Have you eaten at a restaurant where the ambience and the food transported you to another place?
To help the audience understand your message, it needs to paint a picture in their mind. We don’t store words and sentences in our heads. We store them as images and memories.
A key marketing ingredient, tension, is useful in getting someone’s attention.
But once you get the attention, how do you get your point across and ensure it stays in their head for a while.
We tell a story.
Not any story. A marketing story.
A marketing story is like the “hero’s journey“.
And the hero in the story, is not your product or brand, but the customer.
Your marketing story should depict the customer’s transformation from before to now. And what did they realise as a result of that transformation.
Your product or brand is the mentor and guide in this transformation journey.
Tip: Customer transformation stories make for effective testimonials.
Be like Yoda, not Luke Skywalker.
Another useful mechanism to help your audience understand your message is – analogies.
We use them often without realising.
Some of them cliched:
- “Let’s put a pin on it”
- “Grab the low-hanging fruit”
- “Move the needle”
- “Put your ducks in a row”
“Uber for X” is a popular analogy used by many startups these days.
Can you describe what you offer using a reference the audience is familiar with?
Are you like Tesla for B2B CRM? Or are you like Toyota for B2B CRM?
Analogies use the familiar to explain the unfamiliar.
Effective analogies resonate emotionally.
Analogies help in positioning your offer in customer’s mind. Use analogies to frame the situation and argument in your favour.
“Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.”― Yann Martell
