteboard Storytelling Builds Business, also addressed how critical a good story is in your whiteboard video, but both of those articles don’t tell you how to actually write a selling story.
This post does.
I now invite you to connect with your right brain and…get…creative!
Don’t be scared.
Even as a seasoned writer, when put on the spot to “come up with a great story” on the fly, I sometimes draw a blank at first and even feel a little inadequate at times; it’s natural!
When I first started working for Ydraw I watched the videos in awe and revered our creative directors and their brains that just spouted magical metaphors..all..the..time!
I haven’t watched one single video that doesn’t catch my attention and make me smile. I mean, a prison for husbands and boyfriends who buy bad gifts? Who comes up with that-that’s brilliant!! Lesa Thomas, I salute you…along with the rest of the Ydraw goldmine team of writers!
I found myself thinking “I just don’t have that kind of a brain!”
Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m a talented writer. I’ve won several awards over the years and am on the verge of publishing a novel, but my primary background has been in memoir, honoring leaders and making people cry. But fun and quirky? That was fairly new territory for me.
Sometimes it can be harder to inspire genuine guttural laughter than warm fuzzies and tears with the written word. Many people (like me) are afraid of “trying too hard” and being that annoying person who gets crickets and eye rolls after a failed attempt at humor. There really is a fine line between being funny and being obnoxious.
Don’t let that stop you!
Creativity isn’t exclusive to advertising executives, fantasy writers, and comedians. The authors of Made to Stick say that creativity can be learned. I agree, and add that humor can be learned too. It just takes a little research, practice and following steps that have been proven to work.
When I took this job I took it with a staunch resolve to succeed! I did my research, asked a bunch of questions, dug into my existing bag of literary tricks and started utilizing tactics provided by my new cohorts, and guess what? With a little exercise and practice, I found out I really do have “that kind of a brain”.
I’m here to share some of those secrets along with other helpful hints to help you write a really great story that sells!
Where a selling story is more than just entertaining word vomit, I’m going to break the instructions into two posts. After all, I told you I’m here to tell you how to write a quality story to showcase your business. Where it isn’t as scary as it may sound and is definitely doable, it takes effort and a lot of strategic thought to write a really good marketing story.
This post will help you set the stage to strategic storytelling and provide structure; next week’s post will help you develop descriptive details to delight your audience and teach you how to access creativity you’ve had within you all along!
I love writing stories and believe in the process I’m about to share with you.
I just may give you homework!
1-Set Your Intentions Before You Set the Stage
Free thinking writing where you just let your brain go has it’s place and can be fun. Chances are, however, that you’re writing your story with a purpose in mind so save the expressive energy for a step later on down the line. It’s time to set your intentions and build a solid foundation.
Kimberly Smith provides 4 great suggestions to help you prepare to write your story in her book Once Upon a Marketing Message: How to Craft Stories that Sell.
I took her points and put my own spin on them. Most of these have already been addressed in other articles, but they are worth mentioning again.
1-Establish your goal. What do you want your audience to do after they watch your video? How will the video encourage them to do what you want them to do?
2-Understand your audience. Make sure you understand who you’re targeting and what kind of story would speak to them. Where it would be nice to be universally appealing, keep in mind you want to really connect with online “shoppers” who are looking for what you have but don’t know that they want your product or services yet. The target audience for Buffalo Wild Wings is slightly different than the target audience for The Cheesecake Factory. Both serve amazing food and both are wildly popular, but think about the atmosphere and experience at both places. They definitely draw in different crowds, even though some of the same people will frequent both places. They will just experience a different kind of dining at each place. Don’t just understand your audience in general but narrow it down and write a story to a specific “person” or avatar. Follow the steps in the article Script Writing 101: Know Your Audience to help there.
3-Know how you want your audience to feel. Do you want to get them discouraged about a problem so they will love the solution you have to offer? Do you want to pump them up and motivate them to embark on a new adventure or make a lifestyle change with your services? Do you want them to select your establishment as a place they will unwind after a long day or week when they’re overwhelmed with life? Figure out which emotion(s) you want to trigger during each phase of your story. How do you want them to feel and what is going to get them motivated to answer your call to action?
4-Uncover what will elicit the feelings. Picture different scenarios where the desired emotions could be triggered. Keep them in mind as you write your story
2-Develop an Outline to Set the Stage
Kim Smith also provides the following suggested parts of your story. These are helpful as you organize a basic outline/timeline to build on.
1-Introduce the Characters You need a small cast including a main protagonist your audience can connect with as well as a challenger. Where your story will be about overcoming something, there needs to be a challenger whether it be another person, an illness, a natural disaster or creature from another planet..whatever..just come up with and introduce your hero and your challenger. At this point you should know your specific target audience or avatar, so create a character they can relate to.
2-Set the Scene Put your characters in a place your audience will understand. Are they at home, at work, in the jungle? Where are they going? Where will they end up?
3-Lay Down the Stakes Simply put, what is the problem and why must it be overcome?
4-Develop Some Drama This goes right along with laying down the stakes and understanding how you want your audience to feel. Create some dramatic events that will evoke desired emotions.
5-Resolve the Issues Resolve the issues (drama) realistically. Keep the story in mind and please, though you’re writing the story for a purpose, do NOT make it pitchy! You will lose credibility and possibly even lose your audience. This takes practice but it can be done. Look at other stories that have sold you and keep those in mind.
6-Wrap it Up We naturally like to see things resolved in the end. Now that Jimmy has his finances fixed or has lost 60 pounds, show him at a beach enjoying the fruits of his efforts. With Jenny’s newly found health, show her in running clothes with a race medal around her neck. Make sure you have a nice clean ending unless, of course, you want to leave a cliff hanger for a potential sequel…that can be good too!
3-Finalize Your Outline
Now that your strategy is set, clean it up into an outline of how it will go from start to finish. Don’t worry about perfecting it or having details quite yet, just make your outline clear and make sure your call to action is in focus.
Homework time! By next time have an outline typed up on a word document. Come back and I will give you tips on how to bring your outline to life in a selling story! Challenge issued but not required to read part 2. 😉
