Communicating what your brand stands for, and how interacting with your brand will benefit others, is powerful. But even more powerful is helping people create the story for themselves. Whether a small business with hundreds or thousands of customers, or a large business with millions or tens of millions of customers, a marketer’s job to help shape the story people tell themselves, and others, about your brand.

Treehouse

Treehouse is a provider of online, self-paced, technical education. However, founder and CEO Ryan Carson spends most of his time not promoting their library of courses, but rather how Treehouse helps people overcome the burdens of traditional education or no education at all. He paints a picture of self-empowerment, independence, and confidence to achieve your goals through affordable and convenient online education. Here are a couple of example’s from Ryan’s Instagram:

With Ryan’s message of how a traditional education isn’t right for everyone, and doesn’t necessarily set you up for the job, and life, you want, he allows you to start telling yourself a story of what Treehouse can offer you. You start seeing yourself learning in your spare time, keeping yourself out of debt, acquiring marketable skills in less time so you can start leading the life you want. It’s not about the story Treehouse tells you, but rather the story Treehouse helps you tell yourself.

Field Notes

Hey, let’s start a notebook company!

In a time of computers, tablets, smartphones, and electronic gadgets and gizmos aplenty, who thinks of starting a notebook company? Well, Aaron Draplin and Jim Coudal did when they came up with Field Notes.

The success of Field Notes isn’t a story about notebooks. Notebooks are a commodity at best and, in the electronic age, seen as obsolete at worst. But Field Notes, from the moment you interact with the brand or open one of its notebooks, is arming you with everything you need to tell yourself a story.

Limited editions, useful quips inside the back covers, use of high-quality materials, aspirational videos of new designs, how new ones are nice but broken-in is even better. Just look at how they inspire others to create cases and accessories for the brand.

Fans of Field Notes are telling themselves a story. A story about how they’ll feel carrying around a Field Notes notebook, breaking one in, filling one up, showing off the cool cover, and being part of a “club.” It’s truly a brand built on the stories people tell themselves.

Getting out of the way…

What Treehouse and Field Notes have in common is they tap into something primal, then get out of the way. They offer the product, service, and inspiration. But they also tap into people’s aspirations and show them a path to having what they want through an interaction with the brand. By showing that path and letting people craft their own story, there is nothing to “sell.”

People sell themselves by using the brand to create the story that makes them feel how they want to feel. Giving people the power to do that, and share those stories with others, is a much more powerful and effective form of marketing than anything a brand could generate on its own.

We see it time and again. Critical policy messages that miss the mark.  The reason is simple: they were vetted with the wrong people.

If you are based in the Washington, DC area, whether you’re a corporation, association, think tank, or politician, here’s some free advice: Test Your Message Outside the Beltway.

We do policy message testing for a living.

➤ Please reach out- we’d love to help.

That’s what we’ve been telling our clients for nearly two decades. And even though they know that—of course they know that—clients are always surprised at what outside-the-Beltway testing turns up.

Here’s why it matters:

➤Average Americans Only Consume a “Trickle” of News

Most people outside the Washington metro area are not immersed in the details of your issues—sometimes they’ve never even heard of the issues. We’ve validated this again and again through our Swing Voter Project, which taken us to swing states every month for the last 18 month. Average Americans by and large get their news is small doses from LOCAL SOURCES. Yes, some watch cable news  but are almost as likely to get their news from Facebook.

➤Average Americans are Fixated on Themselves

This is not to imply that they don’t care about other people or the world as a whole. It simply means that while trying to pay their bills and care for their family, they don’t have the LUXURY of immersing themselves in DC news.

Some of them are working multiple jobs.
Some of them are a health crisis away from bankruptcy.
Some of them are working 18 hour days to keep the family farm afloat.
Some of them are caring for a chronically ill family member.

Their challenges are real and immediate.  

➤Validate That Your Policy Messages Are Connecting

And the best way to do that is to test your messages with them. Get in their heads. See their reactions. Hear their thoughts. Then refine based on what you’ve learned.

