Why do some brands inspire more loyalty and success than others? Simon Sinek discusses this question in “Start with Why” – a book that explores the powerful connection between purpose and marketing. The premise is: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
I don’t think I’ve written a book review since, oh, say, fourth grade. But after reading “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek, I feel compelled to share this marketing book with you.
I’ve found myself thinking about this book for several weeks.
Mr. Sinek starts his book with a question. Why is it that some companies and some leaders are exponentially more successful than others? Why is it that some brands inspire such powerful loyalty among their customers?
Consider a few examples…
Many motorcycle riders are so passionate about their Harley-Davidson motorcycles that they have tattooed the company’s logo on their bodies. According to Mr. Sinek, following 9/11, some of Southwest Airline’s customers sent the airline company money because they were “worried” about the airline and wanted it to make sure it survived.
(Can you imagine your customers sending you checks because they’re worried about you?)
The common thread, says Mr. Sinek, is that great companies and great leaders focus on why they do what they do, rather than focusing on what they do.
They’ve figured out, what is our bigger purpose in this world… our cause… our core belief? Why do we get up in the morning, and why should anyone care?
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So, you’re getting ready to create marketing content for your company. (Fun, fun!) Before you begin writing new copy or designing a new look, learn the five mistakes that companies make during the creative process. By avoiding these pitfalls, you can keep your budget, project scope, and sanity in tact!
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Mistake #1: Skipping brand strategy.
Yes, it’s tempting to jump right into writing your marketing copy or working on your graphic design. But if you haven’t given any thought to your brand identity, you run the risk of creating marketing materials that look and sound like everybody else’s.
Lots of features. Lots of benefits. Not enough strategy and purpose.
Do you enjoy throwing your marketing dollars away?
Me neither! I suggest a different approach.
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Want to be a better writer, so your marketing content truly sings? There are three ways to instantly improve your writing: (1) Speak to your customers’ emotional triggers. (2) Be more conversational. (3) Mix up your sentence styles. You’ll be amazed at what these small changes can do for your writing. It’s time to shine!
Tip #1: Get emotional.
Sure, there are days when the thought of writing your own marketing content makes you want to cry. (So been there.) But that’s not where I was going with this one.
People are motivated to buy for one of two reasons:
- They want to escape pain. They’re struggling with worries, fears, frustrations, insecurities, anxiety, unhappiness…
- They want to achieve personal gain. They’re striving for excitement, joy, enlightenment, fulfillment, freedom, peace of mind, advancement…
Yes, you can count on your prospects to ask you a number of intellectual questions. Yes, they will do their best to rationalize their decisions. But if you peel away all those intellectual layers, there is raw emotion near the heart of every decision.
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If you’re wondering why to brand your company, wonder no more. From allowing you to raise your rates, to outsmarting your competitors, to reaching your desired audience, there is no shortage of reasons to brand your company. Here are five of the best.
1. You want to influence what people think of your company.
Regardless of whether you intentionally brand your company or not, your company does have a brand. It’s your image. It’s the impression that people have of you.
So the question is, are you projecting the image that you want?
Branding is the strategic process of shaping how people think and feel about your company. Branding is about building a consistent and compelling identity. It’s about being memorable. It’s about giving people a compelling reason to choose and engage with your business.
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2. There are financial benefits to having a strong brand.
According to Scott Davis, author of Brand Asset Management: Driving Profitable Growth through Your Brands, 72 percent of consumers will pay up to 20 percent more for a brand of their choice, relative to the closest competitive brand.
So yes, there’s that. Up to 20 percent more in revenue.
Likewise, in a recent Gallup branding study, researchers found that consumers who clearly understood, could articulate, and were aligned with the core elements of a company’s brand gave double their business to those brands.
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Want to get more out of your marketing writing? Here are five of the best questions to ask yourself to ensure that your marketing content is connecting with buyers and getting your phone to ring.
Know thy customer
Recently, I was surfing channels on the TV, and I came across the movie, “The Fugitive.”
I happened to catch one of my favorite scenes in the movie. A tenacious U.S. marshal (played by Tommy Lee Jones) is chasing a wrongly convicted fugitive (Harrison Ford) through a giant drainage tunnel.
The fugitive turns to the marshal and blurts out, “I didn’t kill my wife.”
The marshal bluntly responds, “I don’t care.”
Now, from time to time, this scene pops into my head when I’m conducting a website content audit or a creative discovery session with a marketing client.
Too often, we get so wrapped up in our own story that we lose sight of why our customers should care about our business. We lose perspective on what’s in it for our customers to work with us or buy our products.
You’re a family-owned business − so what? Your company has an advisory board − so what? You have a fancy degree and big-time credentials − so what?
Why should your customers care?
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Many thanks to Theresa Letman of Verus Global for sharing the following Harvard Business Review blog article with me. It provides an interesting perspective on the modern elevator pitch.
Here are a few highlights from the article and the follow-up comments:
- You’ve got eight seconds to grab someone’s attention.
- You need several versions of your commercial in varying lengths. However, your first eight seconds are critical regardless of the length.
