Messaging

Does your marketing make people laugh? Cry? How about get them angry?

No? Why the heck not? Great communication should move people.

If your marketing fails to grab a potential customer’s heart, you lose. But the customer also loses because they won’t use your product.

The necessity of grabbing attention

So, why are you having marketing problems? Simple. It stems from your messaging problems.

You must refuse to get sucked into the black hole of amateur marketers who clear their throats and drone on about their customer service, how they’re family-owned, and how their great-granddaddy, the founder, was once crowned king of the local chamber of commerce crawdad festival.

Collective yawn. No one cares, with no disrespect meant to grandpa.

You’ve got milliseconds for your words to snatch people by the collar and convince them you can solve their unique problem.

Tell a story. Do a dance. Use a sock puppet. Whatever you do, avoid being boring for the sake of all things sacred.

Put a leather jacket on your message

Grab a red marker and attack your existing message. Cross out the colonoscopy copy and inject life, imagination, and hijinks. Add in some pirates, a giraffe-shaped dirigible, murder mysteries, a talking celery stick, or whatever else emerges from your brain’s ether regions and has the power to get stuck in your target audience’s head.

You have permission to dress your message in cool clothes. Professional doesn’t mean boring. Wear white socks with your black pants if you want. Your marketing shouldn’t sound like a term paper, unless you're selling online classes on being an English countryside baron, so throw off the shackles and let it fly with the wind, baby.

Your brand can have swagger, no matter your industry. Time to rewrite the rules. Put on a retro-funk soundtrack, give a bravura flex, and get pulses racing with a wheelie-popping entrance.

That’s how you draw a crowd.