Again, our clients know all this. But they still—regularly—say things like, “I did not expect that one to tank!”; “I am really surprised none of the respondents have heard of that.”; “I didn’t realize our language was so full of jargon until this dial test.”

And we especially like: “Good thing we tested this!”

We do policy message testing for a living.

➤ Please reach out- we’d love to help.

——–

To demonstrate how different Washington, D.C. is from other parts of the country, here are some facts and comparisons:

—Bigger salaries: highest per capita income in the country ($75,569; the national average is $49,571)[1] with an annual growth rate of 4.5% (vs. 3.6% national average)[2]

—Educated: 55% of the population 25 years or older has at least a bachelor’s degree (29.3% nationally);[3] 31% have an advanced degree (11.2% nationally)[4]

—Expensive housing: median value of a house is $460,700 ($163,900 nationally)

—Lower rate of home ownership: 40.4% own their own homes (63.7% nationally)

—High crime: 6,408.6 crimes per 100,000 people (3,295.0 nationally)[5]

[1] http://www.courant.com/business/hc-per-capita-income-connecticut-20170328-story.html
[2] https://wtop.com/business-finance/2017/03/dc-per-capita-income-25-percent-higher-national-average/
[3] https://www.iowaeconomicdevelopment.com/50states
[4] https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_15_5YR_S1501
[5] https://www.iowaeconomicdevelopment.com/50states

Kindness is contagious. We know that. Studies even prove it. A study published last July in the journal Emotion found that (I hope you’re sitting down) kindness is contagious at work, too, and it’s actually good for business.

The study is called “Everyday Prosociality in the Workplace: The Reinforcing Benefits of Giving, Getting, and Glimpsing.”

The upshot, when translated into common language: When people do nice things for other people at work, they’re happier; and the receivers start doing nice things for other people. “People who were “receivers” in the experiment paid it forward by doling out volumes more acts of kindness compared to the control group – 278% more!”

The work environment is more pleasant, people have a sense of ownership and belonging—and feeling appreciated can help make workers more successful. 

While the article doesn’t overtly cover other areas of interaction, like social media, we would like to think that kindness here (instead of the usual, anonymous vitriol) would also apply.

Read the full article by Richard Davidson, Neuroscientist.

*Mural Art by Lettering Designer Gina Lu

We do this all day long. Here are our learnings for making that critical connection with your prospect.
Remember: they are human just like you. So channel THAT.

“What you think is intuitive may actually be counterintuitive to your audience.  So you need to test and test again.”

1)  Question assumptions – ask yourself what are the assumptions you are making about your offering and your customers? How have you validated/invalidated those assumptions?

“There were aspects of the product that we thought would be, by far, the most impactful and effective, but the way in which we presented them turned them into a negative. And one of these instances was right at the start of the presentation, which turned people off from the start.”

2)  Customer, you are not (repeat in Yoda voice) – where do businesses often go wrong with how they communicate with their customers? Typically, it’s thinking that what you think about your company and your offering is the same as what the customer thinks.

“You’ve got to understand that you and the people that create these products are not your audience. What you think is intuitive may actually be counterintuitive to your audience. So you need to test and test again.”

The client also found that a do-it-yourself calculator tool, was too complicated for most people to use. A more effective alternative was creating a personalized statement for each contributor that clearly laid out all the financial details in a more visually understandable layout. The feedback from the testing directly fed the development of a “document on demand” tool that generated the type of personalized statements that effectively made the case for the contributors.

3)  Don’t simply rinse and repeat – how many times have you fallen into the trap of doing something just because that’s always how it’s been done. Well, if sales are through the roof, then it’s probably good not to muck up the works. But if you’re not seeing results, then it’s time to buck convention.

“Retirement services groups, like ours, fall into the trap of getting too comfortable with how things have been done in the past—even when we know what we do is not working. Here’s a situation where we decided to try something completely unorthodox and see how it measured up to the status quo.”