- The key to an elevator pitch is understanding what you offer to your prospect. How does your product or service solve your customers’ pain or help them achieve great gain?
Check out the article at: Why You Need a Better Elevator Pitch.
Let’s pretend you’ve never hired a writer before… or you’ve struggled to find the best copywriter for your needs. There are five critical questions to ask yourself before you interview a writer. With the right insight, you can make a much smarter choice in copywriters and save yourself the headache of a poor fit.
Alas, not all writers were created equal.
So, you need a writer. Now the real fun begins. How do you hire the best copywriter for your needs?
Fact is, not all writers were created equal. They have different strengths. Specialties. Writing styles. Work styles. Personalities. Haircuts.
Some writers are going to give you a much greater return on investment than others.
There are a lot of articles that describe good questions to ask a writer in an interview. So instead, I want to explore questions you should ask yourself first.
These questions will help you become a smarter consumer. With a little personal insight, you’ll be in a much better position to identify the best copywriter for your individual needs… and save yourself a lot of time and hassle.
It’s worth mentioning that these questions can help you hire any business that offers creative services − a graphic designer, web firm, marketing expert, brand consultant, etc. For sake of this post, though, I’m focusing on copywriters.
Ready? Question one…
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From time to time, I like to share insider tips from my favorite marketing experts. This week’s post includes a link to a thought leader in Internet marketing strategies. Take a moment to check out his secrets on how to create great web content.
Some people like to savor fine wines. I like to savor fine blogs.
In the spirit of sharing my favorites, I want to introduce you to Ian Lurie of Conversation Marketing. He’s an expert in Internet marketing strategy. A guru, if you will.
Ian is wickedly funny, always insightful, and worth taking the time to read.
In one of Ian’s most popular blog posts, he shares tips to improve your web content. Make it more user friendly. Better connect with your customers.
(And who couldn’t use a few secrets on how to get more love from your customers?)
Ian’s article is two years old. But after rereading it recently, I was struck by how many of his insights apply today — particularly his tips on how to write for the web.
So here it is: 22 Things You Don’t Know about Your Customers.
Enjoy!
Does your 30-second commercial grab people by the lapels and pull them into lively conversation? Or do you find yourself gazing into glazed eyes, while crickets chirp noisily in the background? By choosing sensory words, you can get a lot more punch from your commercial.
If you're hearing crickets (or grasshoppers, as the case may be), it's time for a new 30-second commercial.
There are endless networking books, marketing websites, and sales blogs that describe an effective format for a 30-second commercial. With that in mind, I’m not going to focus on the structure of your commercial (aka, your elevator pitch).
Instead, I want to talk about the words you use in your commercial.
But wait, you say. Someone once told you that how you say your 30-second commercial is much more important than what you say.
True… to an extent.
I believe that your choice of words directly affects how you deliver your commercial. When you use sensory words (words related to sight, sound and touch), you can greatly improve your rhythm, your conviction, and ultimately, your connection with the person across from you – or on the other end of the phone, as the case may be.
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If you want your business to look and sound professional, sometimes you need to get into the weeds – or in this case, into your grammar. In this post, I share four tips to help you avoid common grammar mistakes, so your business can shine.
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The Associated Press Stylebook - A Writing Reference Guide
Tip #1: Treat apostrophes like a valuable commodity. Only use them to indicate possession or to make a contraction.
Ah, the apostrophe. For such a small punctuation mark, it causes a lot of problems. In my opinion, apostrophes are the source of many common grammar mistakes.
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Good copywriting and graphic design go hand-in-hand in creating a strong brand. This week I’ve interviewed Jeff Ames, a Denver brand design expert. He’s shared some great graphic design tips to help you strengthen your message, engage your audience, and improve your image.
Jeff Ames, Brand Design Expert
As a professional copywriter, I get to partner with many talented graphic designers – including Jeff Ames, a Denver designer with extensive experience in brand design.
I recently sat down with Jeff at a coffee shop in Greenwood Village to discuss graphic design tips for businesses that want to build a strong brand.
Jeff brings a unique perspective to branding because he collaborates with companies of all sizes. He is the owner of Jeff Ames Creative, a Denver brand design firm for small to mid-size businesses. He’s also the creative director for Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, a national restaurant company based in Colorado.
The American Graphic Design Awards, the Web Marketing Association, and the Art Directors Club of Denver have all honored Jeff’s work. In addition, many of his logo designs have been published in LogoLounge Master Library Series – a leading logo resource for designers.
Here’s what Jeff had to say about branding, graphic design tips, and investing in a professional graphic designer…
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As a writer, one of the most common questions I’m asked is, “Should I blog?” I don’t believe there is a definitive “yes” or “no” answer to the blogging question. Instead, I think you need to ask yourself, what are you trying to do for your business?
I find that the “should I blog?” question is on the minds of many business owners that I meet.
Often, they’ve been to a marketing seminar or website workshop in which the speaker tells them that their business must start blogging. Other times, they see their peers blogging and decide they need to do it too.
Here’s the thing.
If you’re like many business owners, you have a finite number of hours and budget to juggle all your marketing activities.
