In the land of brand storytelling, the endings are happy ones. Even better: When your audience knows the ending before they start. That’s why I like to speak in the language of outcomes.
Your buyers want to know what is going to happen when they do business with you.
It’s a powerful and important way of telling your brand story. Unlike a good mystery novel, we want to know the end before we even start your story.
If I drink a Corona, I will feel like I’m sitting on a beach in Mexico. If I’m a dude, and I’m drinking Miller Genuine Draft, I will become desirable and surrounded by gorgeous women.
I’m kidding. Only sort of. These examples show, perhaps in a parallel dream world, what will happen when you do business with them. And I’m sure it works for them.
We can apply this thinking to every piece of content we create from home page messaging, to blog posts, emails, and video.
Your buyers are out of time and interest and they want to know what’s in it for them before they click one more time.
When you go on and on in your home page video about how you are a leading provider of <product>, and a 23 billion dollar company, it isn’t helping anyone. Instead, you could do something like Weber Grills does. They just wanted to make a better steak. See? No one wants to buy a grill. They want to make a better steak. Talk about the better steak. THEN, talk about how your grills will accomplish that. Then, give them more content to help them accomplish that.
Instead of writing a blog post titled Eight Grilling Tips from Chef Thomas, how about Grill Like a Pro With Chef Thomas’ 8 Tips.
The question of what will happen is being answered. I’m going to grill like a pro!
This changes an article on Seven Different Investment Vehicles to Seven Investment Vehicles That Diversify Your Portfolio.
Pamela Slim is a professional coach, but she’s telling a different story on her home page: Escape from Cubicle Nation.
This article called An Ailing Pup’s Owner Goes the Distance to Get Help – converted me into a $4000 client at Washington State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital when I was looking for help for my baby Jackson who had chronic pain. I wasn’t looking for a vet (I have one). I was looking for a way manage my dog’s pain.
We don’t always know how to get what we want.
We don’t necessarily know we need a new grill, or that we need different investment vehicles. We don’t know we need a professional coach, or a vet teaching hospital.
We do know we need to diversify our portfolios. We know our steaks suck because our spouses complain. We know we’re sick of our jobs, but we don’t know what to do about it. I know my dog has chronic pain in his hips, but I am looking for a way to get him to lay down. I’m not looking for a vet teaching hospital four hours away.
When you clearly speak to the outcome you provide, you help your prospects understand what is in it for them. They don’t care about you. They care about how you make them feel.
Don’t make them guess or work hard to figure out what is in it for them or they’ll scroll right over you. Give them their happy ending at the beginning.
[ssba]
All good points. I have this discussion daily with my own clients and afterwards they’re all jazzed up like they just saw Rocky. Sadly hours or days later they fall right back into the rut.
It takes a little time and thought to be cleaver with your marketing, and most people lose interest if they can’t knock it out in the first few tries.
Like anything, you have to want to do it.
Good article.
Hi Harold – hmmm, maybe I should just re-publish this every three days then!
This is brilliant Lisa, you really got the wheels turning this morning for me (in a good way!).
I love getting wheels turning, so this comment makes me happy.
Grill like a pro might work for me, but so would eat like a pro. 😉 If your words/images don’t spark imagination, intrigue or entertain you aren’t likely to get what you are looking for.
We cannot choose our parents. It is not our fault if we born in a poor family but to die poor is an another story. So long as we live, we have the chance to turn the corner, to change for a better life. So we have to act now and find the ways to live in a better life…