The other was a test approach that utilized an unconventional meeting, incorporating elements designed to create a relaxed environment with a focus on helping participants better understand the need for retirement planning and create a vision of what their retirement could be.

4)  Get “testy” – If you’re asking yourself if now would be a good time to test your sales pitch and messaging, then the answer is yes. Products and services evolve. Your customers’ needs change. The market is dynamic. So, regular testing of your sales presentations, pitches and messaging is the only way to keep pace.

Meaningful conversations lead to meaningful work. Scratch that. Meaningful conversations with the right people lead to meaningful work. You can talk all day to a rock and it won’t get you anywhere (except maybe the crazy house). So, what makes a conversation meaningful? How do you make sure you’re talking to ideal clients and not rocks? How do you provide them with helpful information instead of annoying them to tears? Let’s dive in.

Creating powerful buyer personas doesn’t only shape your marketing strategy, but if utilized correctly, buyer personas can change the way you do business. Consider this your guide to building detailed buyer personas that drive meaningful conversations that lead to meaningful sales.

WHAT: What’s a Persona?

A buyer persona (aka ideal client persona, aka avatar) is a representation of your ideal customer. Don’t get this confused with basic demographics or a target audience. Personas are semi-fictional characters with stories based on detailed research of your actual customers. Unlike simple demographic information, personas look deeper at your target audience to uncover the needs and wants of your most ideal buyer.

Let’s do that over with different words: Who is your unicorn? If someone were to waltz in your front door to give your business, who would make you do a double take? Your unicorn isn’t just any client, it’s the most ideal customer you can imagine.

WHY: The Power of the Persona 

Buyer personas reflect your best customer relationships – relationships that generate the most revenue over the longest period and sustain a partnership where you can create your best work. Think about your best customers. How do they communicate? What are their persistent and emerging challenges? How can your services provide meaningful solutions they can understand and value? Now, it’s totally possible that you don’t have an ideal client yet. Don’t panic! Just think about who can provide you with the opportunity to do your best work? These are the clients that you are trying to understand when creating your personas.

Let’s go back and flip-flop that first scenario really quick. Have you ever been in a conversation that could have been meaningful, except the person you’re talking with won’t stop yammering about something that’s of no interest to you? Not much better than the conversation with the rock, is it? To create content that is meaningful, you must first know who you’re creating the content for. That’s why at Little Bird, before we ever begin brainstorming content ideas, we spend a good amount of time defining ideal buyer personas.

The value of buyer personas exceeds marketing. Their purpose can and should be utilized across your entire organization. Sales departments can use them to focus on training and learn how to best sell to qualified leads. Management can use them to decide which industry events to attend. It even benefits new hires during onboarding to better help them understand the clients that they will soon be working with. Lastly, they are an integral part of creating and maintaining a customer-centric organization.

By orienting your team around your ideal persona, you assure that your entire organization is working together to reach the right client and serve them well.

With good personas, your organization will have insights into questions like:

• What pains are you solving for your clients?
• What form of content is meaningful to your ideal client?
• How do your potential clients want to engage with you?

HOW: Understanding Your Ideal Client

Whether you’re presenting at an industry event, posting on social media or developing a downloadable resource, these tips can be used to reach your persona in a meaningful way:

Stop Focusing on the Outliers

The minute I start talking about buyer personas and knowing your audience, there’s always at least one person who chimes in with, “But, I have this one client that ___________.” You can fill in the blank, but some of my favorites include “…is allergic to electricity,” and “…doesn’t know the difference between a rumba and a tango.”

When it comes to personas, don’t let your outliers be your disqualifiers. While they may exist, they aren’t going to be the bulk of your work. When you’re building personas and crafting content to reach them, don’t let the outliers stress you out. Get focused on where you can reach the most people in the most meaningful way.