You need to be strategic in how you spend your marketing time and dollars. You need to focus on the tactics that give your business the biggest bang for your buck.
With that in mind, I believe there are a few, fundamental questions to ask yourself before you can fairly answer the question, “Should I blog?”
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Who knew the DMV could be such a great source of marketing inspiration? If you need to define a target audience for your business, look no further than your local government agency. Here are three takeaways from my recent visit to the DMV.
#1: “Everyone” does not count as a target audience.
Several months ago, a colleague of mine and I were facilitating a marketing workshop. We asked our participants to define a target audience for their business and share it with the group.
One of the participants proudly raised his hand, dramatically looked around the room, and announced that his target audience was…
“All humanity.”
Now, I’m all for believing in your product or service.
But having recently spent an inordinate amount of time in line at the DMV, I can personally assure this participant that “all humanity” is not the right answer. Continue Reading
Sure, good writing is important when creating an effective tagline. But there are times when even the best-written tagline can fall flat. To avoid endless rounds of tagline review, the secret of how to create a great tagline is to start with your brand promise.
Recently, a Denver manufacturing company approached a colleague and me with a tagline development project.
The company wanted to figure out how to create a tagline for one of its divisions, but the division’s executives were stuck.
They’d already partnered with two professional marketing agencies in Denver. Yet, despite the best intentions − not to mention, numerous rounds of creative review − neither agency had been able to develop a tagline that the company liked.
The problem wasn’t the writing.
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When can you break the formal writing rules you learned as a kid? When can you escape the shackles of proper grammar? In an article on Ragan.com, Erik Decker, a columnist and author, shares five ways to bend the rules you learned in English class.
If you want to improve your writing skills, it’s helpful to understand ways that you can take some creative license with writing rules.
When you know how to bend the rules, your writing springs to life. You’re engaging. You pull people in…
And when you don’t know what you’re doing, well, you run the risk of sounding uneducated. Or worse, incompetent.
In a recent article on the Ragan Communications website, Erik Decker describes “Five Writing Rules You’re Allowed to Break” from time to time.
Erik’s suggestions may leave you yelling, “Hallelujah!” or “Blasphemy!”
Read the article, and find out where you stand. Hopefully, you’ll walk away with some good tips.
A great tagline can make a brand more memorable. But the question is, does every company really need a tagline? Here are three scenarios in which a company tagline can add value.
You’ve heard that you need a company tagline… but do you?
It depends.
Personally, I don’t believe that every business needs a tagline. With that said, there are certain situations in which a tagline can add a lot of value.
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Forget “I dos” and “forever and evers.” Planning a wedding has been a crash course in how small businesses can build a credible business image. Here are three tips on how to make your business more trustworthy.
Last summer, when my boyfriend asked me to marry him, I can’t say my first thought was, “This is going to be an awesome experiment in messaging!”
Yet, here I am one year later, and I have to say, planning a wedding has given me an interesting look at the messages that companies send.
Working with small businesses — in this case, wedding vendors — has reminded me that every business sends a message about who it is and what it stands for, whether it intends to send a message or not.
Here are three of my takeaways on building a credible business image.
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To differentiate your business from your competition, there are certain positioning statements to avoid in your brand messaging. Otherwise, you can get stuck sounding like everybody else.
A number of years ago, I worked with a career coach on my resume. In my resume, I had a phrase that said, “Results-oriented communicator.”
“Uggghhh,” my coach groaned. “Results-oriented.”
Now, as much as writers love having their work greeted by the phrase “ugh,” I can’t say it was the reaction I expected.
“Isn’t it a good thing to be results-oriented?”
“Of course,” my coach responded. “Unfortunately, it’s one of those phrases that people have so overused that it doesn’t mean anything anymore. Companies are jaded. They hear that phrase and tune it out. You aren’t setting yourself apart.”
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How good brand messaging can go awry
I find myself thinking about that conversation when I’m working with organizations that want to differentiate their business.
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When you’re writing for the web, how you write your copy can be as important as what you say. Here are five writing tips to make your web content more user-friendly and professional.
There are two important considerations when writing for the Internet.
The first consideration is your messaging. Are you saying the right things in the right places? Are you communicating messages that engage your customers and get them to take action? Does your content appeal to search engines?
The second consideration is how you write your web content. People read differently on a computer screen than they do in print. Are you using Internet writing techniques to make it easier for people to read your content?
In this article, I’m going to focus on how you write your copy.
If you’re writing for the Internet, here are five tips to instantly improve the readability of your website content. Continue Reading
Even professional writers struggle with telling their own stories. If you’ve tried writing your own marketing content and you’re stuck, take comfort in knowing that you’re not alone. Here are a few reasons why it’s so tough to write your own content.
I’ve been musing over this question for today’s blog entry… which, for the record, has been oh-so-easy to write.
Ahem.
Why is it so difficult to write content about your own business? After all, we’re sharp people. We know a thing or two about our industry. We can string a sentence of words together with the best of them.
Heck, we may have even majored in English in college. At the very least, we had seventh grade grammar, so we’ve got that going for us.
I offer a few thoughts…
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