by Ydraw | Jun 26, 2018 | Authenticity, Creative Marketing, Emotional Connection, how to make a whiteboard animation, Humor, Marketing, Memory, Story Telling, video, Video Content, Video Marketing, Video Strategy Guide, Writing a Script, Ydraw
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.
by Ydraw | Jul 12, 2011 | Presentation, Presentation Design
There is a fantastic article written in INC Magazine called “How to Deliver a Speech that Gets a Standing Ovation” It provided some great insight. The most important tip I can give is to Get Personal. All great speakers will tell personal stories. The way to tell if you have given a great personal speech is if you walk off the stage and you think to yourself “I can’t believe I told them that”
So what can you do to make a speech that spurs your audience to similar applause and admiration?
Get personal. Rebecca MacDonald told her life story—and didn’t spare the details. First, MacDonald credited her upbringing in a socialist system as fundamental to her mindset that “women can do anything men can do’. Then she shared that her husband’s initial skepticism about her launching a Canadian natural gas resale business was a catalyst that spurred her on. “If he didn’t say, ‘Are you insane?’ I wouldn’t be standing here,’ MacDonald said, smiling. When she landed her first customer and sought gas supply, but was thrown out of the Toronto Petroleum Club because she was a woman, MacDonald added: “I didn’t want to face my husband. I didn’t want him to say, ‘I told you so’.’ Once her business started to take off, MacDonald’s husband came to her to suggest, “Darlink, let’s merge,’ recalled MacDonald, with an accent. But MacDonald would only do so if he’d work for her. In 1992, after he helped expand her company into a new market, MacDonald’s husband was killed in a car crash. “That changed me forever,’ MacDonald confided.
Be honest. When asked about her upbringing, MacDonald admitted she had a very strict and dominant mother. “I ran away from my mother,’ she said. “I probably wouldn’t have survived her if I hadn’t moved to Canada,’ and then revealed that her sister committed suicide. “My mother prepared me for life.’
Tell jokes. Although she touched on such intimate and serious subjects, MacDonald managed to keep the overall tone of her talk light and humorous. “Sometimes we get bitchy and catty,’ she admitted, describing one drawback of women. She also spoke of a time her son told a friend visiting their home: “My mom’s actually nice and friendly—she just has cash flow problems.’ Early on, she mentioned that after her husband died she devoted her life to her work and two children. But before she wrapped up her speech last week MacDonald was sure to announce to anymen attending, “I’m single and I’m available.’
Talk to your audience. Whether it was the serendipitous drink that turned into her first supplier relationship, becoming the first woman to take a company public in Canada—or the bout of rheumatoid arthritis that nearly kept her bed-ridden while doing so—throughout her speech, MacDonald related her business and life experiences to the particular crowd she was speaking before: entrepreneurial women.
Act as if each attendee is the only one. She invited the conference-goers to call her any time. She offered up her phone number (it’s on the Just Energy website) and availability (after hours). “I always answer the phone for a woman,’ MacDonald said.
Forget notes, visuals or a PowerPoint presentation. MacDonald held our attention for more than an hour—just by being herself—and without relying on ancillary or distracting materials.
End on a high note. MacDonald wouldn’t get off the podium until she could respond to a question with an uplifting final answer—even if it meant risking missing her flight home to Toronto, where she was due at 5 a.m. the following morning to watch the royal wedding over champagne and biscuits with girlfriends.
by Ydraw | May 19, 2011 | Creative Marketing, Marketing, Presentation
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
More often then not we have the tendency to complicate rather then simplify. We assume that sophistication equals results, brilliance, performance, and intelligence but it doesn’t. More information, more choices, and more products is not better. In fact it is the exact opposite more is actually less and can cause your audience to disengage. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
In the book Paradox of Choice, Schwatz did a study that showed when presented with many choices consumers would often times become paralyzed. “Many of us labor under the impression that providing customers with a wide selection of products of a certain type increases customer satisfaction. After all, we think, if we provide them with 200 brands of peanut butter, they are more likely to find a brand that suits their taste. Schwatz cites surveys done in supermarkets that showed the reverse. When customers were presented with a huge selection of brands of a certain item, fewer customers bought the item than when fewer brands were displayed. The wide selection led to a paralysis of choice – the customers could not decide which brand to choose. As a result, they went away without choosing any.
Take this study and move it over to presentations, business plans, and teaching. Too much information can cause confusion and misunderstanding. The audience might forget or miss your point entirely because you have over complicated everything. Here is a simple solution:
Start with the main idea first and build everything around it.
Take a look at this article. The main thing I wanted the audience to get is: We tend to complicate rather than simplify. I want the audience to simplify their presentations, business plans, websites, mission statements, and scripts thus increasing their results. Everything else I write will either build on that point or prove why that point is true.
If you need a video visit ydraw.com
by Ydraw | May 16, 2011 | Creative Marketing, Marketing, Presentation, Presentation Design, Video Scribing
Making an Impression that will Stick
Here is an email I received the other day from an old friend she said:
This picture was found in a camera during cleanup.
This is a fantastic photo!! Amazing that the film was still good – or memory stick.
Either one, this really tells the story. Look at how high that wall of water is!!
½ a second before tsunami
This picture was taken on the banks of Sumatra Island (the height of waves was of approx. 32 m = 105 ft).
It was found saved in a digital camera, after the disaster.
We cannot know for sure, but very likely the one who took the picture is not alive any more (it was just a matter of seconds).
Today we can see the last image he/she saw before ending life on Earth
When I first saw this picture I was stunned. That would be so crazy to see in real life. Then I looked at the picture closer and realized that it is fake. Come to find out this email has been traveling the globe for years and has been passed around to millions of people who have pass it on to their contacts. It has spread like social media fire.
The original photograph has a date stamp of “12.11.2002” (November 12, 2002). The prankster who launched this hoax apparently removed the date stamp because it would have immediately destroyed the illusion that the photograph was taken during the 2004 tsunami.
That is funny! How is it that something so ludicrous and fake can spread like wildfire yet something that is true and interesting can not seem to make it past the firewalls of your closest friends and family. Although this story is made up there is something about it that people want to spread. Some of you reading this blog might be tempted to copy this picture and post it all over Facebook. Try it and see the responses that pile in. Why stop a good urban legend when there are so many people out there that just want to believe? All joking aside, some ideas are inherently interesting and some are just flat out boring yet it doesn’t need to be that way. It is all in the way we present it. The words to the email above are not what sales. It is the picture! Its the emotions that trigger inside when one looks at this picture. A huge wave that is about to wipe out a city, very interesting. This story will stick and spread. It is our job to show you how your story, your presentation, your ideas can stick and spread. Making impressions with explainer videos is what we do! Your good ideas needs to be presented in a way that will make people spread it.