Ask the Right Questions

In order to get the information you need to understand your persona(s), you need to ask the right questions. While you can start with the basic, “Walk me through a day in their life,” you need to push beyond that. Consider the first things they do when they wake up, where they are going to get lunch, and what they plan to do after leaving the office.

It doesn’t stop there. Really try to get inside your customers’ minds. What are they thinking about when lying in bed at night? What are their greatest personal life challenges? What achievements make them most proud? 

No matter what industry, there are obvious questions that need to be answered and other important questions that will bring your personas to life. Start with the basic info and work your way into questions that will offer you more insight into what it’s like to be the customer.

Truthfully, you need a mix of both general and open-ended questions. The general questions get you basic information that is fundamental to understanding your customers. The open-ended questions will offer the information you need to understand and create a story for your buyer personas.

Here’s our go-to list:

• Who do they answer to at work?
• Who are they trying to impress?
• What does a day in their life look like?
• How do they source their news?
• What keeps them up on Sunday night?
• What gets them up on Monday morning?
• How do they measure success?
• Where are their eyeballs most of the day?
• Who are they most likely to ask for help from?
• What are they afraid to admit?

The Perfect Persona

Meet Marketing Mathew – he’s a sample of what a completed persona would look like. Notice the details, name and narrative.

WHAT’S NEXT?

You’ve heard it said, “Always Be Closing.” It’s the ABC’s of sales. I prefer ABH – Always Be Helping. More than a marketing agency, at Little Bird Marketing, I like to say that we’re a sleep improvement agency. If our clients can sleep easier at night knowing that their marketing problems are being solved, we’ve done our job. Our due diligence truly attracting the RIGHT client means the relationship is that much smoother as we partner for mutual success.

STAY TRUE

With a well-crafted persona (or three) in hand, your content and business will be structured around solving problems for people who are excited to have you on their side! Your new mantra before you create anything, “Is this helpful?”

Now it’s your turn!

For more on how to build buyer personas from scratch or effectively implement the ones you’ve already created, download Little Bird’s free guide to creating the perfect persona. 

David was fortunate enough to catch up with Ben at Story to discuss his work, where he gets his inspiration and ideas, and how visual storytelling plays a key role in his art.

Check out more of David’s videos on storytelling, persuasive selling, and strategic messaging, by visiting his YouTube Channel.

Fierce competition and restricted access to the O.R. continues to increase the importance of clear and consistent messaging of your healthcare products’ most impactful benefits. These efforts aren’t easy but are critical to framing your value proposition for multiple influencers and decision-makers.

With copious experience testing concepts from fuzzy front end to launch and training hundreds of marketing and R&D partners in healthcare and other verticals, I offer many ideas for starting and optimizing your work.

Regardless of which NPD process you follow, once you’ve empathized with your target and identified a solution to a key unmet need, you need to clearly articulate a benefit statement to guide you through screening, development, and commercialization of one or more concepts.

The benefit statement is the primary advantage of your product or service, or THE CUSTOMER PROMISE, i.e., What’s in it for them?

A great benefit statement must be:

Crafting strong benefit statements requires time and effort, often by a multi-functional team. However, some of the key benefits to your organization include:

Improved efficiency in getting the right products to market – weak solutions fail faster while solid ideas avoid rework delays.
Stronger internal alignment – improved communication enables multiple functions to understand the end goal and work together.
Easier planning for a smooth launch – increased confidence in forecasting of sales, production, and support required.

All these benefits ladder up to efficiency of time and work, which results in WINNING in the marketplace.

Just as one unmet need can spawn multiple solutions, each solution may produce multiple benefits.  It’s critical to understand which of these benefits matter the most, and for whom, to know where to focus your messaging strategy and communications spend.  A solid market research strategy can help you here. (Let’s talk!)

As you work on your benefit statement, you’ll want to consider these options of how to position your benefit.

