Good storytelling is helpful, most marketers would even say it's crucial to marketing.
However, promoting your business, product or service to a specific target audience to get them to take some level of desired action takes more than just an entertaining story and clear communication. If you're not constantly understanding the value that is derived by your audience from their engagement with your current content, or ad or [insert medium of choice here] in the moment that they're engaged with it as well as beyond that then you're missing a crucial element. Probably The simplest way to explain it is the WIIFM -- What's in it for me, or in this case substitute "me" for "the customer/client/prospect." (You've likely heard this acronym before thus you're now tempted to click off of this article. I implore you to keep reading.) You already know what you want out of the engagement, but are you focused on the value the customer or prospect gets out of the actual engagement. In other words, you now have a prospect's attention with your content, for example, what is the value to the prospect of engaging with that particular content at that particular time? Furthermore, you need to ask yourself what is the benefit to me/my company for that prospect engaging in that content at that time? Does the marketing create a win-win for both the prospect engaging in the marketing content that the company, in this example, is producing and promoting? Also, if the prospect takes the desired action from the marketing content at hand, what is the next level of value for that prospect and/or customer should they buy from you -- what's the win-win look like in that situation? All too often many marketers miss the opportunity to articulate the value for all parties involved when planning marketing strategies. Often the strategy starts with the end goal that the company wants to achieve and a target audience to go after. Then there's the challenge of finding a creative and often entertaining way to ask that audience to take a specific desired action. The problem there is that often the strategy assumes the value to the prospect or customer is obtaining the product or service that the company is offering. But really the product or services that the company is offering is simply a vehicle to a solution that the prospect or customer has or perceives they have. What I'm referring to in this post is not only the explicit transactional value, but also the intrinsic value of building an exchange with a customer or prospect as they engage with your marketing. Your essentially attempting to quickly build a connection and a bit of a relationship in a short space and time via your marketing messaging and for that to be effective, the result of engaging must appeal to both parties explicitly and intrinsically. ----- Posted By: Nick Venturella
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December 2024
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