Below I’ve provided healthcare examples of each of these options to get you started*:

Proven higher quality – Anthem® wellness programs make the most of your employee’s benefits. Empowered employees make smarter lifestyle choices for a happier, more productive workforce. It improves company culture and can lower costs, too. On average, care management programs were able to reduce costs by $2,044 per each engaged employee.¹

New level of benefit – Sysmex WAM is an enterprise-wide software solution that will take your laboratory to the next level in system optimization to improve productivity, reduce clinical errors and support a sustainable paperless environment. Sysmex WAM is the only software solution that is adaptable to your changing environment to help you control your future.²

Category superiority –  The ECHELON CIRCULAR Powered Stapler is designed to reduce leaks without compromising perfusion – resulting in 61% fewer leaks at the staple line compared to the Medtronic DST Series EEA Stapler.³

Solve a paradox – Utilize a greater range of motion than the human hand or leading laparoscopic staplers with SureForm 60.⁴ 

Tap into trends –  Halo Clinical Communication Platform helps protect patients from delays in care and clinicians from alert fatigue and burnout by unifying clinical communication across the community on a single platform.⁵

Address category negative – The MEDIVATORS line of disposable infection control products like irrigation tubing and single-use valves eliminate the need for very difficult manual cleaning and disinfection thus reducing infection risk and increasing patient safety.⁶

Unique new benefit – By providing stable pneumoperitoneum, constant smoke evacuation, and valve-free access to the abdominal cavity, the AirSeal® System reduces procedural time, costs, and hassles in ways that conventional insufflators, trocars, and filtered tubing systems simply cannot do.⁷

New secondary benefit –  The Centrella® Smart+ bed helps meet the changing needs of healthcare facilities and delivers elevated care through patient safety and patient satisfaction.⁸

After optimizing your benefit statement, you’ll need to strengthen it with one or more compelling proof points or reasons to believe, which may include claims, testimonials, recommendations, and other approaches.

Gina Derickson, Research Director, Engagious | gina.derickson@engagious.com

* Examples were taken from the listed websites. All product names, trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this article are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, trademarks and brands does not imply endorsement.
Sources:
1  http://www.anthem.com/employer/health-and-wellness/
2  http://www.sysmex.com/us/en/Products/InformationSystems/Pages/Sysmex-WAM-System.aspx
3   http://www.jnjmedicaldevices.com/en-US/product/echelon-circular-powered-stapler
4  http://www.intuitive.com/en-us/products-and-services/da-vinci/stapling/sureform-60
5  http://www.halocommunications.com/halo/
6  http://www.cantelmedical.com/medivators
7  http://www.conmed.com/en/hybrid-product-landing-pages/airseal
8  http://www.hillrom.com/en-us/products/smart-beds-and-surfaces/centrella-smart-bed/

Here are my Top 10 recommendations for How to Hire a Messaging Agency.

Do Your Homework: Keep a running list of agencies and campaigns that impress you.
At least you will have a starting place.

Be Honest with Yourself: How much bandwidth can you commit to managing an outside team?
Know this going into it.

Get Specific: Every agency has a specialty.
Know what you need (advocacy messaging? advertising messaging?) and find the right match.

Find the Right Size: Make sure the agency’s size matches your expectations. You don’t want to be the smallest client, making it easy to relegate your projects to the B-Team.

Go With Experience: If you are looking for a real partner, find a team that has related experience in your field. If you need messaging for B2B, find a team that has done B2B.

Secure Top Talent: Know who will be managing your account. That individual is your lifeline– and can sink a project if they are not strong or experienced enough.

Know Your Status: Know who their big clients are and what % of their bandwidth they occupy. You don’t want to be playing second fiddle to them for the duration.

Be Smart With Money: It’s a major factor and often an agency will cut a deal on the first job. But know that going in so you can prepare
for future projects.

Trust Your Gut: At the end of the day you are choosing a group of humans that you need to work with. Are they switched on? Do they have that sparkle in their eye?

Pull The Trigger: Your final decision will likely involve a leap of faith. If you’ve been diligent, odds are good you will end up with a partner you can work with.

In the end, your success depends a lot on your own preparation. I have faith in you; You can do this! We’re with you all the way.

If you need help with brand messaging or customer insights, we’ve got those chops. So put a check mark in our “been there, done that” column and give us a shout. Happy to talk through whatever you need.

See more of my blog posts here.

That’s what we’ve been telling our clients for nearly two decades. And even though they know that—of course they know that—they are almost always surprised at what outside-the-Beltway testing turns up.

Getting close to their issues is our clients’ job. They’re policy experts. They need to know every in, out, and upside down. That’s what they and their colleagues think, read, write, and talk about. It’s the air they breathe.

Most people outside the Washington metro area are not immersed in the details of these issues—sometimes they’ve never even heard of the issues.

It’s also important to recognize that life experiences outside the Beltway can be very different, so the concerns can be different: employment and unemployment rates, income levels, blue collar or white collar, religion (a lot or none), political attitudes, and attitudes toward politics. Communities vary from densely urban to intensely agricultural, with their own neighborhood values. What works in DC might not work in Chicago and Seattle, and probably won’t work in Worcester, Mingo Junction, and Tupelo.

But if they’re your audience, you need to verify that you’re speaking their language.

And the best way to do that is to test it with them. See their reactions. Hear their thoughts.

Again, our clients know all this. But they still—regularly—say things like, “I did not expect that to tank”; “I am really surprised none of the respondents have heard of that”; “I didn’t realize our language was so full of jargon until this dial test.”

And we especially like: “Good thing we tested this!”

Some Washington, D.C., facts and comparisons:

—Bigger salaries: highest per capita income in the country ($75,569; the national average is $49,571)^[1] with an annual growth rate of 4.5% (vs. 3.6% national average)^[2]

—Educated: 55% of the population 25 years or older has at least a bachelor’s degree (29.3% nationally);^[3] 31% have an advanced degree (11.2% nationally)^[4]

—Expensive housing: median value of a house is $460,700 ($163,900 nationally)

—Lower rate of home ownership: 40.4% own their own homes (63.7% nationally)

—High crime: 6,408.6 crimes per 100,000 people (3,295.0 nationally)^[5]

^[1] http://www.courant.com/business/hc-per-capita-income-connecticut-20170328-story.html
^[2] https://wtop.com/business-finance/2017/03/dc-per-capita-income-25-percent-higher-national-average/
^[3] https://www.iowaeconomicdevelopment.com/50states
^[4] https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_15_5YR_S1501
^[5] https://www.iowaeconomicdevelopment.com/50states

And partly because stuff is always separate from our identities, even when we’re really attached to it. Experiences, on the other hand, become a part of us, and connect us with other people. Leading to greater happiness.

According to researchers, experiences are harder to compare objectively than, say, diamond carats, and thus may be less likely to cause us to feel malevolent over the good fortune of others (aka envy).

The same applies to your business: the experience your customer has with your brand trumps the product you deliver. All the more reason to keep Customer Experience top of mind.

Something to think about this holiday season–and the rest of the year. Read more here.

The author of Messy talks about decluttering

Another plug for experiences rather than stuff: they don’t pile up.

Home organization guru Marie Kondo is a worldwide celebrity, mainly for helping people throw things away. Economist Tim Harford and money editor Bourree Lam explain why she’s so revolutionary (besides helping people control their stuff): she overcomes cognitive biases, like status quo bias, sunk-cost fallacy, and loss aversion.

For instance, she breaks the status quo bias of “the stuff stays because I don’t have a reason to get rid of it” by deftly substituting a new status quo: “Everything goes unless I can think of a really good reason to keep it.” See here and here for more.
 

But of course we’re still going to buy stuff
 

Here are a couple of behavioral science shopping guides to minimize the damage: Behavioral Economists Guide to Buying Presents and  How to Enjoy (and Survive) The Holidays.

And the behavioral science tricks that marketers wield against us (even though awareness doesn’t guarantee immunity).